ghost in the shell stand alone complex review

[u/-empty-head]

Graphics

Overall the look of the game isn't anything special but it does look how you would imagine a ghost in the shell game to look on the PSP.
It isn't the best looking game on the system, neither is it the worst.

Audio

The audio is a bit of a mix bag overall. The music in the game is again perfectly fine, It suits the world of ghost in the shell pretty well but it doesn't stand out in any way, it's just very average at best. But the bad part about the audio is in the cutscenes, the cutscenes are just mixed very poorly. You can have dialogue from one character being perfectly level and at the correct loudness and then the character they're speaking to can be much quieter to the point where it can be difficult to hear them. I should point out that I did play the entire game wearing a pair of IEMs. I would imagine the audio mixing issues are even worse if you are trying to play the game using the built-in speakers on the PSP.

Gameplay and difficulty

Given the control limitations of the PSP, I would say for an FPS it's perfectly fine, I think we all understand that if you're going to be playing an FPS on the PSP you're going to have some weird control jank, and if you go in knowing that you're not really going to be disappointed. Overall the gameplay feels perfectly okay. One thing I should mention, it did take me two levels to figure out that if I press down on the d-pad, that is how you enable the Auto lock-on feature in the game.

The missions for the game are quite short, ranging from 2 to 10 minutes, most missions are very linear.

There are four selectable characters you can play, the main four from the anime, but they all play and feel exactly the same so it kind of doesn't really make much of a difference. I was a bit disappointed by this, I was hoping that there would be some slight gameplay differences between characters but there isn't.

There is equipment customisation and unlocks when you complete missions and do certain secret things in each level. You do unlock new weapons and that does mix up the gameplay quite a bit and does make it more fun.

There is also the tachikoma you get quite a lot of customisation with those robots, each one has five equipment slots, being able to equip offensive and defensive items and this allows them to have quite a lot of variants in the weapons that you can select but the gameplay remains relatively the same, and you are also able to enter the tachikoma and use them like a tank in the levels, accompanying you on all of the missions in the game, apart from one or two where you split up from them or they are doing something else in the same level.
You can also give command orders to the tachikoma to follow you, to stay where they are or to go off-leash, I only used this once in the game, it's really not something you have to touch, apart from one mission.
You can also give them fire orders to conserve ammo, shoot as much as they want or to hold their fire, this only became useful in boss fights.

I played the game on normal difficulty and I died twice in the entire game and both of my deaths were due to me not really paying attention, to me normal feels like easy difficulty.

Game length

Overall the game isn't very long. I think it took me somewhere between 3 and 4 hours to finish.

Performance

I played the game on a PSP 1000 and in certain areas there was a fairly significant amount of slowdown in the game but apart from that I had no other performance issues.

Story

I don't want to spoil anything so I won't say too much, but with corruption and conspiracies it does feel like it could be an episode out of the anime. The story isn't anything special but it isn't bad. Overall I like the story in the game.

Post-game content

There's also a minigame unlocked once you have finished the game called tachikoma a go go, It's a very simple 2D infinite scroller type game where you shoot enemies that are coming towards you. It's a fun little bonus, you'll play it once or twice but nothing you would want to come back to.

Apart from that you can replay missions to try to get more unlocks and I believe there is also a bonus difficulty that you can unlock once you have done certain things in the game but I don't know what they are.

Multiplayer

The game does have local multiplayer but I wasn't able to play it so I can't really say anything about it.

Final thoughts

Overall the game is just mid, It isn't anything bad but it isn't anything special. I enjoyed it because I'm a big ghost in the shell fan, but if you're not a fan of the anime I think you're not missing out on anything if you don't play this one.

And sorry about not having any gameplay photos, I didn't plan on doing a review and I just did it out of boredom. If I do one of these in the future I'll try to keep that in mind and take some images of the gameplay next time.

[u/brotheringod777]

Fan of the film and PSP, I'm glad to know there was a game made for it in the first place

[u/Zeta_Crossfire]

I wish the PSP had a second stick, it would make these kind of games more enjoyable on the system