Do Androids Dream of Tortoises?

Ghost Song just oozes with melancholic atmosphere and a sense of exploration. You are stranded on a moon infested by some sort of plant infestation without any memories. Your only purpose is to help a stranded crew that crashed due to a magnetic field which pulls every spaceship onto the surface. While the premise is not that intriguing at first, it develops into a greatly written tale of sacrifice and humanity that just gives you enough lore bits and clues to comprehend your place in it, while it can sometimes turn into a guessing game of where you can obtain that knowledge because some vital NPCs move places or turn up out of the blue in different spots on the map you already marked as explored, my sense of wonder still kept the better of me, and I'm sure it was purposely designed that way. It's not as grand or entangled as Hollow Knight or the modern FromSoftware games which obviously deeply influenced the game, but rather focused on a certain theme, and I found that rather refreshing.

It plays like a typical modern metroidvania with more focus on ranged combat than melee. You have many different modules, some more helpful than others, and several weapons. My favorite was definitely the precise laser gun mixed with a satisfying magnum of sorts. The biggest gripe I have, though, were the boss fights, which were very unspectacular and rather easy. Most of them had three moves at most and a rather large health pool, which turned them into a test of patience rather than skill.

The soundtrack, though, was something else; I absolutely loved it. It's practically a more simplistic "Tomorrow's Harvest" album from Boards of Canada with a more melancholic touch. The song that was playing in Stoffbloom will definitely live rent-free in my head for the next weeks. Also, it absolutely helped to alleviate the already lonely and post-apocalyptic atmosphere to the next level.

If I were to make a list with games like Hollow Knight, this one would definitely be among the top three. It comes very close to some aspects of it, and I think with a few more fine-tuning in the gameplay and some more budget to alleviate some of its presentation, the next game of this studio can reach new heights.

I enjoyed it a lot for the atmosphere, the soundtrack really delivered on exploring a desolate wild world, with melancholic tracks that matched wonderfully with the game's cool colour palette and detailed, eerie backgrounds. I loved the characters too, it was a colourful cast that helped flesh out the world and offered very welcomed moments of respite and reflection among the games gloom and often rather grueling combat encounters.

Which was the thing that really held this back for me, the game is hard and on top of the health spongy enemies I often felt like I was struggling against the controls for combat. The max health reduction from each death until you can repair at the sparsely placed statues didnt add anything for me except for tedious backtracking while dealing with boss encounters either, and while I did like the idea of the variety of weapon options the game has, most didn't offer a big enough jump in fire power to make dealing with rooms any less tedious or to justify using them over more basic starting tools. Honestly someone else might enjoy the slower, more deliberate pace of combat but it lead to moments of frustration for me.

However, getting to see more of this beautifully crafted world was enough motivation for me to push through. Theres a lot to love here but most people would be better served with the game's easier difficulty option.

i know this has been a labor of love from a single person over a huge amount of time,

so maybe the baffling design decisions - like the severe punishments for death instead of actual, engaging difficulty or the constant backtracking that makes the subpar level design really stick out - were the result of the inevitable doubts about the audience "getting the point" that tend to fester and take root in such a grueling process

but it's really heartbreaking that such wonderful atmosphere, characters, worldbuilding and a fun, if simple, gameplay loop are all crushed beneath the fruitless attempt to either AGAIN create catharsis through adverse game design, like every soulslike under the sun is trying, or to recreate the childhood experience of learning the Super Metroid map by heart by forcing the player to retread their steps ad nauseam, making the average-at-best level design stick out like a sore thumb

This game was in the line of fire for a recent Metroid craze.
It can best be summarized as: Metroid + (any 2D souls-like)

B E A U T I F U L art and music in this game.

This game isn't the easiest to figure out, and suffers the common Castletroid problems of back tracking, and looking up guides when I missed a small breakable wall.
That being said it's not the longest game either so it only occured once or twice.
Story wise I can't say I loved it, only because the story continually awed me with concepts and questions that I wanted to explore, only to never really have the opporunity. I want to care about these characters, but story just kinds ends....

Maybe the true ending is worth replaying it for.

absolutely beautiful game in visuals, audio, voice acting, and character writing, sadly brought down by critical issues in narrative and scope.

i was in love with it right up until the ending, which was so jarringly unsatisfying it made every story/lore thread that had been established and then not followed through on unravel the more i looked back on it. it made me terribly sad, because the characters really, deeply spoke to me, but in the end i was sorely disappointed, because they didn't get a satisfying conclusion like they deserved.

it's not a bad game! it's still enjoyable to play, and its flaws are really just the fault of overambition, since the team absolutely wasn't lacking in talent. but those flaws are still major ones, and in this case, i left the experience mourning what it could have been more than anything...

i think i would still recommend it if you're a fan of metroidvanias and want to enjoy the artistry on display, but only if you're prepared to be let down by the ending and unrealized potential.

