It’s that time of year again when ghosts and ghouls hit peak relevancy, children hound you for free candy, and people in cheap fancy dress make decisions they’ll regret come November. For Halloween homebodies looking for something spooky to liven up All Hallows Eve, we have NookGaming’s Halloween Highlights.
Yofukashi no Uta / Call of the Night
Our first pick is a dual anime and manga entry. Call of the Night fits the Halloween season nicely. The story follows the young insomniac Kou Yamori as he wanders the streets of Tokyo at night. The city streets are beautiful, and the comings and goings of other night-dwellers fascinating, but Kou is searching for something more, though he isn’t sure what. Things change for Kou when he meets Nazuna, a charismatic, carefree vampire and the two begin sharing the joy of the night together.
The anime adaptation of Call of the Night provides a wonderful entry point into the series, with slick visuals and a stellar soundtrack. Dive into the manga and you’ll enjoy a surprisingly thoughtful, complex coming-of-age romance story with plenty of supernatural charm and drama.
Tsukihime -A Piece of Blue Glass Moon-
Another vampire-themed recommendation now, this time in visual novel form. 2024 saw the release of Tsukihime -A Piece of Blue Glass Moon-, a remake of the ‘near side’ routes of the acclaimed 2000’s visual novel, Tsukihime.
Tsukihime follows the story of Shiki Tohno, a young man cursed with the ability to see “lines of death” which can be traced to kill anything or anyone with relative ease. After an encounter with the vampire/vampire hunter Arcueid, Shiki gets involved in her investigation into a vampire takeover of Souya City. Plenty of twists and turns are ahead for Shiki as he delves deeper into this supernatural mystery. If you’d like to know more about Tsukihime -A Piece of Blue Glass Moon- I recommend you check out our review.
Project Zero / Fatal Frame
A recommendation now for a whole series of games. The Project Zero series, better known by its US title Fatal Frame, is perhaps not the best horror game series, but it’s easily my favorite. The series is best known for its unique camera combat that has you exercising ghosts by committing their ghastly visage to film. For me though, the real strength of Fatal Frame is its ability to create a dense, oppressive atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. Playing the first entry on PS2 as a child is my first memory of genuine terror, and it still holds up today.
For those looking for a more modern experience, or just for convenient access, the fourth and fifth entries in the series are available remastered on modern consoles. Mask of the Lunar Eclipse and Maiden of Black Water are both fantastic games, offering an accessible entry point for the series to get you hooked.
除邪(CHUXIE)
CHUXIE, or CrookedNeckMan according to the Steam page, or BodycamShoot according to the game’s executable, is a game I’m recommending with the full acknowledgement that it’s a total mess. CHUXIE is a mostly incoherent mixture of Unreal Engine assets compiled together as a horror FPS.
I love CHUXIE, I shouldn’t, but I do. Despite the game’s striking lack of polish and some truly baffling design choices, I find it mesmerizing. I’m completely captured by the contrast between the clear passion and vision of the developer and the game that they created. If you have no interest in CHUXIE, then please take this as a broader recommendation to embrace some janky horror games this Halloween. Steam is full of these strange little projects, and if you have the same species of brain worm as me there is so much fun to be had.
Gou Tanabe’s Lovecraft Adaptations
The works of H.P. Lovecraft are pretty obvious recommendations for Halloween reading, and Gou Tanabe’s manga adaptations of works like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and At The Mountains Of Madness are a wonderful way to experience the acclaimed author’s works.
Tanabe’s works are beautifully illustrated, faithful adaptations that provide an exciting new way for those familiar with Lovecraft’s work to experience it again, or indeed a perfect entry point for newcomers. They also have the endorsement of famed horror manga artist Junji Ito, who says he decided not to adapt Lovecraft’s work himself as he didn’t believe he could do it better than Tanabe had.
Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered
To round off our recommendations this year we have a game that actually releases on Halloween 2024. What wonderful timing. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a remaster (naturally) of Grasshopper Manufacture 2011 third-person action title, Shadows of the Damned.
I’ve been looking forward to this one myself, as I’ve been wanting to revisit the crude, madcap adventures of Gabriel Hotspur, Shadows of the Damned’s cocky demon hunter protagonist, for some time. Whilst I cannot vouch for the remasters quality just yet, I can certainly vouch for the goofy, crass, and overall immature (in a complimentary way) source material. It’s dreadfully silly, but that’s why it was so much fun.
Want to See More?
That’s it for this year’s Halloween Highlights. Hopefully you’ve found something to keep you entertained for the night, and perhaps beyond. There’s no shortage of horror media out there, and if you’re still looking for more recommendations you can check out our lists of 10 Halloween visual novels, anime, and manga that we recommend for the spooky season. Happy Halloween!
A man described by critics as “pretty normal” and “memorable in the abstract”. He has committed his life to the consumption of anime and games, against the advice and wishes of his family and friends. Now writing about his passions, hopefully for your enjoyment.