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Ghost Of Tsushima

1K views 14 replies 5 participants last post by  Naren 
#1 ·
Decided to buy it last night after watching some gameplay footage. I love samurai stuff and after hearing some good reviews about the mechanics and story, I figured why not? Only have about 30 minutes of play time so far, but I’m digging it. The graphics are excellent, story seems pretty cool so far and the scenery is beautiful.

Anyone else checking this game out?
 
#2 ·
I've been playing this off-and-on since it came out a month or two ago. It's great game, but man is it repetitive. Seing "Quest 1 of 9" is daunting when all I'm trying to do is progress the story, and it feels like if I don't complete these personal side quests, the main game will not have as good of a final act.

I'm just into act 3 a couple days ago, and while I love the fluidness of combat, the game just progresses at a snail's pace. It's an extremely similar game to Jedi: Fallen Order, and I honestly liked the pacing in the Star Wars game better, though the ability to flow from one form to the next in the middle of a series of attacks in GoT is simply wonderful.
 
#3 ·
One of my close friends HIGHLY recommended this game to me, so I've considered buying it, but it's still around $65 at all the used game stores near me, and there's no way I'd pay that much for a game that I'm not super excited to play. I'm thinking it'll have to get at least under $50 until I'm willing to buy it. Not sure why I have these specific payment range decisions, but... I do.

The graphics look amazing, but the one thing I am kind of worried about is the negative reviews (well, they're positive reviews, but the aspect they all talk about is negative) about the repetitive nature of the game and how there are so many fetch quests / fetch quest-type quests (i.e. quests where you do the exact same kind of thing over and over and over again). It's definitely a game that I want to pick up once it gets cheaper, though. I'm kind of surprised, though, about how it's been out for a while now, but it's still almost the same price as new.

I'm also not sure whether I'll want to play it in the original language (English) or in the language of the location where it's supposed to be set (Japanese, since I'll be buying the Japanese version of the game since I live in Tokyo).

I'm just into act 3 a couple days ago, and while I love the fluidness of combat, the game just progresses at a snail's pace. It's an extremely similar game to Jedi: Fallen Order, and I honestly liked the pacing in the Star Wars game better, though the ability to flow from one form to the next in the middle of a series of attacks in GoT is simply wonderful.
That's a huge crushing point against Ghost of Tsushima, then, since I found Jedi: Fallen Order ridiculously repetitive and overall I thought it was HIGHLY over-rated. The graphics were great, the acting was great, the story was so-so, but the gameplay and the world itself was... average at best.

You saying that it's "extremely similar to Jedi: Fallen Order" almost makes me have zero desire to buy it now.
 
#4 ·
Those are fair points, regarding repetitiveness. I suppose I was so enamored with the graphics and scenery I cared a little less. If it gave me an option to discover more of it, it was all good.

I dug the small stories that the side quests would use as well, which wore off some of the dullness. Once I started really learning the combat moves it also helped carry things along. I think my biggest gripe about it was the missions where you had to search for tracks, as the tracks would often stop appearing and I’d have to start at the beginning again and walk slower so they’d stay on the screen.
 
#5 ·
What makes me not want to play is literally the "Quest 1 of 9" type of thing. There are 4-5 supporting characters, and each has 5-10 side quests per act. I've seen reddit posts that say you want to complete these before the end of the game, but MAN is it long. A lot of is is fetch quests, sneak quests where you can't be spotted, etc. That and every time you go 10 feet into the wilderness you're facing off against more bad guys. Which is fine, but space out the combat a bit, and in each act it's the SAME guys you fight with the same tactics.

Having said that, the game is actually pretty good and I'm going to finish it. Every once-in-awhile there are some absolutely stunning moments that are some of the best I've seen in games recently, so I'll put up with the minor inconveniences.
 
