Ghostrunner

First view of Ghostrunner.

Game looks pretty good, really fast movement, wallrunning. Love how stealth-attacks don't trigger a long visual kill, instead they just die and you keep moving. Movement feels really important. Airdash looks cool too. Senory Boost  looks interesting too, a quick witch-time like dodge. Game seems to really use areas as sort of a puzzle and how to deal best with foes. Fact that you respawn immediately is pretty sweet. Can see this game being really amazing to see it be played by a speedrunner. Kind of wish it was third person. Also reminds me a tad of Shinobi, in how it is all about movement and positioning. I do wonder how later enemies will play out, since most what you see is foes that die in one hit with a ranged projectile. Same with weapon variation and abilities. I wonder if they'll go for complex design or keep it simple and play with what they've got.

So it is a one-hit and one-kill game. That reminds me of Superhot. It also appears to be released next year on PC, PS4, and XBOX ONE.

This looks pretty awesome! It's been on my radar for some time and now has a demo out for anyone on PC.

The game looks like a FPS cyberpunk version of another indie title I loved Katana Zero....

If anyone checks out the demo, please let us know how it plays!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1139900/Ghostrunner/

Coming to PS4 and XboxOne later this year!

Damn, this game looks like a fucking blast. Loving the movement I'm seeing here. I gotta try this demo when I have the time.

On a side note, this game looks like it would pair well with some Voivod. Would love to listen to those guys while playing games, but there's just nothing that fits with them...

Going to download the demo now, will post my thoughts here when I play it!

Played the demo of this tonight - full game is out tomorrow. As to be expected from a demo, you get a very small slice of gameplay, and I think it actually does a bit of a disservice to the game. The demo was fun, but there are very few combat encounters, and you'd be led to think that all you do is slow down time to dodge enemy attacks and the same sword attack for the whole game. I was concerned that the combat would take too much of a backseat to the platforming, and that it would just feel like an extra obstacle in the platforming rather than having a "proper" system.

I've watched a few video reviews tonight and the combat seems to have much more complexity than the demo would suggest. There looks to be a good amount of enemy variety, a few abilities/attacks to unlock, and a twist on a skill tree that takes cues from RE4's tetris-style attache case. The combat/platforming balance looks pretty good. I might treat myself and pick this up tomorrow while the launch sale is still on. Anybody else tempted?

I wasn't as interested in the game originally exactly due to the demo which felt like a one-trick pony. I won't pick it up day one but I am interested in it down the line for sure.

That's fair. I enjoyed the demo but when it ended I was like "...is that it?"

I think the video reviews out there have convinced me, though. I'm probably going to get it tonight and I'll post some thoughts on it later.

Edit: I decided to go for it. I've just beaten the first (of apparently three) bosses, so I'll assume I'm about a third of the way in. Probably taken about 2.5 hours of play time.

I'm pretty mixed on it so far. The platforming is fast paced and generally fun, but there hasn't been an awful lot of variety. A lot of the platforming sections have been similar, but occasionally you'll see something new that will impress.

Combat is simple. I haven't unlocked all of the abilities yet, but most combat encounters feel quite samey. You wall run or grappling hook jump towards enemies, dodge their attacks and then strike. Some enemies are protected by a shield, and you'll have to do some wall running to get to the shield's power source and destroy it before taking on the enemies. These power sources are always on the platforming routes, so they don't slow down the pace of the game or anything like that, but I'm not really excited about doing this for the rest of the game. Every enemy dies in one hit, as do you. The structure of combat reminds me of games like Hotline Miami or Superhot. It's all trial and error based, and you'll succeed once you've "learned your routine" so to speak. The respawn times are instant, which is great, because you'll die a lot figuring out how to get things done.

I haven't got many abilities yet, but the first one you get allows you to briefly slow down time so you can line multiple enemies up and then dash through them, attacking them all in one strike. The second is a Star Wars-esque force push attack that is intended for crowd control. I haven't really found that I have needed to use these much, up to now. As well as abilities, there is a skill tree with plenty of upgrades. There are 8 categories for your upgrades - dash, deflect (attacking just before being hit by a bullet sends it towards where you're aiming), skills, map, and then a section for each of your four abilities once unlocked. Each upgrade is shaped like a tetris piece, and you can rotate and place them in to your upgrade bank. If you can make it fit, you can use it - much like the attache case in RE4. Any unused spaces are converted into points that recharge your focus meter quicker, which you need to use your abilities.

There have been a few different enemies so far. The most basic enemy uses a pistol and has a slow fire rate. There are also machine gunners, and you're intended to attack them when they're reloading. Another enemy has a shield attached to their gun, so you need to get a bit creative with your movement so you can get behind them where they are vulnerable. The most recent enemy I've seen is a robot that charges up a sort of forcefield and fires it at you, and you'll either need to duck under it or jump above it. This attack is quite good at tracking you while you're in the air. I won't spoil the first boss, but it was more of a platforming challenge than a combat encounter. It's split in to phases, with the first one being the most difficult by far.

