I always thought Japan would be a really nice place to visit. I don't travel that much and if I do it’s somewhere within the United States, but the amount of points of interest in Japan is jaw dropping. There’s the beautiful sights to behold, ancient culture to learn about, places to hang out, and much more. If I were given the opportunity to go to any place in the world with somebody covering the plane ride, food checks, hotel bill and so on it would probably be Japan. I wonder why I have such a fascination with Japan? Maybe it’s because quite a few things produced from Japan have impacted my family.
My mother watches a lot of live action cheesy Japanese dramas, but enjoys them either way. My father grew up watching some of the first anime that ever premiered, and my sister watches a lot of modern day anime herself. In fact it’s one of the few things that influenced her to become an artist. Then there’s the fact that a good chunk of the video games I like are made by Japanese developers. There’s PlatinumGames, creators of high octane hack and slash titles like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, and my most favorite being Nier: Automata. There’s famous director and designer Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear Solid series and Death Stranding. Then there’s FromSoftware, one of my personal favorite Japanese studios for creating challenging yet memorable action RPG experiences filled with depth and wonder like Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls, Sekiro, and if I have to say it again, “one of my favorite games of all time, Bloodborne”. Japanese developers are truly talented in my mind, and over the years they have had a huge impact on the video game industry. Either reinventing genres, telling deep stories about life and death, or doing what a lot of western developers can't seem to do. In other words, I respect them as they've contributed a lot to my life.
A recent release honors the culture these developers center themselves around. What makes today’s game strange is that it wasn’t made by a Japanese studio. Rather a development team stationed in the United States named Sucker Punch Productions. The first game the team ever released was a bizarre 3D platformer named Rocket: Robot on Wheels for the Nintendo 64. It received decent reception, but wasn't the game that kicked them off towards success. The game that really boosted them towards a popular status was Sly Cooper on the Playstation 2. Sly Cooper was praised for its comedic writing, colorful cast of characters, cartoonish graphics, fun level variety, and some actual fun 3D platforming that Sucker Punch failed to achieve with their first game. Sly Cooper went on to become a trilogy which has stood against the test of time, and one of the many landmark exclusives for the Playstation.
After the Sly Cooper series, Sucker Punch Productions went on to make another entirely new property to help market the Playstation 3. Rather than make a linear 3D platformer, Sucker Punch wanted to tackle the open world formula. Taking inspiration from iconic comic book superheroes, Sucker Punch decided to make a game where the protagonist could become mad with power if given the choice. This led to the creation of Infamous, and much like Sucker Punch’s previous game series, Infamous was also a massive success. Infamous was praised for its badass superpower combat, fun world traversal, and how it addressed the superhero problem arising at the time of actions not having consequences. Sure the moral choice was really black and white, but this was during the early stages when game developers were still trying to figure out how to handle moral choice. Infamous started another well received trilogy of games and became one of the defining franchises for the Playstation 3. The last entry in the series was Infamous: Second Son in 2014 and ever since then Sucker Punch Productions hasn’t released any new products. Not until their recent outing.
After the release of Infamous: Second Son and its downloadable expansion, the team decided to begin development on another open world property. This time is set during the 1200s in ancient Japan. They wanted to improve upon the open world design choices they made with Infamous, and address the many design trends made with recent Triple A open worlds. At the time, open world games were becoming less about exploring a brilliant world full of wonders and providing ultimate freedom, and more about how much stuff you can flood it with and drag the player by the hand towards. They wanted to one-up this formula and show these developers that it is a little more than a pretty world to make an acceptable video game. The approach kind of reminds me of Horizon Zero Dawn by Guerilla Games. Horizon Zero Dawn looks like another generic open world game, but what makes it so amazing is that it puts a fun twist on generic open world design tropes to make an actually unique and engaging experience.
Sucker Punch Productions had to balance out the two factors of making a fun open world to play and still making it a beautiful sandbox to traverse across, which is probably why the game spent so much time in development. The project was then revealed during 2017 and was named Ghost of Tsushima. It would be a lovely samurai adventure about honor that would push what the Playstation 4's hardware could handle. There were a lot of questions surrounding Ghost of Tsushima,. What type of game would it be like and would stand against other Playstation 4 releases? It didn't build up the mass amounts of hype that God of War or Horizon Zero Dawn had, and over the course of development more people slowly forgot about this game. Not saying it was abandoned, but expectations were low over what the final product could serve. I however kept a close eye on Ghost of Tsushima and the promises it could deliver.
