Ghostrunner 2 Review – Delicate Balance

When it launched in 2020, Ghostrunner was shortly acknowledged for its slick mix of satisfying first-person parkour platforming and tough-as-nails, one-hit-kill fight. Maybe most spectacular was simply how properly it practiced restraint, by no means overstaying its welcome whereas additionally protecting the main focus keenly on its participating traversal and motion. Ghostrunner II is a sequel that hasn’t fully misplaced the fascinating nature of its core gameplay loop, however in increasing the world that you just’re taking part in in and looking for new parts to introduce into the combination, it loses itself alongside the best way at occasions earlier than discovering its ft as soon as once more.

Ghostrunner II takes place a 12 months after the occasions of the primary recreation, with cyborg murderer Jack now snug in his position as enforcer for the Climbers, one in all many gangs trapped within the cyberpunk tower of Dharma. Whereas the unique Ghostrunner had a narrative, it wasn’t a core focus, as a substitute merely offering some context to maintain you transferring ahead. Within the sequel, the narrative is much extra prevalent, which might make a lot of its opening moments complicated if you have not brushed up on the occasions of the primary recreation or the encapsulating lore of the world the sport takes place in.

You may have quite a few radio conversations with a wide range of characters, a lot of that are exposition-heavy explanations to get you up to the mark as shortly as potential. It makes the opening hours really feel overwhelming and disjointed, earlier than the story ultimately settles right into a predictable revenge plot that leaves little room for nuanced characterization. There are some entertaining exchanges between Jack–whose blunt however self-aware responses are surprisingly hilarious for a single-purpose killing machine–and a few of his handlers, however Ghostrunner 2 does not function a fleshed-out solid of characters or fascinating story beats that you’re going to seemingly keep in mind by the point credit roll, and definitely not lengthy afterwards.

Fortunately, you do not want a very compelling story cause to get pleasure from Ghostrunner’s primary draw. Similar to earlier than, you are in a position to elegantly zip round ranges with pace and style, chaining collectively wall runs, speedy slides, whiplash-inducing grapples, and nimble jumps. Ghostrunner 2’s phases function some in depth platforming parts, all of which use new and current mechanics in regularly novel methods. What may need been a easy wall run a number of ranges prior is became one which requires a shuriken lodged right into a wall earlier than you’ll be able to grapple to it, with the added problem of getting to additionally disable a lethal electrical subject in your approach on the identical time. Ghostrunner 2 rewards considering and reflexes in equal measure, however balances them properly sufficient that you just’re usually making it by way of platforming gauntlets with out too many deaths. This retains the sense of accomplishment while you do attain the bottom safely once more with out forcing it by way of frustration, making every little bit of progress really feel rewarding.

All through your time working round Dharma Tower and past, you may encounter pockets of enemies in small arenas that impede your progress. These begin off easy, with melee fodder that rush in the direction of you and riflemen with semi-automatic weapons that shortly develop into trivial to deflect together with your trusty katana. Even within the early hours, Ghostrunner 2’s fight is difficult. You continue to die after taking a single hit, however extra importantly, so do every of the enemies that you just’re up towards. That applies to the senseless drones and all the best way as much as bipedal, laser-launching robots. This ever-present sense of hazard transforms fight right into a intense dance, one the place your reactions to the altering skirmish are simply as necessary as your preliminary strategy. Whereas fight encounters aren’t designed to be tackled in a particular order, they’re actually structured to discourage sure paths, forcing you to determine an environment friendly order or operations earlier than executing it with lethal accuracy, leaving nothing however the blood of your enemies staining your blade.

This strategy of studying every new skirmish stays as exhilarating in Ghostrunner 2 because it was within the authentic recreation. Dashing in mid-air to keep away from a projectile earlier than decapitating the foe it originated from, solely to then launch right into a slide to shut the hole to a different close by foe and deftly deflect a projectile again at him is only a small instance of the tightly strung-together actions you may not solely often pull off, however be required to grasp to progress previous Ghostrunner 2’s difficult (albeit honest) fight. Enemies are intelligently positioned to present you a superbly pure path between them, making your execution really feel choreographed as you mix your understanding of timing and goal prioritization.

As you progress, you may achieve entry to new skills that develop your repertoire in each fight and platforming. Returning skills, just like the shuriken, offer you a much-needed ranged possibility in fights, gorgeous enemies and creating a brand new grapple level that opens up extra methods to circulate between them. One other helps you to create a replica of your self if you are cloaked, which might generally work properly with a 3rd capability that affords you a short-range kinetic push, good for enemies on precarious ledges. The shuriken will get essentially the most use out of the three, particularly in terms of its integration in common platforming. Each stealth and the small power push are featured in some ingenious puzzles to resolve within the areas instantly after you purchase them, however past that, their usefulness will not be explored additional, which seems like a missed alternative.

