Mundaun

Mundaun is a great horror adventure game in a gorgeous hand-drawn world.

Mundaun's haunting, pencil-sketch style works wonders, but a few repetitive fetch-quests and slightly underwhelming systems hold it back.

Mundaun still delivers eight to 10 well-paced hours of slow-burning horror. There are no endless exposition dumps or scary monsters jumping into frame. The story is just interesting, competently paced, and set on a believable and beautiful stage. Turns out, that’s all a game needs to be a good play on a dark weekend night.

Mundaun has some rough edges, but solid frights wrapped around an intriguing mystery make for a respectable horror experience.

With its hand-drawn, off-kilter visuals, Mundaun turns even the most benign objects into something sinister. The act of actually playing it may not be a pleasure, but looking at it most certainly is. When the soundtrack crescendos and the hair-raising atmosphere takes hold, there's nothing quite like the menaces of Mundaun.

Hurt only by the Switch's take on its visuals, Mundaun delivers above and beyond its appearances and offers a robust, constantly compelling adventure game. It isn't particularly scary, but it is rich in atmosphere and hosts plenty of gameplay variety and good ideas. We found that it never compromised its tone or fell foul of any gameplay glitches, although as mentioned the visuals aren't quite up to snuff. It's a minor thing, though, as Mundaun should keep your attention from beginning to, well, one or more of its multiple endings.

Mundaun will attract its targeted, tiny demographic: those who can see past the dated visuals and lackluster controls. Fortunately, the hand-drawn textures might rope in a few people, and the sepia-esque colors stand out compared to other first-person adventure titles. Mundaun is technologically impotent but makes up for it with excellent atmosphere, sense of place, and storytelling. If you can see past its flaws, Mundaun is a wonderful, short adventure title.

Mundaun is a horror adventure with a compelling mystery, all wrapped up in some well-executed horror. Unfortunately, the game is often weighed down by some of its core mechanics, such as combat and inventory management. Despite that, it’s still a unique experience that offers a fresh approach to the horror genre.

Mundaun succeeds in taking a first-person adventure/horror game in a direction that feels unique.

While it's impossible to paper over certain gameplay missteps, Mundaun nevertheless excels in crafting an authentic interactive folk horror.