Ghostwire Tokyo: Katashiro and absorbing spirits Ghostwire Tokyo guide, walkthrough

This page of the guide to Ghostwire Tokyo explains what katashiro dolls are, how to find and absorb ghosts, as well as where to reach with ghosts and what you can gain.

Last update: 31 March 2022

On this page of the Ghostwire Tokyo guide, you will find the most important information about Katashiro, the paper dolls. You will learn how to obtain katashiro, what they are used for, how to find and absorb spirits, where to go with them and what rewards you can expect for saving them.

• Katashiro - unlocking and using
• Increasing the number of katashiro
• Spirit Perception Beads - they help in finding spirits
• Rewards for sending back spirits
• Tracking your progress and freeing all spirits

Katashiro - unlocking and using

Katashiro is the name of paper dolls with magical properties. They can be used to absorb the spirits of Tokyo residents with the intention of saving them. This is also related to developing your character because sending the spirits to a safe place allows you to earn large amounts of XP and, as a result, develop much faster.

You will receive the first katashiro while completing the KK main mission - it will be 10 paper dolls.

You may encounter spirit clusters while exploring the game world. Spectral Vision can help you find them - they are marked while scanning the area.

Unfortunately, you have to take into account that some spirits will be hidden in less obvious places. These are mainly rooftops and you have to look for opportunities to pull yourself to Tengu and so, gain the possibility to examine the rooftops. Spirits can also be found in narrow alleys, undergrounds or inside larger buildings.

Additionally, spirits can show up as rewards for completing a quest or a major fight.

In most cases, you can immediately hold down the absorption button - the only requirement will be to have at least 1 free katashiro. The following rule applies: 1 katashiro - 1 spirit cluster (regardless of how many ghosts are in a given cluster, e.g. if it's 100 or 500).

Absorbing spirits may come with two roadblocks: The first difficulty is Hand Seals on the clusters. To get rid of the Seal, you have to play a mini-game, consisting of repeating the movements shown on the screen.

The second difficulty is more serious and concerns spirits trapped in Containment Cubes that you may encounter at random moments in the game. There are groups of Visitors near the cubes, trying to drain the souls. Your task is to eliminate the enemies before the energy level of a given cube drops to 0%, because then you will lose the possibility of obtaining spirits from it. You have to defend the cubes and play aggressively.

Having absorbed the spirits, you must reach a phone booth, where you can send the spirits to safety. Booths come in several variants and are marked with icons on the world map, making it easier for you to locate them. We do not advise you to wait until you use up and "fill" all katashiros since that can block you from absorbing more spirits until you "get rid" of the currently collected ones.

Katashiros are reusable, so once you free the spirits at any booth, you can reuse the same paper dolls to capture new clusters of spirits.

Increasing the number of katashiro

As already mentioned, you start with 10 katashiros by default. You can obtain more paper dolls thanks to the progress in the story and, above all, by buying them in stores. Each 1 new doll costs 3000 Meiko. You can maximally increase your stock to 50 katashiros.

Having more katashiros will allow you to accumulate more spirits before you have to go to their drop off point. It can also help you in longer missions played in separate locations, as it will reduce the risk of you encountering spirits that you cannot absorb.

Spirit Perception Beads - they help in finding spirits

As you play through the game, you may come across Spirit Perception Beads. They are located on altars in selected shrines, e.g. the Hitani Shrine.

Setting these beads as active will increase the range of finding spirits with the spectral vision. This can be very helpful if you plan to find and absorb 100% of the spirits. Thanks to the beads, you will be able to locate the missing spirits from individual districts more easily. Especially those hidden, for example, on the rooftops or in narrow passages between buildings.

Rewards for sending back spirits

Using phone booths to send away spirits entails two main types of rewards:

1. XP - The amount of experience points received is twice the number of spirits that were sent back. From a single cluster, you can get about 100 spirits on average, but there are also more valuable clusters, thanks to which you can absorb 500 or even more spirits at a time. Regardless of the types of clusters that you find, sending spirits is an excellent method of quickly leveling up your character. It may happen that when you release a larger group of spirits, you immediately advance by 1 or even several levels of experience.
2. Meika - The amount of gold received is 50% of the number of spirits sent back. Hence, you can easily receive, for example, several thousand pieces of Meika at one time. It's not as much help as it is with XP, but you can still access store items faster.

There are also achievements associated with saving spirits. The most important of them is the Salvation of All silver trophy, which you can receive for releasing all spirits from the game world.

Tracking your progress and freeing all spirits

You can track your progress in finding and releasing all spirits in two ways:

The first way is to hover over the icons of the shrines that you've taken over on the world map. At the very bottom of the description, there is information about spirits residing in the district associated with a given shrine (it is surrounded by blue lines on the map). You will find out what is the total number of spirits in a given region and what percentage of them you have already liberated.

The second method allows you to check your achievements globally. This information is located in the top right corner of the world map. You can find out what percent of the 240,300 spirits you've managed to free so far. The game also displays useful information about freed spirits from:

1. Shibuya Underground - on the world map you will find several entrances to the metro tunnels.
2. Containment Cubes - you must look for opportunities to initiate sequences with cubes and release spirits from them.
3. Hyakki Yako - these are clusters of Visitors found at random moments in the game. Upon approaching Hyakki Yako, you will always have to enageg in a bigger fight with the Visitors. You will receive some spirits as a reward for surviving the battle.