Review - Ghost Town (PSVR2)
Thinking about supernatural mysteries, I remember watching and reading Goosebumps as a kid, and then, growing up watching Ghostbusters and The Shining - stories with the ability to draw you into a world on the periphery of life and death. But there's a limit to how involved you can feel - however good the movie or book.
That's where Ghost Town comes in. You're put in the shoes of a medium, to witness the deathly chill in the air with your own eyes; a spooky artistic immersion that can't be replicated outside of virtual reality without spending millions on physical sets.
Ghost Town is a story-rich puzzle game from the developers of the renowned.puzzle series, The Room. But now, the developers have chosen to combine their puzzle design expertise with a deeply immersive world, and intimate story with inventive gameplay.
So, let's find out if Ghost Town manages to fulfill it's spooky aims, or if it doesn't quite come to fruition.
Set in 1983, Ghost Town has you play as Edith Penrose, an Irish witch living in a London. She runs a small occult business from her tower block apartment, exorcising the lingering spirits that haunt the city. But when her brother goes missing, she is sent on a hunt to uncover what happened to him, running into demonic forces and cults along the way.
In less than five minutes, development studio Fireproof Games, establishes Ghost Town's grounded supernatural tone through a skilful use of environmental storytelling and naturalistic brother and sister banter that really sells the scenario of two siblings together on a ghost hunt. With virtual reality, it's even more important to hit the ground running and totally immerse a player in the world, which is especially difficult when building a new intellectual property from scratch.
Image: Ghost Town Apartment - Fireproof Games
Being a story-centric puzzle game, Fireproof have intentionally designed Ghost Town's fundamentals to all function with the purpose of telling Edith's story. To immerse the player into her universe of warlocks and spells. The core gameplay loop is built up of story sections, light linear exploration and puzzles that build in complexity as you progress through the game. But at its heart, everything helps embellish the story.
When we first embody Edith on the ghost hunt with her brother, in a dark delapidated theatre, Fireproof waste no time showcasing the tightly paced and well-written naturalistic dialogue between the siblings. Immersing the player at the centre of their plight to exorcise a ghost that's haunting the theatre stage. Smartly characterising the brother, to set up the story yet to unfold.
It's in the theatre where you first control Edith, hovering her sigil tattooed hands with nails painted black in front of your face. It's clear from the beginning that Fireproof made the decision to keep the controls simple, approachable and intuitive: a tap of the X button to interact, the circle button to open the inventory, and the R1 underside trigger to grab hold of your flashlight from the inventory or to hold mission critical items.
Image: Ghost Town - Lighthouse Ghost - Fireproof Games
This intuitive approachability extends to every facet of Ghost Town. Similarly to The Room series, which aims to challenge but ultimately see players succeed, Ghost Town includes a variety of puzzle types: from lever operated machinery that opens new paths, light based puzzles, well thought out and reality bending puzzle boxes, to multi-step escape room style levels and more. While some may say that Ghost Town's puzzles are too easy and I did find them somewhat frictionless, I also thought they were logical and made you spend just enough time to solve them, to keep the game and narrative moving forward.
Although, if you do find a particular puzzle challenging, Ghost Town doesn't block your progress or include any fail states. Simply open the inventory menu to find two pullable tabs on the bottom left. The one on the right reminds you of your current objective; the one on the left is Ghost Town's handy hint system. When you can't progress, you pull down the tab and you are presented with a vague hint,.to push you towards the solution without giving it away. But if you're still stuck, Fireproof will keep giving you more hints until they finally give you the solution. Like everything else in Ghost Town, it's a smart and well thought out system, that encourages players to try the puzzle first by including a timer between hints. Despite not finding the puzzles challenging, I do believe they take enough time to figure out, which gives players a constant dopamine hit that makes you feel smart and keeps you progressing through the evolving environments and story.
Having already released on other virtual reality platforms, Playstation VR 2 fans have been eagerly anticipating Ghost Town's arrival. So, it's important to consider what features the game uses. Ultimately, this is one of the few areas of disappointment. The lack of noticeable headset haptics and adaptive triggers is surprising, as it could've easily furthered the immersion. Like gentle vibrations as smoke rises past your face when you heat up a vial, or adaptive triggers to increase the tension when trying to force a solution in a puzzle box.
