The ultimate samurai fantasy
A beautiful yet morbid perspective into the invasion of Tsushima in 1274, Ghost of Tsushima manages to fulfill the samurai fantasy internalized in me throughout the years, having a great story that made me emotional at certain bits and somehow putting their own twist in the "ubisoft open world" formula that manages to bends but not break it in a stylish and incredible way. You can tell Sucker Punch has put a lot of effort into this title being a complete tonal shift from their previous works with Second Son with its super hero esque gameplay with a punk rock aesthetic into the historical grounded epic we have now.
The main story/tales of Jin Sakai's struggle with the invasion and keeping his ethics and doing whatever it takes to protect his home from the Mongols is an interesting topic to extend on here due to the opening of the game essentially setting the stage for the entirety of the game. I will also surprising recommend experiencing this game in Japanese with English subtitles considering I feel it does the game more justice and this is coming from someone that always prefers English audio most of the time even with Japanese games. Jin doesn't like what he's doing but he realizes he has to adapt and improvise considering his "samurai way" will just have him end up killed and leaving Tsushima to the Mongols. The supporting cast is also excellent having Yuna essentially being an early foil for Jin, his uncle who always supported him and the rest of the remaining few that survived that lend him their aid. I won't lie that there were a few emotional moments I didn't really expect to feel during this game and this all also in lies with the cinematography this game manages to have and excel in. The soundtrack feels like it comes from an epic samurai flick and elevates these moments even further as Jin delves into the mentality and mortality of his actions. The ending was extremely powerful and made the thirty hour journey worth it.
The side stories/tales offer a grander perspective on the conditions of what the people of Tsushima are suffering through. Almost every tale shows the desperation, tragedy, and sorrow the regular people went through as a cost of war. People will lose loved ones, people will want revenge against each other, people will make one final request of you before their final breath. One of the most tragic tales is one relating to Masako, one of the main supporting cast scouring the battlefield for her dead family and it's incredibly depressing as they talked about the various samurai's fate like a son taking the place of an old father or a best friend giving their life for the other. It felt thematically appropriate with the whole game and each of these side tales have such an emotional core in them that I didn't expect from this game. The main supporting casts also have their own chains of side tales as well and while mostly focused on revenge that stemmed from the mongol invasion, they really do a great job of fleshing out these characters that you wouldn't have had the chance in the main narrative.
The quest format and the exploration of Tsushima might be the most contentious topic about this game due to the fact that on the surface, it doesn't really reinvent the wheel but I don't think open world games need to if they're done with effort and care as Ghost of Tsushima has done. The overall exploration consists of a fog of war and markers on the map that could be a slew of activities and locations that empower Jin not only physically and mentally as well. The sense of direction used to guide you isn't a marker most of the time but the direction of the way the wind representative of your father spirit in which blowing which makes the journey more spiritual than most. Shinto Shrines which act as platforming obstacle courses reward you with a powerful charm and a rare resource for upgrading your bows, The hot springs locations act as a small moment for Jin to reflect on his situation and current events while serving the gameplay purpose of increasing his maximum health by a small amount each time he finds one, Bamboo strikes which act as a test of Jin's swordsmanship based on the real life activity of tameshigiri that relies on pressing the button sequence fast enough which rewards you with increased Resolve which servers as your means of healing and activating certain abilities, inari shrines that rely on following a fox around to the shrine that's hidden in the world that rewards you with enhanced charms and the ability to equip more. Some of the other activities mostly reward you with cosmetics such as writing haikus in specific areas via multiple choices and serves as another chance to refresh Jin's mind with the reward of a headband with the description of your own haiku in it despite not having too many options for each part of the haiku to begin with, pillars of honor that leave behind a sword and tanto redesign for Jin and the more combat intensive activities such as clearing the lighthouses and the duels across the island itself. I will say the duels are probably my favorite highlight of the side activities and it's a criminal shame there's so few of them. All of them are always in this beautiful landscape like near a waterfall or around the blossom petals dropping not to mention being the most challenging and fun part of the combat. There's also the standard collectible items that don't really serve too much of a purpose and the fortunate part is that you don't need to collect all of them for the platinum here. The best thing about completing this game is how seamless the whole experience was. You get an outfit pretty early on called the Traveler's Attire which essentially lets the wind guide you to these specific places and collectibles without the real tedium. Random events also happen that garner supplies and contribute to your own legend. Completing all of the outposts that reveal a bit of the map will eventually reveal all of the exploration spots on the maps which makes things even less tedious. I think some people won't like having everything revealed to them but it makes the game want you to platinum/100% it. All of this accompanying building your own legend. I actually love this system as it fits thematically with the game itself. The first rank is a broken down samurai with nothing going for him and by doing deeds, the main story and defeating mongols but later on, people will start to revere you and the mongols will almost fear you in shock as you become more powerful as these also grant health and resolve upgrades as well. Doing each side tale and special legendary ones that unlocks unique stuff felt like I was just building onto Jin's legacy even more and felt like I was truly becoming one of the most dangerous people in that era and the game does an excellent job presenting that idea to you. If I had one complaint about the exploration though, it would be the huge abundance of inari shrines in the game. While each activity has around 10-20 instances of it throughout the game, inari shrines results in a whopping 49 that will feel a bit repetitive after a while.
