Video Game / Pagui

After night falls in 1950s Taipei...

On October 5th, 1954, it was late at night.
Seven years ago, Taiwan had gone through a turbulent incident, and the damage lingered.
In a temple in the distance, the lights were put off.
The doors were shut, but sounds of asking for divine oracles could still be heard...
What was this for?

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PAGUI (lit. "Beating a Ghost") is a Taiwanese horror-action game developed by Padendon studios.

Allegedly based on a true story (well, very loosely) about an orphaned boy's subsequent journey into the spirit world, players assume the role of Huo Wang-Lin, an orphaned young boy raised in a temple. Learning of his family background by chance, and discovering a way to enter the spirit world, Huo takes a trip into the netherworld in rural, downtown Taipei on a "fantastic journey" to find his relatives.

Padendon released a sequel just a year later, PAGUI 2, but it is set a decade after the first game's events. Huo Wang-lin, now a college student and budding Taoist priest-in-training after escaping the spirit world, returns to help the new protagonist, a girl named Tsui-Lin, save her sister.

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PAGUI (both games) contain examples of:

• The '50s: The original game is set in 1954, while the sequel is set over a decade later.
• Always Night: Every single stage of both games, save for Huo's flashback. Of course, given the supernatural setting and that ghosts can't roam in broad daylight. It's daytime again when Huo leaves the ghost world in the final cutscene.
• The Armies of Heaven: The first game's final cutscene, when the Keeper's ritual finally works, summons three war gods from Taoist culture into the fray, where the trio of mighty warriors descends from the heavens (via a giant Yin-Yang symbol opening in the skies) and wipes out all remaining spirits around.
• Attack of the Monster Appendage:
  • The Demon King boss periodically summons gigantic, deformed hands from underground and within walls to lunge at Huo. They can only be avoided while Huo takes aim at the Demon King itself.
  • Tsui in the second game gets trapped in a haunted corridor in one level, where gigantic demon hands larger than her will periodically smash through windows trying to snatch her.
• Big Boo's Haunt: Every single level, from abandoned streets to empty houses and cemeteries, all which are infested with restless spirits and supernatural foes.
• Body Horror:
  • Most of the ghost enemies are deformed, their skins either coated in blisters or cracking up. The Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl for instance seems to suffer from psoriasis covering their arms and whatever little bits of faces visible.
  • The Hanging Ghost, besides looking ridiculously spindly and half the body decomposed, also have his neck stretched and dragged out by a whole foot. Who flails around wildly as it chases after Huo.
  • The Taoist Master-demon faced by Tsui in the sequel have his entire lips rotted off and exposing all his teeth, alongside the deformed skin seen on other undead. He can somehow still talk despite that.
• Creepy Cemetery: A few levels are set in graveyards infested with restless spirits.
• Critical Annoyance: Keep an eye out on Huo's Yang energy while he's in the spirit world. If it drops too low, he'll die, though he can find means to replendish his Yang meter.
• Darker and Edgier: The first game, at it's darkest, is about a 7-year-old Kid Hero and his misadventures in a ghost-town. The sequel on the other hand deals with war crimes and genocide, has an evil hag who enslaves spirits of stillborn kids, far more depressing backstories from NPCs, a genuinely sad revelation of the heroine's heritage, and all that.
• Demonic Head Shake: The Keeper of the Temple, while praying to the Gods' altar during a ritual to summon the three warrior-gods. It seems like the prayers aren't working, but then the Keeper's head start moving side-by-side, and then faster and faster...
• Demoted to Extra: While Huo returns in the sequel, he's The Mentor to the new protagonist, Tsui, and doesn't have as big a role as the first game, spending most of the time meditating and communicating with Tsui with his mind. That said, he does have a number of Big Damn Heroes moment bailing Tsui from whatever threat she cannot defeat and regains playable status in the last level.
