Ghostrunner test: the cyberpunk ninja fruit on amphetamines!

Sign of rampant anxiety taking hold of the collective imagination, or resurgent fashion effect of the past, cyberpunk is a genre that has been doing wonderfully for some time. The cultural products donning its colors follow one another without interruption, despite an inexorable saturation of the market. Also, when the young Polish studio One More Level announced Ghost runner at GamesCom 2019, the news was lukewarm. Well we were wrong and are happy to admit it!

Ghostrunner test: the cyberpunk ninja fruit on amphetamines! See PriceRead ConclusionGhostrunner

Exhilarating gameplay once mastered
Nice variety of enemies and bosses
Full-bodied but well balanced difficulty
A level design full of good ideas

Halftone art direction
Some specific problems of interactions with the decor
A less catchy first half of the game
The Cybervoid levels without much interest, except for the last one

The end of the world has taken place, humanity is on its knees and what remains of it has entrenched itself in a final bastion, the gigantic Dharma Tower. The choice of verticality is not the result of chance since society is now hyper-hierarchical in a caste system, held with an iron fist by The Master of the Keys. Obviously this authoritarian reorganization of society did not happen without dissent, but the rebellion was put down and is now bloodless.

However, it was without counting on the awakening of a formidable cybernetic swordsman, thrown out of the tower and deprived of his memory, who will come to the aid of the only resistance fighter still alive, by attacking the tower. Floor after floor, the Ghostrunner will rise to the top, despite the injunctions to turn away from this noble fight, repeated by the Grand Architect, a mysterious and disembodied being accompanying him throughout his quest.

So much for the scenario of Ghostrunner, whose narration is based entirely on in-game dialogues and unfortunately demands the attention that we have all the trouble in the world to give it. And for good reason, we are tempted to focus primarily on the hectic action, in which the game plunges us brilliantly.

Harder, bretteur, faster, stronger

For its very first production, One More Level does not reinvent the genre but intelligently draws its inspiration from multiple sources, to obtain a hybridization of formidable efficiency. We thus find Mirror's Edge-style parkour, associated with the frenetic rhythm of a fast-FPS à la DOOM and the "one shot, one kill" bias of a SuperHot... The maxi best-of formula concocted by the Polish developer puts the player on an adrenaline infusion and almost constantly keeps us under pressure.

And now our cybernetic ninja, with the false air of the mythical Gray Fox from MGS, leaps, runs against walls and executes his enemies with a single blow of his blade. Those ones return it to him besides well, because the least bullet is also fatal to us. The rhythm thus imprinted by the severity of the sanction, then leads to dozens and dozens of attempts to achieve its ends. Fortunately, it is possible to start again instantly from the last checkpoint, a bit like a trajectory error or an exit from the road in Trackmania.

Ghostrunner is therefore a pure die & retry that requires dying a very large number of times before being able to effectively understand the different sequences making up the multiple levels, between enemies with very varied characteristics and perilous obstacle courses. At first laborious, our progress becomes more and more fluid as our mastery of the Ghostrunner's superhuman abilities and our increasingly instinctive reading of level design become more refined.

A hero boosted with cybernetic augmentations

In addition to running, jumping and sliding like a champion under EPO and growth hormones, our hero also has a kind of energy grapple allowing him to reach high platforms. From then on, the use of all these possibilities of movement gives rise to twirling, exhilarating acrobatics that are increasingly rewarding as our mastery of them is refined. We nevertheless regret that, occasionally, certain interactions with platforms do not trigger, while others occur without our wanting it. Situations certainly a little exceptional but which are a task for a title playing the card of precision and speed of execution.

That being said, there's more to Ghostrunner's move palette than just out-of-the-ordinary athletic prowess. Our over-augmented swordsman can also count on a few quick sleights of hand to get him out of the most desperate situations. At the forefront of these tricks, the possibility, after a jump, of slowing down time for a short time to shift left or right and thus avoid a shot that would put us in checkmate. An equally useful ability when it comes to timing during a sequence of platforms whose frenetic pace makes reading the terrain and anticipating the next obstacles difficult for our modest human brain.

To this is added, during our progress, a set of special techniques, the use of which draws on a focus gauge which is restored over the course of the executions. They are four in number:

an instantaneous strike that teleports us to the enemy in our line of sight;
a blast sweeping the opponent like a wisp of straw;
a Strider-style horizontal energy wave capable of slicing through multiple attackers with a single blow and at long range;
the possibility of turning an enemy against his peers to assist us.

Each of these techniques can be boosted via a rather original improvement system consisting of a grid on which to place sets of blocks, Tetris style. It will then be a question of associating as well as possible the possibilities of increase of various kinds, the most powerful obviously occupying the most space.

Note that each slot left vacant is not completely lost either since it reduces the recharge time before the next use of one of these special techniques. There is therefore even an interest in not filling the entire grid, if one wishes to give priority to the frequency of use over the power. And it's rather well seen from One More Level!

