Ghostrunner

Incredibly frenetic action and good controls. It was just too much to enjoy for me. Got to level 3 and quit after at least a hundred tries. I even got motion sickness from it, and that's coming from someone who plays videogames since I was a child. I opted to play Rage 2 instead of this for intense solo action.

GHOSTRUNNER (2020) is a ultra stylistic and super fast-paced game. I mean FAST. It is hyper fluid in a mechanical sense but also with the story and music as well. It really has a fast flow. Add to that the fact that the protagonist is a sword weilding, modded cyborg-ninja, called a Ghostrunner, with intense parkour skills and super human abilities, waking up in a strange neon-lit, cyberpunk world, you have an all around blast of a game.

"Ascend humanity's last remaining shelter, a great tower-city. The tower is torn by violence, poverty and chaos. Conquer your enemies, discover the secrets of the superstructure and your own origin and obtain the power to challenge The Keymaster."

Let just say, prepare to die a lot of times. The game can be pretty hardcore. That's just the kind of game this is. But the game saves very frequently to balance that out and make it a bit more forgiving. There are a lot of reaction based movements and scenarios however, that include proper dodging, landings, and attacks, as well as ricocheting projectiles back to the sender, and rebounding off of walls etc.

The game is mesmerizing graphically, and the world is so cool. It is aesthetically cyberpunk, and ultra neon with many futuristic, industrial levels to advance through. You play a modded ninja, called only a ghostrunner, who gets drawn into the ongoing revolution of the vast underground neon bunker city. It's all very cool to look at and very fun to play, if not a bit intimidating.

Overall, I highly enjoyed this game.

The reason i first played this game was because I heard that Daniel Deluxe was doing the game soundtrack, and I, being a big fan of his and of 80's sci-fi and synthwave, was more than enthusiastic to get into this world.

Ghostrunner is a bit more of a traditional game in the sense that it's a one-hit kill for both you and your enemies. This makes for the most sweaty-controller-hand gaming stress I have ever experienced. It also contributes to a feeling of absolute superiority when you finally manage to stick a perfect speedrun. The levels are about evenly distributed between obstacle runs and enemy fights, and a single mistake can cost you dearly very quickly.

The world-building and ambience of the game are my favorite aspects. It is dripping with Sci-Fi darkwave vibes around every corner, and if you manage to calm yourself down for a moment and take in the environment, you will realize just how visually stunning Ghostrunner is. Fans of classic movies like Terminator or Blade Runner will feel right at home in this universe, and if I could have a wish granted, it would be to translate this game into a gritty Sci-Fi Action/Thriller movie.

A word of caution to the potential player: Prepare to die. A lot. At the end of each level where stats are shown, I had died over 100 times each.

Ultimately, Ghostrunner is a visceral sci-fi experience for anyone brave enough to meet the challenge.

Back in 2020 I played the demo for the game on pc and really liked it. The controls were smooth and responsive and the gameplay fast and challenging which really intrigued me, so I added it to my wishlist. Two years past and suddenly its free with playstation plus. I finally played through it, and it was great.

The story is interesting enough and gives a reason for moving forward, climbing the tower, but ultimately you don't have to focus on that. The mechanics and challenge is what is what drove me through the experience. It's so satisfying to play and it never feels unfair. It won't work for everybody and some people will fall off because of the challenge and platforming, and it works great with controller as soon as you get used to the controls. With a new stand alone dlc just being released, it's a great time to jump in, but to be honest I'm probably going to wait for that to go on sale as well.

It isn't the longest experience if you play video games and stick with it. It took me around 6 hours to play through the entirety of the campaign and still finding a few of the hidden artifacts in each level. The mechanics are great and its a good combination of cyberpunk and mirrors edge, definitely worth playing through at some point if the trailers interest you.

8/10.

This game is incredible, the gameplay is fantastic and no level felt too difficult to me because of how fast the respawn is and how quickly you can throw yourself into action. The satisfaction of slicing an enemy open or reflecting a projectile back into the sender always feels smooth and responsive. The movement compliments this perfectly with being just loose enough to to feel responsive and and rigid enough to not feel stiff. The only real downside for me was the story and how it would pull you out of this fantastic and edge of your seat gameplay to force you to do a puzzle or slowly platform in Cybervoid. This slows the game to a crawl and doesn't allow you to use your dash so movement tech with that is not possible to speed up these sections of the game. The secrets are placed in areas that encourage exploration and allow you to improve your swords look or give you world building through audio logs and item descriptions. In conclusion Ghostrunner is a unbelievably fun game, it's fast, it's satisfying and it's brutal fun with the one hit mechanic going both ways to you and the enemy's. The secrets are placed in great spots but the puzzle parts slow the game down and with a bit is of tweaking could have been really interesting but they prioritise the story over gameplay and the experience suffers for it. The game is amazing an I would highly recommend it to anyone on the fence about buying it.