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Wednesday, November 23, 2022 1:35:35 PM

Ghost Watchers Review (Teirdalin)

A game with both potential, and a ton of problems.
The good:
The visuals:
*Fantastic graphics, cool devices, and great 3D work and level design.
The ghost:
*The ghosts will actually do non related things around the level such as making cups and whatnot float.
Unique models to the ghost type and you can see them float by sometimes as a puff of smoke, cool.
Exorcise the ghost:
*After the 'investigation' you get some objectives to capture the ghost to imprison in your van.

The bad:
The developers:
*Obvious problems that show the developers not only do not listen to their community, but seemingly actively refuse to make certain changes for some reason. Such as Motion Blur being turned off not turning off, and this never getting fixed after months of people reporting it.
Game was rushed:
*If you look at their prior game release date, this was pushed out only a couple months after their previous title, implying that their development team either works on multiple projects at once, which would explain why they are going so slow, or rushed this thing out in only a couple months of development.
Forced medium strength film grain:
*You cannot disable the film grain, your characters eyes are augmented I guess.
Repetitive events:
*All the spooky things that happen in the levels are pre-scripted and will repeat, over and over again. See it once, you've seen it all. Such as getting dragged, you will only be dragged to the same two locations or so every time, and this event is also a problem as there is no warning for it and you cannot defend against it. It just happens out of nowhere.
Lack of evidence required, and effort:
*Most of the investigation process boils down to this; open the front door and toss down the Luigi Board, the EMF reader, the radio, the voodoo doll, the journal and the radiation detector. Repeatedly say "Tell me about yourself" while holding the thermometer. You'll get all the evidence you need from just that without needing to step more than two feet into the structure.
HORRIBLE tutorial:
*So the way it describes the Waluigi board is this: When the ghost interacts with it, it'll do something", the something it does is moves the eye on the board around, regardless of where the ghost is, it'll keep moving after being activated as it is an activated evidence like the journal is. Problem is, the game does not tell you anywhere what the eye moving means, it'll either move slow, fast, or super fast. And it's upto you to figure it out via trial and error guessing and failing missions. (You get three guesses per mission before game over) It does the same exact thing with all other devices too, the walkie plays whalesnoises.mp3 and it doesn't tell you if that means the ghost is annoyed or calm or about to murder you while the voodoo doll is being lifted up and dropped down. You just need to trial and error brute force your way through these tools till you figure it out and even then unless you actually stay past the 2 hour mark and keep the game. (I recommend against it) you'll still be unsure of your own findings.
Attacks clip:
*This is just, annoying. So lets say the ghost is about to attack you; the guide said to use the tool right before the ghost strikes, so you go to do just that. You then toss the item behind the ghost and you get insta-killed. This happens in this game.
Lack of levels:
*Albeit the maps are beautifully made, there is only three levels and they're honestly not too interesting when you take into account that the best strategy to play the game for the most part is to never leave the front door until doing the exorcism or playing on ectoplasm mode..
Forced motion blur:
*I know I touched on this above, but the forced motion blur honestly is pretty horrible in this game, it is a bug that has been around for months but due to the fact that the developers either do not speak English or do not read the discussions, this has not been solved and possibly never will be.
Most of the tools are useless:
*The vast majority of your tools are useless to you. Considering the ghost wanders the entire map instead of haunting a tether or room specifically, it makes things such as the video camera useless.
You can only use one tool at a time:
*This may not seem like a problem, until you take into account that the maps are pitch black and flashlight cannot be used while not in your right hand. Personally I'm semi-used to playing these types games without flashlights, but the fact they make it a waste to use it is annoying.
Ghost is easy to avoid:
*The ghost does a stupid camera effect before it attacks, giving you plenty of time to prepare, and if you step out of the house (which you will, because you're doing the majority of the work on the front door) it cancels out its attack prep.
Feels like it was translated from Chinese:
*Honestly I don't know if English is the developers main language or not, but I certainly do not think it is judging by the voice commands wording, as well as the wording for a lot of other things in the game. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but they could have at least hired a proper English native to localize it.
Lack of content unless you play past the return period:
*I feel like this is potentially done on purpose, but the majority of ghosts do not unlock until you reach level 9+, and the majority of tools do not unlock unless you win enough matches to afford them. Granted, you start with all the essentials; so these are mostly just backup items. Like for say, you want to use two bags of salt.
All the non-investigative items are the same:
* This is an annoying aspect to this game honestly. So the main items you use are throwables, protective totems and protective charms. And all of them work the same regardless of what they are; they're just reskins of their base item type. For example, the incense, Jesus statue, and cross all work the same, has three charges and activates from being held when attacked. The protective stationary tools also all do the same thing with just a visual difference as do all throwables. This may seem like a nitpicky issue to have, but this is the only one in the ghost hunting genre so far that has been this utterly lazy with that.
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Overall conclusion:
This game has a lot of potential, but I'm not sure these are the right developers for it. Feels too much like a watered down Ghost Exorcisms Inc // Ghost Busters and doesn't stand on its own strong enough. Lazy programming and gameplay loop. Overall this game is tragic.
2.3/10.