I’d never heard of Tosa before playing Ishin! but after an hour, I knew exactly what it was and why it mattered in the melodramatic story of coup d’état and betrayal. Hitting a single button brings up brief explanation that provides context on what the characters are talking about. I’m reminded of Like a Dragon: Ishin!which included a fantastic feature that highlighted key words and phrases in the middle of dialogue that may be unfamiliar to players. Just tell me why Cyborg Assassin Man is so angry and why he likes to stab things so much and let’s go. It’s a fairly poor summary that still expects players to know the minutiae of the world and is presented as some kind of heady speech about rebellion. Honestly, though, if you watched it and told me you understood what happened in any kind of detail, I’d call you a bald-faced liar. It would be remiss of me to not mention that Ghostrunner 2‘s main menu includes an option to watch a “catch-up” video that describes the plot of the first game. That’s a shame because while Ghostrunner 2 wants to be taken seriously in terms of its mechanics, there was also clearly a great deal of effort placed into the lore. As someone who didn’t play Ghostrunner, it was difficult to not instantly turn my brain off and ignore every story element since none of it made sense to me. It’s made more compelling by the voice acting, which gives each character a distinct voice - even the edgelord protagonist and villains, which seems above and beyond to me.Īll of those names and MANY MORE are just dropped on you with little explanation at the start of the game. Not fantastic but by video game standards, it’s good. Honestly, the writing is actually pretty decent at times. I’m sure folks who loved the Ghostrunner and its world of cybernetic warriors and shadow governments will ADORE how the sequel expands on these concepts. I should note up front that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Do You Need to Play the Original Game Before Ghostrunner 2? Yet having played through Ghostrunner 2 without playing the first game (don’t me, that’s the nature of this job), I’ll tell you that the story is borderline incomprehensible. A set up like that doesn’t need complex characters, deep world-building, or established lore to work. You’d think that a game starring a cyborg ninja doing dirty deeds in a cyberpunk dystopia known as The Tower would be simple enough that you could understand immediately what’s going on.

Ghostrunner plot