While some titles like this, which are essentially re-releases of much older games that originally lived on PC, can work out, there are absolutely some challenges. The first is simply that games made for a mouse and keyboard, and not a controller, don’t always play well in a new control scheme. The second is that when you go back far enough games typically came with manuals, so in-game tutorials and things like that were very uncommon. Since many of these are ported with what feels like a minimal effort past simply getting the game running successfully, you don’t typically see an effort in remedying either of these common issues, and Ghost Master: Resurrection unfortunately demonstrates that quite clearly.

Oddly enough, when I loaded this game up I thought it looked familiar, and I was able to recall picking it up on sale on Steam quite some time ago, only to return it because despite people giving it accolades from the old days, I found it really tough to get into. A huge part of that problem was the lack of anything to help get me oriented with what I was supposed to be doing, the controls, and even basic concepts. This holds true with this version as well, but that’s unfortunately exacerbated by needing to use a controller. In particular, the mapping of the primary control button to X is both baffling and an irritation in itself. The developers who brought this over, sadly seem to have done little to help themselves be successful.

The thing is, once you manage to struggle through some trial and error, working out what you need to do on your own, the seeds of a decent game are there. Working with a specific combination of spectral beings, your general objective will be to create chaos and scare the humans away. Each of them have their own specific affinities for where they can be placed, as well as a number of different powers that have different costs associated with them. In order to find success you’ll need to start small, getting some scares going, which will then allow you to use progressively more powerful abilities, eventually doing what it takes to scare everyone away. I think if sufficient care had been put into making the controls more sensible and getting players on-board, this concept could have still been compelling. But in this state the game is hard to recommend to anyone who isn’t already familiar with it, since the investment needed to start having some fun feels awfully high when there are plenty of games out there you could simply enjoy right out of the gate instead.