Ghost of Tsushima

Developer/Publisher: Sucker Punch

Release: 2020

Gameplay Stats: Base game completed, 2/3 areas liberated, all quests completed, 60 hours

This game came highly recommended from a close friend of mine. He doesn't own a PS4 but he borrowed one and played through this game in a single long weekend. I like to play through games recommended by friends because it kind of brings us closer together, don't you think? Shared experiences and all that.

Graphics: This game is beautiful! I know I've been saying this a lot lately, but this is probably the prettiest game I've completed. (I think it's because I have an underpowered PC) The people look pretty realistic, apart from the mouths, and the way that the characters move is pretty fluid. Some clipping issues, particularly with plants and cloth. This is the first game I completed on the PS5 and it definitely makes me hopeful for my future time with this console! 

Audio: The audio in this game is pretty fine, nothing particularly standout. The music is nice but very sparse. It leaves the game feeling pretty empty in my opinion, not something that open-world game would want to highlight I don't think. The voice acting is pretty good in the cutscenes! The barks and sound effects are good, but I wouldn't say great.

Plot: The plot here is fine but entirely too drawn out. The betrayal by your friend and the abandonment of the uncle are pretty well foreshadowed, this is very much and old versus new systems kind of conflict. The story would have been good I think if the game was about 20 hours, but it wasn't compelling enough for what would be around 40 hours if you mainlined the story. A couple of the side quests with your compatriots honestly seemed longer than the main story (Masako and Ishikawa) and they were definitely more interesting. The side quests that weren't part of a larger chain seemed like only very minimal effort was put in, the peasants didn't even have names and the quests weren't usually any longer than a single task of clearing out an enemy encampment. I definitely found this to be a bit lackluster.

Gameplay: I always feel a bit put off when games try to go for immersion over gameplay because I am controlling a character with a controller, so I like the little quality of life things that games do to make controlling your character a bit easier. I like it when I can snap a character to look a given direction instead of having to walk in a tight circle, I like being able to lock onto enemies, and I like it when the camera follows the action to a certain degree because my right thumb is busy with face buttons. This game does none of those things. I was often surprised by enemies off camera, accidentally walked off ledges, and took several hits trying to focus the camera on whoever I was fighting. I found it annoying. I get the attempt at immersion, but I feel like those kinds of efforts are a better fit for like a VR experience where you can look around freely not with a controller where one thumb has too many demands. The fighting itself was good to great, the stealth felt kind of bad (too easy) like it often does in games that aren't stealth focused. One particular complaint that I have though it that the game is gated through duels that you have to do to progress the main story, but there is no way to practice these duels between when they are mandatory for the first section of the game. There was a nice quest about halfway through that let me 'git gud' at the duel mechanics, but I had to retry a lot before then. It did feel cinematic, but I would've liked more of an opportunity to practice these skills before they were mandatory to progress the story.

I wasn't a huge fan of this game overall. I can see how it was well-made, but I am definitely not the intended audience here. I wouldn't be able to recommend this game to anyone because I'm not familiar enough with the genre to really know what this game does well/poorly compared to its peers. It was fine for my tastes, but that's about all I can say. [5/10]