Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Cavia's Magic at Full Display

TL;DR: Mediocre and flawed game, still had fun.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a PS2 action game developed by Cavia. Those familiar with that name might already know what to expect and those who don’t… let’s just say this studio isn’t known for their masterpieces.

Post doesn’t contain spoilers.

Story

Story was written with the help of staff from Production I.G, studio responsible for Ghost in the Shell anime (and many other series), and feels like an alright secondary arc from the SAC show - not an original one mind you, but still floating around some of the themes tackled there.

Beyond the lack of originality it also suffers from how it is presented: each stage starts with an audio briefing, followed by a short cutscene and another call after loading into the stage proper. It’s not a great system and it feels like a budgetary restriction rather than anything else however it still a part of the game and affects how it’s received.

All in all, it’s nothing mind blowing but decent enough.

Gameplay

As mentioned before, GitS: SAC is an action game - it has shooting, melee combat and platforming, with most of the play time focused on the first one.

Control scheme is weird and unintuitive for anyone used to playing modern action games with homogenized button layouts but it’s not unplayable or even a huge problem once you get used to it.

Movement feels rather stiff but not painfully so. It suffers from janky and limited animations that not only look dated but also unpolished at times.

Jumping is a bit floaty which might make the platforming sections a bit more challenging than they should be. I didn’t have too many issues with that (except in like two places focused on wall jumping) but I’ve seen people struggle with those parts so I guess it’s worth a mention.

There’s a dodge move but it’s kind of useless - Major does cool acrobatic jumps that look good (the only good animations in the game) but also makes the camera focus on her and follow her movement which can lead to losing track of an enemy you’re trying to avoid. Batou does a slow dive that neither protects him from damage nor moves you far enough to scatter away from danger.

Shooting doesn’t provide a lot of “oomph” and can feel a bit bullet spongy depending on where you aim (there is a damage multiplier depending on body parts, even for mechanical units).

You have access to two weapons and up to three gadgets at once - gadgets use melee button to throw so you have to switch between them and unarmed attacks. It’s easy to blow yourself up if you’re not careful.

One big issue here is bad camera control - it’s slow and feels sticky in a way that makes smooth aiming almost impossible. I’m not sure if it’s just a screw up or an attempt at some kind of auto-aim/target-snapping but it’s not great.

Melee is pretty limited, with just a few basic attacks flowing into a simple combo. It’s also pretty situational as running head first into a group of enemies can be extremely deadly.

There’s also a simple hacking minigame which allows you to take over an enemy for 20-30 seconds. It’s not particularly useful but can help with killing few enemies if you’re fast enough.

All those elements are pretty basic in a way familiar to anyone experienced with budget titles from that era. They work well enough to not be a chore or make the game unplayable. Not only that, I had a decent amount of fun throughout.

Graphics

Surprisingly decent. While some of the interior locations can feel samey at times there’s also a decent amount of nice looking vistas and backgrounds

Two playable characters, Major and Batou, look good. I wasn’t entirely sold on Major’s design initially but ended up liking it quite a lot (especially when equipped with a “stun unit” which gives her big Shadow the Hedgehog shoes). Batou looks pretty close to his anime version.

Enemies have distinct designs that let you know what’s you’re going to deal with - as long as you can see them that is. The big problem with enemies is a stupidly short draw distance which can lead to situations where you end up shooting into an empty space because the reticle turned red.

As mentioned before, animations are very limited. Most of them look like placeholders rather than an intended end result. The only exception for this is Major’s air ballet when dodging - these moves feel like the only set animators spent some actual time on.

Finally, there are prerendered cutscenes. They appear at the beginning of every stage and are quite good - both from graphical and composition standpoints. They’re also pretty short so we don’t get to watch much of them.

Sound

Music is a mixed bag. Some tracks sound a bit GitS-like (without reaching the quality of anime unfortunately), some (mainly combat ones) can be a bit repetitive and dull. None of them got on my nerves so at least there’s that.

Characters are voiced by their anime VAs which is neat. Their performances are alright if a little flat - that might be because of the direction or due to the fact I’m more familiar with the JP cast of GitS, not sure about that one. They’re good enough for the most part.

What’s not good enough? Tachikomas. I like those muppets both in English and Japanese versions of the anime, here on the other hand they went a little too far into the annoying and silly aspects of their characterization.

There’s not much to write about the sound effects - they’re about what you’d expect from a mediocre shooter from that era. They neither break nor enhance the experience in any significant way.

Summary

I didn’t have high expectations starting this game. I’ve seen plenty of opinions about it being “not great” to say the least and knowing the devs behind the project didn’t do much to alleviate my worries.

Despite all the jank, mediocrity and a couple of frustrating sections (mainly focused on wall jumping) I had a surprising amount of fun. It wasn’t a fantastic experience I’ll remember for the rest of my life but it was enjoyable enough I managed to stick with it to the end - that’s more than I can say about some of the critically acclaimed classics in my library.