Ghostrunner 2 Reviews

Please for the love of god go play GhostRunner 1 if u haven't. It's not uncommon for people to jump into franchises on a second entry. I have many times from kingdom hearts to dark souls, so im just starting like this for any non-GR1 players, because you're gonna get the wrong impression form this one, no doubt. This game feels like an excruciatingly long demo. The level design and pacing are all over the place, there's a persistent sense that they were kinda haphazardly slapping a bunch of this together and experimenting instead of tightly and meticulously crafting decent platforming or combat segments. It's almost like the devs didn't understand the pivotal relationship between the more narrow and compact level design of the original and the flow of it's combat. The more broad and spacious areas this time around are actually incredibly frustrating to try and get through swiftly since they don't foster a lot of technical movement very well anymore, walls are scarce and ramps are usually over-guarded by enemies in close proximity so committing to a slide for some more speed is the fastest way to get sent to Resetville. The original game often left me with a deep satisfaction after each room I passed through. This is because, usually almost the second I entered one, I could see in my mind a pretty feasible or even perfect path through it all, a way that I could take down the entire room in one fluid series of motions. There's a mixup here and there to keep you on your toes, but generally every level has you enter from an angle that gives you ample time to plot a course in your head through a seemingly simple arrangement. As you go through it actively, memorizing where each stray shot lands, each barrel explodes, every shield orb originates, that path you came up with initially gradually refines itself into an utterly flawless execution of combat and precision movement. I had almost no experiences like that in GR2, this was a repetitive deathmarch of trial and error in a way the first one rarely ever felt. There's a solid level here and there, but "here and there" doesn't add up to whole good game. This game often left me with a deep sense of confusion after each area I passed through. It hardly ever felt as fluid to go between areas in this game as it did with the original, probably because it wasn't a series of precisely timed jumps and grapples but instead a series of rail-hopping segments reminiscent of your favorite sonic game or least favorite Ratchet and Clank level. Not really a bad way to do it in most games, it just really wasn't working for me here. It felt out of place in terms of atmosphere. I liked the way you often transitioned between areas in GR1 by sliding down narrow chutes or flinging yourself into impossibly small hatches over treacherous gaps. Like Dharma tower had its "human habitable" bits and it's "industrial monstrosity" bits sharply divided, and you were often forcing your way through a path more suitable to senseless cargo than a live organism of any kind. Here, it feels vague where the city parts begin and end, and there weren't any sections that felt like they really made sense chronologically, no gradual climb from the rusty dregs below to the polish of the bourgeois aloft, just a few random spats within the middle-ish zone of the tower and then suddenly, we're outside for a whole 3rd of the game. A ton of really weird and jank open world/vehicle segments later and we head back to dharma to wrap things up in one of GhostRunner's notoriously ass bossfights. Interesting parallel there : both games have 3 bossfights, each with 1 very heavily focused on platforming instead of parries, and all of them are pretty forgettable or outright annoying. The cybervoid levels were an improvement this time around, though not by much, honestly coulda done without them but it certainly wasn't the most annoying thing in the playthrough. There seems to only be 1 arena in the whole game where there's an opportunity to utilize the motorcycle in a traditional combat segment, weird choice IMO because that 1 bike combat arena was actually a highlight for me once I really figured it out. I even intentionally took a few deaths on it to have fun and experiment with it for future instances, but that ended up being pointless huh? Same thing with the wingsuit, It's an honestly fun addition to the core combat loop that just takes a little getting used to, and yet they saved it for basically the very last level of the game. One gauntlet of areas and then ur wingsuit romp is over as swiftly as it began, painful waste of potential that leads these things to feeling out of place and shoe-horned in even though they're actually pretty smoothly implemented. Sadly, this game brings a lot of ambitious new stuff to the table that could enhance the usual ghostrunner experience tenfold, then bafflingly decides not to commit to fully utilizing any of it. Falls short of just doing what GhostRunner does best, and doesn't differentiate itself enough at the same time to avoid the comparison. Lose/lose. And so again, as much as it pains me to say this, Please for the love of god go play GhostRunner 1 instead. And then, we should all probably act like this one didn't happen till 3 drops.

