Ghost of Tsushima

You probably already know everything about how Ghost of Tsushima is structured, even if you don’t know you know it. Take every open world RPG made in the last five years, blend it together, set it in Japan with color vibrancy cranked up to 11, and you’re there. As folks on this website have said, it’s “extremely one of those,” but it’s a very good one of those! So that’s something.

Ghost of Tsushima is set in 1274, during the first Mongol invasion of Japan. The game opens with Samurai in battle lines on a hill overlooking the beach where the Mongols have grounded their ships and come ashore. Battle is had, the Mongols slaughter the Samurai - less the player character Jin Sakai who is saved by the thief Yuna, and his uncle Lord Shimura, who is captured. Jin quickly has the revelation that conventional Samurai strategy may not be effective against the Mongols, and he may have to utilize underhanded battle tactics to slay the Mongol leader and drive the Mongol army from Sushima.

There are also a handful of side stories that run throughout the course of the game. Each is focused on a single character - an unscrupulous sake merchant that wants to help Tsushima while turning a profit, a warrior monk whose brother was killed by the Mongols, and a few others. These subplots are competanty written, but many don’t really kick into gear until the third and final act of the game, which can make the first two acts worth of side quests feel a little like busy work. In fact, I’d say the final act of the game in general is the strongest, main quest included.

As stated earlier, you probably don’t need to have played this game to know how it’s open world is laid out. The island of Tsushima is split into thirds, with each third opening up as you progress the main story. The main story and side quests are the most interesting (and rewarding) things to do on the island, but you’ve just got to know there’s a lot of optional collectibles just waiting for you to discover. The good news is the game does a good job of communicating to you early which collectibles come with tangible benefits, and which are just going to count towards a 100% or all achievements playthrough. Fox dens, shrines, hot spring saunas, and bamboo stands all give you a reward of some kind - charm slots, charms, max health increase, or a resolve increase respectively. Lighthouses, haiku spots, sashimono banners, records, mongol artifacts, and singing crickets either give you a cosmetic, or nothing but an achievement when all gathered. I really liked this, because it allowed me to focus on the “good collectibles,” and save the less valuable ones for an eventual 100% playthrough which will probably never happen, but hey, who knows how long this quarantine is going to last?

Combat, for as far as it goes, is a lot of fun. I wish they had developed it further throughout the game, but I’ll take what I can get. Your bread and butter will be light attacks, heavy attacks, parries, and dodges. The last two are obviously used defensively - parrying is generally preferable to dodging, but some attacks (marked by a red X) are unparryable. Heavy attacks you will use to open up your opponents guard meter (something you must chew through before you’re able to deal real damage), and light attacks are used to actually hit the bad guy once you’ve opened him up. Most enemies only take a couple of heavy attacks to open up, and other couple light attacks to kill, so the flow of combat is snappy, with you slaying an enemy in a flurry of hits, scanning the battlefield for your next target, rinsing and repeating until you’re covered in blood and all the bad men are taking naps.

An additional wrinkle is that there are four enemy types (sword, shield, polearm, and BIG BOY), and you’ll soon find yourself with four combat stances - one for each type. Matching the right stance to the right enemy allows you to break their guard quickly - mismatching is not only ineffective, but sometimes after as few as ONE mismatched strike, the game will slow down and essentially say “HEY IDIOT - HIT THE SWORD MAN WITH THE SWORD STANCE.”

While smart stance usage will make your heavy attacks work well, they don’t really do much more than that. Each stance has a small four step long skill tree, which will add new combo moves and passives to each stance. Problem being, while they are all technically unique, they pretty much all boil down to “stance works gooder” or “hold heavy attack and then press it a bunch for a special combo.” And the even bigger problem is that in my experience, the special combo moves were rarely worth doing over just mashing out regular heavy attacks until the enemies guard broke. This is an area I think could have been handled better - as it is, combat remains a little samey throughout the game. It’s never worse than “pretty good,” but it does start to get stale after a while. And this being a pretty expansive open world game, that while could take a WHILE.

So that’s your standard honorable samurai experience. On the other side of the coin, you have the sneaky ghost playstyle. You’ll end up with a lot of neat tools, from kunai to smoke bombs to firecrackers. They all gel with a sneaky-stabby style of play, but most are also useful if you’re more of a “run in and hit them with the katana” type of person, which I am. The game does allow you to engage in a listen mode much like The Last of Us, but I enjoyed the regular combat enough that I felt like I would be robbing myself of some of the fun by sneaking around methodically putting Mongols down one by one. Just know that if you ARE interested in a more stealthy experience, the game totally supports that.

The game, of course, looks stupendous. It doesn't quite match something like The Last of Us Part II in terms of pure realism, but it more than makes up for it in styyyle. It has the best use of color in a game that I’ve seen in a long, long time. You could bring up the games photo mode at almost any time, and you’d probably have something that would at least make a pretty good screen saver. Sucker Punch also does a great job of making sure you are not distracted from the scenery with some smart design decisions. The world of Tsushima itself leads you towards your objectives. White smoke rising from a bonfire indicates a point of interest - perhaps a side story or a collectible worth a reward. Small golden birds will fly over you, and will lead you to other points of interest if you follow. Finally, the wind will blow towards whatever you happen to be tracking on your map (next quest step, collectible, etc). This means you’re never taking your eyes off the beautiful landscape the developer has created, which I love. I’m also replaying the Witcher 3 right now, and while that game also looks very good, my eyes are glued to the minimap for 90% of my travel time, which is a real bummer.

Like so many other elements of this game, the music also seems to be inspired by Breath of the Wild. Generally not present, you’ll get occasional hints of ambience as you play - kicking into full soundtrack mode during large battles or big story beats. It all sounds like traditional Japanese instruments, with wood flutes featuring prominently, but as I’m not an expert, I can’t say for sure.

All in all, this is a great game, providing you're in the mood for what it is. If you’re burnt out on 30-50 hour open world games, stay far, far away from this game. But if that sounds like a good time to you, Ghost of Tsushima will leave you satisfied. For me, there’s still something about a game providing me with a list of unchecked boxes, enticing me to check them off one by one that I find intensely gratifying.