Night walks
Akito, heroes despite himself, finds himself possessed by the ghost of an old detective, the well named KK. He gives him supernatural powers, if he helps him in his quest against a deep evil who seems to want to seize Tokyo . At the same time, Akito goes in search of his husband, hospitalized sister, who disappeared while ghosts and other Yokai take possession of a Tokyo wrapped in a disturbing fog. It must be admitted, Ghostwire: Tokyo is hardly troubled to captivate with its history. The fault of a quite limited characterization of his hero, literally a KK ghost puppet, while the latter has quite limited goals: darken straight and tap the ghost that has removed her life. The narration also suffers from a faulty staging, as well as secondary characters that are best forgetting, at the worst frankly missed. There are, however, some good ideas: the cooperation between Akito and KK is sometimes successful, especially when their objectives are aligned, or the few times where one opens to the other by telling its past and hopes for the 'to come up. Small moments where narration allows a certain tenderness, with characters who open and unveil, in the middle of a city of Tokyo with terribly glaucous paces, especially when the game takes us in its depths.
And it is the strength of the game. If his narration troubles to fly away, it is the particular atmosphere of the Tokyo imagined by Tango Gameworks that makes us want to move forward and discover always more. We discover a unique and absolutely captivating atmosphere, the game takes us and releasing us only a dozen hours later against the credits (or rather about twenty if you do the many - but not exciting - secondary quests). We take a pleasure to discover the city and reveal it all the aspects, purifying the many Torii disseminated in Tokyo, to keep the fog away from which one can not survive (yes, it is a little the radio towers of the Game). Whenever the fog is pushed back, we discover new neighborhoods at the very different atmospheres, starts at Shibuya Crossing to more traditional residential areas, through arcade halls and a gigantic park.. More fascinating than Horrifique, the atmosphere of the game uses the myths of the Japanese horror to tell a fantastic city, where the neon mingle with more mystical effects around the appearance of ghosts (flashing lights., cloud that envelops the neighborhood, sudden wind...) and it works terribly well. A reinforced atmosphere using the Dualsense controller on PlayStation 5 , drawing on both haptic returns and the built-in speaker to improve immersion, giving the feeling of being there and that KK we Susurre actually in the ear.
The city is paradoxically vivating while everyone has disappeared, thanks to the presence of enemies but especially to the many ghosts of deceased inhabitants that tell us their story, their last moments, the moment when everything rocked. If it is not always very well written, it gives a certain consistency to a city that becomes a character in its own right, a real force of a game that is troubled yet on lots of other things. To this, we add the verticality of the city and the ease of moving, to jump from roofs in roofs or to go to the underground galleries of the metro and this offers this Tokyo something captivating, quasihystical, with An oppressive atmosphere that gives you want to advance ever further. This treatment brought to the city swears with the narrative relatively little neat, but it makes the game quite appreciable.
INTENSE but FABLARD
If there is one thing that Ghostwire: Tokyo successful in his gameplay, it's his intensity. The use of different powers (wind, water, fire) that one throws into the face (or to the body, when they have no head) ghosts in the manner of energy balls is quite exhilarating. The passage from one element to the other is simply, either a button to go to the next either with a selection wheel, while the powers are recharging by killing enemies or destroying elements of particular decorations. Thus, the game always encourages to go to the attack by remaining very mobile, because the enemies are also rather alive and can do very badly, so much so that in the normal difficulty mode the game can sometimes be arduous, obliging to be careful not to be overflowed. The resistance of the hero is not very high (and the use of limited care in time), it is better to avoid confrontation with the body to body. Especially since some enemies can dissociate Akito from KK, in sequences where the hero loses all his powers, then having as the only weapon an arc not well terrible, until we manage to recover KK at the Help of a QTE where we are completely defenseless for a few moments.
However, it must be admitted that these sequences are less good. If they make it possible to put chilli in some fights where we avoid at all costs to be shocked and to undergo this dissociation which puts us practically defense against ghosts, they are also sometimes imposed by the narration. And these imposed sequences puspend the gameplay towards a mixture of discrete infiltration and killings with the archery, rather misfilled and uninteresting to play, the fault of a pretty basic IA and a Level Design which adapts it enough wrong. With the exception of a boss fight that turns entirely around that, whose staging is rather friendly, but which becomes quite trivial when we found the trick to get rid of it without any risk. As for the progression system, the game revolves around level passages that allow to unlock skills. Nothing very original on this side, with skills that consist either to strengthen the powers of attack or to strengthen the hero, including his ability to fly the "heart" ghosts as soon as possible, sort of finisher than the We can execute on ghosts to make them disappear when we manage to weaken them.