It wasn’t until 2020 near the end of the Playstation 4’s lifecycle that Ghost of Tsushima finally came out. I was excited for this game, but my expectations were low going in. A month ago I replayed Horizon Zero Dawn and afterwards I was craving for another open world sandbox to pour an ungodly amount of time into. I looked at Ghost of Tsushima, bought it during the week of release, pulled sixty dollars out of my wallet, and prayed to god that this wouldn’t be another generic open world and waste of my hard earned cash. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. Holy sh*t did it blow my expectations by a longshot. Ghost of Tsushima is probably one of the greatest games of 2020, which is weird because 2020 sucks right now with the pandemic and you think nothing would make this year feel any better! Well, Ghost of Tsushima did and I loved every aspect of it. I could just be feeling down right now, but this is the title that saved me from isolation and depression. Exploring Tsushima and witnessing a story that was better than it had the damn rights to be. Today we’ll be talking about why I absolutely loved Ghost of Tsushima and why it deserves your attention. So mount onto your horse, take a sip of sake, and prepare to journey across the island of Tsushima.
Story
We follow Jin Sakai, a noble samurai warrior who is also the nephew of Lord Shimura. During his childhood, Jin lost his father during a war and his uncle took him in to raise him as his own. He taught Jin how to fight professionally with a sword so if he were to ever be attacked he could defend himself. Shimura also taught Jin to be a peaceful and respectful individual in public, and no matter what, to always follow a code of honor. You don't kill or steal for personal pleasures. You do what's right no matter the cause. Several years later Jin grew up to be an honorable samurai serving under his uncle. The year is 1274 and Tsushima is being invaded by Mongol forces.
Jin, alongside his uncle, must fight with an army of samurai warriors like him to chase the Mongol forces off. However, Jin falls unconscious during the battle and his uncle is captured by the Mongols. Jin wakes up to find himself in a small village currently being pillaged by Mongol soldiers. He straps on his samurai armor now shattered into bits after battle, and heads out to find his uncle. Before the mongols can notice him, he meets a thief named Yuna. She was a local thief that pulled Jin out of the battlefield after being injured, and she patched up whatever fatal wounds he had. Recognizing him as the nephew to the lord of the land. Yuna tells Jin that most of Tsushima has fallen to Mongol forces, and that his uncle is being held captive nearby in Castle Kaneda. Jin makes his way to the castle to come face to face with Khotun Khan, general of the Mongol forces invading Tsushima. Khotun reveals that Lord Shimura is unharmed and that he is willing to set him free if Jin surrenders. Jin, wanting to save him and honor the fallen samurai around him, uncle charges towards Khotun at full force. Being too weak, Jin is cut down and is dumped over a bridge looming several feet above a river.
Jin apparently survives the fall and wakes up along the shore where Yuna comes to save Jin once again. Jin and Yuna ride away from the Mongols, and Yuna tells Jin to even stand a chance he must forge a new army of swordsmen and warriors to fight against the Mongols. Otherwise, he's going to have to get a little dirty and forsake the honorable code he follows. She also tells Jin that her brother Taka has been captured, and that if he rescues Taka then he can forge the equipment Jin needs to fight back. So Jin must gather up his closest allies, use guerilla warfare against the Mongol hordes, and do what he must to take down Khotun Khan and save his uncle. Once he does that then what next. How far will Jin go to protect his people and bring peace back?
Gameplay
What if I told you Ghost of Tsushima has a lot of good ideas even though it's one of those open world sandboxes in the style of Assassin's Creed? What if I told you that Ghost of Tsushima one-ups Assassin's Creed? What if I also told you that surprisingly Ghost of Tsushima has some of the best samurai combat ever seen in a video game? Well you decided to read this far into my review, so you might as well keep going.
Tsushima is big, bigger than I thought it would be. You travel around the island either on foot or by horse, slay any Mongols that stand in your wake, collect gear to make you stronger, and pursue whatever mission objective you have active. Rather than place a marker or a dotted line on a radar towards where the player has to go the game uses the wind to guide the player towards the right direction. This is a pretty unique idea, because by doing so they are forced to set their own path rather than take the quickest route or be dragged by the hand towards their location. It also means the screen isn't cluttered with so much information or guidance, so the player always has a clear view of what is around them and gets to enjoy the colorful world set up for them to explore.
