Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story from eastasiasoft, Top Hat Studios, and Suzaku is a sci-fi horror adventure. Check our Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story review!
Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story from eastasiasoft, Top Hat Studios, and Suzaku is a Rated M for Mature is a new sci-fi survival horror adventure on Nintendo Switch. I’s story takes place in the year 2083 in Neo Hong Kong. You’ll be playing as Mei Lin Mak, a young woman who ends up finding herself dragged into a supernatural horror mystery that is over a century old. Given that this one has cyberpunk right there in its title, that means you can expect to see things such as cybernetic enhancements, bright neon lights illuminating every corner of the city… as well as locations that seem to be hundred years in the past?
You’ll move Mei around with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, sprinting by double-tapping a direction, or by pressing the L button to toggle between walking and sprinting. The right analog stick will open up your PDA. You can interact with things and other characters with the A button, collecting stuff that might prove to be useful at a later time. You can access said items by going into your inventory by pressing the R button. If there is more than one character or item to interact with within your vicinity, you can cycle between them with the B button. You will also have a flashlight to light up your path – as to make things a bit less creepy – which can be turned on and off with the Y button.
It seems you’re on your way to a bar for a first date, but when you’re almost at the club for said first date, a girl comes running at you fast, bumping into you… and knocking your ID. You notice it’s missing when the bouncer at the club asks you for it. Since it falls below a car, and you can’t quite reach it, you go searching for the car’s owner so that you can ask him to move it. After completing a short “go find these many of these items since I seem to have misplaced them” quest, you recover your ID, make your way into the bar, and wait for your date.
Unfortunately, your eyes augmentation starts to malfunction, so off you go into the bathroom to try and fix things. But by the time you exit the bathroom, things are not what they used to be. You find yourself in what seems to be a rather old building, with documents that make reference to the 1980s. The door you just walked through has no doorknob, and the other two doors in the room are locked. Maybe you can find a key or other item that can help you find your way out of there?
To give you an idea of the type of puzzles you’ll find in Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story, and as to not spoil things too much, let me talk about how you can find your way out of this particular room. If you explore the room, you will find a shipping box. While empty, this does allow you to see how you should always try to interact with your surroundings. Case in point, if you walk all the way to the left of the screen, you’ll find a bobby pin, which you can then use to pick the lock of the storage room. Inside will be a stool and a metal pipe. If you use the stool on the right side of the screen, you’ll climb closer to a window that is too high to use to climb out of the room. But if you use the metal pipe to break it, you’ll be able to reach a key that has been conveniently left outside the window! Use the key, and you’ll be able to open the large double doors.
While being able to open the large double doors is certainly good news, it is then that what seems to be the ghost of a man that was shot in the head shows up! While you manage to move to another room, it won’t be long before the ghost finds you. When it does, a timer will show up on the lower left part of the screen, letting you know how long you have to hide from it before it’s too late. You can’t just hide everywhere, but if you keep your eyes open and inspect all areas, you will certainly find a spot that can prove to be very valuable.
Remember how in the old-school survival horror Resident Evil games, you would need to collect ink ribbons so that you could save your progress at one of the many typewriters that could be found all over the place? Well, Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story gives a nod to this by having you save your progress by collecting old-school Betamax tapes so that you can use them at TV stands!
Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is an entertaining 2D adventure that, unfortunately, ends up not being as memorable as expected. It’s a game that will last you around 6-7 hours at most, as you try to solve the mystery at hand, completing puzzles, trying to avoid getting a game over from being killed by a ghost, or from grabbing the wrong item at the wrong time. The game’s art style, with female characters of exaggerated proportions, will be something that rubs some people the wrong way. Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is out on Nintendo Switch with a $19.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by eastasiasoft.
