Ghostrunner is out this week; we highly recommend this first-person ninja platformer. Its aesthetics are great and its gameplay is slick and thrilling if you’re into chase sequences and acrobatics ala Mirror’s Edge.

Just a warning: Ghostrunner can be pretty tough and challenging. So here are some tips to get you ahead and some video walkthroughs for some of the tougher sections.

Basic Tips To Cyber Ninja Your Way Out Of Oppression

Always Be In Motion

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If you stand still in Ghostrunner, you either fail a puzzle or you die: simple as that. Most puzzles in Ghostrunner’s dystopian cyberpunk cities and underground plants will have you wallrunning, superjumping, and even throwing ninja stars while you’re on the move. Never let go of the W key (or forward on your left analog stick).

Never Spam Your Katana Attacks

You cannot get through Ghostrunner by just wailing your sword and hoping for the best. Yes, you can parry some projectiles with a sword swing and the range of your melee slashes is pretty generous, but there’s a cooldown after each consecutive swing. Enemies can counter you with a single attack to kill you. So your best tool is to slash and dodge. Speaking of which…

Always Jump & Activate Slow Motion When You Can

Ghostrunner features a Sensory Boost technique that slows down time around you. Pressing and holding the Shift key suspends you in mid-air, in which you then can dodge left or right, or forward. This ability slows down bullets too and your jump arc so you can land on walls and platforms accurately. This move is one move you can use over and over again; in fact, it’s necessary if you want to make it out of the level with the least deaths.

Just mind the walls and climbable objects when you’re jumping all ninja-like. When you jump and hug a wall, you automatically wall-run. This can hinder you as you will be a slow-moving target to enemy fire when you accidentally run onto the side of a giant garbage chute.

When You Use The Grapple Hook, Be Precise With Your Aim

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We cannot stress this tidbit enough. There are way too many times we fell to our deaths because we didn’t aim our mouse cursor at the exact grapple point when swinging mid-air. Ghostrunner emphasizes on hardcore controls, meaning you will need to be stable with your aiming no matter what. If you’re even off just a few clicks, the grapple won’t register.

Tempest Is The Most Optimal Powerup

Throughout your adventure, you will receive four powerups: Blink, Tempest, Surge, and Overlord. Blink makes you do a dash-slash attack that pierces through multiple targets and projectiles. Tempest is a force push.

Surge is a horizontal fireball you can chuck, while Overlord hacks into an enemy and makes him/her/it fight at your side temporarily. While generally you should customize and pick the powerups relative to the situation, we feel that Tempest is the go-to skill to off enemies quick.

There’s a Tempest powerup on the Upgrades panel (the bottom option screen with the Tetris blocks you slot in empty spaces with) that lets you keep your skill energy if you kill two or more enemies at once with Tempest. That alone helps you kill enemies quick, especially the annoying red shield enemies.

NEXT: Video Walkthroughs