A very fast paced game some times pushing the patience of gaming to it's max with its death death death sequences. This was my first GhostRunner game and I would say I walked away with an experience that im glad it's over. I've read other reviews on the first game and how most didn't like some of the open world gameplay. I didn't play the first one and would agree it just didn't fit the first part of the game. I liked all the power upgrades though Jack seemed to only ever have enough slots for barely any upgrades so find all the goodies and not have any room for them. My biggest thing is the enemy AI was and always is spot on. You get ready to land on a platform and there is something already there waiting to kill you, i.e. a random shot from across the map by a guy hidden behind a block. Like damn The game is fairly ugly which is fine given that it is what it is. Overall it just wasn't my type of game but it was a decent one. Cool story for sure. Voice acting was meh and the open world was just yuck. I recommend it to fans and new players despite my criticism because it's a cool franchise for sure.

These games are awesome. I'm not a platformer fan typically, but something about Ghostrunner really hooked me. I do feel like the first game was better, but the second game was awesome as well. They definitely tried some new things in GR 2, and some were solid. The block/deflect was a welcome addition, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the bike and open world portions. Can't really explain why with the open areas, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. Graphics are awesome. music is absolutely incredible, and the boss fights were really cool. Easy recommend from me.

I like it a lot but... I wish it was more like the first. The bike levels and level exploration felt like such padding. I feel like the core of this series should be the parkour mixing with the combat. I feel like this game tried to keep the two separate, making both just sort of bland. And god the story is just so uninteresting. This game would benefit so much from the Ultrakill method of just "show don't tell". Make the world a mystery, get these people out of my ear with their edgy dialogue and boring conversation.

Very good game mechanic, graphic, and story

The first Ghostrunner was a novel experience. Blending the first-person parkour of Mirror's Edge with the Hotline Miami-style "everyone dies in one blow, including you", it was a hit for challenge-obessed gamers who wanted to push for perfection until they could become a true cyberpunk ninja. Playing as Jack, an eponymous Ghostrunner - a sort of shinobi cyborg programmed to serve the interests of an Architect they'd turned against - we were tasked with overthrowing the power structure of Dharma Tower alongside a group of mostly flavorless rebels. Though it floundered a bit with a lackluster plot and some generic worldbuilding, it was a focused and unique game that was enough of a success to warrant a sequel. Right out of the gate, that success is on display in Ghostrunner II; after a short tutorial level to remind the player of what kind of game they're playing, a full-fledged cutscene introduces us to lovingly rendered characters who were mostly only talking portraits in the previous entry. Jack (now armed with more personality that mostly projects as admittedly likeable sarcasm) is helping rebuild in the wake of the first game's ending, but an interesting question is put forth as the thrust of the character's motivation: why is he doing so? Compared to him, the Climbers are almost laughably helpless; an early mission sees their leader assassinated with the emergence of the Asura (a group of prototype Ghostrunners that promise lore development but mostly make for intermittent boss fights) and they never get much of a better showing than that. Neither does the plot, unfortunately. There's sprinklings of something interesting here, an attempt to wrestle the mostly uninspired Standard Cyberpunk Backdrop of the series into a story of the ethics of AI enslavement and the cost of revenge, but it never really comes together and the stakes feel frequently undercut by a seemingly obsessive need to have some quippy banter fill the silence every few minutes. While occasionally entertaining, it ultimately failed to get me to care about the story, and the motivations of the Asura ranged from insipid to opaque. Still, while I was disappointed to find that the greater focus on story didn't necessarily result in it being any better than the first Ghostrunner's, the gameplay received just as much attention to much better effect. Like its predecessor, Ghostrunner II is ultimately about making your way through a series of combat arenas using a combination of acrobatics, sword strikes, and special abilities such as shuriken and shadow clones to deal with being immensely outnumbered. As one might expect in a game about being a cyberpunk ninja, standing still is death; enemies have a harder time tracking you the more quickly you're moving, and a combo meter, while not necessary to succeed with, unlocks potent buffs the better you perform. When he's not fighting, Jack has to contend with parkour challenges in both the real world and cyberspace, with the latter being cleverly used to provide variety in ways that wouldn't make much sense in reality, such as triple-jumping powerups and trippy timed challenges. In fact, variety - mostly for the better - is what defines Ghostrunner II. The first game was admirably single-minded, but could definitely blend together during longer sessions. Not so with the sequel; on top of more enemy variety compared to the previous entry, Jack leaves Dharma Tower for the first time, resulting in a sojourn into the blasted wastelands around it. Facilitating this is a motorcycle whose levels make up a solid quarter of the game and they're a blast, save for one that veers a bit too close towards an open-world slog. Outside of that, there's more abilities and passives to unlock, longer parkour runs without any combat, the aforementioned cyberspace scenarios, and even a wingsuit that throws a curveball into the gameplay loop later on near the end. If all that's not enough, there's a roguelike mode introduced as a sort of virtual reality game back at the base, testing the player's reflexes and adaptation without the benefit of being able to trial-and-error indefinitely like the main body of the game. Were these implemented with less finesse, I might accuse them of feature bloat, but with only the occasional exception, it works. The pacing is one of the game's greatest strengths; I never found myself burnt out on any particular gameplay loop. Even the boss fights, which feel a little bit against the spirit of the game due to how many times you have to hack away at them, are mostly offset by a generous checkpoint system and the occasional interesting gimmick. Breaking it down: +Huge improvements in production values, with stronger art design and some great enemy variety +Gameplay variety is robust, with each level having a pretty compelling loop +Enemy encounters are well-thought out, with even the most seemingly impossible setups conquered with good strategy and reflexes +Jack is occasionally pretty funny and is the most likeable character in the cast by far -The story's still weak and falls into too many generic cyberpunk tropes, with very little in the way of a memorable cast or villains -Hack-and-slash boss fights don't feel particularly compatible with the rest of the game -The delightful wingsuit comes way too late While I would have liked to see Ghostrunner II do more with its setting and narrative, it still makes a strong case for itself through gameplay alone. Even if the story it tells has been told a thousand times before, there's not much out there like it as a videogame - and that's a rare boast to be able to make.

