The majority of my time with Ghostrunner was a blast, and I'd recommend it with some strong reservations. The visuals are fantastic, in both the technical and artistic departments. The soundtrack is well-crafted, driving synth that'll keep you moving forward even during the game's harder sequences. The gameplay mechanics are excellent... but the game as a whole is difficult enough that certain issues became painfully apparent. I found several sequences pushed past "fun but fair" into "please stop this isn't fun anymore" territory. It took me until I was well into the game to realize that jumping, for instance, is heavily influenced by where you point your camera. This has the effect of making camera placement extremely important during some of the more challenging platformer segments, which means trying to look ahead or get a sense of your surroundings will almost always lead you to miss your jump. The game is full of tiny things like this that don't seem impactful most of the time. The game is really good at asking for just enough precision to be fun and to make you feel like a legend for clearing levels, while also giving you enough leeway to fudge an input here and there and not instantly lose while you fly through the levels. But when the game asks for high precision, those rough edges hurt. The more challenging encounters sometimes left me wondering if I'd actually finally cleared them or if I'd just lucked my way to victory. The upgrade system is cool, but felt like it didn't really matter most of the time since the developers couldn't account for what a player was using at any given moment. It did occasionally feel impactful, but not well integrated and probably didn't need to exist. Those complaints should be taken as they are, however - fairly minor. This is a difficult game with some rough edges that can chafe thanks to how demanding it is, but it's also very worth your time. I enjoyed Ghostrunner, and if the above doesn't bother you, you will too.
