TOKYO GHOUL:re [CALL to EXIST]

My first reaction booting this up was genuine curiosity about whether an anime tie-in could pull off the moral ambiguity that makes Tokyo Ghoul work as a story. The short answer is: sort of, but the game surrounding that ambition is shaky enough to keep it from mattering much. Structurally, Call to Exist splits into two halves. Recollections is the solo story mode, walking you through a condensed retelling of events from the original Tokyo Ghoul through Tokyo Ghoul:re, mostly playing as Ken Kaneki. Each level follows a familiar loop: clear waves of generic enemies, fight a recognizable boss, watch a static manga-panel cutscene, repeat. The cutscenes themselves are actually a highlight - illustrated pages falling like a manga, all in Japanese with English subtitles - but they are brief islands of atmosphere in a sea of corridor brawling. The campaign runs roughly six to seven hours, and completionists who want to grind the two hundred or so accomplishments for cosmetic unlocks will find a reason to stick around longer, though patience is a prerequisite. The second half is the multiplayer suite, labelled Call to Exist mode, where you build a custom character from three factions: Ghouls, who attack with kagune tentacles; Investigators, who wield Quinques (weapons forged from ghoul remains); and the hybrid Quinx class, which blends both styles. From there you can run co-op campaign stages with up to four players, a horde-style Survival mode, or a 4v4 Battle mode split between Team Deathmatch and Point Match. The faction design is genuinely the game's strongest mechanic - each class feels meaningfully different in the hands, and the online modes are where the combat finds its best expression. The problems are consistent and well-documented. Combat is built around melee combos, a pair of special ghoul or Quinque attacks, a ranged option, an air attack, and dash-dodge, and that toolkit is essentially the whole game. Against named bosses it feels fine. Against the endless waves of identical grunts that make up most of the runtime, it turns into button-mashing on autopilot within a few sessions. The camera struggles badly when special abilities collide in close quarters. The PC version specifically suffers from the lack of mouse sensitivity options, making a controller effectively mandatory. The character creator, a potential draw for the online modes, is thin at launch and does not get dramatically richer as you unlock options. Level environments are drab and fog-heavy, and the in-engine cutscenes use draw distances that would have been modest on hardware from two generations prior. Who is this actually for, then? Fans of the series who want to physically inhabit Kaneki, Touka Kirishima, Haise Sasaki, or Kotaro Amon - and who have a friend or two to bring into co-op - will find genuine pockets of fun here. The source material's tone survives the transition better than most anime tie-ins manage, and the on-disc lore collection is a real effort at fan service. Newcomers to Tokyo Ghoul should watch the anime first and decide from there, because the story is told in shorthand that assumes prior knowledge, and the gameplay alone is unlikely to hold someone who is not already invested. At a discount, the fan argument holds up reasonably. At any price premium, the repetition catches up too fast.

Alex · Scout Team

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