*This article is compiled from IGN US and is not reproduced without authorization.
The unique costumes and characters in the Ghostbusters spin-offs, as well as references to the classic line "Cross the streams," stir up nostalgia for the film, especially for people like me, who was the first movie I really fell in love with as a teenager.
However, if you want to make a different spin-off, you must make the absurd content of the original work well. After all, it is this absurdity that has created the classic marshmallow ghost "Stay Puft", and also made many of the lines burst out of a strong comedic effect. In simple terms, the spin-offs of Ghostbusters must take advantage of these little absurdities.
In Ghostbusters: Souls Unleashed, I get a sense of Illfonic's attempts to take advantage of the funny cores of the movie, making the four-player co-op game the best of ghostbuster spin-offs.
So, I want to use this absurd element as an entry point, because the ghost hunting gameplay of Ghostbusters: Soul Unleashed is based on this foundation. In my own experience, for example, I started the game with two developers in the museum map, and there was an AI teammate in the team, and if I hadn't found the clue in the voice communication, I would have even thought it was a living person.
Another illfonic developer was in charge of controlling our enemy ghosts, which needed to constantly evade our pursuit and eventually occupy the entire museum. I have a proton backpack and a PKE meter on me, which can be switched at will, and I can also set ghost traps on the ground, but if I forget to recycle after using them, I can't use the traps the next time I hit a ghost.
At the beginning of the game, several members of our party were scattered around the corners, and then they began to rely on my spirit detector to find the ghosts. The visitors who stroll through the pavilion are the target of the ghosts, but they are still very calm at first. I explored many places, including the Dinosaur Hall, the Aquatic Museum, the Café, and a venue dedicated to displaying precious relics and antiques, from the downstairs to the upper floor, and even to the rooftop on the top floor, overlooking all the pavilions and stairs.
The exhibits are actually very close to each other, so even if I can walk through them at will, the whole map still feels very crowded. Vases, animal models, cleaning supplies, tables and chairs, and other items pile up around the corners not only make the scene seem more realistic, but also provide a hiding place, or a scary way, for our prey.
The ghosts we've been looking for do exactly that. As the scene gradually became chaotic, the spirit detector was also frantically prompting, but not every prompt meant that there were ghosts nearby. Ghosts can "possess" various objects, such as making a chair fly up and through most of the room, or causing other infiltration of supernatural events. In addition, it is guarding the three "fissures" hidden in the museum, and if we want to win, we must destroy all the fissures with proton backpacks. As long as there is still one rift left, even if it successfully exorcises the ghost, it can use the rift to regenerate. Conversely, if we find and destroy all the rifts, the ghost is finished.
But the purpose of the ghost here is not simple, it also carries another mission - to scare away humans. I experienced the ghost's gameplay in the next game, and found that the way the ghost won was to scare away all the humans wandering around the map. Civilians are very prone to panic, ghosts can appear, can make things suspended, so the task of scaring people can be said to be out of the question, not to mention that it can directly attack humans.
Fortunately, the ghost's abilities are also limited, it needs to consume its own "ectoplasm" to use special abilities, and after capturing an object and lasting for a period of time, the spirit can be restored, but at this time the ghost is in the most vulnerable state, such as one of my opponents attached to a mop bucket with a scroll wheel, in order to avoid our round-up, he quickly slid around the field.
For the first half of the game, ghost hunting is really a secondary task. Because ghosts can be reborn indefinitely as long as the rift exists, it is imperative that we take the spirit detector throughout the museum to find and destroy all the fissures, while trying to appease every visitor we encounter. But ghosts don't just get caught, so whenever we break the rift, it always leads to more chaotic fierce battles. Ghosts can spew slime to disturb us, or they can sneak off our proton backpacks behind our backs.
The Proton Backpack is a very strong piece of equipment that we can use to restrain the ghost for a short time, thus dragging it into a trap. But the handling of these devices is rather bulky and difficult to aim, which reminds me of the situation in the movie, where I had to try to control it like the protagonists of the movie to hit the ghosts, and at the same time the ghosts would be chattering overhead and sending out small ghosts to interfere with us.
However, there are four people in the ghost hunting squad, and with the joint efforts of everyone, the rift is all destroyed, and the ghost is not hidden. Our rival has also been idle, occupying almost half of the museum area, spewing all the mucus on the wall, and constantly making various objects float up and fly around, scaring tourists all the way to the door. In the few games I've played, the final stage always ends in madness, with us running all out in the museum chasing ghosts, marking the locations of ghosts on a map, and then shouting excitedly in our voices.
Since the rift has been completely destroyed at this time, the ghost has no way to take us at this stage, and the only thing it can do is to hide in the east and scare away the last few tourists with the remaining energy (not only by the ghosts, but also by the ghost catchers who are already on the head).
I'm very proud that in the ghost game, although my opponents were all the developers of the game, they still couldn't beat me, because I attached everything in my sight, and in the end the whole museum looked like a slimy magic exhibition hall.
Although my current experience is limited to a single map, the appearance and abilities of the ghost hunting squad members have not changed, and even the abilities of ghosts are exactly the same. But the developer revealed to me that the current content is only a small part of the whole game, and the finished product will contain more maps and ghosts will have more abilities.
From Ghostbusters: Soul Unleasher, I can feel that Illfonic is doing its best to ensure long-term playability and fun, so that players can always play each game with joy, and I personally look forward to experiencing more diverse gameplay in the official version.
Although my experience was limited, I saw the great potential of this game and had greater expectations for it. Every game reminds me of a scene from the Ghostbusters movie, especially the famous library farce in which the Ghostbusters team walks slowly through the bookshelves in search of ghosts, only to end in chaos and fright.
Ghostbusters: Soul Unleashed also draws on many of its best genres, including GhostOphobia and Nintendo's Luigi Mansion, bringing together their excellent elements to produce a fairly coordinated work. I'm really looking forward to the joy of the chaos when I go dark with my friends, which is why I love Ghostbusters.