REVIEW

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs Review

by Rob Pritchard, October 24th, 2016

The trend of porting video games from older systems to the current one has been more frequent in this generation, especially with some companies finding their feet through the rising trend of digital distribution. One of the less frequent types of games to receive these treatments are visual novels created in the last five years, as they are created with high definition assets as standard procedure. This makes Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs, take a breath, as a kind of diamond in the rough. But sadly, although it claims to be enhanced and improved, the game remains relatively the same throughout, with the exception of new scenarios and the occasional character which is spliced into the narrative.

If you didn’t play the original release when it came out back in 2015, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs is one part Ghostbusters, one part strategic Fire Emblem style battles and two parts anime styled visual novel set in a high school that has an encounter rate of supernatural events that would make Sam and Dean Winchester consider setting up shop in the area. After defeating a ghost that is affecting the students at your new high school, you are inducted into a group comprised of a mix of enlightened students and career driven adults, whose mission is to prevent the public from discovering the existence of ghosts, and eliminate them whenever they become a threat.

You play as a customised unseen protagonist, who is given a long list of questions that apparently influence the game’s storyline, although the only piece of evidence I saw to this was the occasional change of non relevant dialogue. The thirteen chapters that were in the original release are present in their entirety, but a few changes have been made to give returning players a spark of interest to return, such as the introduction of a mysterious cowboy like man named Chagall who is now present during several key events in the story. While his appearance does help to lift up some of the less interesting points in the game, the addition of the character feels more like a detriment as they now seem to focus more on him, rather than give the spotlight to the story as it unfolds. The new Daybreak scenarios provide new ghost hunting missions and story events, and can be undertaken after a short part of the story has been completed. Be ready to use your first aid kits though, as the already intense difficulty is turned up to the maximum, which means that every single move you make will have drastic consequences.

The advertising for this remaster of Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters promised that the game would see several enhancements to the boss battles that take place during each of the chapters, such as Briefing maps that provide you with effective methods of increasing the speed of defeating ghosts, and various tune ups to improve the quality of each fight such as rebalanced difficulty and new enemies. While the former claim proves to be true, the latter does not hold the same weight, which is a slight disappointment. It is refreshing to see new types of foes litter the battlefields which you must defeat using the Ouija Pad battle program, but as far as I can tell, the impossible logic and random nature of each enemy’s turn which made the original versions of the game so wearisome have not been altered in any way, which made the tutorial missions once again frustrating to complete. On a similar note, the confusing dialogue and emotion system remains just as perplexing to understand, and no additional tutorials have been provided to ensure that you understand exactly what you are doing.

Graphically, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs is on the same level as the original game, although they have been increased in resolution to compensate for the extra power of the PS4. If you are worried about the additional artwork clashing with the existing content, you can rest assured that the new graphics for the remaster exclusive characters and backgrounds remain faithful to the original’s unique pencil drawing-esque style.

The soundtrack, which was provided by the main composer for Final Fantasy series in the original release has been included in full, along with several new compositions for the extra scenes and missions. The musical score was one of the game’s best features first time around, and thankfully there appears to have been no effort to change these tunes for the current generation release. The new tracks fit in well with their older siblings, but some of them lack the emotional range which is vital to a game that relies on immersing you within its universe.

Overall, Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters: Daybreak Special Gigs feels like a slightly unnecessary, but solidly built update of the original game. It is often said that if it “ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. This falls flat in this case as many of the flaws which haunted the first release of this ghost hunting visual novel are still very much alive. In particular, these are the random nature of the in game battles and the confusing dialogue system. This is certainly the most definitive version of the game to date, but if you have played it before, there is very little reason to return.