for the completionists: the first 95% of the game is gonna make you appreciate it, then the Spider Thread DLC is gonna make you hate it with every fiber of your being

Undoubtedly the most lame game I have ever wasted my time on trying to 100%. Do NOT waste your money, this game is genuinely so boring. The combat is so very lacklustre, the story is VERY short and the cut-scenes are far too long. I had planned to get every achievement before even playing the game and for some reason still continued on after discovering how tedious a journey I had set upon. I gave up after finding out how much longer I would have to play the game for the 2 spiders thread related DLC after having achieved every other and completing the story. If I could go back in time I would have unsubscribed from HUMBLE before even receiving this game, I couldn't imagine being one of the suckers that paid full price for this rubbish.

Japan version of doom

Awh man, I wanted to see more of the "Ghostwire" franchise.
Rest in peace, Tango. Thank you for a good time!

Before getting into my thoughts and ultimate recommendations for Ghostwire Tokyo, I want to preface this review stating I know full well that whatever issues I bring up, Tango will not be patching them out as Microsoft dissolved them earlier this year. It's actually one of the main reasons I started playing Ghostwire initially, as it was the only game by Tango I had yet to play. And with all that said, Ghostwire Tokyo is a game I very much enjoyed, and will recommend to people, but it's not a perfect game.

To start with the good, I want to say first off that this game has beautiful, stylish visuals with impressive use of tech like SSGI, Ray Tracing, and HDR that make Tokyo come to life in ways only previously achieved by Persona 5. And also like Persona 5, Ghostwire has an absurd amount of detail in every environment that gives this game so much stuff to look at, it really is a feast for the eyes. This is easily Tango's greatest visual achievement aside from Hi-Fi Rush.

The sound design is also worthy of much praise. This game has tons of diverse, Japanese sounding sounds (trust me it makes sense when you play it lol), that really give the game its own quirky identity while also being a feast for the ears. Once again, Tango did a fantastic job bringing Tokyo to life in this game. I also commend them for sticking with Japanese audio as the default for experiencing the game, and for giving us plenty of other dubbed languages to enjoy the game. I filped between JP and EN audio, and both were excellent dubs.

All of that said, the game itself is kind of a mixed bag. It's basically Far Cry with finger guns, and you fight spirits instead of tigers or people. If that's your thing, this game has a lot of content to offer that took me roughly 20 hours to complete for the main story & a good chunk of side quests. Combat is far more shallow and repetitive than Tango's other games, but I still found it to be enjoyable after getting some upgrades and accessories to upgrade your power. And they also gave the game another extra school area in the Spider's Thread Update that is of high quality, and quite spooky too. It also comes with a roguelite mode (that I didn't play), and a bunch of other side quests and stuff to do. For a free update, it was an impressive amount of quality content that makes Ghostwire Tokyo easier to recommend to people than its launch state.

And for some technical notes, Steam Deck users BE AWARE of this game. This is labeled as Verified, but I would barely consider this Playable in its best shape. Any time RT is turned on, that toggle is uploaded to the cloud save, and will literally not load on Deck if that is the case. So if you plan on playing on Deck local hardware for an extended period of time, be sure to toggle that stuff off before uploading your save and hopping on Deck. And even when the game is at its absolute lowest settings, it runs BAD. Like some of the interiors can hit 60, but a lot of the game just does not perform well for the hits in visual quality. With that said, I did play a ton of this game on Deck both local hardware to bang out side quests, and when streaming the game from my 3080 equipped PC when at home, which worked surprisingly well, but ymmv depending on your home equipment.

My final recommendation is that you should play this game if a supernatural Tokyo tourist simulator with a Far Cry gameplay loop and decent narrative sounds like your cup of tea. It's not for everyone -- and there are far better open world games out there -- but this one is different and interesting enough where I would recommend picking it up on sale.

love the graphics SO PRETTY!!!

Love this game!!

Not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but gets repetitive after some maybe 3 hours in.

The investigative/exorcism missions are top notch and it's a shame that some of their tricks aren't applied to a lot else of the game.

Combat is very fluid and will get pretty easy.

Very pretty game, just overstays it's welcome a bit.