$19.99Ghost Song A slow, somber descent worth taking
Explore a dead moon as an amnesiac Deadsuit, blasting and brawling your way to buried secrets.
Is Ghost Song worth it?
Ghost Song is worth it if…
- you like your metroidvanias slow and moody, closer to Metroid than Castlevania
- you enjoy piecing a story together from dialogue and lore instead of cutscenes
- you want a game that rewards patience in combat over fast reflexes
- you care about art, sound and atmosphere as much as gameplay
Screenshots
Combat with a rhythm of its own
Deadsuit fights to a beat of its own making. Your rapid-fire blaster builds barrel heat as it spits rounds, and that heat is the point: the hotter the barrel, the harder your melee blows land. So the flow becomes shoot, then close in and pummel, then back off before the gun overheats. Weapons and alt attacks drain energy and stamina in different ways, so what looks like a simple side-scroller asks you to pace yourself. You also level up, and you customize your suit and blaster with modules, which opens real room to build a loadout that fits how you like to fight.
A moon that keeps its secrets
Lorian does not hand you a quest log. You explore twisting tunnels and abandoned labs lit by bioluminescent flora, and the story arrives in fragments: a conversation here, a relic there, a voiced character with a tale of survival or abandonment. Nobody dangles a reward for digging, and the game never points where to go next, so the mystery is yours to chase or ignore. New abilities open deeper strata of the moon and optional hidden areas, and the hand-drawn art and quiet soundtrack make even an empty corridor feel like part of the answer. The truth, when it comes, is one you may remember rather than learn.
What should you know before starting?
How hard is it, and can you make it gentler?
The game offers two modes. Original plays as designed and carries a soulslike sting: dying costs you some of your maximum health, and restoring it takes nanogel, the in-game currency, at specific points on the map. Explorer mode removes that health penalty entirely, and plenty of people finish the game on it without feeling shortchanged. Combat itself is fair but deliberate, and a couple of bosses may take more tries than the rest. If a punishing loop is not what you came for, Explorer keeps the atmosphere and drops the grind.
Do you have to backtrack a lot?
Some, and it is worth knowing up front. The map is well built with shortcuts and secrets, but save points and fast travel are limited, and while you carry a quest item, fast travel is off. That turns some return trips into long walks past familiar walls. If long stretches of quiet traversal sound like atmosphere to you, this will not bother you much; if they sound like padding, go in with eyes open.
Can you play it solo, and how long does it take?
It is a singleplayer adventure through and through, no co-op or multiplayer to arrange. A first run tends to land around twenty hours, and finishing the story unlocks a new game plus if you want to return to Lorian with everything you learned. There are also optional areas, side character questlines and hidden gadgets, so how much of the moon you actually see is up to how hard you dig.
