Hey, it's been a while since I've posted on this blog. I've still been posting game reviews on my backloggd, but I wanted to bring this back as my primary spot for posting. Not for any reason really besides I think it's cool. I'll still post these on backloggd, but prob as a truncated version with a link to here. Anyways, I played Ghost of Tsushima last week and thought I had something interesting to say about it, so here goes!
Ghost of Tsushima is a game that exists in a similar space to Jedi Fallen Order for me. That is, it's based in that first party Sony game style of the last 10 years (see TLOU or GOW 2018), but diverges enough that it feels like its own thing, most of the time. What it keeps from those games is the camera angle (close behind the right shoulder), the slightly stylized realism art-style (though this feels more stylized than most, in how the game is filled with bright colors and gorgeous article effects), and the kinda plodding prestige tv show pacing. What's different here is the combat, of course, which is a pretty tight souls-ish feeling system, the structure (TLOU isn't an Ubisoft-em-up last I checked), and the storytelling style? All of this is kind of a mixed bag as to how it turned out, I think, with the only real successes for me being the combat and the storytelling. It's a good game altogether, it's just.. very flabby.
Most of that flab is the open world. It's very pretty, don't get me wrong, and it does have a lot of little collectibles to find and quests to stumble upon in smaller encampments, but I can't figure out what it's doing here? Most of the time it just lends a lot of travel time to the beginning of missions, or allows you to go collectible hunting? It just kinda feels like it's there, added because open world games sell well right? People like those Far Cry games with their enemy base liberation thing, what if it's in here too? Admittedly it does serve one purpose, which is allowing the quests to be independent from each other, which really enhances the parable-like nature of the storytelling. That's what I meant above when I said I liked the style of the storytelling, I think they did a good job of evoking feudal Japan not just visually but tonally, and a not insignificant part of that is how each sidequest feels didactic. It really lends a period-piece vibe to the whole affair, which is great. But if they needed an open world to do that, it should've been part of the game in more than that way. Part of the core experience.
The other big ? in my head when I was playing revolved around the base liberation as well, honestly. You see, probably the most major theme in the game is this idea of how honor only works when you're in power, and the gameplay tie-in to that is stealth. You can do a pretty typical AAA stealth infiltration thing, similar to, idk, probably the batman arkham games? But it comes in handy when you're trying to wipe out a base, as the stealth part of the game is much less highly tuned than the combat. In fact all the "less honorable" methods of engagement, from using poison and assassination to explosives, feel anywhere from a bit to VERY overpowered. Particularly I found the kunai to be kind of a win button. Now, sure that makes sense, it's a core pillar of the gameplay it should feel incredibly difficult to play the game without it. But I think it kind of muddles the experience, or at least takes too much focus away from the very well implemented melee combat system.
I just have trouble figuring out what the game is trying to be. Is it a souls-influenced tightly wound-yet grounded samurai hack and slash? Or is it a game where you play as a murderous batman in samurai armor. My conjecture is it was supposed to be the first, but ended up as the second for better profit margins. Also probably to separate itself more from Sekiro, which came out the year before. And that's fair, but personally I feel like a story like this, with such a focus on being historically accurate and period-evocative, would be served better with a more linear experience, and less of a superhero thing going on.
My last thing is I just don't like where that main theme ends up. Spoilers til the end of this paragraph, btw. At the end of Act 2, your character has been using these honorless methods of subterfuge for a while, and you go into battle with your uncle, a real straight ahead honorable samurai, as well as a legion of the shogun's forces. You know he doesn't approve of your methods, either the shogun or your uncle, but you use them either way. As in, you don't get the choice to not use those methods, this stuff plays out in cutscene, which felt weird, mostly in a rockstar-ey "the game seems to value freedom when you're in the open world but the main story has to play out a certain way". That's ok, if a bit dissonant, but it's ok. Then there's a tactical flub on your uncle's part (it's kind of framed as his honor getting in the way but that didn't feel right to me) and a bunch of your soldiers get murked, so you take matters into your own hands and poison the enemy camp against your uncle's wishes. Now I think the game wants this to be a complicated issue, because on one hand you saved all your soldiers' lives! But on the other hand the enemy learns to use your poison against you! But I've got another issue with it that I didn't feel like the game really reckoned with, and that's that like, that's a war crime? You commit a war crime? The morality of what you do isn't called into question, just the honor. Honestly by the end of the game it felt like the message was "you can either be a slave to honor or be free" and, like, I feel like that was a huge thematic oversight. Maybe the concept of a war crime is like honor, it's only good if you're in power, but when you have an army at your back it feels cruel, it feels wrong, and it doesn't feel like that was questioned enough in game, or at least not for the right reasons.
That all being said, I did still have fun. It's a fun game. It just could've really been special, instead of being run of the mill with a cool authentic coat of paint applied. I'll still probably try the expansion out, since I have it for free. But I probably won't ever come back to this game. Thanks for reading :)