Phasmophobia (2020)

It's alright. Can be fun with friends, but it's not scary at all to me - not in the "I'm too badass for horror huehue" sense, plenty of things can scare the shit out of me and keep me on edge especially with jumpscares and suspense, but this is 100% a 'fun' kind of game rather than a 'spooky' kind of game IMO. It's not uncommon at all for me to find myself just walking around a house looking for signs for 20 minutes straight with nothing much happening aside from maybe discovering a handprint on a door somewhere, and once you get into the groove of the game it gets pretty repetitive and same-y.

The equipment purchasing/loadout menus are pretty buggy and confusing - I thought that might be a me issue, but I see that other people have mentioned that in their reviews as well.

Movement is janky and it's a little disappointing that all of the death animations are the same regardless of ghost type, but I do find the general concept of Phasmophobia pretty cool and I enjoy the basic beats of selecting equipment, figuring out what they all do, calling out evidence discoveries to each other, communicating via radio, etc.

I can't imagine playing this frequently, but it is some casual fun with a group of friends (particularly if they find it scary) every once in a while.

Near fell asleep just learning how to play the game and nearly got stuck in it due to various gadget mechanics not working as intended.

When me and my friend finally started playing after escaping the dreadfully boring tutorial we were already bored out of our minds trying every gadget to get a response from the ghost.

To me Phasmophobia didn't feel much different from when I played lethal company except there was ghosts this time.

Even worse is the fact that what's supposed to be a horror game isn't even remotely scary & the only saisfaction I could get out of the game was seeing the hilarious character models in motion or contorted in death.

can be kinda fun with friends (especially friends that are easily spooked) but i cannot imagine how boring this must be playing by yourself. even with friends, you're just walking around looking for clues while waiting for the ghost to eventually do something. but again, i play this game for the social aspect of just going ghost hunting with my friends, so it's not bad in that regard.

devs if you haven't please update the spectator mode it fucking sucks balls why do i have limited sprint as a ghost

This game is a fun horror game to play with friends. Up to 4 people can play, and with updates coming out faster and the devs maintaining the high quality of each update, the game just keeps getting better and better. More maps keep getting added and these maps introduce new mechanics. More ghosts, more ghost hunting tools, better, fancier UI changes, and more stuff to do in the lobby while you're waiting for a friend to come back or to join your lobby and ready up. I will, however, admit that after playing for awhile (maybe 20-30+ hours) the jumpscare and the overall scariness of the game decreases immensely as now you know what to expect going into a map.

If you are lacking a group of friends to play or your friends aren't available to join you in a game of phasmophobia, there is always an online option to fill in your lobbies. While this doesn't hold true to everyone, whenever I've found myself joining online lobbies with strangers, they've always been friendly and fun to play with.

This game has 4 difficulty for all players: amateur, intermediate, professional, and nightmare. Each ghost getting harder to discover and survive from as the difficulty level increases. Overall, I'd rate this game a 10/10 for how much fun you can have with friends or with randoms online, the diversity of ghosts and ghosthunting equipment, the frequent, high quality updates, the numerous amount of maps, and the increasing difficulties making the game never feel stale.

Game feels like it was developed for VR first - which it may have been, but that does not excuse the mouse + kb experience. I'd call it "janky in a bad way" - item interactions, moving through the world, using the journal, carrying equipment and the overall experience are, IMO, terrible.

I understand it's a one-man studio - and the game feels like it - but hearing the developer's priorities for the game (as of writing this post) do not give me faith that it will be heading in a good direction. I think this is unfortunate, because this could be a great game - if it had some more polish. But for the moment, it sounds like he's more concerned with balancing than making it enjoyable to be in the game's world.

Overall I think Phasmophobia is fun in spite of itself, and only with friends to distract from the user experience. On its own, it's a good concept with some dismal execution.

As we got into the spooky season of Halloween, I came across this game by accident on YouTube. The fact it’s practically a playable version of those cheesy ghost hunter shows I love endeared me to it immediately. This is also an early-access indie game that I believe is developed by legit just one dude from what I heard.

The first thing you’ll notice about this game, is it does have a bit of that early access jank to it, which is to be expected from such a title. Your player characters sort of bend like rubber band people and phase partway through doors. I’ve seen videos where the ghost will be stuck in a piece of furniture, unable to move. Still, it’s not so terrible that you feel like you have to actively fight the game to have a good time, more just a reminder you are playing a Single A game, if that moniker exists.

