We continue to play Ghostwire: Tokyo and we are convinced that it is one of the most fun games of the year. We tested it on both PS5 and PC and in this review, we tell you more about the work of Shinji Mikami.
We enter more and more into this world proposed by the people of Tango Gameworks. A few days ago, we brought the preview of the game, but this time we come with a more complete review, where we have already experienced much more of this first-person adventure that knows how to absorb details from different places to create a unique and original first-person environment. Ghostwire: Tokyo, has its own imprint, is oblivious to any comparison and, it shows, is proud of itself, from start to finish. We play it on both PS5 and mid/high end PC and tell you about it in detail.
Ghostwire: Tokyo You have your references. We could even say that it is connected in some way with resident Evil. But we are going to let those things be discovered by you. Because the game has such a Japanese imprint that someone like Shinji Mikami knows how to give it, who, for many, was alien to them. These days, several of the criticisms that the game received were, in our opinion, precisely because of its cultural imprint. There is such a particular handling of idiosyncrasy in history, that it all comes down to accepting it or not. We, in case it was not clear, we accept it from the outset.
Culture, religion and philosophy.
And it is not that we are better than anyone, do not misunderstand. It’s just that the cultural and entertainment context of Ghostwire: Tokyo is not alien to us. We already saw it somewhere. The religious aspect, the grotesque characters, the use of magic, the imprint of history, its gameplay. It’s one of those games where you find yourself thinking “I already saw this elsewhere”, but you can’t remember where. Because as we said at the beginning, Tango Gameworks It majestically takes care of doing something completely original from its roots, which, even so, feels familiar. Family.
The story, on the other hand, like the chaos of the game.
And it is that all the elements that move in unison in the game are the ones that, interconnected, end up giving life to a whole that catches you. The game starts and the first thing we see is a car accident. There we are introduced to a soul in pain who tries to possess someone alive, and can not. He quickly looks at the scene, realizing that he needs a dead body. There is Akito, our protagonist, who comes back to life thanks to the fact that KK, the spirit of an investigator, possesses his body.
As Akito takes in this whole thing and learns to use his new magical powers, a fog takes over the city. This fog, thick and dangerous like the one Stephen King himself described in his 1983 novella, makes the human beings it reaches disappear. With us it will not have the quick action of making us disappear instantly, but it will take away our energy if we try to get into it.
At the same time, we are also going to find a kind of final boss, the culprit of everything that happened in that city of Tokyo that, now, is completely stripped of all human traces. A character dressed comfortably and casually, wearing a Hannya mask, is who, it seems, is behind all this chaos and destruction. And while we don’t know how at first, he is somehow connected to KK.
Between the mist and this character, what they’re doing is basically stealing lives. And many souls are lost along the way. Through a particular element and a spell that looks like an exorcism, we will be able to collect the souls in pain (243,000 in total) that are lost in this desolate city, to then transfer them to another friendly character (actually a friend of KK) through a modified telephone booth in the best cyberpunk style.
Our objective… although it is not very clear at first…
The adventure begins when Akito and KK set off, the first looking for his sister, and the second trying to solve the entire mystery. There are many questions that arise and that seem to have no solution. And yes, at times even we, as players and spectators, are going to ask ourselves “Where is all this going?”. We can find ourselves lost, not geographically, but existentially. What am I doing all this for? Am I doing the right thing? Ghostwire: Tokyo he plays, in a way, with these dualities, but he does it without losing his cool. It is always entertaining, and even though over time what we have to do is the same thing over and over again, it does not become repetitive or boring. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is down to impeccable level design, side quests, a variety of power-ups, and a powerful story that grips you from frame one to the last.
We do not believe that all these unknowns, often existential or philosophical, are something negative within the game. At least we don’t take it that way. They are part of the mystery that exists around the entire proposal, they are part of its very existence and, as such, they have a why and a what for. That mystery that is created is what will be latent throughout the game as the main climate, because although it could be said that the title belongs to the horror genre due to the many elements it contains (horror, fantasy, science fiction, even), as we said in the preview, not because it’s scary, it’s scary.
The mechanics hold up throughout the game and it feels solid. The shots, once we find the timing and understand that they cannot be used at close range, forces us to create some kind of attack and defense pattern that feels necessary. There are several types of attacks, we will even find new weapons (real weapons, like a bow and arrow, not just the magic in our fingers) that we will learn to use when necessary. We will also learn new spells and other tricks worth Doctor Strange to be able to not only fight against enemies, but also to open portals and strip the city of that annoying, and deadly, fog.
Yokai, Yokai everywhere…
The enemies are picturesque, to say the least. They are all taken from Japanese folklore, Yokai characters that cross the worst nightmares. Between bosses and regular enemies, we are going to come across a nice number of them, always understanding that they are a kind of demons that belong to different classes. But we are also going to come across other characters, perhaps just as alarming, but at the end of the day they end up being allies, since they are going to help us, for example, to reach high points on the map that we could not access otherwise. shape.
This really got good.
Another interesting point that we already talked about in the preview, and that it is impossible for us not to mention again, is the inclusion of different animals in the story. On the one hand, we have some ancestral kittens who are in charge of running the stores where we go to buy food (both for our energy and for the street dogs), like other kittens that we are going to find in the city, happy that now without humans, they will be able to take control. We also have many canines on the street, some lost, others very scared, that, with our power to read their thoughts, we are going to understand what they need. It’s usually food, so after you feed them and give them a nice cuddle, they’re going to come out much happier than we found them.
But this does not end there. There are other animals in Ghostwire: Tokyo that we are going to meet along the way and that we don’t want to mention because they didn’t appear in what was being shown officially and we don’t want to spoil the surprise. But we can say that they handle the same tenderness as the aforementioned dogs and cats, and they will offer us many secondary missions at different times. The funniest thing of all is when these animals realize that we can understand them (thanks to KK’s special powers) and the dialogues we have with them are between cute and hilarious. Closing this section, we can say that Mikami Shinji understands what is good for those of us who are animal lovers. It’s like what we already experienced in Ghost of Tsushimabut amplified to the nth power.
By sight and by ears.
The visual and sound section is incredible. The recreation of the city, the houses, the premises, the buildings, the level design, with the hundreds of detailed elements that we are going to find, the textures, the rain that falls from time to time in the city, the awkward silence at times , the sounds that remained pending, active, once the people disappeared, give this small town in Tokyo a life of its own. And I say small because it feels like that, locked in the fog, dead in its roots, but alive from the visual. It is a city that stays active, even if we are alone. And the effort on a technical and visual level is really amazing. As we have already said, climbing to the top of the buildings and contemplating the rest of the city is not only beautiful, but also speaks volumes about the commitment of the people of Tango Gameworks in each of its sections.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is one of the funniest titles we played this year. Because it is one of those games that, if they explain it to you, seem chaotic, or if you see it through some gameplay, you may not have an idea of its potential. Ghostwire: Tokyo It is one of those games in which you have to live the experience, where you have to feel everything that it allows you to feel and suffer everything that it proposes to suffer. This horror adventure really offers you to put yourself in the shoes of its protagonist so that you can draw your own conclusions. For us, it is an essential game for any lover of good stories.
RELEASE DATE | March 25, 2022 |
DEVELOPER | Tango Gameworks |
DISTRIBUTOR | Bethesda Softworks |
PLATAFORMS | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5 |