Developer: Tango Gameworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £49.99 (Humble, Steam and Epic)
Released: 25th March 2022
Available on: Humble, Steam and Epic
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard, Steam Deck
Approximate game length: 20 hours approx
I’m just going to say up front that I’m sorry for how often I use the word ‘spirit’ in this review, it’s a hard word to avoid when nearly everything relates back to it.
You play as Akito, a young man who is on a mission to save his sister from the mysterious man in a mask that kidnapped her from the hospital. At the start of the game Akito gains a stowaway known as KK, who’s own goals happen to align. For as long as you have KK onboard you can make use of all the spiritual powers he has and don’t take any fall damage regardless of the height you fall from.
The game is set within the district of Tokyo called Shibuya. The once bustling streets have now become the hunting grounds for creatures known as ‘visitors’. These visitors are spirits that have manifested from negative emotion and each one is a representation of it. As you defeat these visitors an entry will be filled out within your status screen, giving detail on that specific visitor. For example, there is a visitor called a Forlorn, which looks like a small child in a yellow raincoat and umbrella. If they see you, they will summon in many other visitors and disappear. The Forlorn are created from the sorrow of abused children.
Concentrating fire on a single visitor will eventually expose their ‘core’. Once the core is exposed you can destroy it causing most enemies to die instantly. However, you will need to be quick as the core’s defences will regenerate after a short time.
You can also stealth kill many enemies by performing a ‘quick purge’ (though some enemies won’t die from this but instead take a lot of damage). This requires you to sneak up behind an enemy which in some cases is easier said than done.
Upon their death a visitor will drop ether which restores Spiritual Power (SP) and grants experience points (XP).
SP is used as ammunition for your attacks and comes in three colours, red, blue and green, each of which represents an attack type and are based on three of the four elements (being wind, water and fire). While visitors don’t seem to have any specific vulnerabilities to the element of the attack each attack type does have its specific uses. Air attacks are the weakest of the three but have the most SP, can be fired off in rapid succession and are very easy to replenish. Water attacks are shorter in range but can hit multiple enemies at once. Lastly (of the SP based attacks) there is fire, fire is essentially the rocket launcher of this game, high damage, low fire rate, low SP amount and is the hardest to replenish. As you play, you’ll also gain access to a bow and various talismans that don’t use SP but have very limited ammunition.
Scattered all over the game world are what look like clumps of spirits, these spirits can be collected with a paper doll called a Katashiro (which can be bought from the stores). Rather than simply being a collectible you can transfer these spirits via a phone booth which will grant you XP. There are actually a number of collectibles that you can find that grant XP as well as side quests that grant it.
In classic RPG fashion once you have enough XP you’ll level up, this is depicted as Akito’s synergy level increasing as well as increasing your maximum HP. Levelling up also gives Spirit Skill points to spend on unlocking new skills, such as making attacks more potent or being able to glide for a short period.
Something that I found quite interesting is that you recover health by consuming food and drink. What makes this interesting is that this also has an additional benefit of very slightly increasing your maximum HP with each item consumed and some food will even grant a temporary buff.
As you play you’ll find shops that are ran by strange floating cats with two tails (these are a form of spirit known as Nekomata). These shops take a currency called Meika that you will find scattered throughout the game world in floating gold pots or in some cases large golden cat statues.
A fog Permeates the game world that, should you wander into it, will quickly drain your health. In order to remove these fog and free up the map for exploration you have to cleanse Tori gates. Yes, these are effectively the radio towers in a Far Cry game, but in those you won’t die by wandering into the area without uncovering it first.
I’ve seen this levied at the game as a criticism but I love how empty the streets feel, it really adds to the haunted atmosphere that these once crowded city streets are now devoid of all life. It adds an element of liminal horror. I’m sure that for those that have actually been to Shibuya that this will feel even more effective.
From what I’ve been able to research it seems that the area this game takes place in has been very faithfully remade for the most part. In a way it makes me a little sad to know that this may actually be the closest I ever get to visiting Japan.
The designs of the visitors really hit a sweet spot for me, I love their designs, they look just human enough that it makes them uncanny and really adds to the creepiness factor of the game.
I tried to play this game with English dubbing because I often struggle to read subtitles while watching things but I found the voice acting awful and quickly changed it back to the original Japanese.
Since this game has been verified to run on the Steam Deck I thought I’d give it a go and ran it for a few hours and found absolutely no issues, though much like God of War it drains the battery quickly.
My overall thoughts? This game is pretty great. Sure it suffers from some of the typical open world busy work that others of its ilk do but it really nails the haunting atmosphere it was going for, especially with the school, damn place creeped the hell out of me.