The way of the blade isn't the only set of skills Jin Sakai has during his own epic. He mainly has two styles of gameplay, the honorable samurai that faces his enemies at their face and the ghost that kills them from the shadows. Not only can he use a sword well but employs all sorts of tricks and equipment that lets him even the odds. First of all, I do recommend playing the game on Hard all the way through. It provides a decent challenge while still giving you the power fantasy of killing over ten mongols in a row with adequate skill but as always, play how you want as my opinions on the combat will stem from that difficulty. You have your standard fast regular attacks and charge attacks that will stagger enemies if applied enough pressure and the most important aspect about these is the stance system. You will get four stances throughout your playthrough and each one has different sword strikes and are more effective with a specific type of enemy such as one stance good against spear men and vice versa. Parrying is also extremely important here especially in duels as you have two forms of parrying, a regular parry which gives you a window to attack and a perfect parry which gives a bigger window to do even more damage. A cool aspect of this is that difficulty affects how tight the parry windows are so you can't spam the guard button and hope to get it off. The swordplay is incredibly satisfying but Jin doesn't only use his sword in combat. He has a variety of tools he uses as "the Ghost" such as kunai will provides multiple free staggers, smoke bombs that buy you some time and grab some free kills on top of that, sticky bombs which sticks to a person and can one someone most of the time and flame oil you can use to go through guard heavy enemies when needed. He also doesn't need to fight from melee range either as he has a half bow which is faster, less damage and used for medium range combat which uses regular arrows and fire arrows. He also has a variety of other tools that mostly aid in his endeavors in stealth. Bell chimes serve a specific purpose of luring one singular person away from a location and firecrackers draw away as many people as there are. Jin also has a few more techniques and tools at his disposal but I don't want to ruin the surprise of receiving these tools.
It's not a samurai fantasy without the fashion and the techniques you can do in Ghost of Tsushima though. You have your standard samurai armor, the ronin garb, the vagabond look also not to mention a lot of hats and masks to shield your own identity. Almost everything I can think of what I want to wear in a samurai game is truly here and each have their own gameplay effects that affects your playstyle such as more health, less detection and more resolve gains. You can freely ignore these at a certain point unless you truly love to minmax but looking the part of how you want to look is something huge for me. Jin can learn specific moves that can make quick work of enemies as the cost of resolve which also acts as extra health when needed making it a risk or reward scenario but the animations for each swing and technique is satisfying.
You can tell they are proud of the soundtrack and the art design of the world themselves. The syncing of specific moments with the orchestra playing their ass off with a motif that gives off hope and desperation. Exploring Tsushima just for the visual spectacle is worth the entry fee alone as well. Traversing fields full of vibrant flowers makes the game feel like a next generation experience that it's almost surprising this game was on a PlayStation 4 initially. The photo mode is proof they are proud of their work. An example of creating something beautiful would be this screenshot I took using said photo mode. The luscious fields almost feels deceiving as the horrors of war and invasion are also there front and center. Burned bodies, beheaded peasants and the total chaos that the mongols have been known for is front and center and some of it also feels grotesque in a sense.
