Run, ghost, run – review of the game “Ghostrunner”

We will have to wait a little longer for the premiere of Cyberpunk 2077 , but this does not mean that fans of the genre have nothing to play until then. Ghostrunner takes you on a crazy run! Was it, however, without out of breath?

Welcome to the tower

We start our adventure as the title character, in the futuristic Dharma Tower, the last refuge of humanity in the post-apocalyptic world. Led by a mysterious voice, the cybernetic ninja will face a brutal system oppressing the survivors. The assumptions of the plot sound simple and in fact they are, but to tell the truth, an overly complicated story could even interfere with a game whose main goal is to get from “A” to “B” as quickly as possible. The creators had to be aware of this, because despite the use of film, they made surprising efforts to tell the story, opting for interesting, slightly mysterious characters. Fantastic dubbing does a good job in this regard. Without this factor, listening to the story would not be so pleasant. Especially since the coreGhostrunner is undoubtedly very demanding gameplay.

The platformer of the future

The game is developed by One More Level studio, which last year produced God’s Trigger – an interesting variation on the theme of Hotline Miami , in a fantasy atmosphere. This inspiration is important because Ghostrunner puts, in my opinion, an even higher level of difficulty. You get killed very often. This is due to two mechanics that define the game. The first violin is definitely played by the skillful way of moving. There are voices comparing the title to the slightly dusty Mirror’s Edge , but I think it is a bit of an exaggeration, because the DICE studio game was largely based on planning the route in such a way as to maintain smooth traffic and not lose speed .Ghostrunner focuses more on making precise jumps, being basically an FPP platformer. Yes, keeping up the pace is also important, but more because of the aggressive enemies. As in the aforementioned God’s Trigger , all characters are on a symbolic “arrow” – both the adversary and the protagonist. In conjunction with numerous obstacles that fill the levels (it is easy to even fall under the map), the character of the game is given by an intense pace and improvisation. 

The beauty of the possibilities

Although at first glance, there is no indication of it, Ghostrunnerforces players to make numerous and quick decisions. The boards are often puzzles, offering several possible paths, and the title character, apart from katana blows, can boast an interesting range of abilities, such as slowing down time while staying above the ground or treating enemies with a shockwave. This means that often, when a given fragment seems too demanding in terms of dexterity, you can work with a different way to reach the goal and using different skills. The more that additional options are provided by unusual character development. With time, we get the opportunity to introduce additional improvements for the hero, and each of them has the form of … a Tetriso-like block. However, due to the fact that the development board is filled with obstacles, an additional puzzle is to fill it in such a way to leave as few free spaces as possible and, at the same time, choose the best kit for a given situation (in a given stage it may be more useful to load abilities faster, and in another, e.g. bouncing shells with katana) In most cases, this formula works perfectly well and completing the next stages gives great satisfaction. Unfortunately, sometimes you get the impression that we are dealing with jumps in the level of difficulty and individual sections differ significantly in the challenge we face, not necessarily through the usual gradation. Fortunately, frustration is limited by adapting the title to repetitions. Checkpoints are scattered quite densely, and returning to the game after death is a matter of an almost imperceptible moment. However, it’s hard to be bored, because the creators skillfully introduce new mechanics and enemies, actually constantly modifying the rules of the challenge a little.

Cyberpunk stimulates the senses

The more that Ghostrunner pleases the eyes and ears. Despite keeping the story in the closed city of the future, the location was kept different. Each of them is steeped in a cyberpunk atmosphere. Nvidia RTX series card holders will have additional reasons to be delighted, as the title supports ray tracing technology . It’s also hard to say a bad word about electronic music, which additionally boosts the intense pace of the game. 

The technical layer is not without its drawbacks, however. The individual stages, although very attractive, are unfortunately quite empty. Theoretically, the story somehow explains this state of affairs, but it is difficult to imagine cyberpunk streets without any population, and the environment that is not susceptible to interaction does not improve immersion. It is also worth noting that although the opponents differ significantly in the techniques used, most of them boast a very similar appearance (which, in turn, is not paid too much attention due to the speed of the game, so it is more important that their elimination is definitely are spectacular). You can also see occasional optimization problems, which can affect users of weaker configurations harder, as this is one of those games where smoothness really matters.

Run to the finish line!

Ghostrunner finally turns out to be a fantastic proposition for players looking for an intense arcade game in cyberpunk aesthetics. The new One More Level production offers around nine hours of fantastically designed and varied campaigns, most of them shiny with really polished graphics. The whole thing is driven by a surprisingly intriguing story, efficiently throwing the hero into subsequent events, and great dubbing only adds to the atmosphere.