Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed: Ecto Edition Nintendo Switch Review

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Fast Facts

Who You Gonna Call?

Let’s be honest: everyone loves Ghostbusters. Well, most people do, anyway. I grew up with the original movies and adored them as a kid. I even liked the latest movie with Paul Rudd, which had some nice links to the original films. Unfortunately, I have never played a video game based on the IP that’s left a lasting impression. Will Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed: Ecto Edition change that? Read on to find out.

So, you’re the new buster on the block and are stepping into the iconic firehouse for the first time. You are thrown into a very generic yet fitting story of ghosts rising all over New York. While the narrative was quite predictable and basic, I loved the addition of some of the original cast, Ernie Hudson and Dan Akroyd return as Winston and Ray respectively. While I would have liked some of the other cast members, the game is peppered with clever nods and winks to them and other Ghostbusters lore.

Team-Based Busting!

After a brief firehouse tour and a quick overview of how to use your equipment, you are thrown into your first mission. Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed is primarily a multiplayer game, but missions can be tackled alone with bots if required. Missions are mainly made up of small destructible maps where a team of four asymmetric busters track down a player-controlled, mischievous ghost.

Playing as a Ghostbuster is a simple first-person shooter scenario. Find the ghost with your PKE meter, grab it with your Proton Pack and trap it with the help of your teammates. I must admit, working as a team and throwing down traps is quite rewarding, and with your Proton Packs overheating, teamwork is sometimes vital. Just be careful, as causing too much damage works against your rewards at the end of the mission, so watch where you’re firing!

Playing as the ghost is equally entertaining, which I did not expect. Different ghosts have different abilities, and using the map to scare citizens and hamper the Ghostbusters is comically fun. You can slime, haunt, and possess items to try to scare enough people to achieve victory. Going against four players and succeeding is more rewarding than winning as the Ghostbusters, but it also carries with it more of a challenge.

New Gear, New Ideas

As you play missions, you can upgrade your gear, unlock additional tools such as grappling hooks, and access a plethora of character customization options for your buster. From pumpkin heads to skulls and new funky hair do’s, checking what new toys you have after every mission was always exciting.

Playing online was a breeze; Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed uses crossplay, which I would imagine helps massively with player count, especially with more and more players dropping the title the further you get from release. Luckily, you can play with bots in all versions of matches, and while it may not be as fun or as unpredictable as multiplayer, I found it to be perfectly serviceable.

A Serviceable Presentation

On the graphics side of things, while I found the Firehouse and Rays shop to be fun to explore. I found the graphical presentation, on the whole, to be quite average. While this may bother some, especially with a few graphical hitches I had, it did not affect my enjoyment of the game in any way. I am by no means a graphics snob, and I grew up in the 80s; look it up: graphics were bad. Ghostbusters Unleashed looks good enough, invokes the Ghostbusters theme well and does not get in the way of its fun gameplay.

On the performance front, Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed ran well most of the time. I had a little slowdown here and there, a few graphical hitches and one fall through the map, but apart from that, it kept pace admirably. The online worked well, and I only briefly noticed a slowdown when there was a lot of action onscreen, with four Ghostbusters and the ghost going toe to toe. Do ghosts have toes? Who knows?

An Entertaining, Ectoplasm Filled Multiplayer Outing

Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed on the Nintendo Switch may not be the amazing Ghostbusters game I have been waiting for. However, it is an entertaining take on the IP I have loved throughout my life. Busting ghosts in a team is entertaining and rewarding, as is levelling up your gear and tools. Playing as the ghost was surprisingly as good as playing as the Ghostbusters, and causing mischief is always hilarious. Yes, the story is well-worn. Yes, I would have liked more of the original cast. However, as Ghostbusters games go, you can do much worse than Spirits Unleashed. Don’t cross the streams!

You can buy Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed: Ecto Edition on the Nintendo eShop here.