I am ABSOLUTELY LOVING Ghost of Tsushima!
I neglected to write about it earlier because I had thought I’d be able to get a review done quickly, but no. I was also afraid of spoilers and still am, but I really can’t help contain my excitement and enthusiasm over how amazing this game is. Ghost of Tsushima is incredibly expansive with so much sidequesting or just random exploration to do and it is just an absolute pleasure through and through. Prior to smashing through Act 1’s fun as hell storyline, I was locating and slaughtering every Mongol Encampment I could find. Even just doing that as a play your own style format is so much fun. This game has the best of Elder Scrolls expansive world-scale except a far more beautiful world, Assassin’s Creed’s fun style of assassinations except 1000x more fun with far more depth and variation, and even the character depth of Dragon Age: Inquisition in the context of a Feudal Japanese setting where questions about ethics vs morally dubious but more effective actions abound; all rolled into a game where you play the role of a Samurai power fantasy. It feels more like historical fiction than anything to do with fantasy elements so far. But I cannot find the words to articulate how fun this game really is. I don’t think I can even do it justice or add more than what probably millions of other reviews have already said. If you have a PS4, do yourself the favor of buying this game and playing it if you want an open world game set in feudal Japan where you get to play as a Samurai who acts either as an assassin or honorable swordsman depending upon which way you want to play the main character of the game. The customization, the combat, the gorgeous graphics, and . . . seriously, I could gush endlessly about this game! It’s so much fun! This game is one of the few to ever surpass the hype and I am so glad that I fell for the marketing. Only two other games I recall to ever do this for me would be Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne and Dragon Quest V. I have no regrets whatsoever for my impulse purchase of falling for the hype. It went beyond the hype! I’m really loving this game so much. I’ve been playing almost non-stop from its launch to now.
Here’s a video of the latter half of Act 1 and me just toying around with the interface, playing a bit of the main story quest, and running around a town:
A few anecdotes I had written about my own personal Ghost of Tsushima journey:
1st Anecdote:
Holy fuck, I am beyond impressed. This far surpasses my highest level of hype. Never thought there’d ever be a game that SURPASSED the hype. Wow, honestly impressed! So like to give an example, I was randomly roaming with my horse and come by a bridge where the Mongols have taken over by shooting arrows underneath it and a young boy wasn’t able to flee fast enough with his family, so the Mongols keep shooting very close to the boy to lure the family and kill them all in one fell swoop, so I had to go beneath the bridge mountain climbing and either try fighting these horde of Mongol archers at various spots around the bridge or find high points to cleanly assassinate them all by diving down and killing them in a quick assassination technique. I kind of did a mix of both and fortunately I had the arrow parry upgrade on my Jin Sakai, so I could block arrows easily. I had to keep searching throughout two mountains between a river to kill all the Mongols shooting at the boy when I was done with like 3/4ths of the way through, I ran towards the boy and blocked arrows coming his way to pinpoint where the last of the Mongols were and swiftly killed them all. It was GLORIOUS! Definitely got the Samurai vibe of protecting the weak and killing off the foreign invaders. Loving how the West is finally embracing another culture’s nationalist themes. Score a big victory for multiculturalism.
2nd Anecdote:
So, I just finished overthrowing the Mongols of the South tip of Tsushima. I thought the moderate level bases were going to harder than the small outposts, but maybe I lucked out by killed 2 of the 4 archer scouts, oh and… sneaking into the Mongol Leader’s home tepee to assassinate him using a smoke bomb and several stabs. I guess he’d have been more of a challenge, if I didn’t stab his neck prior to him even being aware of me then using my smoke bomb as a distraction to finish the job. Oh, and I murdered this one dude in another tepee who was just napping. Good times. >:)
Also, found a weird as heck bandit hideout that wasn’t listed on any map. I thought they were Mongols so I slaughtered them all. Took a bit of time since the only passage into their encampment was via the river channel and they could snipe me in the water.
Oh! and in this other outpost with actual Mongols, after I had finished killing everyone, a trope of soldiers came back from their nightly patrols and I challenged them all to a fight. Nearly died, but fortunately the armor upgrades and resolve upgrade I had helped keep me alive. I decided to just kunai the hard ones in the neck and then repeatedly stab them to death when their backs were turned. Screw honorable dueling. The legend of my ghostly deeds grows! Mwahahaha!
Finally, I met some Mongols on the road who I killed so fast I was confused what happened. Then I checked out their camp… Turned out they got attacked by one of those bears who can sneak attack really powerful hits; they had managed to kill it after losing an archer. I decided to take the very rare pelts those bears give. I’m sure they won’t mind me taking the spoils of their hunt. They’re dead after all. >:)