• Disappears into Light: Ghosts will begin glowing when they take damage, and once their life-force is exhausted they fade off into light particles. Grandma, who use the last bits of her energy to exorcise Lin's father, also dissolves into glowing bits of light after her sacrifice, in Huo's arms.
• Eldritch Location: Tsui in the sequel gets dragged by the demon-hag into a haunted corridor that's floating in the middle of nowhere, constantly rotating causing objects to fall all over the place, with gigantic demon-hands smashing through windows trying to grab her and the floors constantly breaking away to drops... that leads to nothingness. And her only hope is to keep running ahead until the corridor stops at a dead end, but then Huo shows up in spirit-form and drags Tsui back to the world of living.
• Exact Eavesdropping: The flashback scene sees Huo, while randomly sweeping the temple grounds, overhearing the Keeper who raised him discussing his backstory to a random visitor about how the temple discovered him as a baby after Taoist priest exorcised the demons who killed his family. Although, it begs the question why would a private discussion be loud enough for Huo to hear it from a whole room away, especially this part:
  Keeper: Hmm, don't tell him about this. I don't want him to try to go back because it could be extremely dangerous.
• Evil Old Folks: The ghost-hag from the sequel is a demon who enslaves babies, keeping a fetus in a jar she hangs by her staff and tries dragging Tsui into a hellish dimension after she's defeated.
• Flaming Sword: Huo's Taoist sword will emit magical flames capable of damaging spirits when energized, despite being made of wood. It also functions as an improvised source of light when he's in dark areas while surrounded by enemies. He uses the same weapon in the sequel, but now it can summon powerful fireballs.
• From Hero to Mentor: Huo, the first game's protagonist, returns in the sequel as a mentor to Tsui, a young girl training to be an exorcist.
• Gene Hunting: The entirety of the first game's plot, which revolves around Huo venturing into the spirit world to find his deceased family and what caused their deaths - and if he can put them to rest.
• Ghost Town: Both games takes place in a literal one located in the outskirts of Taipei, who's empty and mostly devoid of life in the morning, but is quite alive with the supernatural once night falls. The sequel reveals it was the site of a massacre commited by the CCP during the Taiwanese Civil War.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: The "half" ghosts are spirits with only an upper body, who can somehow crawl around on their hands and attack by clawing. How they lose their lower parts isn't addressed.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • In the first game, Huo alternates between using his wooden sword and a bamboo Taoist spirit tablet.
  • The Hanging Man ghost uses his noose like a whip.
• Kid Hero: Huo, which the player controls the entire game, couldn't be more than 7 years old. He becomes a Kid Hero All Grown-Up by the sequel.
• Lotus Position: In the sequel, the teenage Huo assumes this position when meditating early on to contact the spirit world. Complete with drawing Taoist symbols in the air with both hands while chanting away.
  Huo: Demonic presences begone! Natural connection, the Golden Light offers protection... summon the Lady of the Nine Heavens!
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The all-powerful, dreaded Ghost-King of the sequel turns out to be Tsui's dad.
• Nightmare Hands:
  • The first game's last boss, the Demon King, can summon gigantic shadowy hands to snatch and grab at targets. These hands are invincible and can't be harmed, the only solution is to avoid them while taking potshots at the Demon King.
  • The second game has a stage in the corridors of a haunted mansion, floating in an eldritch void, where gigantic deformed hands will periodically smash
• Ominous Fog: Like several horror games, outdoor levels tends to be shrouded in mist to prevent the players from seeing too far in the distance. Especially in the graveyard when Huo gets attacked by the Hanging Ghost who keeps floating in and out the mist.
• Paper Talisman:
  • Expectedly, given the setting in Taiwan's supernatural world, plenty of Taoist talismans can be seen throughout the game. Grandma notably can summon a shield made of floating talismans to damage spirits, but at the cost of her own life.
  • The Priest-demon in the sequel have these talismans bound to his face, meant to suppress his awakening. It doesn't work.
  • Huo himself in the sequel can use Taoist talismans for sealing spells to be used on ghosts too powerful for Tsui to overcome.
