Ghost Rider Game Review

The Ghost Rider game being too easy actually detracts from the overall game. The game is also short but I wouldn't mind it so much if the game didn't feel as easy it was. When there is any challenge, it's due to cheap high damage projectile attacks that you can't reliable dodge all that well and that is more artifically difficult than it is geniune. I can see why me playing the game years ago I was initally lukewarm on it. Like a lot of licensed games by extension movie tie in games of the era that rise above being terrible, you can tell the devs wanted to make a good game here.

The game nails the combat and game feel, the animations and combos all look over the top and flashy to carry the game, and there is some interesting ideas here like the barrier where you reach a certain style rank in order to break it and then damage the enemy, and there is a number of cool offensive attacks like the shotgun, link attacks and an area of effect attack that does a lot of damage, some of this is deriative sure, but on paper it could make for an engaging combat system on it's own merit.

So where does everything fall apart? This is where the laughably easy difficulty comes in. The game is super easy to break in half. Early levels give you so many experience points to the point where you can unlock so many combos and max out so many stats early in the game making all the enemies into a joke early on. And when you max out your "Devil Trigger" of sorts(which will happen because the motorcycle levels give shitloads of XP), you can destroy all the enemies with ease. Stuff like the shotgun and the area of effect attack can kill enemies with ease too. I praised the game for the style meter barriers earlier and while it is a great idea I wished Devil May Cry and games like it ripped off wholesale, the execution of it in this game leaves a lot to be desired. Trying to get into high enough combo can be cumbersume since doing a combo will stop filling up the guage after it is used once and the meter reaches down to zero when hit once. But then you can break this by getting the meter high enough and then have the area of effect attack get you high enough to break the shield with ease without much input. There IS a good combat system here but the poor enemy balancing in general makes this game super easy to break in half.

The Hell Cycle levels are okay but nothing too special and they do a decent enough job at breaking up the combat. The level design and overall combat feels like what you get if stuff like the original Devil May Cry and God of War games didn't have platforming and puzzle solving. As a result, the combat is the only thing the game has during the on foot sections and the combat isn't good enough on it's own. The game's overall structure can be rather repetitive, all it consists of is going to a level finding the elemental soul and then breaking the barrier then progressing. There is not much in the way of anything else to cleanse the repetition. The music is pretty great, that is one thing I want to mention regarding the good, and the game developers seems to really like the character but overall like every movie tie in game that rises above being terrible, you can tell the devs wanted to make a good game but didn't have the time to make the game they wanted.

I will say if you are new to Devil May Cry or God of War style action games, this isn't a bad one to start with due it's easy difficulty.