On paper Ghost Song is another in a growing list of reasonably enjoyable metroidvanias that doesn't do much do drive the genre forward in a meaningful way. However what stood out to me is the mood. Even on this dead world full of dangerous creatures there's this uncanny calmness to the atmosphere. This is portrayed perfectly through the beautifully gentle voice acting of the player character. The world is full of deep lore and shrouded in mystery. Our protagonist has no memories and we don't even know if she's human, an artificial intelligence, or something else. Just that she is inherently a caring and considerate being that feels the need to help others. I'll stop there as to avoid spoilers but the interesting world, tone, and story give extra weight to what is otherwise a fun but unspectacular game.

A Metroidvania/Metroid clone with an interesting art style in a creepy, grimy, abandoned planet atmosphere. Overall, I'm positive on the game but there are some things that need a bit more polish as I don't understand some of the design decisions.

Right off the bat, I'm not going to leave this one a star rating, as I did not even come close to finishing it (about 2 hours in). I'm more than likely not going to have time to finish this one before it leaves game pass. Shelving it for possible future purchase and playthrough. I'll update my review then.

Gameplay is very much Metroid but without the flashy feel. Every special collectible or upgrade seems to be a white glowy thing on the ground and there is absolutely no celebration in finding any of these. Remember in Metroid when you would collect an upgrade? That music? Yea, none of that.

Which is a shame because the game has cool, ambient music, but overall sound design is a bit strange. Some sounds rattled my speakers and others sounded muffled? I also didn't notice any boss music for bosses/named characters? Must've been on purpose? There aren't a lot of sound cues for things either.

There are NPCs with spoken dialog and your character talks now and then and I think the voice over is well done.

The game also has that whole, "die and you have to collect your stuff" mechanic thing going on. In this case, it's the points you collect from kills to upgrade your suit and buy stuff with. If you die, you have to find your way back to where it happened and get your points back.

I should also mention that upgrading your suit basically means leveling up. You need to find this decrepit statues to level up at, but when you do, you can level up as much as you like, as long as you have the points. You could potentially just grind out your levels and become super powerful and considering random, powerful, named characters just show up out of nowhere some times, that might be the way to go.

Anyway, as I mentioned above, I did not finish this one but I'd like to get it on sale in the future and jump back in.

I'm floored with Ghost Song despite the numerous flaws. 9 hours flew by quickly. This game is amazing at building up a believable world, being very atmospheric and sounding great. I don't mean sound just in terms of music but also sound effects, voice acting (when there is some), the way sound is mixed and from which side it comes from when you're using a decent headset etc. The game has some little touches like how some of your friends carry an umbrella when it's raining, how it snows sometimes, how the living life forms truly feel alive etc. The setting is so fascinating and I wish I got to see more of it. The Metroidvania gameplay is also very well done. The modules are worth going after and it's addictive levelling up your character.

When it comes to flaws, I can think of 2 mainly. Story and difficulty. I enjoyed the story a lot but the way it was presented is not the best sometimes. And there isn't enough of it. Let me explain a bit more (without spoiling things).

Most of the story is gotten by talking to NPC who are either near the ship or somewhere in the field. You don't get all they have to say by talking to them once, you have to talk to them multiple times until they have nothing new to say until the next cycle. This is not the problem. The problem is when they also say some random shit or too much sometimes. Yes, you don't have to keep talking to them if you're tired but there are some very important lore mixed with stupid dialogue sometimes. Like when they say things like 'sometimes I dream of being carried by a tortoise' or 'do you think a girl lived here' or 'why don't you write a poem about a cat' etc. I know they were building up some personalities and setting up the mood but sometimes it goes too far. Also it is very easy to miss NPC dialogue and therefore lore when it happens in the field. You have to be at the right place and the right time to activate certain dialogues. I don't know what these conditions are but it is easy to think the game has bad story when you didn't speak to certain NPC. The ending also felt very abrupt. I wish they added a bit more to it, especially when we didn't get an answer about what Blue is, how she arrived at this planet etc. It's pretty bad to not answer those kind of questions when a lot of the plot is about it and most NPC asking what you are. I have my guesses of course but there is no confirmation in-game. Who knows, maybe I missed a dialogue somewhere.

About the difficulty, you get 2 modes. The way the game is intended to be played originally (a more difficult mode) and explorer. I went with explorer because I wasn't sure what to pick (in-game they advise you to pick explorer if you're unsure) and you can't change the difficulty mid-game. I would have liked giving the other difficulty a try and switch to explorer if I didn't like it. I thought the difficulty was fine for the most part but some sections did feel off. Like things could have been a tiny bit more challenging. But I don't want a frustrating time, hence the decision. There is new game plus that I sadly don't feel like giving a try before the game is taken off Humble launcher on November the 7th. But I might use my save and try it out if I ever get it on Steam someday.

This game is special. It truly got my attention. But it's not a game for everyone. Especially the ones focused on gameplay mostly. The gameplay is good but it's not the main selling point or does anything unique. I'm not sure if the game is challenging enough for those seeking this since I didn't try out the other mode. But ones looking for exploration, atmosphere and world building while having fun with the gameplay? It's definitely worth a look.

IF YOU HAVE PS PLUS PLAY THIS

this is hollow knight with an easy mode lol

love the game, id recommend just playing with a photo of the full complete map and just explore