When I saw that the director/producer of some Resident Evil, Shinji Mikami, was the executive producer of Ghostwire: Tokyo, I was strongly tempted by the title. Does it live up to my expectations and those of many players? here is my preview on PC.
Graphics & atmosphere
Certainly one of the strong points of the game. The engaging graphics combined with a successful artistic direction provide a captivating, gloomy, oppressive atmosphere at times and make it all really intense. We take pleasure to a certain extent in traversing the deserted city of Tokyo. The enemies and other appearances that we come across, mostly from Japanese folklore, are quite simply successful for some, even if I feel a little disappointed with some bosses that I find a bit too ordinary.
Rocked by a soundtrack that will immerse you even more, sometimes scary, sometimes funny when you enter a shop with flying cats and J-Pop in the background... you suddenly feel like you're in another dimension . A small island of sweetness in these tormented times.
History
You play Akito. After an "event", you find yourself with a roommate in your body, the spirit of KK, a person whose role is to prevent the big bad from accomplishing his plan. A battle between minds then takes place and will force you to fight to both save the city... and your sister.
My opinion: The narration is really good, the story unfolds without damage and has its share of surprises even if too many times, we expect it to happen far too long in advance. It's quite a shame to have such an interesting story short-circuited by telephone moments and which thereby loses suspense.
Gameplay
The point that will probably divide the players the most! Here we have very good gameplay ideas, nothing very new, but which can allow you to play as you feel, but sometimes poorly exploited. The game offers an open world through which we walk around the city at our leisure and enter a few buildings (used for main and secondary quests), provided we have purified a Tori portal which will chase away the evil mist killing our character in a few seconds.
So we can crisscross the city, collect spirits with our katashiros and transfer them through phone booths to earn in-game currency (Meikas) and exp that will level up our character. Each level grants a number of skill points to be spent in a talent tree that is as useful as it is essential to progressing serenely in the game. This will help increase our inventory, our basic abilities, or our abilities in ether weaving, etc. ...
As for your combat skills, a whole arsenal will be at your disposal to defeat, ranging from elemental skills to talismans and a particularly powerful and precise bow. You will have three weaves that will have very distinct abilities.
- Wind Weaving: Long range, low power, single target, has many charges.
- Weaving of Fire: medium range, high power, impact area, has few charges.
- Water Weaving: Short range, medium power, wide range when upgraded, medium loads.
Each skill will grow in strength and usefulness with your upgrades. Like the water blade which can launch several projectiles at the same time in addition to having a perfect wave for the groups of enemies a little scattered in front of you. Synchronization, a skill that will launch a powerful shockwave that will stun your enemies and boost your damage levels will ensure you expose and rip out your enemies' hearts, best way to kill them, fast enough!
The major problem of the game is precisely here. Despite the arsenal and the possibility of killing your enemies in one go by taking them by surprise, etc... the fights quickly become repetitive and boring. We find ourselves chasing spirits with our spectral vision which will reveal the surroundings in great detail, catch a Tengu to climb the roofs with our grappling hook, and collect meikas and spirits, this tirelessly. It just helps to raise the gauge which I suspect will influence the ending of the game. Having personally collected 70 souls advancing through the story out of the game's 000, I still have some way to go. .
We end up having to wander from one area to empty it completely and then move on to the next without knowing if this will have an impact other than raising your fortune or your level. We could say to ourselves that we are going to increase the difficulty of the game... but playing from basic to difficult... it is far too simple and the number of elements which recharge our weave is so high that we do not find ourselves never dry or saving to try not to die. Just as the consumables that restore life, purchasable at the store with the very (too) many meikas that one picks up and accumulates, make the survival of his character so laughable that one never feels in danger, except for the solo phases where Akito has to roam around Tokyo with no power, but simply running is enough to sow the enemies who are anyway as stupid as bricks.
Summary
In short, we find ourselves here with a game with a good atmosphere, a good story, but gameplay that is repetitive and bland in the long term. It's quite disappointing when expectations like mine were particularly high for this title, and I bet it will be for many, many players. However, as said above, if you want to play it only for the story and the atmosphere... you may find what you're looking for.
