It’s crazy to believe the final Bethesda game to ever come to Playstation consoles is finally here. Developed by Tango Gameworks, the company that seemingly revitalized the survival horror genre with “The Evil Within” 1 & 2, have returned with a brand-new IP with Ghostwire: Tokyo. With a game where you fight off ghosts, I came in believing this would be another horror game, contrary to that, this game honestly isn’t that scary at all. It’s more of a supernatural action first person shooter game. Just like the strange studio themselves, they’re leaving this console with a very strange game.
You play as Akito, and after an accident you become a host to a spirit named KK who also happens to be a detective. KK gives Akito a handful of supernatural abilities and with most of the Tokyo residents seemingly disappeared, it’s up to Akito and his new best friend that lives inside him to solve this supernatural mystery while also busting some ghosts and dealing with a dangerous group of people who wear Hannya masks. As you progress, the story is fairly by the numbers and can be serviceable at best, which is a very unfortunate aspect for me. Luckily, what saved the narrative for the most part was the side quests. They are very separate to the main story, but I was way more invested in these very unique and interesting tales, some telling stories of classic Japanese folklore.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is actually a very big open world game, but the caveat to that is you’re limited to only sections of it at a time. Tokyo is shrouded in fog and you are unable to enter the fogged areas until you cast a spell on the local torii gate to cleanse the area. In order to do such a thing, you must complete a handful of missions and side quests in said area. For many, I can see this being a rather tedious task, when there is such an open world out there, but you’re sort of limited to playing the game almost level by level. For me, the highlight was those side quests, and while the tasks can be repetitive at times, I found the stories to be interesting enough to keep me going and not feel like a chore. This is certainly one of those open-world games where the map is littered with icons and gives you a lot of busy work to check off things on your “to-do” list.
The gameplay has a mix of good and bad itself. As I mentioned, this is a first-person shooter, but no guns. Instead, you have spells, and you primarily use three kinds. Each in of themselves feels like a gun, there’s the spell that shoots rapidly like an automatic weapon, or a water-based spell that is best for close range buck shots like a shotgun, you get the picture. While that is overall just fine, there’s something that feels really off with the camera. In first person games, you often feel like you are seeing what the main character is seeing, but here I don’t feel like I’m a person, more-so a camera on a stick that hovers, with fake hands showing up in front doing spellcasting. There’s just a level of fluidity that isn’t there and comes off very robotic to me.
While my negatives can be pretty negative for this game, the level of tolerance will vary wildly depending on its players. For me, I was able to cast those annoyances aside and allow myself to have fun in this very beautiful neon lit Tokyo. I love horror, I love the supernatural esthetic, and while this game is nowhere near from perfect, I cannot help but feel generous in my scoring. For many, Ghostwire: Tokyo is probably a 6/10 or 7/10 game. It would be difficult to argue that. But I think this game caught me at the right time where I was super down to learn about different ghost stories, and do a lot of monotonous routine quests to feel productive. While I am scoring this an 8/10 from my personal enjoyment of it, I still say it may be best to wait on this one for a sale.
8/10
Ghostwire: Tokyo is available worldwide for PS5 and PC. For more information, head over to the official website and follow on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87
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