Image: Ghost Town - Rina - Fireproof Games
Despite this, I loved the interactivity and attention to detail Fireproof put into every puzzle. One such example is when you're encouraged to use both hands, one to turn a reality altering globe whilst the other delves into and tinkers with another section of the fancy puzzle box. These phenomenal interactive moments showcase Fireproof Games' years of virtual reality and puzzle design knowhow.
However, exploration and puzzles aren't the only form of gameplay in Ghost Town. As a medium, Edith must exorcise the spirits who've refused to pass on, and Fireproof puts you in full control of her day job. Throughout the game, Edith will meet spirits at places where she can move them on from the living world. In these moments, you stand behind a plinth and place your hand down to begin a ritual. Here, Edith presents meaningful relics from the ghost's past, so they confront what's preventing them from moving on.
These exorcism scenes are incredibly atmospheric. With ghosts drenched in stylised lighting and particle effects. But once you set one of the ghost's relics down, a glowing orb of light will appear and signify the start of the exorcism spell. By holding the grip button and pointing your virtual fingers over the first orb, you follow the track of light to the next orb and so on, until the penultimate orb extends backwards, readying you for a forward thrust into the final orb. This propels the spell into the ghost. Although these are linear sequences, I found they added variety and only deepened Ghost Town's gameplay experience.
Like many titles on the Playstation VR 2 before it, Ghost Town can be played seated or standing and has a suite of comfort and accessibility options. So, if you're easily nauseated, you can setup the perfect mix of teleportation movement with vignetted incremental snap rotations. Personally, I use the seated option due to personal needs, but I have played VR for years now and I am acclimatised to smooth walking, but only if the game is optimised.
Image: Ghost Town - Collection - Fireproof Games
Fortunately, Ghost Town has a silky smooth performance and a good image quality. Fireproof Games confirmed to me that Ghost Town is reprojected to 120 frames per second from 60 frames per second, which looked nicely implemented. However, there is some jagged aliasing, which I didn't expect to see as much of on the Playstation 5 Pro. But generally, the image quality is some of the best I've seen in VR, especially when you account for the level of detail on display.
Even if Ghost Town wasn't a VR game, I'd be singing the praises of the visuals. The inclusion of lots of little details in levels such as Edith's apartment add personality and depth to the world - even simple letters from the council pinned on the wall, characterise her, her relationships and how she lives her life. With a sharp image, detailed textures, particles and a clever use of reflections and lighting, it was hard not to be impressed.
Another standout location is a NPC's museum of occultist antiques and oddities. Each of these demonic relics has a well-written flavour text on a plaque that explains a greater world of demonic beings beyond Edith's mission. Some are even embellished by research notes handwritten by the collections owner. But the best part of this level is how interactive it is. Almost all of the relics are interactive. Some ignite, teleport or even paint. It's lovely lore-filled breather from the main story, but it does highlight one of Ghost Town's biggest flaws. The lack of interactable objects outside of the key items and puzzles. To see such detailed environments with books, pens, cups in VR, naturally makes you want to try to pick them up, and when you can't, it's always a little immersion breaking. But then, you can interact with random things like the apartment fridge and freezer doors. That being said, I fully understand there are budgetary and time limitations that are better put elsewhere, rather than into a mechanic that would be used for a few seconds in passing, and respect their decision to focus on the puzzles and narrative.
This brings me to Ghost Town's story - a supernatural adventure with light horror, where witches and the occult are part of the very fabric of the world. Written by Cara Ellison and Mark Hamilton, both the screenplay and plot are well researched and expertly written. The script does an excellent job of developing and showcasing the relationships between the small cast. From Edith and her brother, to Edith and her friend Rina.
