Just played the Ghostrunner demo.......
......yyyyyeeeeaah um.....this definitely hits a sweet spot for me. Cyberpunk stuff? Fuck yes. Freerunning? Fuck yes. Retro-synthwave music with thumping beats while I dash between platforms and cut up dudes? Fuck yes.
I was really getting into the mood of it when the music started really going, and I started to get the hang of the controls. I will definitely be picking this up.
Few issues so far though.
1. The action prompts during the tutorial run aren't the best given you are encouraged to be constantly in motion. By the time it popped up, I was already running past, and it wouldn't move with me in my FOV, but was fixed to a location on the ground. So I'd have to stop, backtrack a few steps so I could actually see the message. And it didn't rotate to let you see it from any angle, you had to be looking from a specific direction. So that was a bit of a ding to the flow. Would've been better to have more lead time between the prompts and the action they were teaching. Also, have the prompt float along with me in my FOV so I can keep moving but see it.
2. The combat is a bit iffy and clunky, which is odd to say, since it's literally just one action, swing technoblade. The trick is the enemies track you fairly well, so you have to use a combination of airborne bullet time with left/right, to move out of the way, and then release to cyberdash at them for a strike. Problem is that you don't dash very far, and sometimes the point where you need to start the bullet time dodge is so far, that you come out of the dash, and you still have distance to target...and you're now in real time again, and they shoot you. Sometimes it seemed like I could block/deflect, but this was never actually tutorialized. And there wasn't any alternate button press to block, like genji in overwatch or anything. It's possibly just timing a sword strike at the right moment? *shrugs* Again, game doesn't explain it, so not sure.
3. The mobility is limited, again, odd to say in a movement game, but it was noticeable. Like your normal run speed seemed slow, there was no toggle of walk/run, you just always run. The only alternate is the short dash, which is a button press. Given the setup, it's clearly implied that you will be getting upgrades as you progress, and I assume it will be things like longer distances on your dash, longer bullet time meter, faster base move speed, higher/double jump, etc. But for the demo, it did feel a bit like I was being forcibly hampered. Again, this checks out given the narrative, but it didn't feel fun to play around with in a demo.
4. The maps are very linear. I mean there isn't a lot of variety with how you get from A to Z. It's pretty clearly mapped out for you, via the handy dandy orange/yellow surfaces that scream "run this way!" If you played Mirror's Edge, it's similar to the red coloring to guide you. I'd like to see more expansive maps, with multiple routes to take based on your playstyle, but eh, it's a demo, so maybe that will be coming later.
5. The visuals in the cyberspace part (the digital world, not the physical), got a little vertigo inducing at times. The surfaces you were running along were translucent, with a LOT of background colors and effects going on, so spatial awareness of distance got a bit iffy at times. Wasn't too bad after you adjust, but I had to stop once or twice to sort of get my bearings on where to go next, as I had difficulty seeing the path.
6. No pacifist run possible, as progress is at times, tied to killing the enemies to clear the gates you need to move through
7. My hands hurt from the manipulation of multiple keys at once on my keyboard, to pull off the different tricks needed. Left pinky on CTRL to slide, then switch to holding shift to bullet time, while also pressing this and that, then back to this, then back to jump, etc. I have arthritis, after decades of mashing buttons like a hyperactive monkey, so that was a literal pain. Remapping of keys might be needed for comfort, as it was definitely for me.
Things I liked, in more detail than just the "fuck yeah" synopsis above.
1. The music. Yep, it's exactly the kind of music you'd expect to hear in a game like this. Darksynth, retro-wave, synth-wave, it's all there. If that kind of music is your jam, then you won't be disappointed with this.
2. It felt fun running around the maps as a cyberninja. Not a lot of context at first, other then "you must get to X and do Y', which then triggers the actual narrative exposition. But you start in media res, so that's ok.
3. The respawn is super fast. Namely the autosave is always just like a platform/section behind you. Dying (and you will die, it even tracks your deaths as a scoring metric
) isn't a big issue, as you just press a button to respawn, and you are zipped back to the last section (likely just a few seconds ago), and you try again. It's almost like Tracer's rewind ability, but like, always on, and only triggered when you fuck up and die. Sometimes it can be annoying, as the respawn might be at the beginning of a combat room, wher eyou have to kill multiple dudes to progress. But you have to clear them all in one attempt, any death, whether on dude 1 or 5, respawns you back at the start of the entire fight.
It's really fun, I would've like to see more. I think I missed a collectible in the final tally, but not sure. It showed lists of things that I gathered, but they were all blank, save for the "Artifact" tab, which had a single "?" in it. Didn't say like 0/1, just...the ? sitting there. So maybe something there, maybe just a weird artifact (no pun intended) of the demo.
Definitely putting this on my wishlist. What's here so far is limited, but I'm curious to see how the progression works, and to what level of insanity you can your cyberninja.
