Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story
Release Date: August 25, 2020
Adventure, cyberpunk, horror, 2D, crowdfunding, indie games, side-scroll, singleplayer
OpenCritic
The adventure maintained in the convention of survival horror, which takes us to cyberpunk Neo Hong Kong full of references to Chinese folklore. In Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story we play the role of Mei Lin Mak, who investigates an apartment building hiding a bloody secret.
Videos and Screens
[1:21] Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story trailer #1
TheSixthAxis: 8 / 10 by Drea Bunce
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story has a great atmosphere with an interesting storyline and subplots. The range of influences shown helps make what could have been just another horror game feel truly unique. My only issues were the simplicity of the puzzles and the crashes I encountered. If you can get past that, I truly think you'll enjoy playing this game.
Rapid Reviews UK: 3 / 5 by Rob Lake
Controversy isn’t a new concept when it comes to video games. It’s been something that’s been around for a few years now. Games such as Grand Theft Auto, Mass Effect 3, Manhunt, and more recently Cyberpunk 2077. it’s fair to say that controversial video games are here to stay. The latest game to receive the “let’s create some controversy” is Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story.
Cubed3: 4 / 10
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story nails the Cantonese-flavoured, paranormal horror aspect, but fails as an adventure game. Apart from the bugs, untrustworthy mechanics that can erase an hour of progress just because something didn't work as intended, and the lack of a decently told story, this is mainly hard to recommend because its main gameplay loop revolves around running back and forth between the same handful of rooms, trying to "convince" an item to be picked up, by first finding a reason to… even though you've already done so.
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story Description
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is an original survival horror adventure game developed by the independent studio Suzaku. Top Hat Studios published the title on the PC platform, and its creation was possible thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The main source of inspiration for its creators were such series as Clock Tower and Fatal Frame.
Story
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story takes place in a cyberpunk universe filled with elements taken from Chinese folklore. The game takes us on a journey to Neo Hong Kong from 2083, the secrets of which we learn as Mei Lin Mak. The protagonist, equipped with cybernetic eyes enabling her to see more than the average person, searches the nooks and crannies of the ruins of the Chong Sing Apartments, hiding a bloody puzzle more than a hundred years old. Her task is to discover the fate of fourteen lost souls - she hopes to discover the truth about the curse cast on her family.
Mechanics
In Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story the action is shown from the side. In the course of the game we traverse claustrophobic corridors and rooms of the apartment building, as well as the crowded streets of Neo Hong Kong, shimmering with neon lights. The overriding element of the game is solving puzzles, which requires talking to NPCs (who often have useful information), as well as searching for specific items; sometimes it is also worth looking closely at particular elements of the environment, as they can also hide secrets, the knowledge of which will bring us closer to the goal. This is not the end of the story, because Mei encounters spirits on her way, with whom she cannot fight - instead, the girl sends them back to where they have come from, by offering sacrifices in chapels or by solving puzzles connected with them. These beings are not the only threat waiting for the protagonist (for example, she may be electrocuted), so it is worth remembering to manually save the state of game on in-game TVs, because the game does not have control points or an autosave function.
Game modes
After a single completion of the feature campaign, we unlock the New Game Plus mode, where we can not only solve the optional secrets that we have omitted before, but also find a trail of completely new puzzles waiting to be solved.
Technical aspects
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story features hand-drawn 2.5D graphics. The artists were inspired by the work of Masamune Shirow (creator of Ghost in the Shell), as well as Chifumi Suzuki, a character designer at Tecmo Koei (who was responsible for characters design in the last installments of Fatal Frame and Dead or Alive series). During the game we are accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack composed by Andy Andie Han, who in turn was inspired by the works of John Carpenter and Vangelis, among others.
Last updated on May 4, 2020
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story Summary
Platforms:
PC / Windows August 25, 2020
Switch January 7, 2021
PlayStation 4 February 11, 2021
Xbox One January 12, 2022
Developer: Suzaku
Publisher: Eastasiasoft
Age restrictions: 12+
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story System Requirements
PC / Windows
Minimum: Intel Core 2 Duo E5200 2.5 GHz, 2 GB RAM, graphic card 1 GB GeForce GT 240 / Radeon HD 6570 or better, 5 GB HDD, Windows 7
Controversial Attempt to Censor Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story; Publisher Denies
The representatives of Top Hat Studios informed that in the past months they have received a lot of unpleasant messages criticizing Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story. They stressed, however, that they didn't give in and on January 7 the title will be released, uncensored, on Nintendo Switch.
video games
Milosz Szubert
January 4, 2021