Ghost of Tsushima (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): July 17, 2020
- Release Date (EU): July 17, 2020
- Release Date (JP): July 17, 2020
- Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
- Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
- Genres: Action-Adventure
Game Features:
Single player
Local Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Co-operative
Repel the invading Mongol army as they advance on Japan in this tale of Jin Sakai; a tale of swords and samurai.
Ghost of Tsushima is set during the first Mongol invasion of 1274, albeit a fictionalised version. As the Mongol army comes ashore, you take the role of Jin Sakai, a samurai serving under his uncle and the jito of Tsushima, Lord Shimura. An epic battle unfolds within the opening moments and almost all the samurai, save for Lord Shimura, are killed in battle. And, somehow, Jin manages to survive with help from a thief named Yuna, who treated his injuries and nursed him back to health. Learning that his uncle is held captive by the Mongol leader, Khotun Khan, Jin rushes to rescue him. His rescue mission is doomed to failure, and after barely surviving his encounter with the Khan, he sets forth with a plan to recruit help to free his uncle and stop the Mongol army from reaching the mainland. Queue the title, and the game truly begins.
The main story itself is broken up into three acts, which is in turn divided in various quests, or tales as they are referred to in-game. Given the open-world nature of Ghost of Tsushima, you are free to explore the regions available to you depending on what act you are on and progress through the story at your own pace. The main story focuses on Jin's efforts to repel the Mongols and also help his people, while also struggling with both his honour as a samurai and doing whatever is necessary to be victorious. A number of the supporting characters have their own tales for you to do; Lady Adachi's clan was wiped out and seeks vengeance, or Kenji, a merchant, who ropes Jin into dangerous situations, oftentimes for less than noble reasons. However, as do most all of the tales, they for the most-part follow same pattern: start tale, travel to location and listen to the dialogue, fight whomever you have to, and then go on to the next one. The main story and character-related ones are written exceptionally well and are quite enjoyable, but I found the majority of tales for less important events or characters eventually falling into repetitiveness. Though you come across the occasional mix-up, be prepared to play out the formula above more than you would perhaps like.
One of the biggest areas that Ghost of Tsushima excels is the combat. It is exceptionally violent and visceral, but in a more realistic way as opposed to say Doom, with its absurd brutality and gore. How you choose to approach combat is usually at your discretion. You can fight like a samurai, charging into battle and facing your opponents head-on, or you can fight like a ghost, catching your enemies off-guard and assassinating them in a quick but less honourable way. I found myself often going straight ahead towards my enemies, often issuing a challenge for a stand off, which is one of my favourite things to do. As you approach them, you press up on the directional pad and shout out a challenge, followed by a tense stare down between you and whomever you are challenging. Holding down the triangle button, you wait for your opponent to come and attack, releasing the button and striking them down in one blow. They can feint as well, shouting and moving slightly in order to get you to strike first, dealing massive damage to you should you take the bait.
For straight on combat, you have your standard light and heavy attacks, guarding and parrying, and dodging. Light attacks to deal small but quick damage and your heavy to deal massive damage and break opponent guards, staggering them and leaving them completely open to your attacks. There are four different stances available to you, though you start with only one. As you observe or kill Mongol leaders, stronger and more formidable troops, you fill a circular gauge that once full, you learn the next stance in line. Each stance has a particular focus; water stance is effective against shields and moon stance is great against larger foes, regardless of the weapon they carry. You can switch between stances by holding R2 and then selecting the stance you desire, with time slowing down for a bit, helping to keep combat fluid and fast-paced.
When keeping out of sight, you can instantly kill most opponents with an assassination. Enemies have a gauge that shows their awareness to you.—by sneaking around in grass, behind objects, and higher ground, you can evade detection and move in for the kill. Jin also has the ability to use focused hearing. By slowing down, he can listen and know enemy positions, movements, and numbers. This appears to the player as red outlines in-game and further helps with your evolving tactics. As you increase your legend, which we'll get to shortly, you gain new ghost weapons. Kunai that break enemy guard and smoke bombs to make a quick escape. These weapons can really help to add depth to both straight combat and when you are sneaking about.
There are certain situations that result in a duel, which is a 1-on-1 battle. Combat remains mostly the same but you are limited to only your katana and your stances. It's incredible tense and requires a pretty solid grasp of both parrying and dodging while also knowing when to go in to strike while not leaving yourself open. It changes the pace of combat, which is refreshing as it makes it feel more like a fighter than an action-adventure game.
Your legend acts as a levelling system for Jin, divided into smaller segments. For each completed segment, you earn a technique point, which is used to upgrade everything from your ghost weapons and your parrying/dodging skill trees to learning additional techniques. Completely filling in your legend gauge grants you a new title, often increasing health or giving Jin more resolve, which is used to heal or execute special attacks you can learn. To increase your legend you have to complete tales, defeat wandering troops, and liberate Mongol occupied villages and bases. It's pretty simple and straightforward, offering you some customisation as to how you play and approach things. Sadly it doesn't take terribly long max out on both your legend and skills. I was almost finished with the second act and had, for the most-part, all the skill upgrades unlocked.
