@sombre: I’m not sure why they say to tap triangle. It really is just light attacks for damage heavies with triangle to break block. It takes a number of heavy attacks to break their guard so maybe that’s what they were trying to convey.

Breaking guard is way easier once you learn the appropriate stances.

Yeah. I'm still not very far in tbh. Maybe...5/6 main missions and 1 side story to unlock charms? I just did that quest with the monk

There are also a couple levels of parry so if you can’t quite get perfects in the middle of a big fight just focus on guarding as they come in because even a normal guard/parry turns the attack and leaves them open. You just won’t get the dramatic freeze frame and big damage boost.

I like it a lot, best game of the year so far. Some of those reviews are head-scratching. I liked Horizon a lot, but Ghost is a much better open-world. The side quests are interesting and the UI, just follow the wind or animals, promotes exploration. Horizon wasn't very good at side quests and dino robots was the main unique part.

It's minor, but finally a game where merchants aren't charging the hero money. It's a little annoying when you're trying to save your world and stores still are charging you money - Mass Effect 3 for example.

@sarcasticmudcrab: I would say the game has Witcher 3 swordplay, it's not Batman at all. I didn't like Shadow of Mordor or the sequel because of the Batman combat system.

@deathstriker: ah having played it a fair bit now I can't really understand the batman comparison. It really does have its own combat style that is like an accumulation of various games with it's own twist.

Game is absolutely fantastic, maybe another open world game but I think this is the pinnicle of the genre so far.

It just works!

I can understand why the Batman comparison would come, especially if you've only just heard about or seen the combat in action. It uses an awful lot of the template but controls in.. I guess a much more freeform way? The end result is that it feels very much like its own thing.

I think what I appreciate about it the most is how fast it moves. Executed properly you can end a fight with like a dozen dudes in just a few seconds and it feels really cool.

I can't get over running at and kicking people in the face.

My sword is fully leveled and this game is a joke on Hard.

I love it.

Super kicking dudes off of cliffs is my current favorite feature.

Having finished the game now I have a higher opinion of it than I did a third of the way in. I think it opens up a bit later in, both in terms of combat options and with more varied environments, and the story gains some steam. It gets pretty easy on normal as it goes but I didn't mind that because I never fully loved the combat. I just found it kind of repetitive and fiddly, and the stealth was kind of basic and overpowered. The real strength is the environments and atmosphere, since the story and characters are also kind of stiff.

I'd give it an 8.0 out of 10, which is very close to the metacritic score.

I will say that the beginning of Act III is...a lot. I can't believe they killed the horse, those monsters (by which I mean the developers.) And then you hand Yuna your katana before you are captured but somehow she has all your equipment waiting for you? It was atmospheric and all, especially with the burned village, but it was manipulative, didn't make sense, and the unarmed "stealth" was super easy and boring. I feel like it could have been handled better. They promised that the horse would be with me through the whole game and then they killed it!

I've just finished Act 1 and cleared out pretty much all of the first area bar collectibles, and on the strength of that it's easily my game of the year so far, knocking Final Fantasy VII Remake down to second place.

When I first started this game, I thought it was okay, pretty good, but not blowing me away. Now Im maybe a third into judging by the map/missions Ive done, and wow this game is the best open-world game I've played since Breath of the Wild and Horizon. (and it seems to be the best of both of those worlds). Sure, certain things are dated, but the gameplay is satisfying, the world is something to behold, and the game does not hold ur hand forcing you to go straight to missions. I've spent most of my time poking around in corners of the map, and the game constantly rewards you for doing so. The map tells you exactly where you can find specific items, but I prefer to ignore all that and try to find stuff on my own through navigation. And it actually works, unlike a lot of other open world games.

Man I just wrapped this up a few days ago and today it's getting an angrier difficulty mode that just sounds like it wants to be Bushido Blade.

Later today, patch 1.05 for Ghost of Tsushima will be released, bringing new combat and text options.

This patch includes the following new updates:

New difficulty level: Lethal

• – Enemy weapons are more deadly, but Jin’s katana is also more deadly

• – Enemies are more aggressive in combat

• – Enemies detect you faster

• – Tighter Parry and Dodge windows

Pretty sure this is exactly what I want from this game.

It makes forced stealth sections significantly less fun, and I'm willing to bet if you didn't have certain abilities like wind stance attacks automatically converting to spear parries when applicable those enemies would be nearly unbearable, but otherwise it's a pretty welcome change to the game. It forces you to consider your ghost items way more frequently, as well as archery and using more of the vertical space in the levels. Resolve no longer feels infinite, I've probably used it more often for health than my two mystic attacks in the past two hours than I have in the 10 hours between the game's opening difficulty spike and clearing most of the first map.

Sometimes it doesn't feel significantly harder, either, but more like a sort of fast forward button on minor camp encounters because archer enemies take a single hit and well-dodged/parried (not even perfect, just the end of an attack string) enemies typically go down in a single hit unless they're covered head to toe in armor. It makes the combat feel more intentional, though it does also mean a button mashing kind of guy like myself will inevitably die in some pretty silly situations. The loading and checkpointing is beyond forgiving though so it's not torturous to repeat a combat scenario a few times.

Here's what it looks like in action during a duel for anyone who hasn't looked up footage already. Apologies for the picture, I had HDR on because I didn't expect to be uploading footage until I enjoyed these 4 minutes quite a bit and wanted to share.

As you can see it's not quite God of War Valkyrie level tough nor is it exactly Bushido Blade, but these fights turn on a dime in a way they just kinda lingered around on Hard, and the same often goes for regular fights as well. Actually, one of the weirder benefits of the more aggressive enemies is one you get to see over and over again in this clip - when you're down, if you're not immediately pumping Resolve into your bloodstream to get up and try again they will come cut you down immediately. It's quite refreshing after watching Mongols just stand there and kick me while I'm down for 30 seconds sometimes...even if I also found that kind of funny.

Actual forced stealth is pretty rare so it may not be that big of a deal.. most of its in the last act where you get some really absurd stealth tools that I think they give you expecting a certain number of players to not have paid attention to the mechanic before then.

It looks fun, I definitely outpaced Hard real quick so if I get around to a replay this looks like a good option. I don't think I'd get much out of trying it in my game right now since all the camps are gone and roaming patrols hardly count.

Just beat this last night. Anybody have thoughts on how this game is paced? I think it's done poorly, but also I think some of my own OCD exacerbated that issue. Does anyone else think this would be a much better game if it was significantly shorter and/or had less side-stuff?

I was loving it for the first 10 hours or so, and by the time I finished Act I I had done everything there was to do on the lower third of the island. When Act II started I immediately went back to the lower third to do all the farm missions. And then...I don't know what happened, but through Act II I very quickly started to lose interest in the game. The missions, the incidental incidents on the roads as you are traveling from one place to another, the combat, the side stuff, it all just felt very repetitive and the story wasn't pulling me along anymore.

My last few sessions with this game were me mainlining the story and ignoring everything else just so I could finish it and move on to something else. It had gone from being one of my favorite games this year to one of my biggest disappointments. Then I reached the epilogue.

I thought it was incredible and it completely turned me back around on the game. Not my favorite game this year, but definitely an experience I think everyone should have. I just wish the experience was more streamlined.