#6 ·
I bought this used yesterday and started playing it today. I ended up playing it "Samurai Cinema" (Japanese voice actors + English subtitles) since, just like Red Dead Redemption felt like playing a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, this game is kind of like playing an Akira Kurosawa samurai film and it would not feel at all like playing a samurai film if all the dialogue was in English. But one thing I've found... which isn't really surprising, I guess, is that the Japanese doesn't remotely match up with the English. And I think the reason for that is clear. The English dialogue does not match up with reality/history, so the Japanese localizers oftentimes just ignored what the English said and changed it to something that would fit with reality/history. They also changed quite a few of the Japanese names with my guess being because some of those names simply didn't exist in the 13th century (such as a name that's common in 2020, but that no one had in 1271, like how it's "Yuriko" in the English version and "Yuri" in the Japanese version) or that are basically just made-up names that someone thought sounded "Japanese" (such as "Kii" which is "Kiku" in the Japanese version). I also looked at the Japanese wiki page for Ghost of Tsushima, which has a huge section on "inconsistencies with history" (much like a lot of English wiki pages on historical movies and books might have), such as pointing out that the entire "honor" concept that is so central to this game's plot never existed in this time period and they refer to it as a "fictional, made-up concept built for the purpose of the game's story" and point out that "samurai honor" didn't come into existence as a concept until about 400 years later (in the 1600s). It points out that all these things that in the game's plot that are considered dishonorable actually were not considered dishonorable at all in Japan at the time this game takes place (or at any time for centuries before or after when the game takes place). :lol: It's also funny how the game has a lot of concepts that are popular in samurai cinema that didn't happen in history until 500 years later (such as ronin). I mean, that's the difference between 2020 and 1520. PRETTY HUGE DIFFERENCE. 500 years ago was even before Shakespeare was born.

Nitpicking, maybe (though 400-500 years off is pretty huge), and I'm enjoying the game so far, but these kinds of things are a bit distracting to someone who knows their history. :lol: With the Assassin's Creed series, they at least don't try to pass it off as historical since they've got aliens and superhuman powers, plus historical figures secretly being assassins or templars and it goes pretty far off into sci-fi conspiracy theory mystical territory, which is part of the fun.
 
#7 ·
That's actually really interesting info! I would expect them to mess with history as there sure as heck wasn't a demigod going around single-handedly slaughtering Mongol invaders, so I can see them blurring several periods in history together to tell a fictional and larger-than-life kind of story. I haven't picked this game up in a few weeks, but I can say that my original opinion here still stands. This is not a game like Horizon, Mass Effect, or Witcher 3 that I pick up, play all the way through and can't put down. It's so repetetive that I need breaks from it, however when you get near the end of each act the storyline really shines. I'll finish the game in the next couple of weeks and it's a great game. I just wish it wasn't the same fight 2000 times.
 
#9 ·
As everyone's said, the game really is gorgeous. One of the most beautiful I've played this year. And there is a soothing quality to just riding your horse through a forest or along a coastline.



I'm only a few hours into the game so far, but it does kind of make you wonder how the Mongols ended up completely destroying and conquering Tsushima (which is what happened in actual history) when they had a superhuman swordsman going around single-handedly vanquishing all the Mongols. Yeah, the Mongols attacked Japan twice and never once actually got any further than the coast of Kyushu. But that said, in the first invasion in 1274, they annihilated the island of Tsushima (which is actually pretty close to South Korea, which is where the Mongols sent their ships from), the island of Iki, then landed in Hakata Bay, which was the capital of Kyushu at the time, where the Mongols fought the Japanese, but retreated back to South Korea after one fight there, only to come back 7 years later in 1281 (where they left from China instead of South Korea and did not land on Tsushima, but went straight to Kyushu). I'm wondering if the end of this game has the Mongols being defeated and the explanation just being "Oh, history books are all wrong." or what. :lol: I mean, I guess that wouldn't be too surprising, considering how it's influenced by the Assassin's Creed series which does exactly that, though usually only in matters in the shadows.

I also find it interesting in this game how in the English subtitles, Jin is so arrogant and forceful. In the actual Japanese audio, he uses humble and honorific speech to Ishikawa-Sensei, Lady Masako, Buddhist priests, etc. as the nephew of a jitou should, but in the English he just says everything super blunt and forceful like he thinks he's the most powerful badass on the island. Lots of characters say "I don't need your help" and Jin's response in English is usually "No, you need me" or "No, you can't do this without me" (even if correct, those are very arrogant expressions), whereas in Japanese, he uses humble speech for himself and honorific speech for the person he's talking to, trying to convince the person he's speaking to that it would be wise to allow him to help them.