A murderous ballet that goes crescendo

With this particularly extensive offensive repertoire, one might think that our cybernetic ninja walks with ease and casualness in the midst of hordes of enemies standing in his way. Nay. One More Level has cleverly orchestrated the program of festivities that await us and each level is thus an opportunity to rub shoulders with a new type of enemy or to assimilate a new environmental mechanism.

From the basic gun holder, we quickly move on to the soldier equipped with a high-burst gun, forcing us to remain constantly on the move. Then comes the sturdy fellow hidden behind an energy shield which forces us to take him from behind to get rid of it, or the melee specialist leaping towards us to crush us on the ground, passing by the ninja at speed of execution which has nothing to envy to ours. And that's without counting the projectile launcher teleporting at our approach and, finally, the disgusting crawling and explosive creatures that it will necessarily be necessary to flee with great strides. Everything is obviously punctuated by three boss fights, all as successful as each other, and in completely different styles.

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One of the three bosses in the game

Same thing on the side of the game environments which are gradually enriched with new interactions, thus expanding the range of maneuvers to be carried out to reach the end of each course. Whether it's new momentary abilities, such as gigantic jumps, shurikens with which to deactivate electronic systems that lock certain accesses, rails to hang from to slide down them at full speed, or mobile structures to be hacked in the middle of the course to to ensure continuity and not fall into the void, Ghostrunner is full of good level design ideas. And if the first half of the 17 levels of the game only deploys the most conventional of them, the second puts the package, each level ending with a blissful smile from the player (and a certain feverishness, let's not be afraid to admit it ).

The only shadow in this beautiful picture, the Cybervoid. This is a virtual world where the game takes us many times. It thus takes the form of intermediate levels essentially oriented towards the platform and reflection. Aesthetically very successful, these parallel levels could have been welcome breaths in the frenetic pace to which the game compels us. only challenge lies in their inadequacy with the supercharged gameplay of the game, resulting in countless and inevitable downfalls.

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Aesthetically very successful, the Cybervoid often lacks playful interest

A two-speed artistic direction

Another complaint addressed to the first title of One More Level, the inequality of its artistic direction.

The first half of the game looks like a generic production whose graphic assets seem to have been used in many other games, set in a cyberpunk universe. On its first seven or eight levels, Ghostrunner therefore struggles to impose a slightly original visual identity, so much so that we have the unpleasant impression that any new play area is only a repetition barely differentiated from the previous.

We must then wait until we have reached the halfway point of the game for the Polish studio to finally get us out of this somewhat austere succession of techno-filthy corridors and offer us more open and airy environments with much more elaborate atmospheres.

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After a first half of the game visually quite plain, the game offers very beautiful environments

Fortunately, the constancy with which the soundtrack composed by Daniel Deluxe carries us away in convinced nods diverts our attention from the monotony of the first environments.

An effective succession of big, angry synthwave sounds and powerful kicking techno, the game's soundtrack is a feast for the ears. And if it sometimes happens that a track comes to tire us, it's only because the accumulation of failures leads us to stay a little too long in a level… And that the composer unfortunately can't do much about it.

Finally, we have to salute the technique of the game, at least on PC, the platform on which this test was carried out. Developed on Unreal Engine 4, the title of One More Level adapts very well to an average configuration. As far as we are concerned, we encountered no inconvenience on a machine equipped with a GTX 1080 Ti supported by 32 GB of Ram. Players with a more muscular configuration will even be able to benefit from compatibility with DirectX 12 and thus enjoy Ray tracing.

Ghostrunner: the opinion of Clubic

We honestly didn't expect much and yet Ghostrunner won us over! Terribly lively and exhilarating, the first title from the Polish studio One More Level delighted us by linking moments of bravery, in the ten hours of play that our first run required (count three hours less if you are more smarter than yours truly, that is to say, certainly for the majority of you).

With a full-bodied but progressive and well-balanced difficulty, the adventure that is proposed to us here really takes off, past the first half of the game. Before that, it must be recognized that the rhythm may lack panache and the new proposals put forward by the studio, of a little madness. Arrived halfway, however, the young studio unfolds a breathless scenario at the end of which we arrived on the kneecaps but satisfied with the progress made.

To the point of forgetting a little about the few deviations of the title, such as interactions that sometimes forget to trigger, sequences in the Cybervoid that fall flat or a half-hearted artistic direction. It would therefore be a shame to dwell on these few pitfalls. Ghostrunner a big adrenaline rush summoning our most unsuspected reflexes and which will certainly delight speedrun enthusiasts. Because once the total mastery of the gameplay acquired, we will be happy to come back for more and more effective runs and better and better choreographed.

Ghost runner

For a surprise, it's a good surprise! On the strength of this first achievement, One More Level comes out with honors for this supercharged action / platform game full of good gameplay and level design ideas. After a first half of the adventure somewhat behind in terms of intensity and artistic direction, the game finally takes off for our greatest pleasure. And despite a few oddities, especially during sequences in the Cybervoid or occasionally when interactions with the decor forget to trigger, Ghostrunner will undoubtedly delight lovers of challenge found in lack of thrills.