Board 8 > Random thought dump about Ghost of Tsushima (No spoilers unless marked)

(+) Yeah! (+)

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.

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Good game that ill forget all about in six months

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I keep forgetting that this game exists. I kind of want to play it but also I've never been interested in Samurai games and I'm not looking forward to clearing space on the PS4 hard drive for this

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Aecioo posted...

Good game that ill forget all about in six months

You thought it was forgettable? I thought it was the opposite.

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Great game but i agree about it being too easy, even on hard mode. The one hit kill mode was kind of neat but ultimately you could tell the game was not designed with it in mind.

Duels are the best part of the game, wish it had more.

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Solioxrz362 posted...

* 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.

So you never played the game on hard... err sorry, LETHAL mode.

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lethal mode would be great if the enemy spawn system was broken by it.

die by a group of enemies, respawn in the exact same location, enemies are gone. make a big loop around the general area and return to the place where you died, the exact same enemies have magically appeared. so basically, no punishment for dying and you actually get rewarded by getting a free pass through the group of enemies unless you go out of your way to force them to respawn.

really killed the immersion for me to the point where i went back to regular hard mode.

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redrocket posted...

So you never played the game on hard... err sorry, LETHAL mode.

I didn't, you're right, because of this:

RikkuAlmighty posted...

ultimately you could tell the game was not designed with it in mind.

I knew before even trying it that it was a gimmick mode. I did gear the game up to hard mode because I'm going for the NG+ trophy, but it's still pretty easy.

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I did not expect that score based on your write-up. Huh.

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Solioxrz362 posted...

You thought it was forgettable? I thought it was the opposite.

I played it when it came out and loved it. Haven't really thought about it since. I think I made the mistake(?) of trying to clear the first island fully, so by the time I was in the second half of the game I was doing everything in my power to mainline the story + the major character sidequests. I was even excited for the co-op when it was announced but by October I was kind of meh on the idea of playing it again.

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I actually liked how the combat got easier as the game went on. By the end, I felt like Batman, taking down a huge group of enemies with all my gadgets. Helps that the combat feels so good too, especially a perfectly executed standoff.

I was really hoping that the enemies would get smarter with standoffs later on and start doing stuff like trying to set me on fire like in the opening instead of the same old made you blink feints they kept on doing, but it looks cool, so Ill forgive it.

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Waluigi1 posted...

I did not expect that score based on your write-up. Huh.

I put a lot of weight on these three bits:

Solioxrz362 posted...

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.

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.

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.

It does a ton of things right (often the most important things) and a few things wrong. It's just easier to go into detail about all the things I didn't like, so I wrote about them a lot lol

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Oh I meant based on your praise and calling it a must play game, I expected a higher score lol. Like a 9 or at least 8.5. I mean 8 is a good score though, don't get me wrong.

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Waluigi1 posted...

Oh I meant based on your praise and calling it a must play game, I expected a higher score lol. Like a 9 or at least 8.5. I mean 8 is a good score though, don't get me wrong.

I see. Nah, the small issues add up. I wouldn't call Ghost of Tsushima a must-play. But if someone asked me, "Should I play this game?" 8 is where I start to say, "Yeah definitely, it's worth your time."

If a game is a 9, it has to have a lot less of those small annoyances like the stance reminders and repetitive side missions. Almost every moment of the game has to feel meaningful or fun, and there may be issues but they're minor and infrequent. Basically, 10 is what I would consider the gold standard, 9 is approaching that, and 8 is recommendable but noticeably below the top echelon.

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