Ghostwire Tokyo Review (PS5)

Written by Anthony L. Cuaycong

Title: Ghostwire Tokyo
Developer: Tango Gameworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: Action RPG
Price: $59.99

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Of all the things you can say about Ghostwire: Tokyo, you can’t go wrong with “unique.” After all, you find yourself awash in its potential given its capacity to combine aspects of an open world role-playing game with a mishmash of shooter and horror tropes to spice things up. And, wait, there’s more. Developer Tango Gameworks goes the extra mile with its presentation, throwing in some flashy visuals and setting it in one of Japan’s busiest cities, all while having ghosts and demons stalk you through its streets. It’s exhilarating, tense, and really, really fun.

In Ghostwrite: Tokyo, nightmares become reality as the streets of Shibuya are now steeped in fog and shadow. Playing as Akito, you have one job: to survive this literal ghost town and find your sister. You must dodge and defeat whatever ghosts stand against you, using the different elements at your disposal to dispatch as needed. You’ll scavenge for food items in stores, exorcise restless spirits, and help wanting souls meet their maker. These concepts might sound a bit overwhelming, but they’re easy to digest as soon as you grab your controller. While it might seem strange, a lot of its mechanics are based on familiar concepts already present in other first person shooting adventure games.

For starters, combat in Ghostwire: Tokyo is mainly done through the use of elements. You have three at your disposal, and they all act like your standard first-person-shooter weapon roster. Wind, the first element, is your reliable, fast-firing pistol. It’s accurate and able to lay down a barrage of projectiles pretty reliably, and will be your main weapon. Water, the second element, is your high-powered shotgun, dealing incredible damage up-close, especially with upgrades that boost its range and base damage. Fire, the last element, is both your rocket launcher and rail gun, dealing explosive damage if charged up, and piercing regular enemies if fired.

In Ghostwire: Tokyo, you’ll be cycling between the three elements pretty often, and while there’s not much variety in the combat, there is at least a decent mix-up in how the battles play out. Enemies, depending on their type, are often quick on their feet, and fairly aggressive. While you can block their attacks, the damage they deal can get out of hand fairly quickly, and so you’ll be switching between the three elemental types in an effort to keep them at bay and expose their cores, which can be revealed only by dealing enough damage to them. These exposed cores allow for a channeled execution move. While these will dispatch without the expenditure of further elemental magic, however, the channel time leaves you exposed to other enemies, forcing you to always be aware of your surroundings. You’re not invincible while you’re doing it, and the channel time is often just long enough to leave you exposed and out of position, making combat feel like an interesting dance of fighting, repositioning, and executing ghosts at a safe distance.

Ghostwire: Tokyo also gives you the chance to sneak up on and take down your foes with some pretty by-the-books stealth mechanics. While these don’t add much depth to how you can approach battles, the game does account for situations where you want to go silent. The ability to use a bow to snipe enemies from afar or to use silent takedowns on unwary foes helps quite a bit in thinning down the Visitors’ numbers before things go awry.

All told, Ghostwire: Tokyo can be very charming once you get the hang of it, and while its combat pales in comparison to what something like Doom Eternal can offer, it makes up for the seeming shortfall with its exxcellent environmental designs. The streets of Shibuya are rendered fantastically by the game engine, showing off bright lights and colorful buildings made with much love and detail. In some ways, it feels like taking a virtual tour in one of Tokyo’s streets, and the open world aspect is able to make the explorable areas feel big enough for you to lose yourself in. There are lots of side activities to enjoy, and lots of side quests to take up your time. There are small stores to visit, upgrades to purchase, and collectibles to gather. It’s an open world experience set inside a colorful, neon-lit first-person shooter, and it does its job so well that it’ll hold your attention for hours on end. There’s even some minor verticality to be had with the exploration, with the game letting you grapple onto rooftops for some new side areas to explore.

Combine all these elements with the Japanese horror aesthetics and flashy design, and you have a very charming game with quite a bit of content on hand. The story’s excellent writing draws you in, and its set pieces are a great mix of flashy otherworldly experiences crossed with Japanese horror elements. The side quests and side activities you do help boost your character’s growth, and the ramping challenges you’ll face keeps the game from being boring as newer and more dangerous types of enemies come to square off against you.

Sadly, while Ghostwire: Tokyo does a fantastic job at keeping you hooked, it still suffers from issues endemic to open-world RPGs. While the main campaign is just long enough to keep the mechanics feeling fresh, the rest of the side content slowly starts to bog the experience down. It’s not that they’re bad. For the record, they’re very, very good. It’s just that they eventually run out of new mechanics, encounters, and features to keep you going.

Where other games could keep your interest with stellar combat or good side quest design, Ghostwire: Tokyo’s main selling point is its visual flair. Its fancy lights, its creepy enemies, and its enchanting atmosphere are what spur you onward, but these don’t keep their novelty through all the side quests.

Make no mistake. Ghostwire: Tokyo’s main campaign is a blast to run through, and while it might feel a little short compared to other actioners, it’s still an experience that shouldn’t be missed. The visual spectacles it’s able to provide serve as ample attractions in and of themselves. Few games are willing to go through the lengths it does to mix bright, colorful environments with horrific creatures straight out of myth and legend. It’s a celebration of how seemingly disconnected and disjointed concepts can work in tandem with the right designs, and it should make gamers look forward to the inevitable sequel that improves on it.

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THE GOOD

• Excellent graphics, art and environmental design
• Superb combat, with some RPG and open-world elements to enjoy
• Decently long main campaign with lots of side activities to do

THE BAD

• Combat can be repetitive after a while, with few weapons and options to really spice things up
• Side content gets mundane, especially as it doesn’t share the pacing of the main campaign
• Lack of variety in approaching scenarios

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RATING: 9/10

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