I also wanted to mention some things that are specific to the Director's Cut version of the game on PlayStation 5 that really enhances a few things about the game that I think are important. A huge majority of this is the Iki Island expansion which provides more of Ghost of Tsushima. A small map but new activities such as using your controller to tilt with the melody of the flute, archery challenges and specific puzzle shrines that require specific solutions along with some extra bamboo strikes and baths for additional stats. The overall story relies on Jin's relationship with his father and delves into the aftermath of certain events along with introducing some new characters. A short and sweet expansion nonetheless and even more content for a game that has a lot of it already. The PlayStation 5 version of this game is truly impressive for two factors being that it's already in 4K 60 fps regardless of the setting which makes the game even more gorgeous and essentially no loading times even through using fast travel or even booting up the game. Small additions includes japanese lip syncing which is needed and haptic feedback which is used wonderfully and the adaptive triggers mostly used for the bows. Not much else other than the digital deluxe stuff here as well.
One of the most surprising aspects of this game is that it has a multiplayer mode with the title of Legends. I haven't played a lot of it but it was a pretty fun experience despite being completely free with the main game. You have four classes you can play as with their own playstyle as you go through missions and some specific story events even. The great gameplay is still here but more reliant on teamwork such as needing to kill two people at the exact same time for them to actually die. There's also a survival mode and even a three part raid from what I read in the menu. A truly impressive suite of things to do which gives the game a bit more value in an already expansive game.
The most obvious influences this game takes from is Akira Kurosawa films and even has a mode dedicated to him replicating his original black and white movies. I can't speak of Kurosawa only really watching Seven Samurai (specifically because of this game) but I can say Ghost of Tsushima shares the same human spirit that the movie had of banding together in the face of adversity. But I digress, I almost forget that Ghost of Tsushima which is a extremely japanese centric game based on real life history of the island was made by an American studio. They have taken the time to really nail the feel and manages to be respectful of what was and what is. One of the ever growing fewer reasons to have a PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 and I hope people get to experience this gem. If you love samurai, you owe it to yourself to play this game. The Ubisoft open world formula might be stigmatized because of said company but Sucker Punch proves they can nail the formula when given enough effort which puts Ubisoft to shame.
Strength in every step
A fate neither of us want
This is where we part
A beautiful yet morbid perspective into the invasion of Tsushima in 1274, Ghost of Tsushima manages to fulfill the samurai fantasy internalized in me throughout the years, having a great story that made me emotional at certain bits and somehow putting their own twist in the "ubisoft open world" formula that manages to bends but not break it in a stylish and incredible way. You can tell Sucker Punch has put a lot of effort into this title being a complete tonal shift from their previous works with Second Son with its super hero esque gameplay with a punk rock aesthetic into the historical grounded epic we have now.
The main story/tales of Jin Sakai's struggle with the invasion and keeping his ethics and doing whatever it takes to protect his home from the Mongols is an interesting topic to extend on here due to the opening of the game essentially setting the stage for the entirety of the game. I will also surprising recommend experiencing this game in Japanese with English subtitles considering I feel it does the game more justice and this is coming from someone that always prefers English audio most of the time even with Japanese games. Jin doesn't like what he's doing but he realizes he has to adapt and improvise considering his "samurai way" will just have him end up killed and leaving Tsushima to the Mongols. The supporting cast is also excellent having Yuna essentially being an early foil for Jin, his uncle who always supported him and the rest of the remaining few that survived that lend him their aid. I won't lie that there were a few emotional moments I didn't really expect to feel during this game and this all also in lies with the cinematography this game manages to have and excel in. The soundtrack feels like it comes from an epic samurai flick and elevates these moments even further as Jin delves into the mentality and mortality of his actions. The ending was extremely powerful and made the thirty hour journey worth it.
The side stories/tales offer a grander perspective on the conditions of what the people of Tsushima are suffering through. Almost every tale shows the desperation, tragedy, and sorrow the regular people went through as a cost of war. People will lose loved ones, people will want revenge against each other, people will make one final request of you before their final breath. One of the most tragic tales is one relating to Masako, one of the main supporting cast scouring the battlefield for her dead family and it's incredibly depressing as they talked about the various samurai's fate like a son taking the place of an old father or a best friend giving their life for the other. It felt thematically appropriate with the whole game and each of these side tales have such an emotional core in them that I didn't expect from this game. The main supporting casts also have their own chains of side tales as well and while mostly focused on revenge that stemmed from the mongol invasion, they really do a great job of fleshing out these characters that you wouldn't have had the chance in the main narrative.
