Now Playing: Ghostwire: Tokyo

I didn’t really know anything about Ghostwire: Tokyo going in but I certainly wasn’t expecting Far Cry with ghosts. Because that’s kind of what it is and I really wish it wasn’t. It feels like there’s a really good – maybe great – game buried in here beneath the layers of absolute shit. If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll know I’m not a fan of the Far Cry open world formula and GW:T adheres to that formula so strictly – and unnecessarily – that it makes me feel physically ill.

It’s such a f**king shame because there’s some great stuff in GW:T. So let’s get the negatives out of the way first, shall we? After an intriguing opening you are plunged into the open world of GW:T, and whilst I’m sure it’s a loving and presumably somewhat accurate representation of Tokyo, your heart will sink when you see your first radio tower . . . sorry, I mean shrine.

The map is covered by deadly ghost fog and you must ‘purge’ each and every shrine to clear the fog from the local area. This, in turn, unlocks the map and any local side quests in addition to vendors and other collectibles. So many f**king pointless collectibles. Now, I can’t say the Tokyo environment isn’t a nice change compared to the typical Far Cry rural / jungle themes, and I can’t say GW:T isn’t a very pretty game.

But what I can say is that traversing this open world is boring as f**k. You’ll rely heavily on fast travel to get around because there’s nothing fun or interesting about traversal. There are ways to rapidly ascend onto rooftops which you might think will allow you to parkour your way across the city. But no, that might be too fun. Instead, you just get a ‘float’ ability which lasts a few seconds, maybe long enough to reach a nearby rooftop.

Most of your traversal in GW:T will be slowly jogging from A to B. It’s almost like the game wasn’t designed with open world traversal in mind and all this unnecessary bullshit was added in later? Honestly, that’s what it feels like given how badly it’s structured within the game.

So, like Far Cry you get an extensive skill tree . . . that’s mostly just slight upgrades on abilities you unlock as you progress such as ‘do this 1 second faster’ or ‘increase radius of this by 1 metre’ or ‘carry 5 food items rather than 4’. It’s not exactly exciting stuff. You also get lots of collectibles to find like capsule toys, rare goods you can sell, graffiti art, world / lore notes, special spirit types and statues.

Oh, and 240 thousand spirits to collect that help you level up. Yes, you read that right. Thankfully they tend to be bunched together, so you can collect hundreds at a time, but even after finishing the game and unlocking the entire map after 15 hours of play, I still only had 80k in the bank. But then . . . what’s the point of these? I was Level 37 when I finished, despite not even collecting half the spirits and I still felt far too powerful for the last few chapters and boss fights that were far too easy as a result.

It’s almost like the game wasn’t balanced around all this additional open world shit. Or even balanced for an experience based level system. It’s kind of telling once you get to the end of Chapter 4 and realise the last 2 chapters take place entirely within a series of linear environments separate from the open world. It’s almost like the entire game was supposed to be a linear, more focused narrative driven action game but at some point someone decided to dump a terrible open world on top of it but they couldn’t apply it to the entire game. So they had to segregate the last few chapters.

The Far Cry feeling is really hammered home when the game gives you a bow and arrow . . . to fight ghosts. Oh, and a terrible ‘stealth’ system and ‘spirit vision’ to highlight objects and enemies within the world. F**k me, even writing about this makes me feel sick. You’ve got a completely unnecessary ‘Inventory’ of cosmetic clothing and a ‘Database’ full of useless information. And then you’ve got that map. That classic open world Far Cry map that looks like someone vomited icons all over it. And that f**king terribly bland UI.

The only good thing I can say about the open world is that the side quests are pretty good. Well . . . most of them. Some are just boring filler set within the open world, but many others actually take you to unique locations out of the open world – into a school, for example – and these small, linear, more focused missions are where the game really shines. It’s almost like . . . the game was designed for this kind of thing.

I don’t know if GW:T was designed with this open world in mind but it sure as f**k doesn’t feel like it. Everything about the open world sucks. It even ruins the enemy variety which, if GW:T was a smaller, more focused game, would probably be considered pretty good. But in the open world that spawns these f**king ghosts all over the place, you’ll soon get really sick of fighting the same five or six enemies over and over again.

I just can’t help but wonder if GW:T was originally built as a linear, focused 8 hour experience with no level system, no open world, no collectibles, no stealth system, no poor attempt at traversal mechanics and no f**king bow and arrow. I really want to play that game.

That said, the story and characters of GW:T aren’t all that great either. Our hero, Akito, is kind of a whiny git, and his relationship with his spirit guide – KK – ain’t no V and Johnny Silverhand. There’s a couple of moments of good banter and a couple of nice emotional beats, but nothing particularly memorable.

As for the combat, ignoring the bow – that actually makes the game way too easy – you also have magical attacks you can shoot like finger guns based on Wind, Water and you guessed it – Fire. It’s stylish and kind of fun to mix it up during battles, but it’s also undeniably shallow and lacks any real depth. And pretty much all enemies are defeated the same way – by pounding on them until their ‘core’ is exposed and then ripping it out. Once again, in a shorter, more focused game I’d say it was fine, but you really get to see just how shallow, repetitive and broken (with stealth and the bow) combat is the longer the game drags on.

Is that enough ranting? Okay, time for the good stuff. I really liked the focus on Japanese folklore and urban legends and spirits and all that cool cultural stuff that gives the game a unique feel. It also – because of that – has some cool enemy designs. And those smaller, more linear and focused side missions really are great.

The ones that really lean into the spooky horror element as the environment and reality warps around you. All of that stuff is a lot of fun and I wish there was more of that within the game. Unfortunately, you have to wade through so much tedious open world bullshit to unlock and get to those side missions.

And . . . yeah, I don’t have many more positive things to say about GW:T. Now, I know not everyone is as absolutely sick of the Far Cry formula as I am, so maybe you won’t have quite such an adverse reaction. But that said, GW:T is, to me, a game that does not feel like it was designed with it in mind. It feels like something shoved in needlessly to pad out a short, more focused experience.

I wouldn’t say it ruins the game – because you can focus just on the core quests if you want and do your best to ignore all that other shit. So no, it doesn’t ruin it, but it does make we wonder just how good GW:T could have been without it. If this had just been a smaller, more focused experience. Because once you strip out all the bullshit, there is a pretty good game buried in here and I can’t say I didn’t have some fun on those few occasions I was able to dig it out.

5/10