Missions have a good amount of variety in this game. Sure it's a similar design approach to Assassin's Creed. Follow an NPC, kill some enemies, or obtain a specific item. However, what is different is that Ghost of Tsushima makes these missions exciting and puts a little more control in how long these missions last. The player's movement isn't slowed down when they are asked to follow an NPC, objectives shouldn't take too long to pursue, and they took The Witcher 3 approach of making side quests have interesting stories that add to the world. Not only that, but they find some way to connect back to the overarching threat and remind you of your journey. This design philosophy is called not being boring and wasting the player's time.
Another idea I like are tales, where specific NPCs will have quest lines that continue over the course of the main story. You could be helping Sensei Ishikawa, a professional archer whose grand student has betrayed him to train the Mongols. You could be helping Lady Masako, an old woman hunting down the people who murdered her family. Norio, a buddist monk who learns to protect his people he actually has to start fighting back, and a couple more. The tales are strong enough to serve as full stories, they help build your relationship with your allies, and they're a nice thing to do besides the main questline. Remember, they connect with the main overarching plot and don't forget the duty you have to fulfill. It's also good they kept it down to like three to five character questlines, because more than that would get confusing and transform Ghost of Tsushima into a bloated, drawn out open world sandbox.
You will be fighting a lot of Mongols throughout the game, and luckily you have your trusty katana to defend yourself. At first it plays out like an ordinary action game. Attacking enemies, dodging heavy blows, and occasionally deflecting at the right time to parry their attacks and get the edge. What makes the combat stand out is the stance system. I know games like Nioh had a stance system, but Ghost of Tsushima uses it in such a way where you constantly have to swap on the fly and make use of these different stances. By using specific stances on certain enemies you can easily break their defenses and do physical damage on them. Transforming a difficult fight into a much easier one. When you swap your stance during a busy fight time slows down, so the game is accommodating for how chaotic and fast horde fights will be. For example, the all rounded Stone Stance works best against basic swordsmen while the swift Water Stance is highly effective against enemies with shields.
You are given a lot of choices when it comes to combat. Right before you even start a fight you can sneak up on enemies and slowly take them all out individually using careful planning and stealth. You don't even have to use stealth. You can approach a group of Mongols directly and challenge them to a standoff, where if you time your button press correctly you can instant kill the first enemy. You can also upgrade this ability to kill three approaching enemies in a row and there's a specific suit of armor that when upgraded will grant you the ability to take out five. I like the standoff mechanic. Both stealth and combat is fun, but the standoff is for those who want to run or not waste their time stealth around a small area encampment.
You can use your bow to fight from a far, hit environmental hazards, turn the wildlife into a fighting force, or set patches of grass ablaze. You even have access to a grappling hook to traverse the environment which gave me flashbacks to Uncharted 4. There are also tool like smoke bombs to go back into hiding and firecrackers to disrupt a group of enemies for a short period of time. Ghost of Tsushima provides a lot of options for the player. Some of them may not be used as much, but it's nice they provide different opportunities for different playstyles. It makes Ghost of Tsushima feel more like an RPG than an average open world sandbox, which we'll address shortly. If you take too much damage during combat you can use Resolve which is this little meter built up overtime. Resolve can be refilled by reflecting attacks, killing enemies, or taking damage so the game encourages the player to use an aggressive playstyle so the player can save themselves during a dangerous situation. Resolve can also be spent on powerful abilities you unlock later, but I won't spoil them and how they are unlocked.
There are a lot of things to do in this game and most of the side activities in this game are actually needed if you want to get stronger. This is where the RPG feeling kicks into play, and the incentive to explore is encouraged with having to shout it to the player. Resting in hot springs allows you to increase your maximum health. Locating inari shrines allows you to increase the amount of charms, otherwise perks, you can equip. Practicing at bamboo strikes increases the amount of maximum Resolve you have and can build up. Completing quests and liberating Mongol territory gives you experience points which eventually give you skill points. Skill points can be used to unlock skills on a skill tree, and when I say new skills I don’t mean just stuff that should have been given to you in the first place. I mean stuff that actually makes you stronger and opens up new choices to combat. Being able to cut down more enemies during standoffs, being able to revive yourself when you have fallen in combat, deflecting stronger attacks you weren’t able to deflect before, etc. Ghost of Tsushima has one of the best progression systems I’ve seen in an open world sandbox. Which is weird, because skill trees usually suck. That's all I really have to say about the gameplay. It was better designed than expected and may be the perfect example of how to do this type of open world. Looks like you're growing stronger everyday and with enough courage you should be able to fend off against the Mongols and save the people of Tsushima.