The quest format and the exploration of Tsushima might be the most contentious topic about this game due to the fact that on the surface, it doesn't really reinvent the wheel but I don't think open world games need to if they're done with effort and care as Ghost of Tsushima has done. The overall exploration consists of a fog of war and markers on the map that could be a slew of activities and locations that empower Jin not only physically and mentally as well. The sense of direction used to guide you isn't a marker most of the time but the direction of the way the wind representative of your father spirit in which blowing which makes the journey more spiritual than most. Shinto Shrines which act as platforming obstacle courses reward you with a powerful charm and a rare resource for upgrading your bows, The hot springs locations act as a small moment for Jin to reflect on his situation and current events while serving the gameplay purpose of increasing his maximum health by a small amount each time he finds one, Bamboo strikes which act as a test of Jin's swordsmanship based on the real life activity of tameshigiri that relies on pressing the button sequence fast enough which rewards you with increased Resolve which servers as your means of healing and activating certain abilities, inari shrines that rely on following a fox around to the shrine that's hidden in the world that rewards you with enhanced charms and the ability to equip more. Some of the other activities mostly reward you with cosmetics such as writing haikus in specific areas via multiple choices and serves as another chance to refresh Jin's mind with the reward of a headband with the description of your own haiku in it despite not having too many options for each part of the haiku to begin with, pillars of honor that leave behind a sword and tanto redesign for Jin and the more combat intensive activities such as clearing the lighthouses and the duels across the island itself. I will say the duels are probably my favorite highlight of the side activities and it's a criminal shame there's so few of them. All of them are always in this beautiful landscape like near a waterfall or around the blossom petals dropping not to mention being the most challenging and fun part of the combat. There's also the standard collectible items that don't really serve too much of a purpose and the fortunate part is that you don't need to collect all of them for the platinum here. The best thing about completing this game is how seamless the whole experience was. You get an outfit pretty early on called the Traveler's Attire which essentially lets the wind guide you to these specific places and collectibles without the real tedium. Random events also happen that garner supplies and contribute to your own legend. Completing all of the outposts that reveal a bit of the map will eventually reveal all of the exploration spots on the maps which makes things even less tedious. I think some people won't like having everything revealed to them but it makes the game want you to platinum/100% it. All of this accompanying building your own legend. I actually love this system as it fits thematically with the game itself. The first rank is a broken down samurai with nothing going for him and by doing deeds, the main story and defeating mongols but later on, people will start to revere you and the mongols will almost fear you in shock as you become more powerful as these also grant health and resolve upgrades as well. Doing each side tale and special legendary ones that unlocks unique stuff felt like I was just building onto Jin's legacy even more and felt like I was truly becoming one of the most dangerous people in that era and the game does an excellent job presenting that idea to you. If I had one complaint about the exploration though, it would be the huge abundance of inari shrines in the game. While each activity has around 10-20 instances of it throughout the game, inari shrines results in a whopping 49 that will feel a bit repetitive after a while.
The way of the blade isn't the only set of skills Jin Sakai has during his own epic. He mainly has two styles of gameplay, the honorable samurai that faces his enemies at their face and the ghost that kills them from the shadows. Not only can he use a sword well but employs all sorts of tricks and equipment that lets him even the odds. First of all, I do recommend playing the game on Hard all the way through. It provides a decent challenge while still giving you the power fantasy of killing over ten mongols in a row with adequate skill but as always, play how you want as my opinions on the combat will stem from that difficulty. You have your standard fast regular attacks and charge attacks that will stagger enemies if applied enough pressure and the most important aspect about these is the stance system. You will get four stances throughout your playthrough and each one has different sword strikes and are more effective with a specific type of enemy such as one stance good against spear men and vice versa. Parrying is also extremely important here especially in duels as you have two forms of parrying, a regular parry which gives you a window to attack and a perfect parry which gives a bigger window to do even more damage. A cool aspect of this is that difficulty affects how tight the parry windows are so you can't spam the guard button and hope to get it off. The swordplay is incredibly satisfying but Jin doesn't only use his sword in combat. He has a variety of tools he uses as "the Ghost" such as kunai will provides multiple free staggers, smoke bombs that buy you some time and grab some free kills on top of that, sticky bombs which sticks to a person and can one someone most of the time and flame oil you can use to go through guard heavy enemies when needed. He also doesn't need to fight from melee range either as he has a half bow which is faster, less damage and used for medium range combat which uses regular arrows and fire arrows. He also has a variety of other tools that mostly aid in his endeavors in stealth. Bell chimes serve a specific purpose of luring one singular person away from a location and firecrackers draw away as many people as there are. Jin also has a few more techniques and tools at his disposal but I don't want to ruin the surprise of receiving these tools.
