1 person found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 6.3 hrs on record (6.1 hrs at review time)
Posted: 28 Jul, 2023 @ 2:48am

First big thanks to my buddy Chris for gifting me the game. This review would not be possible without him. Thanks my dude!

Forbes called the game a mix of “Titanfall, Dishonored, and Superhot.” PC Gamer says it's in between “Mirror's Edge a nd Dishonored.” For me, add Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance to the above, and bam you have Ghostrunner. I’ve played all of those above ~~Well… Dishonored I still need to finish but that’s neither here nor there.~~

After an assassination mission has gone wrong(You need to watch the intro cutscene starting before you reach the main menu to display a prologue of events. Kinda like Vagrant Story. Please don’t miss it.) You(Jack) are somehow alive and must climb Dharma Tower to defeat the Keymaster. A ruthless being ordering the people to work so hard, she’s milking them until they bleed while the rich stay rich. That’s the jist you need to know. Interesting companions here as you climb to the top. And honestly, it reminds me heavily of T2's structures where you’re not alone in your fight. Greatly enhancing my experience and making my main goal not so daunting anymore.

Give me a sharp katana, good parkour, cyberpunk setting, and you have my attention. Ghostrunner(GR) embodies all these traits and I am extremely thrilled to report the sheer momentum of slashing unaware enemies is satisfying, movement feels smooth as my time in Titanfall 2(T2), and the story kept me intrigued. Teasing me with Alan Turing's ideas.

Environments are plentiful here. Industrialized factories are knit tightly together with turbines and a hodgepodge that works of uneven steel apartment buildings littering areas to traverse as you hop around rooftops and swing about like Tarzan. Felt like I was back playing Cyberpunk 2077. The setting fits. Jumping from wall to wall as I collided past each billboard was not boring at all. Levels range from less than 5-10min to finish early on and can bloom to 30 minutes later on for those who check their surroundings carefully. These areas are carefully designed to induce almost an illusion to make you think they’re larger than intended despite following a linear path. Collectibles, tucked away in places you wouldn’t expect, reward those who search every nook and cranny and offer a nice blurb of lore exposition.

Combat is the bread and butter here. You can’t shoot with a gun sadly, but who needs a gun when you have a katana that can delete your foes in a single blow? Parry this you filthy casual. If you are a master at parrying from a popular Souls franchise or katana-wielding games like Raiden from some dude named Kojima who created the Metal Gear series, you’ll thrive here. Unfortunately, I suck at parrying. And yet to my delight in GR, they're not super strict on windows to retaliate. Play a Tetris-like upgrade system and equip them. Some blocks increase your chances of reflecting an attack. Add another dash or blink, etc. Or activate more options in assist mode, I’ll touch on this later. Under the circumstances, a bumbling dude like me can turn the tide. Incredibly satisfying witnessing a gunner trying to shoot me only for me to pull a reverse uno with my sword and slap the projectile back! Hah!

I think dying in one hit, as a rule, is a tricky feature for developers. Lean hard and players will think it's too punishing. Go too easy and breeze through like a cakewalk. Ghost of Tsushima and Superhot tread the fine line for better or worse. Thankfully, GR is smack dab on the edge of the better side. With Assist Mode, someone like me who sucks at intense action-packed titles can somehow become an expert. Consisting of three features: One extra life, the second a shorter cooldown to use abilities more, and slower gameplay speeds for more leeway in reacting. The mode single-handedly and substantially changed my experience as I sped through slicing and dicing. I was frowning heavily, during the early parts since I felt the difficulty was a bit too tough and challenging. Once I turned on some of those options my whole expression turned 180. I’m grinning like a loon and nodding my head to the beat of the music(composed by Daniel Deluxe, and man does his name roll off the tongue) where the rhythm and synth wave work in tandem to the combat. Creating a pleasant tempo to listen to throughout. I did feel some tracks were repetitive. Although, after re-listening to the OST it works in its favor. Offering systematic beats that feel familiar like a physical manifestation of your heart beating. Hm hm hm hm.

Level design for the most part is solid to a degree, I find myself reminiscing about Mirror’s Edge and T2. Both employ excellent sequences using parkour and unique elements. By taking advantage of environment placement and visual hints. GR is much the same. There is a frenetic pace from which you slice, parry, dodge, and adjust your balance to the course of platforming segments. Not too large and not too small either. Designed well to keep you focused, without throwing a hard curveball in your direction. The checkpoint system is very fair and respawning instant. I also love how wall running is slighter better here than in T2. Over there, I can wall-run until I petered out in the end. Here, I can continue forever.

Moving on. I have to talk about my mixed feelings. Not a positive or a negative. But for the sake of transparency, I'm noting them down. More often than not, I am blocked by forced enemy encounters in some sections. These encounters require me to beat a variety of enemies before I can progress. I don’t like this method, because it enforces a design to halt pacing and force players to eliminate everyone within a room or decently open-sized areas. Fighting through trial and error until you get it right. And while this is a fine idea in theory, the execution leaves much to be desired. You constantly retry to win against these enemies forcing yourself to die when I think the developers could’ve taken different avenues instead of killing everything. Why not stealth? Eliminate some, then move on. Find a key while eliminating some baddies, then continue to your next objective. Why can’t I travel and evade my way to victory? Aim for higher platforming and perhaps lose my skills to force a no-power handicap. Or even to the point where there is a large open area and all you have to do is find any path to get there. Embracing diverse amounts of unique sections and in effect creates more player freedom than constrained enemy encounters. Would run in parallel with the constant momentum the game tries to inject. Additionally, I think extending the campaign to flesh out the worldbuilding, villain, and characters would work. More bosses too, since there are a few here. Nonetheless, how One More Level(the developers of GR) conducted them was fairly balanced and unique in my books. As a result, I don’t see a reason why more were not included. They offer creative ways to think outside the box and provide a satisfying feeling when beating them.

With all that said, I don’t think my mixed feelings bring the whole game down a ton. I didn’t experience any bugs, crashes, or glitches. If anything, the intriguing story, slick combat, tight balance of difficulty with solid-level design, and gorgeous cyberpunk aesthetic left me hungry for more. A very generous checkpoint system and fitting synth wave OST takes care to almost override nearly all blemishes I had. And while the campaign is short, I clocked in at a little over five hours. There is a bleeding edge of content in store for newcomers or veterans looking for fast parkour action. And Ghostrunner fits the bill. And hey! If you do, You can be excited with me when the sequel launches later this year!

7.5/10


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