Long time Phasmophobia player here, using this review to compare and contrast the two games for those like me, who were skeptical that this game might merely be derivative or hackneyed.

In Phasmo, you are gathering evidence while a hostile entity slinks about the property. If it detects you, it will try to kill you. In this game, you are facing off directly with the hostile entity; it is constantly attempting to kill you. It always knows where you are. It listens to your voice commands and will do as you instruct it to. It will attempt to draw you deeper into the property to ambush you. Your mission isn't finished until either your team or the ghost have moved on to the afterlife.

While both games share a common theme and some terminology and equipment, there really isn't much similarity in how the games play from moment to moment. In Phasmo, you skulk around at a slow pace, patrolling your items scattered in the ghost's haunt room, hoping for that last piece of evidence to drop before the lights start blinking and the ghost gets to fight back. Then you immediately run to a safe place and cower there with nothing to do until it's clear to come out again. If you try to communicate with your team during a hunt, you'll be found and killed. If you try to outrun the ghost, you'll be killed. The best defense in Phasmo is to have a bugout plan, an exit strategy/hiding spot in mind, and a sense of when things are about to get dangerous, because if you're caught in a hunt unprepared, you'll die. This highlights a major difference between the games; in Phasmo if you get tagged by the ghost, you die. GHC lets you spend a little time getting mauled by the ghost before it's fully game over. Once dead, you're useless to your team in Phasmo. In GHC, you're still able to help nearly as much as you did while alive, even taking some of the risks for the other players to get those last bits of evidence.

In GHC, you move fairly quickly, with a limited sprint. You hustle your gear to the front door, and immediately begin gathering your evidence, because nearly all of it can be gathered from any spot on the property, or from the entity itself. You look for hidden occult objects, some of which cannot be seen except through your handheld camera, and can be sniffed out with tools. You get a look at the ghost, perhaps while it's peering out a window at you or hanging from the ceiling. It might just begin to attack right then, without warning, and you'll need to know which of your holy objects has the power to repel it. The appearance of the ghost is part of the evidence you're going to be using. Taking all this info to your tablet, you receive a set of instructions for the exorcism. You may have to shatter an ampule of holy water at the entity's feet, blast it with an egon gun, or even discover its cursed object hidden somewhere in the house and purify it, among many other possible actions. Some combination of these steps will banish the entity from the property.

Phasmophobia is a suspenseful paranormal mystery game. GHC is an action-oriented, ghost busting fps. They both feel entirely different despite dealing with the exact same topics and materials. Phasmo's play cycle feels like ten minutes of suspense and tedium that leads to a few seconds of stress, followed by a bit of relief and then some more tedium, leading to a resolution, and then it repeats. GHC's cycle consists of a minute or two of suspense, and then a few seconds of stress and terror, and finally a five to ten minute intense action showdown and relief.

I'm very excited to see where both games go. I'm convinced they were never headed to the same place. Thanks for reading!