There are some collectibles and secrets hidden away, which is nice. Some are "artifacts" that are intended to expand on the lore, which I can't say are that interesting. The cooler collectibles are skins for your sword, which add a little element of personalisation to the game.

Finished the game tonight, so here's a little ramble of thoughts:

It doesn't really get much better than what I posted above. The remaining boss battles aren't particularly interesting and are realiant on pattern memorisation. On one of them you have to parry sequences of attacks in order to create an opening, and the parry window seemed far more generous than the one against normal enemies, so it's not very challenging. The other boss is just a couple of minutes of dodging stuff, with the difficult part being remembering the order of it's attacks. There were a few more enemy types encountered over the course of the game, and the most interesting enemy is one that you can't fight - they attack in packs and are designed to pressure you on your route to killing other enemies, so you can't just find cover and take a breather as they'll explode when they are near you. If you clear out the other enemies in the encounter, they'll die of...something. There is also your standard ninja enemy that dashes at you, and you need to parry his attacks before you can strike the killing blow. I'd describe the overall enemy variety as decent, but I think the enemy compositions you face could have been way more interesting. There a couple more enemy types but I won't mention them in case anybody does decide to pick up the game and would rather find out themselves.

There is a really weird feeling of inconsistency to the combat that I think is due to the enemy hitboxes. Sometimes, they feel enormous - you can kill an enemy when you're clearly not within your sword's range of them, and you don't always have to be directly facing them either. Conversely, there are other times where you'll miss, but based on the weird hitboxes you'd have thought you should have gotten away with it. Thinking about it, there's also a bit of inconsistency in the platforming, as you don't always latch on to walls and rails when you think you've got your angles right. It's mostly fine, but in a game that is absolutely a platformer, I think it needs to be better than that.

The story is barely worth mentioning. Utterly predictable from literally minutes in to the game, and with a bland and unsatisfying ending. I know action games aren't fabled for their stories but there is a lot of emphasis on it. If you aren't in combat, you're listening to somebody talk, so character and narrative development is constant, but sadly not interesting. I was hoping a title like this with such a strong aesthetic would have some great music, but there's only one track in the whole game I could hum along to from memory. The music sounds like exactly what you'd expect it to, only not as interesting as you'd hope. Certainly doesn't have musical flair in the same way something like Hotline Miami does.

The upgrade customisation is largely pointless. It does offer you some variety, but it's really not that useful. I feel like I may as well have just played the game as a no-upgrade run (not that it would have made the game any more fun). As for the abilities...well, I think I used them maybe 5-10 times in the whole game. For context, imagine attacks that cost meter or require a cooldown in any game you like, and then using any combination of them 5-10 times across the entire game. The most interesting ability you unlock is received within the last hour of the game, which is a shame. I'm sure speedrunners will be able to do some outrageous things with them, but for completing the game they're largely unnecessary.

I'd say there is replayability if you're in to speedrunning. It's literally a speedrunning game with combat tacked on. Once you've beaten the game you can replay any level with all your abilities, so you can do a New Game +. However, there are no difficulty settings, so you'd only be replaying the game to beat your performance in terms of time/deaths. I died a whole bunch of times and still managed to beat the game in about 6-6.5 hours.

Performance was hit and miss. In the main sections it keeps a solid (and high) framerate for near enough the entire time, which is great. However, some sections of the game take place in what I think was called the Cybervoid, which is like a VR world. The performance in these environments was disappointing and featured frequent framerate drops. Some of the most challenging platforming in the game takes place in this environment, which made that section of the game a lot more frustrating than it needed to be. For the record, I'm playing on PC, so I don't know what console performance is like.

I'd say if the game was on sale for £5-10 (or your regional equivalent) and you've seen some gameplay and it's piqued your interest, then sure, why not. Otherwise, I'd recommend spending your money on something else. It's the sort of game that if I played it on game pass I'd think that it was a good contribution to getting value for money out of my subscription, but to buy it outright...not so much.

Cheers for the write-ups man, appreciate it. I don't think I'll be giving the game a shot as a result.

For some reason the game does remind me a bit about an action-y Mirror's Edge. Levels look really empty though, bereft of life and soul. Look more like actual levels haha. That said I do like how fast you respawn. But as a result the whole game does really feel like a trial and error mess.

No problem! The above is just my opinion, of course. It's worth mentioning that the general reception of the game seems to be very positive.

It makes sense to compare the game to Mirror's Edge. I actually really enjoyed that game back in the day, I remember that being one of my Christmas presents the year it came out. I'd say the fundamentals in both games are similar, and I could imagine the devs thinking Ghostrunner is a bit like Mirror's Edge but turned up to 11. I think I preferred the more realistic approach to free-running in that game.

The instant respawns are excellent, but given the nature of the game I think it's a necessity, so I don't think I can praise it too much. As you said, the levels do look really empty, especially so when you're supposed to be immersed in this world where you're fighting for the people and to take the city back, but there's absolutely no sign of life outside of the cast of characters and your conveniently places enemies. I think Mirror's Edge got around this with their story as the Runners were meant to be operating outside of any watchful eyes, so the "lonely" feeling in that game felt more appropriate.