GHOST at DAWN

I found this game tremendously frustrating despite having all the elements I could have wanted in a game. I liked the mystery/noir/horror genre mashup. I liked the visual design. I liked the plot setup. But it just was frustrating to play. I felt like there wasn't enough health or ammo even when I was playing relatively optimally. I straight up lost my first time playing the game, then immediately started up again because I figured knowing where to go and what to do would help me be more effective and efficient. Going in blind, sometimes you're not going to do things perfectly, but after gaining some experience I really thought it would go a lot better. But that just didn't happen. Just being near enemies (even ones you can't see because of camera angles or which have gotten stuck in walls) hurts you, so you can't just run around them and save ammo. Enemies can just randomly decide to dodge your bullets, so even if you're shooting perfectly the same can just go "lolno". I got to just about the same place as my first time playing in roughly the same condition except for having not died as many times, but that was useless because without health and ammo I couldn't get further any…

This game is really fun. I haven't found any other horror game with the same sort of intriguing quircks that this one offers. Never a dull moment. Keeps you on your toes. The trolling is low-key hillarious too. Kudos

A somewhat negative positive review here. It's clear that Ghost at Dawn was made with a lot of heart and hard work, and it's filled with interesting visuals and exciting, unusual ideas - and also some moments that made me want to drive an icepick through my eye and into my brain. So - mixed feelings. The initial presentation is just delightful - it initially presents as a pulpy noir post-WWII private detective yarn, complete with rumpled veteran private d❤ck driving to an abandoned hotel with a voiceover letter from his female client - begging him to find her missing sister. The game namechecks some interesting themes, such as the treatment of the Japanese populations of America in the war and post-war period, and of the sleezy trades and transactions that are conducted behind the crumbling facades of Seattle hotels of this era. These topics are only touched upon lightly, however, and never given the attention or gravitas they deserve, and so their inclusion comes off mainly as a dash of cheap sensationalism. But then, it is pulp...! The narrative pace is initially brisk and interesting, establishing Ben (the detective) and the hotel inhabitants with voice-narrated letters and n…

This one is certainly one of the more unique survival horror games out there, from it's ultra stylized visual approach in both UI and in game aesthetics to it's clever spins on item boxes, limited saves and player feedback, there's a whole lot of playful boundary pushing going on here without ever straying so far as to make it feel like anything but a genuine survival horror game. There is so much to discuss here. I really enjoyed how even before you have gotten started, the game manages to challenge genre conventions with things like denying the player an easier difficulty (although I think the limited lives on/off toggle is a little confusing and could be worded more clearly). I think the maps were quite nice, but I'd always prefer to be able to have them marked to reduce aimless running around and rechecking the same room over and over again just to remember "oh yeah there's nothing in here". Generally the level design and game progression was all quite nice, and I loved discovering all the little twists on the genre staples such as the dumbwaiter being the only item box and having to summon it from floor to floor (even though the little cinematic should probably be skippable…

the limited life bs killed the game for me. Not fun when there's a ghost literally infront of you when you leave a room which INSTANT kills you. Couldn't even disable the permadeath feature since it auto toggles back on when i try to disable it. The enemies also appears to respawn as well...

I'll give this a positive, because I can tell this developer has chops. The sanity meter is a fun concept, and with some fine-tuning, it could be a really enjoyable time. The problem is that it's just...not. Every enemy instakills you just by making contact with you, which erases the idea that you have a choice to avoid combat. If you don't kill everything in any given room, you will probably die. And if you die five times, you're locked out of the good ending, which is just one more layer of feeling bad for no reason. It's got some visual charm, a lot of the bugs have been cleared up, and the story is serviceable (though the main character could have been fleshed out a bit more). It's not a terrible time, it just really deserved a little more structural refinement. I'll say this much though, we don't get many anime survival horror games, so I'm certainly happy it exists. Support your local indies and give this one a buy!