Ghost 1.0

With inspirations from the manga/movie Ghost in the Shell and classics like Metroid and Castlevania, Ghost 1.0 is the recent project from Francisco Téllez de Meneses to reach Xbox One. Originally released in 2016 for PCs and already ported for most of the platforms, the title is an outstanding metroidvania where you play as Ghost, a mercenary agent hired to infiltrate the Nakamura Space Station and steal their most valuable secrets. But don’t take it for an easy task: the space station will defend itself from any intruders with first-class technology! Prepare yourself for your most challenging mission to date, agent. But first, follow us in this review to know more about the game.

THE GOOD

• Ghost 1.0 has great visuals with an impressive level of details. It becomes clear to you right from the beginning. The environments, enemies and your character show a lot of care by the developer: you will be presented with fluid animations and tiny details (like weapons)
• The gameplay is astonishing! In control of Ghost, you’ll fight hundreds of enemies while exploring the huge space station. In your journey, you’ll be able to buy weapons and upgrades and unlock new skills and abilities for your chassis. “Chassis?” you ask me. Yes, the special chassis built for you to use in this mission. You can leave it during stages, with your ghostly body, take control of other robots to fight enemies or activate switches. Feel free to use the defenses of the station against itself!
• Talking about the upgrades and skills for your chassis, by picking up some special points during the gameplay, you can buy new skills from 4 different branches (chassis, increasing it durability and maneuverability, weapons, increasing your firepower, hacking, diminishing the time used to hack the systems or hacking enemy units during alarms, or Nakamura Space Station, increasing your rewards after alarms), giving a good level of customization according to your playstyle.
• You’ll have many conversations between characters stuffed with a good sense of humor. I know the humor is something relative, but the kind of humor used in the game didn’t fell too pushed at anytime to me.
• The game has overall great music and sound effects, with a special mention to the dubbing work. With few exceptions, the voices used for the characters are great and don’t fell forced. A great job by the actors involved in the game!
• Ghost 1.0 has some great ideas implemented in the gameplay to justify things other games don’t care about. Was your character KIA (hmmm… destroyed in action suits it better)? No problem: you can find 3D printers across Nakamura Space Station where you can always print a new body for yourself. Visiting a shop to buy upgrades in an enemy base? It’s ok if you pretend to be an advanced model produced in this same factory. You’ll find lots of good catches like these few examples to support your actions. Well done, guys!

MIXED FEELINGS

• My only complaint about the game (and it absolutely doesn’t shrink my fun with it) is that Ghost, our character, feels too small on the screen, what’s justified by the size of each room (usually huge) and the number of things happening at the same time on the screen.

THE BAD

• Nothing at all.

Ghost 1.0 [Score: 90/100] Well received on every platform where it was released and on Xbox One it is not going to be different. The game takes concepts of the metroidvania genre, building an awesome world with top-notch and challenging gameplay that will demand fast reflexes and quick thinking to uncover all the secrets Nakamura is hiding. A truly awesome game that I can easily recommend for those thirsty for adventure.