⏰ In a rush? Don't worry, I gotchu'! ⏰

What Works:
✅ Understanding of Property: One More Level demonstrates a deep understanding of what made the original Ghostrunner successful, maintaining its core elements while expanding upon them.
✅ Reinforced Gameplay Elements: Ghostrunner 2 delivers more of what fans loved from the first game, with enhancements in size, scale, and gameplay mechanics.
✅ Balanced Familiarity and Innovation: Offers a good balance between familiar gameplay foundations and the introduction of new elements, ensuring a satisfying experience for both returning players and newcomers.
✅ Level Design Variability: The game offers challenging levels with visually and audibly interesting environments, providing a harmonious balance between vertical and horizontal movement.
✅ Expanded Gameplay Features: Introduces segments focused on Jack's motorcycle, adding variety and excitement.
✅ Engaging Plot and Character Development: The narrative employs effective storytelling techniques such as flashbacks and character interactions, enhancing player immersion and investment.
✅ Flexible Upgrade System: The motherboard upgrade mechanic offers flexibility and strategic depth, allowing players to customize Jack's abilities according to their preferences.

What Doesn't Work:
❌ Occasional Physics Bugs: Some segments, particularly involving the motorcycle, may experience occasional physics bugs that can affect gameplay immersion.
❌ Visual Discrepancy in Motorcycle Levels: While exciting in terms of gameplay, the visual quality of motorcycle levels may feel lacking compared to other segments, likely due to performance optimization.
❌ Limited Replayability: Despite the initial content offering a substantial playtime, there's limited replayability beyond completing challenges and activities, potentially reducing long-term engagement for some players.

🕹️ Sequel Success: Ghostrunner Returns

Developing a sequel to any successful piece of entertainment is no easy task, no matter how much fans of the said piece may want to suggest otherwise. We're talking, of course, about a process formed by a thin line; one similar to the idiomatic expression tightrope, and it's so easy to mix noisy voices (read: feedback) from the community with the will of the responsible party to decide what to do with their intellectual property. Fortunately, Ghostrunner 2 doesn't suffer from anything written here.

🧩 Navigating Sequel Challenges

I digress on this because One More Level does indeed suffer from an excellent understanding of its property. It's so complicated to bet on what already works and to fill in what's wrong in building a sequel, fearing to fall into a boring feeling of sameness, but Ghostrunner 2 is a title that lives up to the word sequel and provides fans with what they loved from the first iteration, now reinforced by more, bigger, and better. At the same time, although there's nothing negative to point out, a decision of this caliber means that skeptics of the first Ghostrunner won't appreciate the second.

⚔️ Reinforced Gameplay Mechanics

That said, Ghostrunner 2 is widely enjoyable and for those coming from the first title, it offers a good balance between familiarity with the main gameplay foundations, and the challenge of introducing new elements to Jack's arsenal, the main character and titular ghostrunner, to finish the levels in the most ninja-cyborg-futuristic way possible. Thus, it's needless to add that the team didn't reinvent the wheel with the level design, but they spun it in various ways.

🏍️ Adrenaline-Fueled Motorcycle Segments

Notwithstanding the pun and double meaning, Ghostrunner 2 provides you with challenging levels, interesting both visually and audibly, and a very well-studied harmony between vertical and horizontal movement. Despite the current formula deviating a bit from the gauntlet style, and by this, I mean the rhythm of practicing parkour and exploration until reaching a room with enemies to defeat, this time there's a clear effort to provide different ways not only to approach the fights, whether through new abilities or mastery of the topography, but also to plan the order and route to take.

The previous pun was not accidental, as one of the surprises in Ghostrunner 2 are the segments focused on Jack's motorcycle. Full of adrenaline due to the speed and excellent soundtrack, with a first-person reference to the Akira Slide, these elevate the sequel a notch above the original, transcending limitations in the level design of the predecessor. Although, occasionally, the physics may cause some bugs, with the motorcycle stumbling or getting stuck, the segments work without breaking rhythm and enthusiasm. However, visually, these levels are poor, a decision surely made to avoid narrative dissonance and save on performance.

Nevertheless, apart from a couple of times when my internal GPS lost its way for no reason, the levels are well-built, and some of them are much more spacious, giving a false sense of open world that, with almost nonexistent loading times, almost manages to deceive. That said, at least regarding level construction, the final result in this sequel is a Ghostrunner bigger and more fun with numerous spectacular set pieces and objectives beyond "defeat the enemies to proceed."