Image: Ghost Town - Seance - Fireproof Games
Even though, the mystery is quite straight forward, it's very entertaining. The thematic overtones of familial bonds, responsibilities and family approval immerses us in Edith's personality and helps us to understand her motives and decisions. For someone connected the dead, she feels duty-bound to help them, and her family are her links to also remember her duty to help the living. But for me, it's the many lore pieces in Ghost Town that make it so immersive. I adored Fireproof Games' narrative design choices: to skilfully use environmental storytelling in most levels, via collectible magazines and letters.
I know from my own experience writing these types of expositional pieces, just how impactful a few paragraphs in an optional letter is, adding texture to what would otherwise be a blander scene. This is especially true in virtual reality, when you have the physical ability to lean in and sneak a look at the protagonist's wider life outside of the main plot.
Over the four to five hour runtime, Ghost Town's pace felt perfect for the story they wanted to tell. I was engrossed in Fireproof Game's latest unique creation from the start - a uniquely grounded supernatural game set against the backdrop of discontent from Thatcher's Britain, where mediums and the occult have played a vital role in world conflicts such as World War Two.
As masters of the straight puzzle genre, I am glad Fireproof Games took a chance on making the more narrative focused Ghost Town. It demonstrates their prowess in making even more ambitious and bigger projects, showcasing their talents of balancing approachable puzzle design, and now, a clear understanding of how to create engrossing narratives and how to build interesting worlds.
It's not an exaggeration to say that Fireproof would've already done plenty at this point to deliver a great story, but they didn't stop there. Not satisfied, they included fully mo-capped cutscenes. The life-like animation work is showcased whenever there's an NPC on screen, whether one of the main cast or a wandering ghost. All of these story propelling cutscenes feel like watching a kind of theatre production performed just for you; perfectly acted sequences that allow you to spectate but not interact with the characters. As you often find yourself blocked off from getting close to the characters speaking to you, such as furniture in the apartment acting as a wall to prevent you from interfering with the story sequence. But then, certain parts require your input, like following your friend Rina's instructions as you operate a joystick on a computer. Although, said joystick was an odd one as you hold the stick and instinctively try to move your hand to control it, when the developers have decided to you the actual control stick to move between selectable options. But minor quibbles aside, I really enjoyed these cutscenes. They might not work for everyone, but they worked for me.
Image: Ghost Town - Theatre - Fireproof Games
But these story moments wouldn't be as richly told without impressive voice acting. Edith is given a layered and nuanced performance by Jacqueline Milne, who slips between banter like comradery with friends, to deep anxieties and a strength to help those she loves. Some of my favourite scenes were between Rina and Edith - a lovely dynamic that contrasts Rina's excitability with Edith's driven nature to do what's right.
However, it'd be a disservice to Fireproof if I didn't highlight how the entire experience is elevated by finely tuned spatial audio. The audio design is a standout; it isn't just additive, it delivers perfectly timed tonal shifts. One moment Edith can be solving a puzzle to gentle ambient noise, to then venture into a spooky corridor where the game switches to a haunting soundscape, often minimalist to let the horror creep in, letting your imagination take over. While Ghost Town isn't graphic and isn't reliant jump scares, it uses a spooky atmosphere to create tension, which keeps you wanting to see the story through.
There's one moment in Ghost Town that uses sound in the most immersive manner possible. I couldn't help but be impressed. A character shows you a magical projection by pressing your hand on an orb, which transports you into a brand new scene. You hear the character's voice all around as he walks in and out of the scene, but that isn't the impressive part. It's when you remove your hand and the scene goes back to the previous room, changing how the narration sounds. At first, I thought it would've been nice to get more moments like this, but it's sparseness is actually what made the moment special. But it's all of these special moments combined that make Ghost Town into the lovingly crafted game it is.
With Ghost Town on PSVR2, Fireproof Games haven't just created one of the best virtual reality games of the year, they've made a great game that stands alongside the best games of the year outside of vr too. They've harnessed their years of puzzle design and virtual reality experience and combined it with a compelling narrative, in a supernatural world that I hope we get to visit again. Although, whatever Fireproof Games decide to do next, I'll look forward to playing it. I strongly recommend playing Ghost Town on PSVR2 or any other virtual reality platform it's available on.
Image: Ghost Town Review Score - 8.5/10
*Review code provided by publisher