English doesn't have a hierarchical structure like Japanese does. And Japanese had it even more back then than it does now, and nowadays you always need to consider your own social status and the social status of the person you're speaking to when choosing which forms of speech to use. It seems like the English writers of the script researched Japanese history, but didn't really take into consideration a lot of really important aspects like this.

Again, it doesn't make the game unenjoyable. It's just kind of distracting, I guess. :lol:
 
#8 ·
i fucking loved this game, could not stop playing it and im close to platinuming it.

It gets repetitive but i loved the swordplay in it so for me it was great. I can see how people not that excited by that element might find it a grind but i loved this at Witcher 3 levels. Amazing looking world, great character, great story fucking 5 stars :yesway:
 
#10 ·
I beat this game today and overall I'd say it's better than I expected it would be. The graphics, music, voice acting (for the Japanese version, at least), and gameplay were all superb. It did have its weaknesses, such as some excessive repetition and some really fucked-up camera stuff where trees, bushes, and grass are blocking your view of the opponent or how enemies will be perfectly in view and move out of view and you just keep having to manually move the camera. But yeah, overall really good.

As you can imagine, as I got further into the game, I found more and more anachronistic and unhistorical stuff that they were presenting seriously as if it were historical. Other than the things I already mentioned, the worst is probably the existence of haiku. This game takes place in 1274, but haiku is a poetry style that didn't come into existence until over 600 years later in the late 1800s (probably around 1880 or 1890). This is something few Western players would know, so it probably wouldn't bother them, but this would be like having beatnik poetry in Assassin's Creed 1 or 2. As such, in the Japanese language version of the game, none of these poems are haiku. They're all waka (a style of Japanese poetry that originated over 1000 years ago and would actually have been popular at the time of the game).

The TRUE last boss came as a surprise. Not that he WAS the last boss, but just how much more difficult he was compared to Khothun Khan. I beat Khothun Khan on my first try. I couldn't beat Shimura until my 7th or 8th try. Part of it was how they start you with only 1 circle of Resolve in your fight against him and he has attacks that can instantly take your health down by 50-70%.

Although I could understand the reason of labeling Jin a traitor for disobeying his superior and going against his wishes, the whole "honor" nonsense was really unbelievable, not just from the perspective of the historical time period where this took place (which would have looked upon Jin's methods and actions as reasonable and logical considering it was a war and an invasion by a foreign army) but also if it had been set in a historical period centuries and centuries later where samurai actually DID highly value honor (but where there were no invasions of Japan by anyone). It just didn't pass the smell test for a single second.
 
#11 ·
Naren, you have played Sekiro, right? I'm also big on Akira Kurosawa and all that stuff, how ideas from Eastern Cinema influenced Star Wars and all that shit. My favorite movie is Drunken Master, which isn't Samurai Cinema, but is definitely "eastern cinema", and had ideas that were later adopted by Western Cinema.

I kind of want to play the Ghost game, but from what I understand, it's like a more commercial Sekiro for the Call of Duty playstation crowd with Ubisoft open world mechanic type base capturing stuff, I don't even know if it's out on PC.

I'm not even a Dark Souls guy, but Sekiro is brilliant, one of the greatest games of all time. I want to pick this up if it's on PC, because I am also a huge fan of the feudal Japan setting, but I don't really see how it could top the insane brutality of Sekiro.

I've also seen stuff about how, elements of this game are historically accurate, but it's still clearly a commercial western game. Whereas Sekiro just had shit like, "we're going to drop all this centipede shit in the game and if they don't know the mythological symbolism that's not our problem".
 
#12 ·
Naren, you have played Sekiro, right? I'm also big on Akira Kurosawa and all that stuff, how ideas from Eastern Cinema influenced Star Wars and all that shit. My favorite movie is Drunken Master, which isn't Samurai Cinema, but is definitely "eastern cinema", and had ideas that were later adopted by Western Cinema.