It was equally enjoyable (and easy, thanks to a GR1 Recap in the extras menu) to follow the plot, which uses narrative techniques such as flashbacks or poetic justice to expose and dramatize Jack's tale. An interesting plot, although it starts tepidly and mildly until an unexpected twist arrives. To expand the player's interaction with the plot, there's a central hub where Jack frequently returns, and it's here that you converse with characters, learn about them, the world, and update the cybernetic arsenal. I found myself more invested compared to the previous title, even wishing to come back to hear more.

🤖 Cybernetic Ninja Evolution

That said, Jack has a set of cybernetic tools that aid him in combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving contexts, and these active abilities, as well as other passive ones, are upgradeable through the motherboard, a mechanic composed of rows and columns that houses various chips to, for example, increase the number of shurikens thrown or decrease their associated energy cost.

At first, I found the system not very intuitive because each row, at the beginning, only hosts one category of chips. However, I quickly understood its limitations, allowing me to devise strategies and adapt Jack to my taste and needs. I found it curious that some chips include conditions to unlock other improvements, such as needing to be placed at the end of the row, or being distant from other chips, proving to be a fun, flexible, and balanced system, where each player will find the ability to enhance how they prefer to be the cybernetic ninja of their dreams.

However, proceeding with these improvements requires collectibles arranged in each level. These increase Jack's motherboard capacity to collect more chips, and they are easily found by paying attention to the minimap during the adventure. They are not the only ones, as Ghostrunner 2 offers cosmetics like different appearances for Jack's sword or glove to collect.

Comparatively with the previous one, the bosses remain fun, challenging but, at the same time, accessible. They are difficult, yes, but each one has generous checkpoints and clearly shows how they can be damaged, using a readable set of attacks to hinder progress. What Ghostrunner 2 doesn't do (fortunately) is hold your hand and inform you which ability to use to exploit their weaknesses. For example, one of the abilities, called Tempest, expels a burst of wind from the palm of the hand, allowing to repel back some projectiles.

One of these bosses, reminiscent of the first one found in the previous title, is a massive feat for One More Level on several levels, from the fun factor, to the injection of adrenaline, and to the team's ambition to do more and better. It's also, however, where Ghostrunner 2's performance suffers the most, being one of the few times where the 60 frames per second take a hit. However, I don't want to imply that the segment is unplayable or has more moments like these.

Aside from this small setback, Ghostrunner 2, under preset Performance Mode, presents itself as a beautiful and exceptional video game in the translation of a cyberpunk post-apocalyptic world, full of neon lights and an atmosphere that can be both dark and bright and colorful. Although Performance Mode is the most recommended, I never found it to be detrimental to a good visual experience, although, at the same time, I don't find this title demonstrative of next-gen graphics.

🎮 Technical Marvel and Accessibility

I consider it, however, a technical marvel and accessible not only because of an abundance of checkpoints as mentioned earlier, but also because of the almost nonexistent loading times; instantaneous things without human explanation. Whether after a death or loading a level, after booting up Ghostrunner 2, I never had time to put down the controller and pick up the phone. Still, speaking of technical feats, I admit to experiencing a bug in a level where the sound completely cut off, producing occasional very annoying and harsh sound effects in its absence. It was quickly resolved by restarting the application, but it's worth mentioning.

💰 Value and Replayability

Although I find the base price of $39.99 fair for what Ghostrunner 2 brings to the table, the truth is that there's little replayability. After finishing the story mode (about 12 hours), the incentives available to replay as Jack are revisiting levels and completing them in shorter times, surpassing special challenges in each level with a gold medal, using the Photo Mode, or completing an activity called RogueRunner.exe. This is a kind of Gauntlet minigame with some courses where Jack receives power-ups for each room conquered, similar to what existed in the first Ghostrunner called Wave Mode.

🌟 A Sequel Done Right

Ghostrunner 2 represents the kind of sequel that the fan of the property begs for right after finishing the preceding title. A package for a fair price where the word more applies in all contexts: more story, more adrenaline, more challenges, and all this without ever losing the essence of what made the previous bet so beloved. It may not convert the skeptic; the one who simply didn't fancy the adventure, but it also doesn't need to, since the rest of the audience will rave about Jack's new adventure.

🌟 M I S C 🌟

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◻️ 📝 Website link published on October 23rd, 2023.
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◻️ ✍️ Reviewed in European Portuguese, translated with A.I.
◻️ 📜 Review Number 135."

✨ F I N ✨