izigame.me

Ghost of Tsushima is an open world third person action game, set in the age of samurai. When the Mongol empire invades Tsushima island, player character Jin Sakai must fight to defend his home, and defeat the Mongol army before they can attack the Japanese mainland.

Gameplay (high quality)

• Combat system feels similar to Batman Arkham and Shadow of Mordor, where you’ll need to closely watch enemy attack animations to correctly time your dodges and parries, before performing your own counter attacks.
• The best games give the player many tools to choose from when developing your own playing style. While Jin primarily fights with a katana, and can switch between stances which are more effective against different enemy weapon types, he can also attack from range using a bow, throwable daggers and bombs, and poison darts.
• Another tactic which the player can take advantage of is to perform stealth kills on unaware enemies from behind or above, like a ninja. This is a useful way to reduce the number of enemies before a fight begins. There are a couple of missions where stealth is enforced, and being seen will result in an instant failure, but most of the time this isn’t a problem.
• You can heal at any time by spending resolve earned from killing enemies. This means that most fights feel comfortable on normal difficulty, even when significantly outnumbered, especially later in the game after upgrading weapons and armour, performing tasks in the open world to increase maximum health and resolve, and with charms equipped to further increase attack power, reduce damage taken, and generate more resolve.
• Enemies include Mongol soldiers and Japanese bandits, equipped with sword, shield, spear, or bow. Some enemies can use flaming sword and arrow attacks, and the Iki island expansion introduces shamans who can buff the attack power of their allies. You’ll also be attacked by aggressive wildlife including, dogs, bears, and wild boar.
• Archers don’t pose much threat because they literally shout “get down” before they fire (even when there’s no ally in their firing line), so you always know when to duck. The only time an archer will hit you is when you don’t know they’re there because you’re concentrating on fighting someone else.
• Sometimes enemies will get scared and run away when you perform a special move, which feels realistic.
• Boss fight duels can be annoying because the combat mechanics are different to regular fights. The way Jin moves feels strange, like you’re tied to the boss by an invisible rope, meanwhile their multiple hit attack combos are often too fast to consistently block/dodge. Especially later in the game, I won these fights by exploiting a charm which constantly regenerates resolve to essentially give myself infinite health.
• In addition to the main quest, open world activities include side quests, companion quests, outposts to liberate from Mongol control, and various collectables to find.

Story (high quality)

• Story is well written and features several interesting characters. Gathering allies and attacking large castles feels like you’re part of a big war. There’s a strong focus on the samurai code of honour, and whether Jin’s evolving tactics can be justified.
• Side quests feature unique stories where you’ll need to defend civilians, assist companions with their problems, and investigate ghost stories.
• Voice acting is excellent.

Technical (high quality)

• It took me 55 hours to complete the main story, expansion, and most side quests.
• Environment looks stunning, with farms, villages, temples and castles surrounded by forests, rivers, and fields of colourful flowers.
• Controls are fully rebindable and work great with mouse and keyboard.
• I didn’t notice any bugs or crashes, and my framerate was mostly stable with most settings on high or maxed at 1440p (RTX 3080, i7-12700K, 32GB DDR4).
• However, I did see some stuttering after lengthy playing sessions. There’s some mention on the forum of a memory leak which seems consistent with what I experienced. I usually played between 90-120 minutes at a time without a problem. A couple of times I went over 2 hours and I started to see some stuttering. Performance during the Iki island expansion seems worse, where stuttering starts after around 1 hour.

Recommendation

Ghost of Tsushima is an excellent game which I highly recommend to all players because both the combat and story are very enjoyable. There’s enough content to justify buying at any price.
Hopefully Sony bring Ghost of Yotei (and their other exclusives) to PC quicker. A few months delay is fine, but don’t make us wait years.