• Pillar of Light:
  • The spirit world's entrance in the second game appears as a golden energy pillar shooting into the skies, that Tsui walks into. The same pillar appears more than once whenever Huo uses his Taoist powers to activate an exit.
  • Also in the sequel, the Ghost King can summon purple energy pillars that damages Tsui's health if she's hit. More ghostly mooks will emerge from those pillars.
• Power Glows: Both Huo and Tsui in either games will have their weapons emitting holy light energy when activated to slay demons.
• Quieting the Unquiet Dead:
  • Ghosts are allowed to move on to the afterlife upon being "killed" by Huo using his Taoist sword, as he finds out after defeating the Hanging Man - and sees the Hanging Man's family descending from heavens to pray for his soul as the Hanging Man fades away from view.
  Huo: You may rest in peace. All of you.
  • Lynn, a ghost-girl, was put to rest when Huo collects her ashes and reunites it with her family's.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Early in the first game, Huo lets out a string of "No no no no no no!" when he though his grandmother was possessed by ghosts and is coming for him. Turns out it was merely a vision.
• Shooting Superman: The flashback of the ghost king's physical form, when he reveals himself to a platoon of CCP soldiers trying to wipe out a village. The nearby soldiers tries shooting the ghost king with their rifles, obviously to no avail.
• Shout-Out:
  • An interestingly recursive one in the sequel, where the returning hero, Huo, purges the evil from a man's body by punching his soul out, in a manner similar to how sorcerors push out a person's spirit in Doctor Strange (2016). Even the camera angle looks similar to how the Ancient One knocks out Strange's soul on their first meeting. Considering that movie is inspired by Buddhist culture and all that.
  • The Ghost King reveals himself to a group of CCP soldiers, and demonstrates his powers by snatching their weapons from them, controlling their bayonets into their throats in a threatening manner, looks a lot like Magneto doing the same thing to a policeman with bullets from X-Men.
• Sinister Minister: The Taoist Priest-demon, a failed priest corrupted by evil forces and becoming a bloodthirsty spirit still clad in priestly garbs, is the sequel's first boss.
• Stationary Boss:
  • The Demon King, last boss of the first game, is a giant ghost-face embedded into the front of a building. It randomly sticks itself in and out to launch projectile attacks or summon more ghosts, while Huo needs to time the shots with the dragon fireworks in order to damage it.
  • He returns in the sequel fighting Tsui, and once more the Demon King is a boss fixed to the spot, this time being half a body growing from the ground who attacks by trying to pound her with his fists. This time he can release a sweeping Wave-Motion Gun from his mouth for good measure.
• Stealth-Based Mission: The first few stages in the spirit world, where Huo can only avoid ghosts instead of fighting them. It all changes once he gets a blessed Taoist peachwood-sword. Tsui averts the trope, as she already has a spirit-slaying sword before her first ghost encoutner.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: A few ghost enemies from both games, depicted as young women in tattered dresses whose long hair obscure their faces.
• Sword Lines: From Huo's wooden Taoist sword, which leaves orange lines with each swing. In all fairness, it's a blessed weapon meant to harm spirits. Same applies for Tsui in the sequel, whose swing-lines are red this time.
• Tears of Blood: When the Ghost-King recognizes Tsui as his daughter in the sequel.
• Telepathy: In the sequel, this is the method used by Huo, meditating in a temple, to communicate with Tsui from a distance.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Most of the game's score consists of dull, dreary music and occasional background noise, but whenever Huo or Luo starts fighting the undead a kickass soundtrack made from Taoist brass drums can be heard. If fades out if Huo defeats all nearby spirits or choose to flee from a battle.
• Undead Child:
  • Lynn from the first game is a little ghost-girl who can't unite with her family unless Huo collects her ashes and buries it with her parents'.
  • Taken to the extreme in the sequel; Tsui can be attacked by vengeful ghost babies! They're summoned by a demon holding a fetus in a bottle...

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