Sometimes a game comes along that follows every tired convention you can imagine, but executes them so well that it still manages to make an impression. Ghost Giant, the painterly first crack at a virtual reality experience from Fe developer Zoink Games, ticks many of the cliche boxes established by previous story-driven sandbox and puzzle VR games. But Ghost Giant’s charming characters and thoughtful storytelling drew me in all the same for a short, but rewarding virtual trip.

As the Ghost Giant, you act as the imaginary friend of a troubled anthropomorphic cat-child named Louis LaFleur, learning about his life and helping him on his adventures as he takes care of his family’s sleepy farm. Though he’s described as a young child, responsibilities far beyond his years have fallen to him, so it’s your job to work some magic and help out a friend in need.

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Without getting into too much detail, as discussing even the broad themes of the story would strongly hit at certain events, Ghost Giant tells a lovely, at times heartbreaking tale. Don’t let the storybook-style animal-people fool you; there are complex emotional issues at play here, and watching Louis and the people in his life wrestle with them is captivating – even overwhelming in its most cathartic moments. (Have you ever teared up while wearing a VR headset? I hadn’t before. It kind of stings.) Louis' story is beautifully paced thanks in part to its charming dialogue and emotional performances, and has just enough mystery and excitement to keep me tapping the street signs that direct you to the next scene.

“ All the details in each level are captivating in their own ways.

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Those tasks, which I would describe as “puzzles” in the broadest sense, are relatively simple, bordering on tedious. While there are a few clever moments, like finding sources of color to mix paints for a story-mandated work of art, much of it comes down to identifying movable objects and putting them in the right places. It rarely takes long, but there can occasionally be interesting complications that mix up how you grab things. In one level, for example, you have to use a virtual fishing pole to pull in tools that are out of your reach.

“ Puzzles serve to point you toward all the nooks and crannies of a level, making sure you take everything in.

To be fair, this is a limitation of the PlayStation VR and its single point of external tracking. You can rotate your in-game position by pressing certain buttons on the controller, giving you better access to new views while avoiding any tracking problems, but it's not the intuitive way I wanted to move. As a human being, my instinct is to turn by moving my head when my sightline is obscured and contort my body to reach when something is in my way. As a result, Ghost Giant’s creative level designs can’t help but butt against the technical limitations of its platform.