Every of those skills, in addition to your fundamental assaults and motion choices, may be upgraded by way of a barely convoluted system of buying passive improve chips after which assigning them into locations on a circuit board. This board grows as you accumulate chips scattered all through every degree. You’ll come throughout some not too far off the crushed path, and plenty of of them require cautious examination of every space if you happen to’re desirous to unlock your complete board earlier than reaching the top of the sport. It really works towards the precept of regularly transferring ahead, stunting the pacing considerably to a level that I usually discovered myself sacrificing the improve potential for a greater total time. Coupled with the truth that solely a handful of upgrades make significant variations to the best way you’ll be able to play, and, conversely, how one can survive higher in a combat, it is seemingly that you’re going to end up settling in with a construct early on and probably forgetting to enhance it.

It is within the ways in which Ghostrunner 2 makes an attempt to develop on these core fundamentals, and in the end transfer away from them, that it begins creating friction with the elements that work. It is most clearly evident round midway by way of the marketing campaign: You are outfitted with a motorcycle and shortly set off on a high-octane chase to flee Dharma Tower, abandoning the setting that has served the sequence fully up till this level. The chase itself is entertaining sufficient, with parts of fight and platforming nonetheless current as you slash energy conduits to open huge blast doorways and leap off your bike to keep away from the laser barrier, earlier than deftly grappling again to it because it races forward.

As quickly as you blast your approach out and into the wasteland exterior the tower, nevertheless, Ghostrunner 2 loses its footing. The degrees right here present an ambition to develop gameplay into extra open areas, leaping between traversal in your bike and small fight interludes while you arrive at yet one more locked gate blocking your path. Ghostrunner 2’s lengthiest degree is one which presents you with three goals to finish, letting you determine which order to deal with them in. This alone is not novel, and the order does not appear to make any tangible distinction on the remaining goals, so all it enforces are prolonged durations of driving between the three in a needlessly convoluted open space devoid of any attention-grabbing challenges or skirmishes.

Ghostrunner 2 tries to make use of this variation in setting to introduce new enemy sorts and supply much more backstory to the sport’s narrative, however contemplating that every new enemy is solely a reskin or an current archetype and that many of the story is delivered by way of conversations as you drive round a barren, brown panorama, it is a uninteresting detour from Dharma Tower that takes up a superb third of the entire runtime. Its solely saving grace is an unimaginable boss encounter that rounds out your time away from the tower. It is a powerful amplification of scale that does not simply use more room for the sake of it, however as a substitute presents a fight encounter that’s pleasant throughout every of its phases whereas making revolutionary use of the brand new mechanics Ghostrunner 2 has to supply. The identical may be stated for each boss combat all through the marketing campaign, barring a weak exhibiting with the sport’s preliminary one within the very first stage. In contrast to its restricted house to maneuver and rote enemy patterns, different bosses are advanced fights that push you to make use of your abilities and honed reflexes in new methods. They’re prolonged bouts with forgiving checkpointing that make the widespread repetition of phases as you be taught a foe extra instructional than wholly irritating, representing the best factors in Ghostrunner 2’s fight at every juncture.

Part of what makes your time spent away from the tower so irritating is the stark distinction between the intrigue of Dharma’s building and the mundane nature of the whole lot exterior of it. As soon as you come, the flood of vivid neon lighting that bathes avenues with delicate touches of the numerous struggles which have occupied them is instantly extra attention-grabbing than a set of sand, rocks, and deserted buildings with nothing to say about their historical past. Dharma Tower invokes a whole lot of acquainted cyberpunk imagery that has dominated video games in current occasions, however Ghostrunner 2 nonetheless stands out because of welcome selection between districts, be it the ominous halls of a spiritual cult that has know-how hiding behind its sacred partitions, or the uncovered framework of a system collapsing below the burden of its objective when scaling a number of the exterior partitions. Shifting by way of Dharma Tower is a delight that’s accentuated by a pulsating soundtrack carried by riveting synth rhythms, a lot of which stored my foot tapping to the beat as I continued about my death-dealing duties.

It is troublesome to not benefit from the rhythmic nature of Ghostrunner 2’s finely-tuned mix of parkour and motion, and it is also unimaginable to disregard a number of the methods this sequel tries, however fails, to develop on its predecessor by way of scope. It is disappointing that in most regards the elevated ambition detracts from what makes Ghostrunner so fascinating within the first place, taking time away from the expertly designed fight arenas and satisfying platforming gauntlets and utilizing it as a substitute to discover a barren, empty world with no novel methods to traverse it. Ghostrunner 2’s narrative additionally fails to supply a compelling stopgap to ease the transition between these two distinct phases of the sport, however when this sequel does course-correct again to what made it so fashionable to start with, it supplies an enthralling motion expertise. Ghostrunner 2 pulls again simply in time earlier than getting too near the solar to stay an entertaining sophomore entry within the sequence that hopefully will not finish right here.