Thoughts
Play it. Please just play it. Ghost of Tsushima is a great video game and I spent way more time with it than I thought I would. The story is incredibly well written and at times it took me by surprise. It’s about a man who will do whatever it takes to protect his people and those he deeply cares about. However, he ends up losing what made him an honorable and respectable warrior in the first place, and slowly becomes a murderous monster more so than the Mongols he kills. The narrative is extremely well told and there’s this moment near the end that made me feel emotional. The protagonist and his uncle confront each other over their ideologies. Arguing over who is right and which belief actually defends the people. The protagonist being given the choice to kill his mentor, or move on to forge a path on his own. Move away from the hatred and become a noble warrior in a new way. Some people say that the story is a little forgettable and that it could be told much better through a proper samurai movie, but it’s really nice to see Sucker Punch tell a story like this. I feel like Ghost of Tsushima is a story that can only be told through the means of a video game. You're running around Tsushima, slaying enemies, and having a casual fun time, but do we ever question our sanity during the “fun”. Is it right to find enjoyment in killing? To lose ourselves among the bloodlust and drive. Tales like this have been done before like in Spec Ops: The Line and Undertale, but Ghost of Tsushima is another worthy exception.
The combat is heavily engaging and challenging from beginning to end. At the beginning of the game you are punished heavily for not learning how to parry and the enemy horde will make quick due of you. The combat begins to expand with each stance unlocked and slowly hard fights become much easier. I forgot to mention in the gameplay paragraph that you have to unlock stances by slaying mongol leaders, but that's another good incentive to explore. You could say that this game reminds you of Sekiro due to the hard to master combat and the player being forced to master parryings, but choosing between the two combat systems I am going to have to unpopularly choose Ghost of Tsushima. The combat of Tsushima has a better learning curve in my opinion. Mission fights have forgiving checkpoints, and the game does a good job pacing the player and making sure you get better overtime. It’s one of those games where it starts off hard with how very little you are given, but by the end it gets easy because the player understands the mechanics and unlocking the necessities to survive. Oh I see, you just threw like five brutes at me. How should I face them and the other fifty or so brutes I’ve slain in the past hour? Ghost of Tsushima wants you to feel and know that you're a skilled samurai through experience and that is a method I like.
Let’s see what else is there to praise about this magnificent game? The graphics are gorgeous, the environments stand out, and the amount of color in this game is jaw dropping. I was expecting this to be a grim looking game by the front cover, but soon I found myself traversing luscious fields of white, tall green bamboo forests, red leaves raining down into my face, and crystalline blue waters. Voice acting and performances are great and each of the characters I met were memorable, but my only complaint is that the facial animation kind of sucks. Which isn't a huge problem as the story and characters are good. The game pushes the Playstation 4’s technical limitations to it’s hardest with all these beautiful set pieces and locations. The soundtrack is lovely as it's one of the best I’ve heard from a Triple A title. Alongside Octopath Traveler, Persona 5, Nier: Automata, etc. There are a lot of fun side activities if you just drink around Tsushima and the game encourages you to find these side activities as you will need them to grow stronger and face future challenges. That’s basically all the praise I have.
I’m going to say right now that Ghost of Tsushima is a masterpiece. Doesn’t mean the game is perfect, but what it set out to do is done right and it achieved far more than what it originally intended. No offense, but 2020 doesn't have that many games right now that deserve the noteworthy title, “Game of The Year”. A while back I played the fast paced thrill ride Doom Eternal and the lovely Ori & The Will of The Wisps. Their great games, but right now I don’t know if I would consider them Game of The Year candidates. One of my favorite games of 2020 so far is Persona 5 Royal which probably shouldn’t count as a Game of The Year candidate, because it is basically a definitive version of a narrative JRPG from 2017. It’s such a well made experience, but saying it’s my Game of The Year sounds off. If I were to choose one official 2020 candidate for Game of The Year it would be Ghost of Tsushima, but maybe it won’t be my definitive GOTY because we still have another half a year to go. Ghost of Tsushima is the only game that probably deserves to be called a Game of The Year candidate right now and deserves to be played the most out of all these choices I had just listed.
So what’s my final score for Ghost of Tsushima? This may seem high, but overall I give this game a 10/10 for being incredible. Some of you may argue that it doesn't do anything new for the open world formula, but it’s such a well made game and this is the most fun I had this year. So yeah, Ghost of Tsushima is awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone who owns a Playstation 4. Another genre defining title like Breath of The Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn, and a swansong to the Playstation 4 era.
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