Thanks for introducing a motorbike and only making it playable on like 2 levels max and then a wingsuit which pretty much gets the same. Endless moto should have been base game. GR1 is better.

I genuinely love this game. After playing GR1 i really wanted to play GR2 so i played both back to back. Gotta say: GR2 has an easier feel to it than GR1. That’s not to say it isn’t challenging. I would describe it as more lenient towards mistakes and play style. You’re still gonna die over and over and might get frustrated. The graphics in both games are amazing, even if GR2 feels a bit more in depth. The story is great and out of the two games the better one for me cause it was more memorable.

the game is just worse than the original. the thing that made the first game fun was that you could one shot anything and anything could one shot you (aside from bosses) and that realy made you plan your attacks and the blocking was way harder so it was more rewarding the new enemies are watered down and who aproved the open world sections they just suck ass so just buy the original one

(Review given after 100% achievement, roughly 16 hours) A tips for better story experience but contains level spoiler : [spoiler]If you reached a level called Pillars of Creation which you starts with the motorcycle, better go find online walkthrough of it otherwise you would spend hour getting lost in a badly designed open-world map and probably lost the motivation to continue playing the game.[/spoiler] I liked the first game a lot and I actually think GR2 improved some stuffs. Movement tech in GR1 is still applicable and they added blocking and tons of assisting skills which seems aim towards casual players, also the boss fight is so much better and fun compare to GR1. If you are new to Ghostrunner series I think it's still worth a try. If you already played GR1 you'll see some positive about it also more problems about it. The Story is so John Cyberpunk you might as well just ignore it. The millennial dialogue is painfully cringe where the conversation is barely based on any character background but more like a bunch of college students trash talk each other. GR2 added so much things that are either not helping with the identity of Ghostrunner's gameplay or even conflicting with it. It has some Free Roam map with nothing worth exploring and just serve as making your objectives farther from each other, not to mention the terrible level layout that makes it notoriously bad among the community. [b]That one map does everything WRONG and there's nothing redeemable about it.[/b] New enemies don't feel fun to fight at all and sometimes even felt random (they did made Warden from the first game better tho) FPS spike occurs and bug still happens, a lot areas felt so unpolished. I didn't give negative review because it's a bad game, It is fun to me. But they went to a really wrong direction while developing the game. Sadly it's probably better if they remove whatever they added into GR2 and just focus on fixing the issues GR1 had and it'd be a much better game.