Ghost wire Tokyo is a supernatural story which takes place in a parallel ghost dimension of modern day Tokyo, where the protagonist's sister gets kidnapped by some kind of evil demon who needs his sister as a vessel to unleash more evil into the world. Your sole concern becomes to save your sister, but to deal with supernatural forces, you will need supernatural help. The protagonist joins forces with a helping spirit who grants him supernatural abilities and allows him to deal with all the evil forces inhabiting Tokyo. The entire game takes place in an empty Tokyo devoid of all life, where ghost schoolgirls and headless businessmen walk around aimlessly trying to steal your soul.
Armed with your ally's spirit powers, you can use the basic elements of wind, fire, water to shoot astral projectiles in order to defeat the ghosts and make your way through haunted parts of the city in search for your sister.
The story:
The story is nothing new, the search for a loved one in the afterlife is as old as the Greeks themselves. The game has very interesting dialogues between the hero and his ghostly ally, but in terms of refinement, the story does in no way feel like something new I haven't seen before. The game has a few characters who interact here and there, but you feel very alone in this world, which in a way really makes you feel like you are running around in some kind of spiritual purgatory.
I wish you could have interacted more with other ghosts who give you side-quests and not limit yourself only to a few characters. The NPC's side quests are very bland and often uninteresting. Your typical " My son was possessed, please kill him" type of quest. They got one quest right though which is featured late in the game called "Fear for the children" which should have been the standard for all quests. The game feels extremely short. I would have finished the game in one sitting if I hadn't digressed looking for shrines to upgrade my projectile count.
The combat: 7/10
The biggest issue I have with combat is how slow and clunky your movement feels. In an FPS game, your character should be moving to the beat of your mouse and not with a delay. Image playing Doom and having to wait half a second or more to aim your crosshair at an enemy, you would be dead in a heartbeat. There is no reason why your character should feel so slow. I mean, at first when he learns to use his powers, that could be a viable thing, but why is he still moving like a paraplegic at the end of the game. The dodge mechanic is also quite bland, often you will get hit during boss battles because you simply dodge too slowly and only backwards. The dodge also recharges slowly, leaving you to inevitable take damage (I beat the game on hard). I seriously think this game will never have a 0 damage run record.
Another big issue is that you run out of ammo fast. A typical enemy on hard-mode needs around 10 projectiles you die when you only carry 30 at the start of the game, moreover enemies are always in groups of 3 or 4 meaning that if you don't absorb them with a finisher or find some supplies nearby you often have to run away in search of ammo. In addition, you can only upgrade your ammo count by looking for Jizo Statue shrines all over the map, which are incredibly difficult to find in a Metropolitan sized city. The only way to find those statues is to pray at temples for help. I literally wasted 2 hours collecting Jizo statues, so I could have enough ammo to play the game normally which was a massive let-down, otherwise you run out of ammo.
The best part of this game is definitely the bosses and the various ghost like enemies. They are really creepy, and I felt a strange malaise every time I saw ghost dead girls rushing at me, which was a massive plus for me.
The graphics & The setting 11/10
The graphics are sublime, and the city is really cool. I haven't actually checked, but it looks as if they literally copied Tokyo street by street. I have been to Japan a few times, but I don't remember the layout of the city that well. The city is simply breathtaking.
The goal of the game is to run around the city to find Tori gates and to purge them of evil in order to clear an evil fog which prevents you from going deeper into the city to find your city.
The music 5/10
The music wasn't anything special. I don't remember any memorable tracks. It felt like elevator music was playing the whole time.
The Bad:
- Most side quests are 2-minute fetch-quests, except for the "fear for the children" mission. You are pretty much told by NPC's to do something like kill a ghost literally in front of them. They often feel more like mini-games.
- The character moves so slowly. There is this lag when you move and aim, it doesn't have this fluidity other FPS shooters have. It takes a full second to turn and aim elsewhere. I seriously felt like I was controlling a drone rather than a young ghost hunter.
- Fix the ammo, please! Even after finding all the Jizo statues, you basically get around 50 ammo which can easily get depleted by fighting a group of 5 or 6 enemies. Luckily you can switch to other powers, but early game it is annoying.
- The game is really short. I could have beaten it in 4 hours if I hadn't wasted time looking for shrines and side quests.
- They should have included more side quests into the main story and made the game longer. If you skip everything, you can beat the game in a few hours, which is such a letdown.
- They could have come up with something more original for the story.