While Ghost Blade HD isn’t for everyone, it’s hard to not appreciate it for what it is despite the fact that it’s as brutally short as it is challenging: An intricately designed experience of speed and shrapnel coming at you from every single angle. There’s a certain layer of subtlety present, but don’t expect Ghost Blade HD to redefine the genre. Rather, it’s a celebration of everything that made schmups fantastic so many years ago, wrapped up in a tight and bright package.
Ghost Blade HD features incredible classic shoot 'em up gameplay that's as rewarding as the best in the genre. However, its lack of content and disappointingly short campaign makes it fall just a little short of greatness.
Snappy Game Reviews - Clenching through space
Snappy Game Reviews - Clenching through space
Bullet hell shooters are plain fun, aiming for that high score while feeling like a champ for making everything on screen explode while being showered by enemy fire. This to me is pure gaming bliss and I love “gamey” games, as such, I had a wonderful time with Ghost Blade HD.
Ghost Blade HD has a straightforward plot that doesn’t add much to the game, being a shooter that doesn’t detract from the game though. There’s an AI named Shira that was built to protect the residents of Mars but after some thousands of years have passed it all goes haywire and Shira becomes Evil Shira and it threatens the existence of the entire universe.
In the Main Game, you take control of one of three ships throughout five stages with a distinct boss at the end of each one to take down Evil Shira. Stages and enemies have enough variety to keep the game from feeling repetitive but to be honest you’ll be spending most of your time looking at the enemy fire and trying to dodge it.
There are three difficulty levels, with Easy being extremely generous with how when you’re about to get hit the game automatically deploys a bomb so you won’t die until you run out of bombs and Hard being, well, pretty challenging with enemies being more durable and shooting an insane number of bullets. With that said, I found that Normal strikes the perfect balance between challenge and fun, you’re still pretty vulnerable as taking a single hit will destroy your ship. There’s also a neat risk/reward system in which if you get close enough to a bigger ship and take it down while in a certain range you’ll be rewarded with more points than usual (you’ll hear a chime if you’ve done it right).
The soundtrack is certainly one of the highlights, having a little bit of both old and new. It harkens back fond memories from 90’s shooters like DoDonpachi with tunes heavy on synths while also to throw in some modern ones that kind of remind me of Ikaruga, that’s certainly not a bad thing.
As for lasting appeal, besides the Main Game (which can be played with 2-Players simultaneously) which depending on your skill will take about 30 minutes to get through there’s a Training Mode where you can practice any stage or boss at your leisure and a Score Attack Mode which features a unique stage made up of what seems to be sections of stages from the Main Game where you try to get the best score with infinite lives.
Most of my time with the game was spent hunting for trophies, as Ghost Blade HD boats a full trophy list with a platinum trophy. Getting an x599 multiplier on Hard in any stage had me clenching my teeth in a sort of pleasing way, I was truly getting challenged and it felt amazing once I finally beat that challenge.
I commend 2Dream re-releasing this Dreamcast hidden gem on current-gen systems, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to experience the amazing SHMUP that is Ghost Blade.
Ghost Blade HD mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do. It provides a bullet-hell arcade shooter, with leaderboards to chase. The awesome 90’s effects and focus fire gameplay are undermined by a slight lack of difficulty and effective power-up system. While this game isn’t by any means bad, it’s not a must-play title. If you’re a fan of the old Dreamcast title, pick this up for sure. If you aren’t, I would recommend other arcade shooters over Ghost Blade HD.
Continue reading more at our website at Gaming Tree House.
Ghost Blade HD lovingly embraces the history of bullet hell shooters, providing classic substance with modern polish. Though these modern aesthetics proved vexing at times, it’s an experience worth seeing through.
While shoot 'em ups are conspicuously underrepresented on modern hardware, Ghost Blade HD's presence amounts to little more than a fleeting cameo. Just because it's the only port in the storm doesn't mean that anyone will stick around after the raging winds subside.
Ghost Blade HD has the 90s retrograde down pat, delivering a nostalgic retro shooter that’ll bring you back to that favorite arcade of yours. Enough keeps this from being a must buy, but the price point makes it appealing for anyone looking for a good ol’ time.
For its price and what its trying to do, Ghost Blade HD isn’t the worst time. Navigating mazes of instant death in the form of the projectiles does have an inherent value. It’s just that there are so many better examples of the genre available across all platforms. If the player is looking for something to ease them into this type of game, this will fit the bill. The bullet pattern design does play fair. The real worry is that a newcomer might play this and wonder what all the fuss is about. Already indoctrinated fans will just find themselves bored in short order.
Ghost Blade HD es un buen SHMUP, pero no un gran SHMUP, ya que copia demasiado un molde ya establecido y que la mayoría de fans del género están ya mas que hartos de jugar, por lo tanto goza de una originalidad que brilla por su ausencia, alejándolo de los grandes títulos que intenta imitar.
Sin embargo, todo funciona a las mil maravillas, su modo 2P local me ha hecho recordar aquellos momentos en los arcade, y técnicamente es bastante coqueto gracias a su renovada presentación a 1080P.
Hucast Games ha demostrado que saben muy bien como funciona el género, así que espero que al próximo intento se saquen de la manga algo propio y mas de su cosecha, para intentar llegar al mismo escalón que un ESP **** o Radiant Silvergun. Y digo esto porque creo que serían capaces de lograrlo.
Además, con la sequía que existe en PS4 en lo referente a matamarcianos, resulta una opción muy recomendable.
-Lee el análisis completo en Letiste Gaming-
SummaryGhost Blade HD is an intense bullet-hell shoot 'em up game, with satisfying and addictive score-based gameplay, with its tradition going back to the shooting games of the 1990s era. Designed with a modern graphic style and special effects, Ghost Blade also features a 2-player mode. Ghost Blade HD Is easy to learn, yet hard to master.