If this is podcast, we never should have climbed down from the trees.
Welcome back to Spooktember in July, the month where we barely even know what’s going on anymore. Today, we’re talking about Ghostrunner, a first person platformer action game where you have to execute difficult platforming while avoiding bullets and doing cool cyberpunk sword tricks. It is a categorically awesome concept in all the ways that games can be, really. The obvious first comparison to make is to Neon White, which we just talked about a few months ago, and the comparison isn’t a stretch. Both games necessitate the player repeat sections repeatedly to get them as close to perfect as they can in order to succeed and move on to the next level, but Neon White is much more forgiving, and subjectively, a bit more motivating. Ghostrunner is a much harder game, something that is obviously a design choice, but because of that the act of completing a section is often reward enough without wanting to go back and get all collectibles or improve your time. This doesn’t make the game bad, however, but it is a much more daunting experience just to complete. The mechanics are very tight and their strength comes in the form of trying to get the player into a flow state, but then the biggest issue facing the game is that when it does stumble, it breaks that mindset and begins to feel frustrating more quickly than a more forgiving game might. This could all be irrelevant to you, though, depending on how tough you like your challenges to be, and it is a well polished gem if hard is what you’re looking for. We’re going to talk about boss fights and why they weren’t as successful as they could be, difficulty and its necessity to the game on a conceptual level, and we determine the true identity of the Ghostrunner to be an eighteen wheeler.
Thank you for joining us again this week! This game was really the lynchpin for the whole “Spooktember in July” bad idea we had, since we were able to cobble together a theme after wanting to just talk about the Resident Evil games we did. That said, it’s a game I’m happy to have played, one because I had a reasonably good time with it, and also because it’s such a good example of the razor edge you walk when designing a game with difficulty at its core. Which side of the fence did you fall on? Were you able to carry this game out to completion? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord! Next time we’re going to be talking about Chop Goblins, a bit because it’s short and we need some breathing room for some bigger episodes coming next month, but you can see it as a bit of a bonus Spooktember game if that suits you. Hope you’ll chop on down for that one.