On the topic of customisation, there are a number of ways to further change your approach through the use of different armour and charms. Charms are obtained as rewards for some tales and completing shrines, which act as platforming puzzles where you have to look for alternate routes to reach the top of the shrines. These charms have one focus such as an increase to damage, resolve gains, or slower detection speed. Armours can also be gained as rewards from tales or progressing through the main story. While charms focus on one thing, armours have three modifiers. Armour can be upgraded, which alters the appearance and the skills within them. You can upgrade a lot more than just your armour though; the quantity of your ghost weapons, your bows and quivers, and also your katana and tanto, which increase damage and speed/stealth of assassination, respectively. These upgrades require a number of supplies and materials like iron, steel, bamboo, and yew wood, which can be found all across Tsushima.
Ghost of Tsushima has an open world approach and offers a decent amount to do besides fighting and completing tales. We already touched on shrines but you can also find fox dens, which have you following a fox to an Inari Shrine to increase you number of charms you can equip, or a serene location to compose haiku. Hot springs increase health, and bamboo stands that increase resolve, are scattered all over Tsushima as well. While these do provide a bit more to do, it's not enough to really make the open world feel fully fleshed out. There's also a lot of collectables to search for, singing crickets and Mongol artefacts to name a few. They're fun distractions but not much more than that, though completionists will have a lot scour the island for as a number are hidden in some of the most obscure places.
Visually, Ghost of Tsushima is breathtaking; it's among the best looking games I have played. Thick forests of bamboo and maples, fields of tall grass, and beautiful flowers. They certainly put a lot of work in how the game looks and feels. From beginning to end and everywhere in between, it has a very cinematic feel, much like what you expect to find in the Uncharted and The Last of Us series. Each tale has a title card and ending shot that gives them a very episodic feel. Duels start with Jin pushing his katana out with his thumb, in typical anime/film fashion. They even have an option to play in "Kurosawa mode", named after famed Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who I am a huge fan of, and was certainly a large inspiration for the game. This gives it an old and grainy black and white filter. While it gives the the game more of a film feel, the lack of colour can make things more difficult with attacks that have an X, with the red and blue almost completely indistinguishable from each other. The game even even has a photo mode, which can be triggered by pressing right on the directional pad. This can be used any time as long as you're not a cutscene. You can edit camera position, colour saturation and hue, and apply filters, much like other games with a similar feature. It was pretty fun to play with, and I got some awesome new backgrounds for my PS4 home menu.
Equally the audio, or in a lot of cases lack of, is very well done. There is an abundance of natural sounds; leaves rustling, cicadas chirping, or waves crashing ashore. It makes what you're seeing while riding on horseback feel all the more vibrant and beautiful. Lots of traditional Japanese instruments are used in the few tracks that do play, usually in battle or while composing haiku. The voice acting is very well done, particularly the Japanese VO which I think adds even more do the Kurosawa film feel that they were going for. Fans of One Piece might even recognise the actor as none other than Kazuya Nakai himself, the voice of Roronora Zoro for more than 20 years.
I clocked just around 30 hours with a fair amount of side quests, exploration, and of course the main storyline completed, though I would wager focusing solely on the required elements you could get this down somewhere closer to 16. After completion, you can wrap up tales you didn't finish and track down all the little collectables. It offers a lot in terms of gameplay, story, and eye-candy. While it falters a bit with repetition and things to do in the open world, as a whole it is a fantastic game that I cannot recommend enough. From the cinematic presentation and beautiful environment to the tight swordplay and stealth aspects, Ghost of Tsushima is an exceptionally well polished title. Completionists will particularly enjoy all the collectables to find and people who enjoy stories will not be left unsatisfied.
Verdict
What We Liked ...
- Tight controls and tighter combat
- Beautiful environments
- Excellent story
- Different approaches to how to play
What We Didn't Like ...
- Tales can get repetitive
- Not much post-game beyond collecting
8
Gameplay
Tight controls, enjoyable combat and, though relatively small, customisation with skills, provide an all around great experience. While some aspects of the open world don't hit the mark and stands out, it provides enough to keep you engaged.
9
Presentation
Ghost of Tsushima is a beautiful game with a strong cinematic feel and equally strong main story. Everything melds together to create a narrative that would make Akira Kurosawa proud.
6
Lasting Appeal
Completionists will greatly enjoy all the little things to find and quests to wrap up. That said, its story offers enough to entice players to come back for another playthrough, though perhaps not right away.
9.1
out of 10