The graphics aren’t too bad though, all things considered. You have several different types of locations you visit from suburban homes to abandoned high schools to remote cabins. The residential homes are rendered well. They look like real, lived-in homes; like maybe your ghost hunter got the call to investigate and you sent the residing family to stay at a hotel while you go ghost hunting. The fact they look so normal makes it all that more unsettling. The cabin, which they humorously refer to as a “farmhouse”, looks like the amalgamation of every scary cabin that’s been in a horror movie. The lack of lighting helps to make the game look better than maybe it actually is. On any map, I did not like to be left alone without any teammates in earshot. The player characters look like Sims, not totally ‘realistic’, but not uncanny valley material either. The ghost models are creepy when you do get a solid look at them. There’s the big ax wielding dude, the creepy old lady with a sickle, and a few others.

Unlike in the ghost hunting shows on TV, the Phasmaphobia ghosts will kill you. This is very much a horror game, Luckily, the budget nature of this game keeps it from being too scary. I am a big chicken who does not like jump scares popping up in my face at all. This game does not really have any of those where the ghost gets right up in your grill. There’s not a lot of unique animations in this game, which I’m fine with. The only death scene is you see a pair of hands grab you and snap your neck. There’s a music sting with it, and it’s done in a way that you aren’t gonna be shitting your pants every time it happens. Again, no jump scares, but the game is still sufficiently spooky. I had a ghost whisper in my ear, that made me jump, and there’s just this lingering dread as you wander these buildings, hearing things move, phones ring, footsteps, lights flickering, never knowing if the ghost is watching you. The most visual spooky thing I’ve seen was as I scanned the room me and my team were in I noticed an extra person in the room standing in the far corner. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it again. The fact you do have other players with you does help take some of the edge off the scariness.

So, I’ve talked about how the game looks and scares you, but how does it play. Well, it’s a 4 person co-op online multiplayer game. Communication is an important aspect of this game, you better be going in with a mic. Not only do you need your voice to communicate with fellow teammates, but also the ghost. You can call out to it for a sign, just like on TV. You can play solo, I won’t because that’s way too unnerving, but you can. So, you get called to a location and have to use tools to hunt down the ghost and identify. That’s it, you aren’t trying to capture/kill these spirits. I can tell the creator of this game is also a fan of those ghost hunting shows, or just ghost hunting in general. The tools you use to identify and track the ghost are real tools used in ghost hunting. You have your EMF Reader, Spirit Box, Motion and Sound Sensors among other tools. You have to check for things like cold spots in rooms or ghost orbs appearing on cameras. Again, as someone who loves those shows I was having fun getting to play a ghost hunter. The first couple minutes of a match are crucial. This is the time to get in and sweep the whole house to find what room the ghost is haunting and set up cameras & sensors. During this time, the ghost may say something over the Spirit Box or rattle some doorknobs, but it hasn’t gotten upset enough to start killing you yet. As time progress on and you hassle it, it starts lashing out more, until finally appearing completely in front of you and going into “Hunt” mode. When that happens, you either need to run outside or, more likely, hide! If the ghost is cooperating, a good, well oiled team can identify the ghost and get out of there before it even gets angry.

There are about 10 types of ghosts and they each have their own quirks that you use to identify them. Only a few will talk through the Spirit Box, others show up as orbs on camera, others still create cold spots. Each ghost has three things it does and you narrow them down in your journal to find out what they are. There’s also little subtleties to each ghost that aren’t obviously stated in the journal. You notice this ghost likes to flicker lights and turn on TVs, that’s probably a Jinn. Does this ghost like to roam around the whole map, you might have a Mare there. Maybe this ghost is getting a little more aggressive a little quicker than usual, probably a Demon or Oni. Those are hints you pick up on just from becoming an “experienced” ghost hunter.

Unfortunately, the gameplay loop can get a little dull after playing a bunch of matches in succession. The banter among your teammates and the terror of hiding from an angry ghost helps to perk it up every once in a while. Once you’ve got about 3 hours of play time you’ve seen all the game has to offer. Still, I wouldn’t say this makes the game bad. It’s just more of a play it for a bit, meet some new people, have fun for about an hour, go on with your day and then do it again tomorrow.

All in all, I really do have a soft spot for this game because I get to live out that ghost hunter fantasy without buying all the equipment and driving out to an abandoned cemetery at midnight. It definitely doesn’t hide it’s early access feel, but if you aren’t huge on being scared, the low budget works in your favor. It’s got a good root gameplay loop to grow off of, and I’m excited to see where it goes.