If you don’t know what Ghostrunner is, it’s a game that was released on Steam back in October, and has now seen a release on PS4 and Xbox One with a free upgrade to the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions. I’m not, however, talking about those versions.

This month (or, late November) we saw a release on Nintendo Switch, and that’s the version of the game I decided to pick up while it was on sale. I kinda wish I’d saved those points now to be honest with you. Ghostrunner on the Switch isn’t terrible – It’s just, in my opinion, not the best it could be. But let’s start with the good parts.

Gameplay

If I were to compare this game to other’s, I’d say it’s a mash-up of Mirror’s Edge style free running with Superhot’s fast paced action with a style of difficulty akin to Super Meat Boy. You’re a cyberpunk ninja (maybe?) that can run on walls, jump through the air and dodge and slash your way through enemies. There are some more “platforming” style sections but most of the game sees you trying to elegantly and efficiently get through levels without getting hit. The “Super Meat Boy” element comes in with the idea of a “one hit death” situation with your health, but that when you die you’re respawned just before the group of enemies or the obstacle.

I died. Through the first stage, I died 10 times. Is that bad?

Responsive controls matched with a stable 30fps on the Nintendo Switch give you a great gameplay experience. The pre-mapped controls take a little bit of getting used to, but after a while it starts to make sense. R jumps, L dashes and slows down time, A dashes and ZR attacks. You have to turn off the bit of your brain that says “Nintendo = Mario” to stop accidentally pressing B to jump, but it feels good once you get it. Or, you know, you could change the button mapping.

So why skip it?

These textures on the left are…not good.

Graphics, that’s why. I’m not a graphics snob when it comes to the Nintendo Switch. I expect games not to look as good as their PS4 or Xbox counterparts. However, lots of games from both the AAA and indie crowd manage to make it work. This game straight up doesn’t do well with masking the downsize. At it’s worst I can see this being a game that’s inaccessible for anyone with less than average-good vision.

I first started Ghostrunner on handheld and the biggest thing I noticed was that the edges of everything looked…well…wrong. Not blurry, just “unsharp.” What’s worse is that this extends to text. So not only do you have blurry 3D rendering, but you have text that’s hard to read. It makes it genuinely difficult to change settings on the TV.

Imagine this on your average 50″ TV – at a standard brightness.

Remember the unsharp text? That extends to anything that needs fine detail. As a result, the cyber sections (there are a lot) have big issues. Anything that’s brightly lit or any small particles are genuinely uncomfortable to look at. Add in motion and it becomes even worse. The image doesn’t actually portray this that well. Everything here moves. It’s terrible. It was bad enough that for the review on YouTube I purposefully didn’t include this section of gameplay to make it more accessible.

I have pretty decent vision. Even with my reading glasses, this was uncomfortable to look at. This section took me about 6 minutes and after about 2 it was difficult to handle. I literally needed to take a break afterwards. If I had below average vision I doubt I’d be able to actually play this. And because Nintendo don’t offer refunds in the same way their rivals do, that would be £20 I would never get back.

This is from the first stage in the game. I haven’t used any extra compression on the image.

So, it’s a bad game?

Not at all! Ghostrunner as a game is really enjoyable. Managing to stick landings and slashes successfully feels great! The issue is that the Switch version doesn’t look good.

Instead of an optimised port, it feels like this is the PC version if you turned everything to the lowest setting. It’s far from unplayable or unenjoyable, but I’m not looking forward to more sections in a digital world.

I’d hope that an update comes to solve these issues and make it better. If not, at least add some basic accessibility options to change text size. Until then, I would definitely skip the Switch port of Ghostrunner. Stick with the PC, PS4 or Xbox One versions. Unless you have to have this game portable. Shame.