Ghostwire: Tokyo Review

Tokyo has been overrun by a supernatural cult, and all of the civilians have mysteriously vanished seemingly into thin air. You wake up in the middle of the catastrophe as Akito, a 22-year-old student that was on the brink of death and was saved by a mysterious shadow that goes by the name of KK. With brand-new supernatural power, Akito will have to work with KK in order to track down the man behind all of the chaos.

Jumping into Ghostwire: Tokyo, I had no idea what I was getting myself into; this confusion only grew stronger as the opening cinematic lagged incredibly hard, making the audio and video unsynchronised, which didn't let me watch the whole video. This cinematic problem persisted throughout my playthrough but seemed to only happen to some of them. Thankfully, Akito's agonising screams were descriptive enough of what was happening, despite me not being able to see it for myself. 

Once I had control of Akito, my worries for my PC being unable to handle Ghostwire: Tokyo dissipated, as it ran smoothly. Quickly jumping into the settings and enabling DLSS allowed me to use my RTX 2080Ti Core i7-9700K to run the game at 1440p, max graphics with some raytracing enabled, and it made the game look phenomenal.

I won't touch too much on the graphics, as they speak for themselves, but, aside from the rain effects that looked a little off, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a graphical feast, as it takes the crown for one of the prettiest games I've had the pleasure of playing.

Despite how menacing Ghostwire: Tokyo seems at first in many of its mechanics, it's surprisingly easy to manage and play. Soon enough, I found myself effortlessly fighting groups of yōkai (the supernatural, ghost-like enemies of the game) as if I'd been doing it for a long time, and it was part of the things that charmed me about the game.

Every yōkai has its own unique abilities, and different approaches work better for some of them. Although slaying simpler foes is a breeze, soon enough you'll discover new yōkai with unique mechanics that you'll need to exploit to defeat them. A big part of the game's charm comes from its combat, as fighting several different yōkai at a time feels exhilarating, terrifying, and satisfying. 

Akito can use the power of the elements through the skill named ethereal weaving in-game, as you'll start with using wind attacks that shoot fast but don't deal a lot of damage, and soon enough you'll have unlocked fire and water elements. Switching between these elements on the fly is a crucial part of combat, making it very hectic to select the wrong element at the wrong time against the wrong foe, leading to death; this happened to me far too often. 

Playing at the hardest difficulty, I was scared to see what would happen once I was defeated in combat, and, once that happened, I found out that nothing did happen. I didn't receive any form of penalty and I didn't face any difficulties, I was merely rolled back to my latest autosave — usually right before the fight took place — and I was allowed to make the decision of either going out and exploring more of Tokyo, or approaching the encounter differently. Not being punished for dying allowed me to play how I wanted; I could play recklessly and have fun, dying, and eventually accepting the inevitable fate of having to play more carefully.

Fighting wasn't the only enjoyable aspect of Ghostwire: Tokyo, as the notion of playing as a yōkai hunter was incredibly fun. Scattered throughout the city are sidequests in which you must assist a spirit with unfinished business to help them cross. The sidequests were even more fun than the main ones, as I loved being able to enter Japanese-styled homes and exploring the area to complete any particular request.

When I wasn't doing the main quests and sidequests, exploring Tokyo was the best open-world exploration I've ever experienced, as you unlock the areas slowly with each shrine you cleanse, and each shrine indicates to you how much of the area it spans, and what it has. Exploring Tokyo to find collectibles to sell to floating mystical cats, or finding lost souls that were overtaken by the corruption offered me a reprieve from the yōkai hunting, despite how little I needed it because I adored jumping from one fight to the next. And ultimately, that represents everything Ghostwire: Tokyo is.

It didn't matter whether I was exploring the city saving lost souls, or fighting yōkai with brand-new abilities I'd unlocked in my skill tree. It didn't matter whether I progressed the main quest and got to hear the banter between Akito and KK or I was helping lost souls return to their homes; I was having fun. So much fun, I didn't want to stop. I could spend hours running the streets of Tokyo in search of lost talking tanookis that need to return to their boss, or I could spend it flying through the rooftops fighting wanderers (a type of yōkai). I could spend hours fighting enemy after enemy, doing sidequests, or doing main quests, and I knew that I would be having fun regardless of which one I chose. 

Ghostwire: Tokyo has been a highlight of my year thus far, and I am certain that, as the year progresses, this will continue to be one of my favourite games released.