Ghostrunner Review
It Can Die Even If It Doesn't Bleed .
Read Time 7 minutes


“ An intense fast-paced adventure through a highly futuristic dystopian megastructure ”
A first-person “hardcore” hack n' slash dripping with action, set in a gloomy, highly futuristic world is the way the developers found to describe Ghostrunner, and I believe there couldn't be a more appropriate way to put it. In the game we control a Ghostrunner, a type of badass human/android ninja sword-wielding knight of death that is one of a special elite force assembled for the protection and peace-keeping inside Dharma Tower, a megastructure designed to serve as housing for humanity's last surviving members, built in response to a cataclysmic event that tempted to end the entire world, rendering what remained of it completely inhospitable.
For the surprise of many — myself included, the first few minutes inside the game were both something that I could never expect and everything I thought it was: Ghostrunner is a platformer; a first-person platformer, to be precise. It was a first for me, to experience the verticality found mostly on 2D games from a first-person perspective with the obvious depth and complexity only 3D can offer, but thankfully adapting to it didn't take too long, with the introductory segment taking no more than just a few tries to complete.
With its own spin to what a futuristic society might look like, the game doesn't go too overboard with the concept, staying instead within a recognizable level of realism and fiction, all without completely abandoning the sense of meaning as well as purpose.
The story itself centers around retaking control of the tower city from a tyrannical ruler whom due to little care for human lives and resources got to a point of risking the future of humanity as a species.
Perfection Comes At A Cost: It Takes What It Takes .
Developer: One More Level...
Publisher: 505 Games...
Release Date: October 27, 2020
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With a one hit one kill mechanic for both players and enemies, Ghostrunner is an absurdly intense game, and by intense I mean it is surprisingly difficult, requiring great hand-eye coordination to clear out each level. After dying way more than I feel comfortable admitting, I can say for sure that Ghostrunner isn’t a game made for everyone, or at least for those who don't enjoy spending a great deal of time redoing entire segments because of a single, often small mistake. To make the player’s life easier, the game is at least generous enough with frequent checkpoint placement that should allow for faster transitions between death and getting back into the action, making it a smaller inconvenience having to deal with enemies over and over again.
Accompanied by a spectacular level-design, smooth gameplay, and easy to adapt controls, Ghostrunner feels both like the work of a pro and an amateur. With incredibly well-executed concepts, everything going from the general aesthetic to how the game plays, performance and gameplay-wise are all astoundingly great, with only a few issues of minimal proportions that make an exception to this rule.
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An open setting makes navigating the streets of Dharma Tower a refreshing, empowering sensation, that combined with striking visuals, feels truly masterful.
Ghostrunner is crammed with content, and while some of it is thanks to its short size of only about 7-11 hours, most of the credit really has to go to the over-the-top effort of never letting the action-filled parts wear old. With the introduction of a wide variety of locations, abilities, as well as enemies, progression in the game is expected to be always met with higher-level encounters, increasingly complex platforming sequences, alongside new skills to meet the demand.
Although I can’t deny the game was almost flawless from a technical standpoint, it’s impossible to stop there and talk nothing about other crucial factors such as story, or narrative when a good writing can often save even a sinking ship. Though I couldn’t get a full grasp of the story — mainly due to it being easy to miss thanks to dialogue frequently appearing right in the middle of action-heavy parts — I understood enough of it to say that it was actually pretty basic overall and the plot was honestly quite predictable.

With a heavy emphasis on creating a world that is more challenging to the players, a few aspects just didn't get to shine as much as others...
To put it simply to avoid spoiling too much for those who still feel like playing the game, the story really won’t impress everyone, much less those who can't play something unless there's a really great storytelling going on, with an equally great conclusion to top it all off. In an even simpler way to put it, the entire narrative in Ghostrunner feels more like a side dish to the main course that is a sum of incredible platforming, awesome music, and intense action which are all really great in contrast to the story that accompanies it all. But that is not to say the story is bad, it's just that, as I mentioned before, it simply isn't anything incredible, and seems nothing out of ordinary when compared to the game's other more prominent characteristics.
A Ride Through The Neon Realm: Calm Amidst Chaos .
In addition to the game's major platforming sequences, another medium arose to find its way of contributing to the crazy futuristic aspect Ghostrunner should be well known for at this point; that would be Cybervoid, a place that looks both like heaven for any RGB lover and hell due to its vast extent of pure emptiness. Cybervoid is the place that allows us to communicate with the creator of the Ghostrunners, someone known as ''The Architect'', and the one who guides us through this otherworldly place to obtain new abilities, as well as upgrade