Ghost Grab 3000 Review – Who Ya Gonna Call?

Games aren’t easy to make, that’s no secret. It takes a lot of planning, sleepless nights, and expertise – usually involving a big team of people. So, when I found out Ghost Grab 3000 was made solely by Matt Glanville, I was intrigued. Not only that, but the man is released two games on the same day for the Switch! How bold! I will be reviewing this one, and Jason will be covering the other, Singled Out.

Is this one worth it, though? Let’s find out.

Ghost Grab 3000 is a simple-yet-extremely-addictive challenging arcade score-attack game that features lots of bullets, endless waves of enemies, various power-ups, and many, many cute looking ghosts.

The main goal is to capture ghosts with a sort of energy beam-like weapon in order to destroy them and gain points. Survive waves of ghosts to see just how far you can go. Literally chaining together enemies will increase your total score and ‘rewards’ in the form of money or various power-ups. The game will end when you have run out of lives, and then you start all over again.

As the wave onslaught continues, the difficulty will ramp up – featuring various ghosts (almost too cute to kill… almost…) that have different attack patterns and routines. The way that the enemies spawn and the sheer amount of bullets that can be on the screen at the same time reminds me of the likes of Enter and Exit the Gungeon – which is a great thing, as both games were incredibly fun. Also similarly to Enter/Exit the Gungeon, at the end of each wave, you will be rewarded with a random choice of upgrades – these can come in the form of health to stat improvements to energy.

Ah yes, onto the energy. Just like in real life, every action requires energy – displayed by battery-like symbols. Defeating enemies and collecting add-ons gives you the energy to keep going. If you run out of energy, you can’t do a whole lot. You can’t use your power-ups, and you rely on these during the later waves.

Power-ups come in the form of EMP shockwaves, rocket boosts, or nukes. All of these create a different effect in-game and are a must-have to survive. Each player will use these in their own ways. EMP shockwaves are a quick and easy way to destroy some ghosts, rockets boosts allow you to quickly escape an onslaught of bullets and a nuke will destroy everything on the screen. What more do you need?

On top of all the power-ups, ghosts will drop coins throughout the levels. These coins allow you to purchase numerous upgrades and mods for your robot ‘character’. Customize your health, speed, battery power, and more – create a combination that works for you. It’s fun to play around with to see what works.

My only ‘gripe’ (If you can call it that) is the lack of a tutorial to help get into the swing of things. It just expects you to understand (Which is easy to figure out).

I’m not going to lie, I adored Ghost Grab 3000‘s soundtrack. It just gave me an instant happy feeling – despite not being very good at the game itself. I’m usually a person that gets agitated and annoyed when I repeatedly die. Not in Ghost Grab, though. I couldn’t be angry at these adorable ghosts and the bouncy, joyous songs are to thank for that.

The sound effects in the game are equally pleasing – the sound of chaining ghosts and finally destroying them is satisfying. As is the noises made from collecting various items and power-ups.

Ghost Grab 3000 is a simple-looking game, but boy is it cute. The ghosts are adorable (I like cute things) and even your character has a personality you wouldn’t expect, without saying a word. The levels’ backgrounds are, again, simple but they aren’t what the player is looking for. The game is vibrant and colorful and a pleasure to look at. A nice surprise.

I encountered no performance issues is my playthrough at all, that’s including docked and handheld gameplay.

Ghost Grab 3000 is priced at a very low $4.99 in the US and £3.99 here in the UK making for a very good price that will be sure to keep you occupied for a good few hours – before you know it, the time has passed. That was my experience, anyway…

So are you afraid of no ghost?

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Ghost Grab 3000 Review provided by Nintendo Link
Developer: Matthew Glanville
Release Date: July 3rd, 2020
Price: $4.99, £3.99, €4.39
Game Size: 149 MB