Ghostrunner was a pleasant surprise for me. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did but I found it a blast to play even if it has some issues here and there, the overall experience is really worth experiencing.

The gameplay in Ghostrunner focuses on the idea that your character can kill anyone by one hit, but also dies from one hit, which means that you need to finish combat encounters absolutely flawless killing everyone without getting hit or you'll repeat again. Thus, expect to die a lot. You'll die ton of times here but death isn't frustrating here at all. Checkpoints are mostly generous and puts you just before the encounter and there's no loading screen after dying so you'll be back straight into action. You'll have to learn from your mistakes and plan your moves again to win the encounter.

This system is pretty fun and entertaining. Yes, some encounters have some tough difficulty spikes but most of times you'll feel that you died because of your own mistakes, not because of some cheap difficulty or because the game is artificially hard. Finishing a tough encounter feels very rewarding and the movement mechanics, dashing, slowing time, moving on walls and using the grappling hook all give you plenty of ways to get behind enemies and overcoming the death penalty.

It's also worth noting the enemy variety in the game is great, and the game doesn't stop throwing new things at you, even by the end of the game, new enemies and obstacles were appearing, and you keep on getting new abilities and power to improve your ability to survive.

Some times the game slows down for the Cyber void missions, which are short segments of puzzles that after you solve them, you gain new abilities. These were a little bit mixed bag. Some of the puzzles were pretty fun while others were honestly quite annoying, but they don't overstay their welcome, so they shouldn't be a problem.

Graphics wise, the game is futuristic cyberpunk in its design. It's not AAA high budget game but the developers managed to make it look beautiful to look at, and the voice acting and soundtracks are pretty good.

I didn't talk about the story, because I honestly feel it's not important, and there's a big problem in the way it's told. Characters talk to you mostly while you're focusing on platforming or fighting enemies so you don't have any time to actually listen to what they're talking about.

Overall, a great game, with mechanics that work smoothly and in a well made rhyme that's entertaining and challenging. The developers knew exactly what they wanted to do with whatever tools they had and for the most of it, they succeeded.

Story : 4/10.

Gameplay : 9/10.

Graphics : 8/10.

Voice acting : 8/10.

Overall : 8/10.

Loved it.

The game got me into the Celeste frame of mind. Death is quick and frequent, but so is restarting the run, so it's not super punishing. Many people compared it with hotline Miami, but is not as frenetic. Enemies are relatively slow and most of them don't move around (or have time to move around before dying). So the game is as much about memorising the layout of the enemies as developing the reflexes and skills.

The story is hot garbage and al dialogue could be replaced by unintelligible Simlish without loss (it might even improve the game, honestly). But the devs didn't realise this and decided to add a bunch of weird slower platforming and puzzle levels in which you don't have any fancy traversal mechanics and get to be bored while the voice drones off about the obvious plot and you try to pretend you don't know exactly where the story is going.

But they you're back into the action and movement is quick and fluid, and you're zipping around, wallrunning on a billboard, graplehooking to another wall, hitting a bullet in mid air, jump straight down and cut a dude in two with a single swing of your blade. Or, more likely, you fuck up, dies instantly and get to try again.

Then you get hack your way to the boss level and again the game randomly removes some of your abilities and generally suck. The first one is alright, since it's basically a very complex platforming challenge. But then the second one has you parrying a series of attacks without clear indication on when the hit is going to land, and the one hit kill discourages any experimentation. So I basically mashed left click semirandomly and eventually won the fight. In the third bossfight, a bootleg Dr. Octopus stays immobile in the centre of the room while she performs the same attacks always in the same order and you need to dodge them. Is frustratingly easy and anticlimactic. The final bossfight is again fine because is also a platforming challenge.

So It's not a perfect game, but it's really fun for people who liked Celeste but wanted fewer eggs cracking and positive messages about self-actualisation, and more decapitated heads and gross cyberpunk machine-human hybrids.

This title is a fast-paced first-person action platformer set in a neon-soaked cyberpunk dystopia. It blends wall-running, sliding, dashing, and precise swordplay into a fluid rhythm that rewards skill and punishes hesitation. Every encounter feels like a puzzle of movement and timing, pushing players to chain together perfect runs through deadly environments.

The game’s difficulty is one of its defining traits, death comes instantly from a single mistake, but generous checkpoints and quick reloads keep the momentum flowing. So if you don't like games with "easy-death" mechanics, stir away from this one, because it'll not be a good time for you. Mastering its mechanics delivers a genuine rush, though some players may find the trial-and-error design frustrating.

Visually, it stands out with its stylish cyberpunk aesthetic, sharp animations, and pulsing electronic soundtrack that perfectly matches the intensity of the gameplay. And even though I'm highly biased because I'm a Synthwave fan, I still think this game has a very amazing OST, it is definitely one of it's standouts. The narrative, however, plays only a minor role and often feels like background noise compared to the adrenaline of the action, it is still there, but very lacking and with very few to no characters involved on it.

Overall, Ghostrunner is a thrilling but demanding experience, it is best suited for people who enjoy fast reflex challenges and the satisfaction of overcoming brutally precise gameplay rather than those seeking a story-driven adventure. I highly recommend this if you like difficult games to any extent, it is truly one of the best of it's kind, no excuse not to play it.