One of the most average and safe games I've played in recent memory which is beyond disappointing to me because I was very excited for this game and I absolutely love The Evil Within 1 & 2.
The story was very generic, main villain kidnaps the protagonist's sister, the protagonist, Akito goes on a revenge quest to save her and teams up with a wraith and former detective called KK who possesses him. The story does have some nice thematic elements of family bonds, love, learning to forgive yourself and finding a purpose for your life again, but it really just scratches the surface of these themes and just wasn't fleshed out enough to leave much of an impression on me.
The Ethereal Weaving magical based FPS combat while fun is simplistic and gets very repetitive the longer you play the game. There's only 3 different Ethereal Weaving powers which you unlock very early on, Gust which acts like fast wind bullets, Aqua which is more of a shotgun blast and is good for wide bursts that attack groups of enemies and Fire which acts like a powerful grenade launcher that has very limited ammo. You also get some various Talismans which stun and expose the enemies spirit cores so you can take them down fast, however these are expensive and I found myself rarely using them because using your base Ethereal Weaving powers is just more effective and cheaper. You also have a bow which you can use to snipe targets, but ultimately it still feels pointless and I hardly used it as well.
There are obligatory skill trees and level up systems which let you unlock abilities and strengthen your powers, but I feel like much like the combat or story these systems weren't deep enough and I had almost everything unlocked and at max level before even beating the game. Plus you hardly get experience just for fighting enemies or completing quests and most of your experience comes from finding Lost Souls through the city and transferring them through the phone lines. This is another part of the game that gets very repetitive seeing how you constantly have to do this just to level up.
The open world is very much the most typical overused Ubisoft checklist gaming formula down to a T (Hell, the protagonist even gets a damn 'Spectral Vision' Assassin vision power to show enemies and items on the map). Cleanse the Torri Gate, uncover more of the map, unlock a bunch of map markers for side objectives, find useless collectables, rinse and repeat. I will say some of the side quests are interesting because they highlight Japanese folklore, but at the end of the day a lot of encounters feel very samey and a few of them like cleansing corrupted Cherry Blossoms or capturing various Yokai you do multiple times so it cheapens the encounter and makes something cool at first feel repetitive the next 5 times you have to do it.
The devs went to great lengths to represent Japanese folklore, history and culture and there are tons of interesting database entries and things in the world that do achieve this goal, like collecting Tanuki, seeing Nekomata run convenience stores, using Tengu to grapple and glide etc, but at the end of the day you can only do so much to disguise the Ubisoft formula and this is one we've seen far too many times before and I'm personally beyond sick of it (I could at least tolerate it in a game like Ghost of Tsushima because the story was so compelling), especially even more so after just recently experiencing the peak of open world gaming that is Elden Ring.
I will say however one of the strongest elements of Ghostwire is its visuals and atmosphere. Tokyo looks great and really captures the bleak and isolate feeling of being one of the last people left in the city after everyone has been spirited away. You'll find remnants of the lost souls everywhere you look from clothing and phones to abandoned cars, which makes for good environmental storytelling. Tango primarily being known for horror games is evident by the creature design that's inspired by Japanese folklore and Yokai because though limited it's still very good and I also enjoyed the moments when the environment and world shifts around you in a psychological way which reminded me of The Evil Within or Silent Hill.
When all is said and done I think the best way to describe Ghostwire Tokyo is simplistic and repetitive. The devs put so much care into crafting a detailed beautiful supernatural version of Tokyo that represents Japanese folklore, culture and history, but if only they put that much care into crafting the gameplay mechanics and story. For games focusing on Japanese folklore, culture and history I'll just stick with Nioh.
The story was very generic, main villain kidnaps the protagonist's sister, the protagonist, Akito goes on a revenge quest to save her and teams up with a wraith and former detective called KK who possesses him. The story does have some nice thematic elements of family bonds, love, learning to forgive yourself and finding a purpose for your life again, but it really just scratches the surface of these themes and just wasn't fleshed out enough to leave much of an impression on me.
The Ethereal Weaving magical based FPS combat while fun is simplistic and gets very repetitive the longer you play the game. There's only 3 different Ethereal Weaving powers which you unlock very early on, Gust which acts like fast wind bullets, Aqua which is more of a shotgun blast and is good for wide bursts that attack groups of enemies and Fire which acts like a powerful grenade launcher that has very limited ammo. You also get some various Talismans which stun and expose the enemies spirit cores so you can take them down fast, however these are expensive and I found myself rarely using them because using your base Ethereal Weaving powers is just more effective and cheaper. You also have a bow which you can use to snipe targets, but ultimately it still feels pointless and I hardly used it as well.
There are obligatory skill trees and level up systems which let you unlock abilities and strengthen your powers, but I feel like much like the combat or story these systems weren't deep enough and I had almost everything unlocked and at max level before even beating the game. Plus you hardly get experience just for fighting enemies or completing quests and most of your experience comes from finding Lost Souls through the city and transferring them through the phone lines. This is another part of the game that gets very repetitive seeing how you constantly have to do this just to level up.
The open world is very much the most typical overused Ubisoft checklist gaming formula down to a T (Hell, the protagonist even gets a damn 'Spectral Vision' Assassin vision power to show enemies and items on the map). Cleanse the Torri Gate, uncover more of the map, unlock a bunch of map markers for side objectives, find useless collectables, rinse and repeat. I will say some of the side quests are interesting because they highlight Japanese folklore, but at the end of the day a lot of encounters feel very samey and a few of them like cleansing corrupted Cherry Blossoms or capturing various Yokai you do multiple times so it cheapens the encounter and makes something cool at first feel repetitive the next 5 times you have to do it.
The devs went to great lengths to represent Japanese folklore, history and culture and there are tons of interesting database entries and things in the world that do achieve this goal, like collecting Tanuki, seeing Nekomata run convenience stores, using Tengu to grapple and glide etc, but at the end of the day you can only do so much to disguise the Ubisoft formula and this is one we've seen far too many times before and I'm personally beyond sick of it (I could at least tolerate it in a game like Ghost of Tsushima because the story was so compelling), especially even more so after just recently experiencing the peak of open world gaming that is Elden Ring.
I will say however one of the strongest elements of Ghostwire is its visuals and atmosphere. Tokyo looks great and really captures the bleak and isolate feeling of being one of the last people left in the city after everyone has been spirited away. You'll find remnants of the lost souls everywhere you look from clothing and phones to abandoned cars, which makes for good environmental storytelling. Tango primarily being known for horror games is evident by the creature design that's inspired by Japanese folklore and Yokai because though limited it's still very good and I also enjoyed the moments when the environment and world shifts around you in a psychological way which reminded me of The Evil Within or Silent Hill.
When all is said and done I think the best way to describe Ghostwire Tokyo is simplistic and repetitive. The devs put so much care into crafting a detailed beautiful supernatural version of Tokyo that represents Japanese folklore, culture and history, but if only they put that much care into crafting the gameplay mechanics and story. For games focusing on Japanese folklore, culture and history I'll just stick with Nioh.