Nevertheless, it is in its way of gaining levels that the game is pretty good, since if it is fairly riddle in the fighting, via exploration we see our experience counters explode. The exploration makes it possible to fall nose to face with ghosts of inhabitants who are stuck between life and beyond, that one can recover and store via an artifact before being able to "deliver" them by unloading them to the means Telephone booths found at every street corner. If the way of proceeding is rather cocheous, it strongly encourages to explore, since each new zone that one discovers, every roof on which one climbs, each alley where we walk is likely to remunerate us in experience. Left to become after a moment that is too powerful for the main quest if you have been taken at the game and we have ended up exploring the whole card instead of moving forward in history. This is not bad: the fighting is so repetitive in the long run, the fault of a small number of powers that does not evolve very little, that one ends up being very happy to be sufficiently powerful for the ship to the last third of the game as soon as possible.
Beauty has its limits
The artistic direction sublows this city that one has a thousand reasons to explore. If it's not to gain experience or accomplish a quest, it's just to see what visual idea will hide behind the next alley. We have already talked about the neons, but it would be reducing to be limited to that. A gigantic shopping center, temples, streets where life seems to have stopped with clothes thrown on the ground while the bodies suddenly disappeared, a stroller with abandonment or a dog wandering whom we give croquettes Recovered earlier, so many small things that sublimate a city whose secrets are numerous. It is visually impressive, yet the game has nothing of a "graphic slap" as we often say, but there is a real coherence in what is shown, even if this Tokyo sometimes looks like a kind of card postal of a city that we fantasy. My only regret on the artistic aspect is related to music, quite absent and secondary, while the game offers real moments of contemplation where one would have liked a more present musical atmosphere. However, the game compensates with a successful Sound Design, with some very disturbing noises that reinforce the city's mystical side.
And fortunately, the artistic direction of the game does the job, because it is on its technical aspect that Ghostwire: Tokyo fails completely. Tested on PlayStation 5, the game suffers from considerable framerate falls regardless of the mode of performance chosen. This makes the vertical exploration less interesting because it is in these moments, where we have the city under the eyes, that the game suffers the most. Yet Tango Gameworks' developers have put small dishes in the big ones by offering nothing less than six graphic modes: a fidelity mode (30fps) and a rather classic mode (60fps), and then four "high performance" modes oriented either to the graphics or the _Framerate, with or without vertical synchronization _ (Vsync) _ and offering each time Framerate unlocked. The problem is that this unlocked framerate is caused in modes without Vsync an tearing important, while with vsync, the game suffers from a very noticeable latency between the moment when one presses on a button and the moment when the action is pressed. takes place on the screen. If we advise the performance mode instead both the "high performance" modes are hardly playable, it does not maintain the 60 fps and suffers from many falls. The game then puts the question of the management of the VRR by the PlayStation 5 which could have regulated the worries of tearing: it was finally announced by Sony end of March for a future update, but we would like that It is already available and supported by Ghostwire so that these modes to the unlocked framerate finally become relevant.
Conclusion
Ghostwire: Tokyo seduces as much as it frustrates. With a city with a neat atmosphere, constantly giving the desire to explore and even offering a milestone in a tokyo in mystical tone, the game also suffers from a narration below expectations, never Really interesting or relevant, with characters that we forget quickly. Yet, during the ten hours that the main quest lasts, we always want to come back, to see more more, and that's perhaps there that the game succeeds. At a time when many action games choose the open world by default because it is absolutely a great map to not look too mowed against the competitors while satisfying the desires of freedom of players, Ghostwire: Tokyo succeeds the tour de force not to make its open world a simple gimmick, but a central element that alone justifies the desire to play and returned again and again, both its city is full of secrets and Beautiful ideas. Imperfect, too rough over many points, the game of Tango Gameworks is at least offering a unique world.
_Test made by Hachim0n on PlayStation 5 from a version provided by the publisher.
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