I kind of want to play the Ghost game, but from what I understand, it's like a more commercial Sekiro for the Call of Duty playstation crowd with Ubisoft open world mechanic type base capturing stuff, I don't even know if it's out on PC.

I'm not even a Dark Souls guy, but Sekiro is brilliant, one of the greatest games of all time. I want to pick this up if it's on PC, because I am also a huge fan of the feudal Japan setting, but I don't really see how it could top the insane brutality of Sekiro.

I've also seen stuff about how, elements of this game are historically accurate, but it's still clearly a commercial western game. Whereas Sekiro just had shit like, "we're going to drop all this centipede shit in the game and if they don't know the mythological symbolism that's not our problem".
If you're going to compare it to Sekiro, then you can throw all my complaints out the window and be like "GHOST OF TSUSHIMA IS COMPLETELY HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!" (since Sekiro has, like, zero historical accuracy whatsoever, but they don't claim to).

But they aren't even in similar genres. Sekiro is a Dark Souls-type game, while Ghost of Tsushima is like a cross between Red Dead Redemption and Assassin's Creed but set in the Kamakura period.

I would say that, just like Red Dead Redemption is great for fans of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, Ghost of Tsushima is great for fans of Akira Kurosawa. I mean, Westerners who are huge fans of Kurosawa's samurai films will not be able to tell any of the anachronistic stuff in this game unless they're Japanese history buffs (or if they are Japanese-Americans / Japanese-Europeans / etc.).

I'll also add that some of the anachronistic stuff in Ghost of Tsushima WOULD be accurate if it was set in the same time period as Sekiro (though Sekiro is set in a mythological, fantastical, alternate universe version of Japanese history).

EDIT: And Ghost of Tsushima is PS4 only at the moment, though I believe they'll be releasing it for PS5 after the PS5 is released. Don't think they have any PC release plans, though.
 
#15 ·
Well, obviously a lot of those movies were heavily inspired and influenced by Kurosawa. The most famous examples would be how The Magnificent Seven was the same story as Kurosawa's Seven Samurai but just changed from the warring states period of Japan to the American Wild West. Likewise, A Fistful of Dollars was the same story as Kurosawa's Yojimbo (which is just the Japanese word for "Bodyguard," not sure why they didn't go with an English title). Other Western films that weren't complete retellings of samurai stories still took a ton of influence from Kurosawa's films (and sometimes the chanbara genre).

I personally don't see Sekiro as "unground" and "artsy" or Ghost of Tsushima as "mainstream" and "a popcorn game" (I don't even think such games exist, really. I mean, seriously, you want to get butter and salt all over your controller?!).

I personally think it's really weird how you're comparing these two games, which I see as having nothing remotely in common with each other. Their tones are nothing alike, but that's not a failing on either of their sides. Sure, you could say they're based on the same subject matter when it comes to "samurai," even though the setting of the two games is about 400-500 years apart (though a lot of the stuff in Ghost of Tsushima actually is from centuries later and didn't exist at the time the game took place).

It almost sounds like you think that Ghost of Tsushima was trying to imitate Sekiro since Sekiro came out first, but I'm sure that's not the case. My thought while playing Ghost of Tsushima was that they might have read / heard all those rumors about one of the future Assassin's Creed games being set in "samurai" Japan and they might have liked that idea and decided to do it before Ubisoft could. It does have way more of a Red Dead Redemption style open world feel than any of the Assassin's Creed games do, though.

And although I've complained about a lot of the anachronistic stuff, there's also a lot of anachronistic stuff that it's clear that the writers and developers are fully aware of, such as how the protagonist is basically a ninja, even though ninjas wouldn't exist for several hundred more years.

Although Ghost of Tsushima is rated "Mature" in the US, it doesn't seem like it's trying to be "edgy" or "gritty" or anything like that, which I do think Sekiro was going for (which is also the feel of all the Souls games). I feel like Sekiro is more geared toward Souls fans, while Tsushima is geared more towards Kurosawa/samurai/open-world fans. Whether that makes you feel more or less likely to play it is up to you, of course.
 
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