Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil and studio head of Tango Gameworks, takes you into a world of yokai, kanji, cucumber, phones, talking cats and much more with the new game Ghostwire: Tokyo. In addition to the classic Resident Evil, I also really enjoyed The Evil Within series. When I saw Ghostwire: Tokyo in a trailer for the first time, the game world immediately appealed to me. I was also curious to see if the horror elements wouldn't be neglected in the game.
Unique Setting:
Ghostwire: Toky is not easy to describe. It's just unique, and that's a good thing. I would say that it is an action-adventure from a first-person perspective. It takes place in an open world, which also includes linear levels. In addition, the game, if you leave the bow out, completely uses no genre-typical weapons. Instead, you use magic and your hands. YES, your hands.
With different moves, so-called "Kuji-kiri" hand gestures, you can use some wind, fire or water magic. A good example here are the Ninjitsu gestures from the anime Naruto. Maybe you can imagine that a little better.
The setting is just beautiful and fresh. I just fell in love with the setting. You can tell that a lot of heart went into the development here. The background stories are just great, collectibles give you enormous background knowledge about the culture. Really nice! I can already tell you, that if you like the setting, you will like the game and will have a lot of fun. I just loved the world building.
The Plot:
The game takes place in Tokyo. Pretty much all of the civilians have either dead or completely disappeared. Ghosts now populate the streets and houses. Spiritual rituals are held. You will quickly become part of the story too. Mysterious people, who are hiding behind masks, harass your family and now it's up to you not only to save them, but maybe whole Tokyo.
I have mixed feelings about the overall story. For example, I find the chemistry between your main character and KK very strong and meaningful. The conversations are well written, they are not one-sided and remain gripping thanks to the background story. Other characters, on the other hand, don't get enough attention in my opinion and are shown too briefly. I just wished for more here.
There are always exciting highlights in the story, but they are often too far apart and there are also places in the game that also bind to certain ways of playing. Not a fan of this stuff. But the boss fights are definitely one of the highlights and are awesome. The design is also great.
Did I like The Open World?
There is a lot to do in this open world - a ton in fact. At every corner you can collect items, save ghosts, unlock map points, accept side missions, fight some enemies, pet dogs or cats, and much much more.
At first I had a lot of fun with it. I just thought it was great what you can do. But after a certain amount of playingtime, these activities just overwhelmed me. In fact, less would have been more here.
Sometimes you will enter buildings and this is where the linear levels come into play.
These are separate from the open world and you can only them after a loading screen BUT I found them incredibly good. I would even say that this is the greatest strength of the game, along with the general setting. The level design is just great, mysterious and just like the actual setting, UNIQUE. This is where the game go in the horror direction, where I have to say that outside of these linear levels, the action is more in the front.
Combat & Great Enemy Design:
Another big plus is the awesome enemy design. These are just weird and well designed. When exploring the game world, you will also regularly encounter ghosts that you can help with side missions. Here are some great small stories that captivate and surprise.
I also really liked the combat system. You can choose different spells that all play differently. Some spells are suitable for groups, others for melee or ranged combat. As already mentioned, there is also a bow as a weapon, which from my gaming experience is very effective. Especially headshots. But here I must say that the arrows are really rare.
There is of course a skill system. Wirth experience points you will level up and can select abilities in different skill trees. From my point of view, every level up felt meaningful . One skill will let you fly over the roofs of Tokyo for longer period of time, which I really liked. The exploration was much more fluid with this.
It took me about 15 hours for my first playthrough. If you want to secure the platinum trophy, you can easily double the playing time. Earning the platinum trophy is not a recommendation from my point of view as it really requires a grind, which I didn't like. It is not "difficult" to achieve, but it is time consuming.
PlayStation 5 Features:
Ghostwirke: Tokyo is a next-gen only game currently available for the PlayStation 5 console and PC. In addition to the really absurdly fast loading times, which make fast travel even more pleasant, the haptic feedback and the other DualSense features are of course used again. And my goodness. I have to say that this controller enriches the gaming experience once more.
Capturing ghosts, hand gesturing, using magic and pet some dogs/cats just feels so good. I actually think that controller pulls you better into the world and really connects you with your character. Great stuff.
Also unique is probably the selection of different graphics modes. There are really 6 different ones. I've never seen anything like that in a console game and I think it's great. Personally, I reduced the resolution a little and gladly accepted the 60 frames per second. But I have to say that Tokyo, with its reflections, benefits wonderfully from ray-tracing. In general, I think Ghostwire: Tokyo is graphically awesome, especially in combination with the great atmosphere.
Photo Mode:
Another great achievement. The photo mode. I can't say it often enough. Every game can show its muscles with a photo mode. In my opinion, this feature should be in every game. This photo mode doesn't offer as many features as maybe in a Ghost of Tsushima, but still enough to invite you to experiment and great some amazing pictures.
Ghostwire: Tokyo has an amazing setting, great visuals, atmosphere and DualSense features. If you don't mind a standard open-world formula, you will have a lot of fun. Another great game for the PlayStation 5.
8/10
Code provided by PlayStation
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