The game takes place in a dark apocalyptic future where humans where force to live in a giant tower made by a mysterious person who "mysteriously" died but we(the player) do not know what happened to him.
The people of the town seem to be aware of what might have occured to him but noone is willing to explain. The oppening cutscene introduces us to our player, a cyber ninja dude who seems like a combination
of Genji fromm Overwatch and Jack the Reaper from Metal Gear Risisng. The ninja seems to be making his way to the top of the tower in order to discover the truth behind the tower however, a character
with a machine hands similar to Dr Octavious from Spiderman stops him, cuts off his arm and throws him off the building prossumed dead ending the oppening cutscene. The player then gets control of the ninja who wakes
up and receives a call from a voice which seems to be amazed that the ninja is alive and warns him to start moving as he ll soon be discovered and chased in order to be terminated. He procceds to explain
how he had some mechasnical implants to him in order to restore his fanctions and asks him to come and meet him in order to explain him more as to what happened. He also explains the ninja that he is a Ghostrunner
a technoligical enchanced super human with the goal of preserving peace . He explains how he was behind the project and how he was betrayed by his team who them they proceeded on terminating most of the
ghostrunners. Jack, ghost runner 74 and our playable hero is told that he was lucky he got found by the resistance and how he should help them climp on top and expose the secrets. The voice also explains that he is been held captured within the tower
and how the "enemies" are aware of their communications and thus they ll try to silence him.
As mentioned the gameplay of Ghostrunner is heavily influenced by the Doom series and the trending of surfing games such as CSGO and clustertuck, two games that were very popular especially with youtube commentators who were a trend during
2017-2020. To elaborate, in ghostrunner the player gets control of Jack a cyberpunk ninja whose goal is to escape from the city head towards the tower and slash his way all the way up. Movement is free and fun which allows the hero
to always sprint forward, wallrun on the walls and use a special type webbing in order to swing around near enemies. Similar to Doom, the game is all about moving and killing to not lose the momentum. It also offers the player a small amount
of decent puzzles and platforming tasks based on certain powers ups. For examples some levels offer a power up that allows the hero to slow down time in order for the ghost runner to move around enemies or even through deadly spots such as spinning blades. Other
powerups allows the ghostrunner to throw shurikens towards electrick boxes to send sparks to gates in order to open their paths and others. Platforming is half the fun of the game as the other half is all about the combat.
Hack and slash games allow the hero to freely move around and kill various enemies. The player's best way of attacking is through his use of his blade. The game has plenty of enemies and each time the game introduces new enemies making the whole experience better.
For example, there are people with gun, people with miniguns, bots that shoot lasers, ninja's who require to be parried in order to be stunned and killed, kamikazee folks who will run and explode on the player, enemies with shields
that can only be attacked from the back, flying drones, hologragphic gunners that create fakes of themselves and hacked ghostrunners. Each enemy is unique with their attack patterns and their weaknesses. Despite all the enemies there are items
in the maps that can also kill the players such as spikes, electricity and others. The ghostrunner is always one shot which will mean a single hit will cause death and respawn. Similary every enemy is one shot and can die easily from the
runners blade and shurikens which he can only throw given that he pickled up the temporary power up. To defend himself the ghost has to avoid hits by movin left and right, by perfectly timing the blade swing with the bullet hit and last but not least by
slowing out time which is something that the player can do at any point in the game to both aid him in battle and in platforming tasks. By tapping the right buttons, time slows and the runner has time to react on upcomming bullets and other deadly traps and
projectiles. Furthermore the game rewards the player progression with extra skills which charge slowly on their own or each time an enemy falls from his blade. The first power is a swift strike very similar to genji. The time moves slowly and the player can move the camera around
in order to get a perfect alignment of the enemies and slice through. If a player alligns more than one, then all of them will fall from the swift strike. The second ability is something similar to the force found in starwars. The runner moves his palm as a shockwave is thrown
killing everyone in its path. This is an AoE attack that can kill plenty of enemies as long as they re in range. Furthermore, the third ability gained is a projectile slash that moves horizontally killing everyone in it's path. Last but not least and fourth skill the
hero gets is the overwrite. The runner can hack an enemy who will start shooting on his teammates causing them to shoot him back. The combat is fun and challenging as the player will have to focus on dodging projectile attacks and platforming tasks.
The game allows the player to upgrade the ghostrunner through a very unique board. The player can access a small board that looks very similar to a tetris map with a few squares placed radomly in it. The player is also given tetris puzzle pieces that he can
place within the area of the board. Each piece upon hovering above it, will reveal what that piece offers to the player such as more focus when time is slown, double dash or even charge faster by default in order to use special attacks. The player can always open
the board replace old pieces or even add more.
The game has three different new post game content. The first is the DLC expansion which gives the player the control of a different ghostrunner who goes through different areas within the world. It allows the player to explore new areas with slightly additional mechanicks. Moreover, by completing the story mode the game unlocks a new difficulty. When playing in hard mode, the game starts a new game plus mode where the player will meet harder enemies such as the assassins as early as in level 1. The platforms themselves also receive a small change to further alternate the two runs (normal/hard). Last but not least there is another gamemode called Wave mode. The Runner is task to begin the game with one special ability out of the four mentioned above. Each time the player clears a wave of enemies, they get to unlock new power ups whether they re passive or simply new special ability.
The game has plenty of collectables for the player to find. The collectables are represented with golden question marks. The player will have to find their way around them and collect them by simply running towards them. The game has three types of collectables.
Overall this is a a challenging and fun game. The game is not complex but it does expect the player to die alot. They seemed to be aware of it and thus they made sure that each time the player falls they load straight back in to action in no time. The story is interesting with the mystery of both
the tower and the mysterious voice keeping the player interested and invested on this adventure. The dialogue exchanges throughout the game are also interesting as the player gets to know more about the world, its inhabitants and our player's existance. The levels are very interesting
with challenging platforming and challenging encounters that require to be cleared. Furthermore, he collectables are hard to spot and might require more effort in order to collect them all. Last but not least the music is very good and suits the game 100% although to some it may sound similar throughout the game.
The only negative thing the game has for it, is it's anticlimatic boss fight. A hack and slash game doesn't usually have a tough battle and ghostrunner it self only has two. The problem is that the first boss battle is way superior than the final one. The first boss battle has chalenging projectiles and a 1vs 1
battle that requires perfect timing in order to get the oppening to attack. the second and final battle is more or less move right four times and jump 3 times before striking.
This is a video showcasing and reviewing the Game