It's not a samurai fantasy without the fashion and the techniques you can do in Ghost of Tsushima though. You have your standard samurai armor, the ronin garb, the vagabond look also not to mention a lot of hats and masks to shield your own identity. Almost everything I can think of what I want to wear in a samurai game is truly here and each have their own gameplay effects that affects your playstyle such as more health, less detection and more resolve gains. You can freely ignore these at a certain point unless you truly love to minmax but looking the part of how you want to look is something huge for me. Jin can learn specific moves that can make quick work of enemies as the cost of resolve which also acts as extra health when needed making it a risk or reward scenario but the animations for each swing and technique is satisfying.
You can tell they are proud of the soundtrack and the art design of the world themselves. The syncing of specific moments with the orchestra playing their ass off with a motif that gives off hope and desperation. Exploring Tsushima just for the visual spectacle is worth the entry fee alone as well. Traversing fields full of vibrant flowers makes the game feel like a next generation experience that it's almost surprising this game was on a PlayStation 4 initially. The photo mode is proof they are proud of their work. An example of creating something beautiful would be this screenshot I took using said photo mode. The luscious fields almost feels deceiving as the horrors of war and invasion are also there front and center. Burned bodies, beheaded peasants and the total chaos that the mongols have been known for is front and center and some of it also feels grotesque in a sense.
I also wanted to mention some things that are specific to the Director's Cut version of the game on PlayStation 5 that really enhances a few things about the game that I think are important. A huge majority of this is the Iki Island expansion which provides more of Ghost of Tsushima. A small map but new activities such as using your controller to tilt with the melody of the flute, archery challenges and specific puzzle shrines that require specific solutions along with some extra bamboo strikes and baths for additional stats. The overall story relies on Jin's relationship with his father and delves into the aftermath of certain events along with introducing some new characters. A short and sweet expansion nonetheless and even more content for a game that has a lot of it already. The PlayStation 5 version of this game is truly impressive for two factors being that it's already in 4K 60 fps regardless of the setting which makes the game even more gorgeous and essentially no loading times even through using fast travel or even booting up the game. Small additions includes japanese lip syncing which is needed and haptic feedback which is used wonderfully and the adaptive triggers mostly used for the bows. Not much else other than the digital deluxe stuff here as well.
One of the most surprising aspects of this game is that it has a multiplayer mode with the title of Legends. I haven't played a lot of it but it was a pretty fun experience despite being completely free with the main game. You have four classes you can play as with their own playstyle as you go through missions and some specific story events even. The great gameplay is still here but more reliant on teamwork such as needing to kill two people at the exact same time for them to actually die. There's also a survival mode and even a three part raid from what I read in the menu. A truly impressive suite of things to do which gives the game a bit more value in an already expansive game.
The most obvious influences this game takes from is Akira Kurosawa films and even has a mode dedicated to him replicating his original black and white movies. I can't speak of Kurosawa only really watching Seven Samurai (specifically because of this game) but I can say Ghost of Tsushima shares the same human spirit that the movie had of banding together in the face of adversity. But I digress, I almost forget that Ghost of Tsushima which is a extremely japanese centric game based on real life history of the island was made by an American studio. They have taken the time to really nail the feel and manages to be respectful of what was and what is. One of the ever growing fewer reasons to have a PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5 and I hope people get to experience this gem. If you love samurai, you owe it to yourself to play this game. The Ubisoft open world formula might be stigmatized because of said company but Sucker Punch proves they can nail the formula when given enough effort which puts Ubisoft to shame.
Strength in every step
A fate neither of us want
This is where we part