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[Cashon]

I finished the main campaign and the bulk of the side content last November, but finished the remaining ~35 or so Tales of Tsushima (side-quests) over the past week or so and Earned the Platinum tonight.

Ghost of Tsushima reminds me so much of an Eastern take on Red Dead Redemption 1. Both games play with the myths of their respective regions (unstoppable gunslingers who can pull off six headshots all around him before anyone else can get a shot off and masterful samurai who can cut down multiple enemies before they even draw their swords), involve a lot of talking to a small group of main side characters for help that ultimately leads the protagonist to his goal (Bonnie/Seth/Nigel West Dickens and Yuna/Ishikawa/Masako), feature a lot of horse-back riding including while talking to other characters to progress the plot, and both are quite cynical games.

Ghost of Tsushima, however, has very little levity. It's a very somber and serious game in which the vast majority of missions and quests end with Innocents dying. And if it isn't in the plot of a quests, it's in the environment itself, as you are constantly reminded that this island is in the midst of a brutal invasion. The game is as much about death and dying as it is about the debunking/propagation of myths.

And I love it.

I suspect this is why it only has a metacritic rating of 87, despite being a more interesting and less "on-wheels" game than some other Sony first-party games. People generally like levity with their drama and the higher-rated Sony games tend to be of a more "blockbuster" quality, whereas this game goes for a more muted and poignant tone.

It's also in the running for my favorite visual style of any game I've played. From the saturation of colors to the little interstitials before and after missions, It's absolutely drenched in style.

It's not a perfect game, of course, and has its flaws; its mission design is fairly repetitive, there are too many collectibles, and it's a bit too long (~60 hours for the Platinum), but I still consider it to be the best Sony exclusive that I've played this far.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

It really was a great game IMO. I had heard tell of it before but was kind of out of pocket but during Black Friday last year picked it up on someone's recommendation and finally got around to it a few months ago - damn the game hooked me and was really excellent. I enjoyed the world, it felt immersive and beautiful. I agree that there is tragedy around every corner and I think this was a good choice. For a time I was really lost in it.

 

[Unknown?]

It started off with a bang and kept you sucked in. Never did much side stuff though.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Great game, but wish they upgraded it more than just framerate and resolution on the ps5 (ps4 version already ran at 60fps on PS5, so it’s mostly just 1800p to 4K). It has like some upgraded textures on the main character but that’s it, all the low res environment textures are still there.

 

[semiconscious]

It's not a perfect game, of course, and has its flaws; its mission design is fairly repetitive, there are too many collectibles, and it's a bit too long (~60 hours for the Platinum), but I still consider it to be the best Sony exclusive that I've played this far.

yep. as a gamer who absolutely enjoys levity in my dramas, had the game been 30-40 hours (eliminating that final area), i'd've been much more happy with the game. as it is, it simply becomes extremely wearing beyond a point, resulting in a feeling of 'thank god that's over' by the end. i'm hoping sucker punch can find that sweet spot when it comes to pacing (i really loved the infamous games, including second son, which all seemed to me to be pretty well paced)...

 

[VanCityGamer]

I’ve tried to play Ghost of Tsushima twice - first time quit after 7 hours, second time after 10. There’s something about the tone: It’s somber, but also lifeless. The game is so damn boring. I found myself not liking any of the characters nor caring about anything that was happening. The missions also became super repetitive, even at that early stage. I even enjoyed Days Gone significantly more.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

It is my favorite game from last gen and I'm working on my 6th playthrough now. It still one of the best looking games of all time due to its impeccable art style.

 

[VanCityGamer]

It is my favorite game from last gen and I'm working on my 6th playthrough now. It still one of the best looking games of all time due to its impeccable art style.

Wow! Amazing to see your post right after mine. Art is so cool - can get such wildly different opinions on the same thing.

 

[Pharaoh 117]

Played once on PS4 and once on PS5. I'll probably play it again when it comes to PC. BTW, can't understand why Sony haven't ported it yet. Games that launched after got a port but somehow GoT still has not.

 

[Vick]

My favorite exclusive that year, but one of the last Sony produced game I've truly loved as well.
In love with everything about it, from combat, to story, to art, it felt special and magical.
And it's still the most visually pleasing game I've ever played, to such an extreme I'd argue it's counterproductive as it simply never stopped being completely overwhelming.

Spoiler: Visual Porn NSFW

 

[SEGAvangelist]

I’ve tried to play Ghost of Tsushima twice - first time quit after 7 hours, second time after 10. There’s something about the tone: It’s somber, but also lifeless. The game is so damn boring. I found myself not liking any of the characters nor caring about anything that was happening. The missions also became super repetitive, even at that early stage. I even enjoyed Days Gone significantly more.

Gotta agree with this. It's a beautiful that game starts off strong but quickly falls into just another Ubisoft clone. The mixed reviews on this were definitely right.

 

[Freeman76]

I’ve tried to play Ghost of Tsushima twice - first time quit after 7 hours, second time after 10. There’s something about the tone: It’s somber, but also lifeless. The game is so damn boring. I found myself not liking any of the characters nor caring about anything that was happening. The missions also became super repetitive, even at that early stage. I even enjoyed Days Gone significantly more.

Yeah its one of the most boring open world games I've played. Was so dissapointed as I have always been a fan of Samurai movies, and they nailed it stylistically, gameplay wise though I just couldnt force myself through the 'by the numbers' gameplay.

 

[cormack12]

When all the trailers dropped for this, I thought it was going to be a decent game. Actually it was a great game. Its really weird that it isn't evangelised as much as the other first party titles.

 

[bitbydeath]

I even enjoyed Days Gone significantly more.

That’s because Days Gone is a fookin masterpiece!

 

[Panajev2001a]

My favorite exclusive that year, but one of the last Sony produced game I've truly loved as well.
In love with everything about it, from combat, to story, to art, it felt special and magical.
And it's still the most visually pleasing game I've ever played, to such an extreme I'd argue it's counterproductive as it simply never stopped being completely overwhelming.

Spoiler: Visual Porn NSFW

This game is one of my favourite open world settings (the Mongols invasion allows for a lot of the small side missions to hook into the game plot very well… you are freeing the island bit by bit) and as you show here the game is utterly gorgeous… on a base PS4 too (but if you can play it in PS5 in the higher resolution mode at 60 FPS please do… the Director’s Cut edition improves haptics and polishes a few things, like shortening loading times, while giving you an additional island to play too).

Stellar work by Sucker Punch, such a strong and consistent art direction.

 

[cormack12]

This game is one of my favourite open world settings (the Mongols invasion allows for a lot of the small side missions to hook into the game plot very well… you are freeing the island bit by bit) and as you show here the game is utterly gorgeous… on a base PS4 too (but if you can play it in PS5 in the higher resolution mode at 60 FPS please do… the Director’s Cut edition improves haptics and polishes a few things, like shortening loading times, while giving you an additional island to play too).

Stellar work by Sucker Punch, such a strong and consistent art direction.

Is that a free patch?

 

[Vblad88]

No no no, putting it in the same league as RDR is completely wrong.

Revenge theme of RDR is only the surface, background of what is used to unravel complexity of John Marston’s character and choices. And revelation is happening from the beginning to the end, and even beyond. That is what made the game great

Jin on the other hand, his story ends with the first killing from the back, and his female sidekick’s appreciation for that.
He don’t like samuraic way of life, due to childhood trauma and that’s all - a bit of a different vibe for revenge. