Ghostwire: Tokyo Review

Played on PC

Developed by Tango Gameworks

Released 25th March 2022

A while ago I redeemed a free 1-month Gamepass code and while browsing through its overwhelmingly large catalogue of games to figure out how I should spend my month, I came across this awesome title by the name of 'Hi-Fi Rush'. Now, I've already reviewed the fantastic rhythm-based beat'em up but while researching it for a bit to prepare for the review, I stumbled across what would've been a long-forgotten game on my wishlist, that being 'Ghostwire Tokyo'. The two games were developed alongside each other, with the 'Evil Within' artist, Ikumi Nakamura, leading the project before departing from the studio halfway through the game's development. 'Ghostwire Tokyo' was one of those games that had completely hooked me into its world, aesthetic and premise from the moment of its reveal trailer showcasing a dense, populated Tokyo being eerily replaced with supernatural monsters that contain the 'Evil Within' DNA. But, after its review embargo unveiled a middling game and its exclusivity to PlayStation 5 meant a £70 asking price, the title simply faded away from my memory. Even when the timed exclusivity ran out and the game immediately became a part of Xbox's Gamepass package, there wasn't much buzz going around it. Since I for some reason enjoy playing mediocre games only to trash them in my reviews, this re-appearance felt like a perfect opportunity.

Tango Gameworks was founded by Shinji Mikami, of 'Resident Evil' fame, and while 'Evil Within', Tango's most popular series, bares many key elements from that survival horror, Mikami makes it a point that he wants his games to not share a single creative identity, where people can go "Tango made this as well?", and as such, makes it also a point of passing down the torch to younger game developers to keep this going. Unfortunately, this really didn't play out the way the studio wanted it to, mostly because of its repetitive structure in open-world design that plagues so many games nowadays (thanks Ubisoft).

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Story

The story was extremely dull. Throughout the 10 hours I spent with the game, I felt numb experiencing one of the most drab storylines in recent memory. The narrative follows Akito, whose dead body is possessed by a spirit called KK, and his journey to rescue his sister from the masked man named Hannya who is the cause of all these evil entities spawning in Tokyo and stealing civilian spirits. Every major plot point and build-up felt too impactless to provoke a reaction out of me, all because either the build-up time wasn't appropriate or because the plot points felt inconsequential. I genuinely felt like a corpse watching the cutscenes and listening in on the dialogue because of how uninterested I became. This fact wasn't helped by the emotional moments towards the finale as they felt shoehorned in, all to make the ending more dramatic and provide "personality" to the characters. Instead, all this did was grind the game's escalating pacing to a massive halt and evoke a sigh out of me.

Even during high-stakes moments like the protagonist losing his powers, it was mostly forgettable. If you were to ask me to recount the events of the game, I could probably do as good of a job as telling you the plot of a vague dream I once had. This was unfortunate given how interesting of an idea this whole game was. "Horrifying" villains, a dual-identity protagonist, and a sinister plan to do with the control/revitalisation of the human body - because of how recently I played it, this game basically felt like 'Atomic Heart' but with Japanese mythologies instead of Soviet robots.

Gameplay

The gameplay is, for lack of a better word, meh. 'Ghostwire Tokyo' does have a fairly enjoyable gameplay loop, but it's bogged down by how restricted it becomes. The game's baseline is that you can shoot elemental effects out of your finger gun-jutsu until you can hold a right-click (or the controller equivalent) to pull a core out of an enemy, defeating them instantly. Attempts at trying to spice it up fall flat as they end up feeling redundant. Blocking and Perfect Blocks feel situational against enemies you can't outrun and even then, not all that necessary, which contradicts the mechanic's intended nature. You do have additional ways of fighting with tools such as talismans and bows, but outside of testing them out as new unlocks, or being forced to use them after the story temporarily takes your powers away, I found them to be too useless to incorporate into my playstyle. Another feature that felt as pointless as the tools was the stealth. Either because the enemies just feel randomly placed in the world, or because the stealth extends only as far as sneaking up behind an enemy for a one-input takedown, it all resulted to be even more primitive than the action-packed finger-slinger side of the game. Taking down a single enemy at a time before being immediately spotted just isn't as beneficial as hitting a group with a charged-up fireblast, allowing me to pull out all their cores simultaneously, effectively doing a multi-takedown.

Even when you do stick to the standard enemy encounter of shooting them multiple times, the gameplay loop becomes predictable and quite repetitive. Shoot until the core is exposed, pull the core out, and repeat. The enemy variety is too barebones to offer alternatives to combat as they would range from having a high-damage melee or an easy-to-evade ranged attack. Defeating these enemies also becomes quite trivial when do enough exploring as levelling up or coming across upgrades just by a little bit too much can make you too overpowered to enjoy an encounter, and not doing enough can make them more frustrating than challenging - the grey area that the game expects you to be in seems too obscure to pinpoint.

Finally, the biggest flaw of the gameplay is its open-world design. While Tango Gamework's version of Tokyo is genuinely cool and had me awe-stunned enough to get me exploring a couple of key locations, the game design behind it is quite poor. The movement for exploring had to have been neglected for most of the development cycle as it's painfully restrictive for a fairly big map to explore. Having to rely on jumping onto cars and gliding to the next one is severely disappointing given the potential for traversal opportunities, and even when you get the expensive upgrade of being able to zip to the top of any building, your only option is to glide down again. Additionally, if you're planning on 100% completing this game, good luck because the swarm of map markers and collectables felt nauseating, with bonus content being added simply for the sake of padding out the playtime. Coming across the first Yokai Hunt or Jizo Statue was pretty cool, but having it then be copied and vomited out on the rest of the map sucked the joy out of the experience. Having such an amazing concept fall into the trap of Ubisoft's design sucks, especially given how overinflated the market for open-world games is nowadays. Yes, the gameplay is smooth, fluid and responsive. Yes, it does look amazing with the visuals and effects helping make the gameplay seem more expressive and satisfying. But no, it does not have the necessary depth to keep you engaged throughout its whole campaign and any attempts at said depth, end up as lacklustre efforts.

Bossfights

The bossfights had been the most disappointing aspect of this whole game because seeing the coolest-looking Yokai/demon design in a gorgeous, otherworldly arena, only for them to recycle the same slam and projectile attacks with their damage-sponge health was the equivalent of being taken to the sweets aisle as a kid and be force-fed raw asparagus. The formula of "hit the 3 weak points while regular enemies spawn in" got so repetitive that it took much of the fun from the base gameplay. The most creative fight ended up being a cheaply made, gimmicky stealth fight and the final boss was near-garbage with how plain its attacks were and how easy it was to overwhelm it.

Characters

The characters were quite meh. Alone, they were quite one-dimensional, like puppets to disperse information about the story and not much more. Together, there were some intriguing moments like KK's despise for Hannya or, more importantly, the dynamic between Akito and KK. Their relationship began interestingly with a distaste for one another, similar to that of Itadori Yuji and Sukuna from 'JuJutsu Kaisen', however, they suddenly shift to become buddy-buddy with one another. While this is a cool approach to the dual-identity protagonist format, the sudden shift to this state within the span of 1-2 missions feels rushed and the payoff ends up as numbing as the story. Another key character is Hannya, the antagonist. I have mixed feelings about him because, on one hand, his twisted obsession with his family does come across as captivating but the way he's conveyed through dialogue and the story, portrays him as a being of pure evil which creates this mismatch between the two ideas.

Atmosphere

Thankfully, the unimaginative direction in the gameplay department isn't reflected in the atmosphere, greatly thanks to the vast creativity of the visuals. This is where 'Ghostwire Tokyo' really shines and if anything, is possibly the only reason you should play this game under any circumstance. Whether it was the mesmerisingly twisted art style of the enemies or the hauntingly empty streets of the lively-designed Tokyo, the neon horror that was shown in the trailers is not only present but made better than ever before. Walking around the Shibuya crossing while it's desolate but its electronic billboards try to breathe light and life into it was done so fantastically that, if it wasn't for the atrocious map design, this could've been one of my favourite open worlds to traverse. It's not to say that it's perfect as there are a couple of visual issues; like how there's a massive cluster of colourful, neon particle effects that clog up your screen during any enemy encounter or how the rain particles looked offputting (though the idea of making the rain be Kanji symbols instead of water is pretty awesome) - moments like that did detract from the overall flair of the game.

Audibly, it may not have been as good as the visuals, but they were quite incredible. The OST has this mix of sinister undertones and enchanting hymns that get planted firmly into the player's ears. Each track managed to help make each visual moment pop out better, never feeling out of place. Had the story been preferable, I'm sure the music could've improved the scenes to a higher level. It may not be the most memorable soundtrack to exist, but its execution was good enough to be a worthwhile listen. The sound effects were serviceable, if not decent, as each strike, core-pullout or block didn't deliver as much of an impact as you'd expect from shooting a fully-charged firebomb or removing the core of a ghastly spirit - the animations look amazing but the sound effects only just get the job done. Finally, the optimisation is well done, having encountered close to zero issues (one or two late texture load-ins).

Story - 3/10

Gameplay - 5.5/10

Bossfights - 2/10

Characters - 5.5/10

Atmosphere - 8.5/10

SUBPAR

Intoxicating, fantastical, and vibrant: the best description of the visuals and the complete opposite of what the rest of the game offers.