Mundaun Review: Anything But Mundane
Hidden Fields’ Mundaun has a pretty obvious selling point. Its hand drawn art style speaks volumes for the artistic and eerie experience they aim to deliver. However, the art style wasn’t the most shocking element of the game overall. To me, that honor belongs to Mundaun as a whole. Mundaun is absolutely a quality product from beginning to end. Hidden Fields’ vision for a unique horror experience is completely realized, and it's quite the beautiful one at that.
Story (Spoiler-free)
You play as a young man arriving at Mundaun by bus in order to investigate the mysterious death of his late grandfather whose barn caught fire. Immediately upon arriving you get the feeling that something eerie has taken place, and that eerie theme never leaves. You manage to deduce that a strange and creepy old man had a part to play, but beyond that almost every single character introduced in the village played their own parts respectively allowing their vices to come out in full swing.
The narrative is full of effective foreshadowing and symbolism that shines through as you play, yet the narrative itself is chocked full of convoluted and predictable beats. However, these specific beats never feel like a detriment. Personally, I took the story at face value and was along for the ride. I enjoyed every second.
Mundaun contains two endings. While both seem to fit into the relative flow of the game depending on the choices you make, both of them feature a specific plot point that was built up later on. I fully expected this beat to come into fruition here, but it is simply never touched on again when it arguably would have made more sense in the narrative as a whole. That being said, the plot point they use here isn’t bad as it fits thematically, but I truly feel they squandered an opportunity to make it wow me, the player.
Presentation
Frequent texture pops aside, the look and vibe of Mundaun is absolutely a bright spot on this theoretical resume. They nail it. It’s as simple as that. You want to see every nook and cranny Mundaun’s environment offers, yet it’s not necessarily an exploration type of pull. While the exploration of its small environments is more than serviceable, the intrigue lies in the eye catching hand drawn art style of the artist. Even Mundaun’s cut scenes of sorts totally work and share the same intrigue. The game’s somber music and direction of this game couldn’t pair any better with the art style. It's an eerie but downright curious mess of a style that’s perfect.
I mentioned above how Mundaun is full of symbolism. All the credit of this goes directly to the vibe presented in the art style. There is something about the art style that just spews creative intent. I found myself stopping often and attempting to completely take in what the artist is trying to convey with their pieces. I can’t say I do that in other games while with Mundaun, it compelled me to do so as if I was missing out on something if I didn’t. For instance, there is a cave sequence in the latter half of the game that contains a sort of room after room progression. Each room has its own theatrical title and only features a small amount of items. This was a clear example of making a statement with their artistic vision, and I really fell for it.
Gameplay
Despite some atrocious load times and some spotty inventory management for a game that relies heavily on the story and art style, the moment to moment gameplay is actually pretty sound. It's always straight forward enough on how to progress or what to do next. With this specific artistic vision doing so could have easily been a struggle, but I never had trouble understanding the next goal thanks to an actual helpful journal. Despite having a lot of documents in it, it’s actually spread out super well and gave me zero fuss.
Mundaun features four and half-ish real play areas. Three areas up the mountain as well as a bunker and cave later on. A lot is done to aid the player in understanding the layout of the village up the mountain. You can sketch actual maps of areas from viewpoints throughout, road signs are frequent and genuinely help, but most of all they organically weave exploration as you progress from house to house and story beat to story beat. I never once felt lost. You discover things at perfect times as you traverse and while doing puzzles. It’s all spaced out and paced superbly.
Puzzles throughout the village of Mundaun are always seemingly simplistic. Yet, they never feel like they are just there acting as a means to an end, which is a dangerous balance to attempt. The story and vibe within the village assisted the types of puzzles you encounter. They simply never felt out of place.
While the moment to moment gameplay has a lot of traversing via on foot or by Muvel, a sort of hay gathering vehicle, from one point to the next filled with dialogue in between, the game isn’t without its combat. You can fight one of two enemies that I will coin hay walkers and beekeepers. Whether you attack them head on or sneak up on them in order to set them on fire is your choice, but you can either stab hay walkers with a pitch fork or set them on fire with a match while the beekeepers send out swarms of bees that can be repressed by smoking a pipe. There is also hay laid about the entire village and up the mountain that you can set on fire as you please.
Breakdown
Game: Mundaun
Developer: Hidden Fields
Availability: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, XBO, XBX
Reviewed on PS4 Pro
Runtime: Approx. 6 hours
Pros:
+ Compelling narrative
+ Hand drawn art style
+ Complimentary gameplay
Cons:
- Loading times
- Frequent texture pops
- Poor inventory management
Final Thoughts
Mundaun did nothing else but surprise me with its overall quality. Some very small technical missteps aside, it features a compelling narrative, controls well in every aspect of play, an eye popping art style, and an eerie tone to boot. Literally every facet of play compliments each other and is paced out very well. Mundaun is an eerie trip of an indie game that's filled with AAA quality and heart.
Review written by Austin Ernst