Got the platinum earlier today, here's all my random thoughts with a rating at the end!
It's gorgeous. Never play this in the black & white Kurosawa Mode because the vibrant colors are what make this game so easy on the eyes. Grass and trees flowing in the wind are beautiful.
Super strong foundation for a game to sit on. Strong story, strong atmosphere/setting, strong combat system, strong production, solid characters. But there's a lot of small gripes I have.
Is this game too easy or what? Ghost weapons + slow-mo with the bow trivialize most fights, and it's not hard to keep a consistent stock of things. You can quickly upgrade your health and resolve to never have to worry about running out of health (plus healing is instant). And the parry window is MASSIVE, and you can mash L1 to get parries. I don't mind games being a bit on the easier side (I prefer it to a game being too hard), but you have too many overpowered tools.
What's up with the game stopping to remind you to fight in the proper stance? It's never a good idea to stop gameplay entirely to tell someone they're playing the game wrong then force them to play it right. That sucks.
I really liked the side mission lines that were tied to the supporting characters. These were mostly pretty good and made the supporting cast way more interesting. I wish open world games did side missions like this more often.
I wish open world games would STOP doing super repetitive one-off side missions, and Ghost of Tsushima isn't innocent with these either. So many missions that amount to "The Mongols killed my family/stole something/destroyed something, can you please go kill them for me my lord?" Get rid of these filler missions. Bad gaming trend.
I bet this game has low replay value. Suffers from Rockstar Syndrome where missions are too focused on following someone, talking, and riding your horse. The story missions that have big battlefield showdowns or long stealth sections are the best.
Something I liked about the narrative is that it seemed to be asking the same questions to both Jin and the player, and even better, these were questions that you got to answer in your gameplay. What kind of battle do you want to fight? What kind of warrior are you becoming? There's one moment where the plot breaks this illusion by forcing you to kill some Mongols in a certain way (at the end of Act II), but otherwise, I like how the game slow-burns this dilemma and doesn't fully force you into one side or the other. You have the option to face opponents head on with standoffs, or you can go assassinate everyone if you want. Pretty cool.
What I REALLY liked about the execution of the above point is that early on, it seems like Jin doesn't really want to become "The Ghost" in the sense that he doesn't fight like a samurai, but over time, this is placed on Jin. For me, I noticed myself fighting more like The Ghost as the game went on, yet rarely was I ever forced to! This kind of clash between agency and plot is rare but it is so satisfying when done right!
Too many main characters do dumb shit for the purpose of letting the plot happen. Not Jin though! He's smart! I love it. Why don't more main characters act intelligently? When Jin kills Ryuzo, I thought so many other games would've kept Ryuzo alive just so he could backstab you later. I'm glad that didn't happen, and Jin made the right choice.
So many of the open-world activities were really cool and unique until I had to do them a million times for the platinum. Haikus never got old, but I started loathing Fox Dens.
This is a game that could be pretty close to perfect with small changes and some editing of the open-world content/side missions. Sadly, open-world games either don't have enough content to fill their world up or they have way too much pointless content. Just a flaw of the genre I guess.
This is also a very accessible game. I haven't heard anyone say they didn't like it, and I can see why. It's super digestible. Not very hard, open world, simple combat, epic story, beautiful visuals. It checks all the boxes for that mainstream appeal.
TL;DR 8/10. Ghost of Tsushima will probably stick with me longer than most other games do because I love a lot of things it tries, specifically with the strengths of the story and the strong combat system. But I wish it was less bloated with the side content and didn't copy Rockstar mission structure. I recommend it to everyone.
Out of the GotY candidates from The Game Awards, I still have to play Hades, Doom Eternal, and FF7 Remake. Thankfully I have all three of these so I'll get to compare which one I think really deserved the award. Gonna be hard to top TLOU2 though.