The bestMetroid-likes induce a sense of wonder and joy as you make your way through strange worlds and find a steady stream of new abilities and power-ups to propel you onward.Ghost Songsucceeds at this in ways many similar games fail to, all the while offering a fairly robust suite of combat options that made me want to play the whole game through twice in a row. It does suffer from a curiously low difficulty bizarrely paired with superfluousSoulsmechanics, but it still ticks enough boxes to make itself a worthy entry into the pantheon of similar games.
Ghost Songbegins with your character waking up on an unfamiliar planet — for her and for the player. The entire way through the game, the main character is only known as Deadsuit, which is the name of the suit she wears. Or is. I think I’m missing endings that would have cleared that up. Early on, Deadsuit meets the crew of a downed spaceship that was sent plummeting after getting caught in a field around the planet. There are five makeshift parts that Roper, the ship’s mechanic, needs to get the ship fixed and off-world — a task taken by Deadsuit.
There’s a somewhat heavy story focus here, although you can always opt to spend less time visiting with the stranded crew. After you deliver each ship part, the members gain new things to say and some even offer items for continuing to interact with them. The game borrows several features from theSoulsseries, though, even if the general clarity of the main narrative is infinitely more straightforward and dialogue-based. The first, and most successful, thing thatGhost Songborrows from theSoulsgames is the way it handles character side stories. Finding and chatting with characters allows you to track down their next location to continue their storylines. Dialogue is mostly delivered through text, but there’s some voice acting here too.
Keep yourSouls
Ghost Songoffers a normal mode and explorer mode. To put it simply, the explorer mode does away with the wholly unnecessarySoulselements. On normal mode, you lose your currency — called nanogel — every time you die, and must return to the location of your demise to collect it. You also get a bit of your health locked off with each death, although this can be repaired with a small amount of nanogel. While I’m quite fond of the games FromSoftware makes, I have played very few games inspired by them that I actually enjoyed, as I feel most tend to miss the mark while copying the mechanics in the hopes of riding FromSoft’s coattails.
Truth be told, I immediately groaned, as the last thing I wanted to play was anotherSouls-like. But, as I mentioned, those elements here are horribly out of place. And that’s becauseGhost Songis easy. In my run on normal difficulty, I died three times. There was absolutely no reason to include those death penalty mechanics, as the game just isn’t challenging enough to make them engaging. But explorer mode removes one facet of the game that can make for an even less challenging playthrough. Each time you give Roper a ship part, another day begins. On normal, enemies scale. On explorer, they don’t. I’d recommend that no one play the explorer mode due to this.
Deadsuit has an arm cannon that looks similar to the arm cannon of ‘you-know-who.’ But it’s quite different. It rapid-fires shots but starts to overheat after a bit. Once it overheats, Deadsuit will do increased damage with her melee weapon until it cools down. This is a compelling feature that encourages you to mix it up. Melee weapons include a spear, a greatsword, a large fist, and a boomerang wheel that you throw at enemies. These weapons are entertaining to use, even if your foes don’t tend to pose much of a threat. You’ll also find modules that let you equip a secondary ranged weapon. These tend to boost your stats, so there’s reason to have more than one equipped.
Unlimited power
Another trait borrowed from theSoulsgames is that you spend nanogel to level up stats. You’ll pick between gunpower (ranged damage), vigor (melee damage and HP), and resolve (HP and stamina). Yes, you consume stamina whenever you run or use melee attacks. You can only level up at specific points but they don’t actually function as bonfires. Instead, you save at glowing flowers, which is where you’ll be recalled upon death. You can also fast travel, although the fast travel and level up spots are few and far between. One thing that’s interesting is that leveling up isn’t all that important. You’ll find items that increase your level in specific stats, and the aforementioned modules can boost your parameters as well.
The leveling is also front-loaded, so you’ll level up a lot at first and then hardly ever. The finalSoulstouch is that you heal yourself with healing cores you find. It’s easy to get five or six of these very early on, which is part of the reasonGhost Song‘s level of challenge is so low.
It might seem like you may tackle the ship parts in any order you want, but that isn’t necessarily the case. The game tells you to go after the green one first, which will get you the double jump. You can’t do the others without it. You need the walljump ability to get to most of the others, but you can mostly do them in whatever order once you obtain this, so there’s variance between playthroughs.
Two in one
Despite the general lack of challenge, many of the items you find greatly increase your combat potential. It’s a shame that there isn’t really anything you’d need to use these things on. For instance, you can acquire modules that allow gunpower and vigor to scale with your level, which makes you an absolute beast. There is one optional boss fight that may give you some trouble, as its attacks can be quite hard to dodge. Thankfully, the missile module you find early on is one of the best in the game and can get you through most situations as long as you synergize it with another choice module. Deadsuit’s dash also grants invincibility frames, which is quite handy.
GhostSonglasts about six to eight hours, depending on your desire to explore or complete side quests. I wish it were more challenging, and the inclusion of most of theSoulselements are wholly unnecessary. But this is a captivatingMetroid-like that offers some wonderful exploration and some very satisfying upgrades. Anyone looking for their nextMetroid-like fix will likely be quite satisfied with whatGhost Songoffers.
Andrew Farrell
Andrew Farrell has an extreme hearing sensitivity called hyperacusis that keeps him away from all loud noises. Please do not throw rocks at his window. That is rude. He loves action and rpg games, whether they be AAA or indie. He does not like sports games unless the sport is BASEketball. He will not respond to Journey psych-outs.
