Ghost Giant is developer Zoink’s first foray into the VR space after successful ventures onto Sony’s platform with Stick it to the Man!, Zombie Vikings, Flipping Death and Fe. As the descriptive name suggests, you play as a giant ghost who has appeared in the life of a young cat-boy named Louis. Over the course of the story which should take you around four hours to complete you will build an incredible bond with the little fella. As the credits rolled I can honestly say there is very few times I have been so emotionally attached to a character.
In terms of gameplay you manipulate objects in the world rather than control Louis directly. None of the puzzles in the game are particularly difficult, but hints are provided should you get stuck at any point. I don’t want to spoil any of the story, but expect an emotional and memorable journey to play out over thirteen different scenes where you will need to assist young Louis with various tasks. At no point does the gameplay become repetitive and I found myself marveling at some of the varied approaches Zoink deployed throughout.
Graphically Ghost Giant is beautiful. The art style is similar to what you would find in a children’s pop-up picture book. This adds to the charm of the game and it is a design choice that I hope Zoink adopt for future games. The animation is good, but a notch below comparable games like Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Moss. This is to be expected though given the differences in resources between those games.
As well as helping Louis with his main objectives you will also have various side activities to do in each scene. These include finding and poking any caterpillars you come across, finding a basketball and shooting it through a net in the background of the scene, finding all hidden hats, blowing all pinwheels and poking the bear at each opportunity. These can all be tracked through the games chapter select and you can replay any required chapters for mop-up.
In terms of trophies the game comes sporting a platinum trophy. Nothing is too difficult with trophies tied to completing each chapter, finding all the various collectibles and performing some often hilarious misc objectives around the world. With a guide, which you can find here, you should be able to pick up the platinum in around 5-6 hours. The only trophy that may prove illusive is ‘Basket Case’ for sinking all six baskets in the world. In particular the one in scene 6 requires a lot of trial and error.
One of the only issues in what is a truly remarkable VR title is the tracking of the move controllers. While not terrible, you will encounter frequent issues trying to manipulate small objects or reach a certain distance without your virtual hands simply wandering off. Zoink is limited with the technology they have in front of them and this is not the first time the mandatory move controllers have shown their age, but tracking has worked better in many previous games so it is definitely worth mentioning.
Overall Ghost Giant is the latest must play PSVR title. Zoink have created a truly memorable experience and one that could only have the impact that it did in virtual reality. I always thought VR would live and die by first person experiences, but this joins both Moss and Astro Bot as my favourite games on the system. Buy it.
-VDZE
This game was reviewed on PS4 Pro.
