Review for Ghost on the Shore

Being stranded alone on an island is already quite a predicament, but things get complicated when a spirit inside your head suddenly starts talking to you. In Ghost on the Shore, you play in first-person view as Riley, a solo traveler trying to make sense of Josh, a ghost from a distant era who seems just as lost as Riley is on these haunted islands. As I discovered lives from the land’s past through old letters and personal objects, abandoned homes, and names on tombstones, the islands eventually pulled me to a heart-wrenching story through a time of loss, hope, and family.

Our journey begins as Riley steps out of her boat onto the battered dock of the islands. Everywhere I looked was the open sea and sky and a shore full of old fishing houses; it seemed that I could walk Riley anywhere I wanted. But I quickly found how intuitive the exploration aspect of the game is. A new conversation between Riley and Josh triggered whenever I stepped into new territory, propelling the story forward. That motivated me to find new grounds and follow the right path, and in-between, choosing the correct responses to Josh’s questions and remarks. These dialogue choices seem to determine the ending later on.

Most of the fun of the journey was discovering trinkets, letters, and cooking recipes, all sitting around these dilapidated 19th-century buildings, which had been slowly eaten away by nature through time. There were photos and some cassette tapes scattered among them that confused me at the beginning as to what year these people truly lived on these islands. But that oddity would soon be answered throughout the game and became a hint for a bigger story that spans decades.

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Each location's gorgeous landscapes and distinctive interiors were always exciting to discover. Everywhere I turned, I could take a screenshot, and it would make beautiful wallpaper -- it was amazing how each location seemed to have points of interest that invited players to explore deeper.

Riley brings a sketchbook with her, so all I needed was to watch out for interactive signs: sparkling firefly-like beings that hover over certain spots where she can stop and sketch the gorgeous surroundings or anything she finds interesting. I could check the drawings afterward by accessing the journal, where Riley often scribbles her thoughts next to her drawings. It’s stimulating to try and connect the dots through the crumbs of information gathered in this book, to guess what happened to the people of the islands, and most importantly, to siphon for clues -- anything that might relate to our ghost friend Josh. That can all be done passively, as all I needed to do as a player was to take mental notes and observe as I learned the history of the place; there weren’t any real puzzles for me to solve to further the plot.

It could be eerie at times since I, or Riley to be exact, was alone throughout the game. It’s so quiet that Riley even questions whether Josh is just a fragment of her imagination at one point. Sometimes Riley encounters a vision where the whole screen turns dark, calling forth specific memories of the past. I would be thrown between ghosts conversing at that very same spot many years ago or even have a spirit talking directly to me. Through these very intense moments, sometimes Josh would recognize the people in these visions, and each time I learned more about the inhabitants of the islands. It was a little like watching scenes from a period drama because, during these visions, neither Riley nor Josh could do much but try to follow these ghosts and listen to what they had to say.

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With the liberty to move at my own pace, I took my time. I snapped lots of pretty pictures like a tourist with my F12 button, and focused on discovering objects for Riley to sketch, or simply explored my surroundings instead of feeling hurried to solve the mystery. It was easy to get carried away as I was busy reading someone’s journal or examining various objects up close. A faint musical score plays in the background, building the atmosphere with gentle strings. It's pretty subtle and the music changes according to the scene's mood throughout the game. Sometimes there would be no music, except the rolling winds and the sounds of nature around us, leaving us to sit with the character’s emotional journey.

Despite its open-world feel with its beautiful spots to explore, the only thing I could actively control as a player (other than walking and examining objects), was choosing Riley’s responses in her conversations with Josh. There’s a time limit, so I had to be quick, and during that time I could choose to be guarded, to be understanding, to be suspicious, or to be neutral -- but there wasn’t a sure-fire way to tell which was which, so often I went with my gut. To get to the bottom of the story, I tried to choose the replies that I thought were ‘correct’, and successfully reached the end of the game after about seven hours of gameplay. I figured out Josh’s true history but didn’t learn much about Riley’s personal life.

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I wonder if the outcome would’ve played out differently if I’d chosen other responses. Since I experienced what I believe was a good ending, there was a comforting sense of closure as I watched the characters find themselves at the end of the game. And because I got quite a lovely finale (although it was a bit incomplete), I wasn't motivated to immediately replay the game and go through the emotional roller coaster all over again, despite being curious about Riley’s full story. There were questions about some key characters that remain to be answered, but after my first playthrough, I felt the game offered enough excitement and mystery for one adventure.

With a spirit encounter at the start of our journey and many more supernatural occurrences along the way, Ghost on the Shore turns out to be more than just a ghost story. The twists and turns of the mystery eventually lead up to familiar tales of love, family, and trauma that scar people beyond death. It is a perfectly human narrative, and like most ghost stories, echoes the lives that the characters once led, an extension of longings and hopes they wish to make peace with and to reconcile. It is ultimately about finding the truth, even if that takes two hundred years or more to discover.