Ghostwire: Tokyo is Surreal Horror
An enigmatic event erased 99 percent of the inhabitants of Tokyos. Now scary make the streets uncertain. You are one of the few (un-) lucky who could survive and therefore it is up to you to free the city from the evil spirits.
On a digital preview event of Bethesda Softworks we were allowed to grape a good deal from the beginning of the game. The world of Ghostwire: Tokyo looks entertaining, but first worries awakens her too.
New and still not foreign
Ghostwire: Tokyo relies less on the well-known horror and survival elements, which may be known from previous games from the Japanese developer Tango Gameworks, for the first-person action with possible stealth deposits – a direction already the Evil Within 2 carefully hit. Since here again Shinji Mikami could leave his creativity free run , you should design with bizarre and expect surreal scenes.
As already in The Evil Within, the demo shown on the event proves that even in Ghostwire: Tokyo rooms suddenly stand upside down and can arrange for a labyrinth . The mysterious rogue Hannya – with the same name NAH mask – seems to be unpredictable and to form the reality. Let’s see how good Ghostwire: Tokyo built these surreal moments. But we remain optimistic, after all, such scenes have been one of the great strengths of former games of the studio.
Lord of the elements
We do not know much more about the mysterious adversary, but about the main character Akito, which controls her in Ghostwire: Tokyo. He is looking for his disappeared sister who was abducted by Hannya. But Akito is not the only one who wants the masked rogue to the gate. Because Akito is obsessed by a being called KK, who makes Hannya responsible for the ghost plague in Tokyo.
But to free Akitos sister, you have to cross the dangerous streets to Tokios. The combat system is on traditional Kuji-Kiri hand gestures . As you perform the hand movements at the push of a button, your different elemental attacks. At the beginning you only have wind available, later other elements like fire or water are added. Come close to opponents, you can parry at the right moment. If you have made your enemies often enough with the knife-sharp wind fangs, you can conjure up a kind of Wonder-Woman-Lasso and vaporize them. If you want to avoid the loud offensive, you can also use opponents or turn them off with a magical bow.
Although the combat system looks specifically, it works Something monotonous and to perfection like pure button mashing . The elements should play differently, but it still remains open whether they can combine them for stronger combos or some opponents are more susceptible to a particular element than others. The opponent types also look quite unspectacular, but that is also due to the fact that we only saw the beginning of the game. Yesterday’s presentation on the Youtube channel from PlayStation promises more.
In addition to fighting, you have to releases every now and then Magic puzzles to open doors, and do detective work , such as trace reading. If you have earned enough experience points, you can spend it for different skills and, for example, expand your spectral vision to spy on fire enemies through walls.
An Open World like any other?
With Ghostwire: Tokyo dares the developer studio for the first time to open an Open World. Tokyo (so the German spelling) looks at night with its glaring neon tables and reflective glass buildings chic. In the open world, you will recognize known places from the capital of Japan. Besides, you are not only on the streets Tokios on the way, but also partly on the roofs of the city. Tango Gameworks but not only tries to capture the modern Japan, but also the tradition and culture **: her “to shrink” Torii, entrance gates, and encounters peaceful and enemy beings from Japanese.
An important aspect of each Open World is above all the handling of activities away from the story. The demo confirms that will give side quests in which you can help, for example, ghosts and expanded. In addition, you will find in the entire city of collection objects and can free certain places of evil spirits.
Everything stands and falls as to whether these activities are interesting and varied enough. Unfortunately, the material shown is quite generic. Therefore, we fear that the side castle as often in games with open worlds can be used as gaps filler and can not keep up with the main story.
Light into the dark brings March 25,2022 when Ghostwire: Tokyo appears for PS5 and PC.