Ghostwire Tokyo is quite an unremarkable game, yet another one on the pile of never ending Open World Games.
It broke new ground for Tango Games however, who after The Evil Within tried themselves on a new IP. Which despite delving into japanese folklore and occassional moments of horror is a fast paced action Shooter.

While playing i put the game into another subcategory of Open World Games, one that puts a higher focus on the collectathon aspect and is usually even more fast paced with little to no downtime while traversing the world, think of Crackdown or Infamous or Gravity Rush.
Games with a myriad of collectibles scattered around their worlds all serving to make you stronger in the process.
They let you move around at ridiculous heights at ridiculous speeds and while i wouldn't say most of them have expressive movement mechanics or high skill ceiling, they cut down on any aspect of downtime, to let you gobble up more and more power ups as fast as possible.

Playing these Games always puts me in a "Zen" like status. The World itself doesn't oppose you it rather becomes a sort of playground for you to traverse, encouraging you finding the most effective and quick routes to more Power.
All the visual splendor, the accompanying music becomes only pure stimulation while the world beneath the one you traverse becomes clear with only a single focus in mind.

Ghostwire excells at the splendor, it's dark moonlit Tokyo - so quiet. The ghastly fog swirling through the streets - vanishing everyone but the clothes and the animals.
Neonlights reflecting on the surfaces.

Tokyo is slick, the monsters are incredibly cool and the handsigns have their charms.
The World is littered with Ghosts - this Games Crackdown Orbs - around 2000 to collect for 100% completion.
I did it all
It was not really enjoyable
There was no zen but groaning and the nagging feeling of working a mundane 9-5 job, much less exciting than the job description for a super natural detective sounds.

What's the problem? Above all Ghostwire Tokyo tries it's damned hardest to pull you out of the flow. The 2000 Souls to collect, you can't just walk into them by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, quickly improvising on your next jump where you want to land. You are always forced to stop. Cease the movement, stand still while holding L2 - if not upgraded, for up to 5 seconds. That may not sound long, but do it 2000 times. There is no enjoyable build up for traversal, there is always a forced pause.

If the pure act of traversal however was fun enough, i would make the argument for just roaming the city intrinsically and trying to build your own set pace and flow, but sadly the parkour, the gliding and the grappling from building to building is quite janky.
Akito moves as if he was stuck in knee high mud, there is a short delay in his jump which makes jumping in the last possible moment weirdly hard. The Grapple ability - which you have to unlock but is a necessity in this game because otherwise you can only use context sensitive grapple points - has it's own weird caveats. It doesn't have a set distance, you aim at a building and sometimes will be amazed that you are able to go up all the way, while other times the game doesn't let you grapple to the rooftops of suburban houses that are dwarved in size compared to the tall buildings in downtown.

There are other aspects like the mid fps combat or the weirdly interesting backstory that would have made a much much stronger premise for the actual game than what we got in the end. Though i feel those have been greatly explored already by others.
If it would have gotten the one thing i wanted from it right i wouldn't see the other detriments as anything but the sum of it's parts.
Sadly Ghostwire Tokyo fumbles at the very important basics and ends up as Tangos worst outing.

I think what makes Wipeout special is it's strong sense of identity and how it is infused in all of it's Elements.
From the clinical looking menus to the different ship manufacturers everything serves a purpose to immerse you just enough into it's Setting, to give everything what you're doing context. It's a cold sci-fi atmosphere, there are no characters to get attached to, only corporations and the commerce aspect of Zero-G races are present for the player.

This rather grounded approach in it's presentation is also part of it's identity during the actual races. The Ships in Wipeout have a very hefty weighty feel to them, steering them around a corner at top speed requires skillful use of your airbrakes and sideshfits, knowledge of the track and the ship, it is not easy and requires alot of practice but if you are willing to invest the time mastering Wipeout can most of the time be a very rewarding experience.
What made me fall in love with it's Courses is that there is legimately no real down time in any given moment. Most laps don't take longer than 30 seconds to complete but you will always be faced with decision making or a skill check or both. A course will ask you, choosing between a boost or an item pad, managing the next corner and during jumps if you want to sacrifice ship energy for a small boost afterwards. All of these knowledge checks paired with the EDM music immerses you even further while playing.

Lastly there is the aspect of weapons and above mentioned ship energy. Combat is a big part of the series - and a reason why mastering Wipeout is not always necessarily rewarding - if your ship energy reaches zero it explodes and the race counts as lost. Even if you have good track knowledge an opponent might still hit you in an unfortunate part of the course with a rocket and there is not much to do than eat the hit. On one hand this forces you to adapt in situations, it adds another layer to your jump boosts as well - are you willing to consume even more ship energy when it is already low for a boost? - but on the other hand you may feel unfairly treated when a rocket bumps you from first place to last, because there aren't always responses to incoming projectiles possible.

While i overall don't enjoy the frequency of weapons i think they are an important part of Wipeouts identity and rhythm of play. The player is just a number and the progressing commercialization of entertainment leads to more and more thrills, less and less downtime and the prospect that not always the best will automatically win.

From the moment you start Wipeout itself will make it clear to you what kind of Game it is even before you end up on the track.

Panzer Dragoon is an excellent rail shooter, which introduces the player to a mystical high fantasy world. Most of it's central conflict is left unsaid, the game is relying on very little exposition but by doing so it let's the imagination of the player take over and fill in alot of the blanks.
It's a quite cinematic game during it's short duration, everything is framed like an epic, a journey you and your newly befriended dragon go to.
I was impressed by how well these two aspects come together to form one the most unique rail shooters out there, perfectly supported by a playful, dramatic score.

However the remake of this classic leaves alot to be desired. It doesn't look particular pretty and while it has better tech i feel the atmosphere and feeling of a journey is much better conveyed in the original. The way it shifts from day to nighttime in the desert between episode 2 and 3 is one example of this but there are also gameplaywise some readibility issues.
The boss in Episode 4 in the original had red glowing cracks indicating weakspots for you to shoot at, the Remake version just glows red almost everywhere making it hard to figure out what to shoot exactly if you don't know it beforehand.

Enemy projectiles also often merged together with the background making them sometimes much harder to read.
The visuals themselves take away alot from the mystical atmosphere and instead make you feel like you interact with toys. It looks sterile but also visually busy with too much bloom and an unpleasent filter on top.

I still enjoyed my time with this but the remake itself is rather a downgrade in most aspects and i would have wished for an option to play with the original visuals instead.