#monster fighting

See, here’s the thing about me. I’m a misotheistic humanist who enjoys power fantasies aimed at taking the power back from the fantastic and supernatural. Ghostbusters is my jam. So I always engage with supernatural sci-fi and horror from a combative perspective.

Every time I watch a horror movie, I write stupid little Ghostbusters fanfics in my head about my own little Ghostbusters OCs battling whatever the creature of the film was. I like seeing normal people fight monsters and come out on top, even though there may be losses along the way (and Ghostbusters is, like, the only IP out there that offers options to do that even when the monsters are untouchable spookers).

But it’s not just about Ghostbusters. In general, “Fight the monster” is my standby and my brain is always looking for ways to do that. And what bothered me about Little Hope is that it was trivially easy to come up with a violent solution to the game’s central beasties.

Here’s the thing. I noticed this literally as soon as the monsters showed up. It haunted me through the entire game that not one character ever even thought of it. They very first spooker that we meet with violent intentions is Angela’s Spooker. I named her Spooker A.

Spooker A is the zombie ghost monster of Angela’s doppleganger from the Witch Trials. She was wrapped in chains and dropped off a pier to drown, and now Xeroxes of Angela are cursed to be killed by suffocation. Spooker A is here to drown Angela.

When Spooker A crawls out of the river, the game gives you a choice to help Angela or John escape from her. Realizing instantly what she was about, I helped Angela. I hedged my bets that she would not attack John. She cannot attack John. She can only harm Angela. It’s her curse monster programming.

And I was right. John helps himself out of that situation just fine. He is in absolutely no danger from Spooker A.

Later in the game, Daniel is attacked by his own Spooker. Spooker D was executed by impalement, and so all Daniel Xeroxes are cursed to die by impalement. There’s a point where Daniel and John are hiding and Spooker D is shambling its way towards John. The game lets you, as Daniel, confront the Spooker or bail.

I bailed. Once again made the judgment call. Spooker D is shambling towards John but that’s fine. Spooker D cannot harm John. Spooker D can only harm Daniel. And once again, John gets away from Spooker D just fine. Spooker D barely even seems to notice him. Until the inevitable arrival of Spooker J, John is entirely safe from the malevolent ghost zombies.

And that is what makes these monsters trivial to fight. Spooker T, likewise, only ever attacks Taylor. And Spooker J is only interested in John. Andrew’s Xeroxes survive all the events; there isn’t a Spooker at all for him, so he is literally impervious to all the supernatural threats.

The game is building to four major choice points where each character must face their demons head-on and demonstrate courage and commitment to each other, and anyone who fails to do so will be abruptly murdered at the end. And thematically that’s pretty neat.

But as a humanist monster-fighter, this never stopped bothering me all throughout the game: if they wanted to keep the group safe, literally all the survivors would have to do is mix it up. Have Daniel attack Spooker T and her whippy tongue. Have Taylor stomp the shit out of Spooker A’s waterlogged face. Have Andrew mixing it up with whatever monster he wants because none of them can actually harm him.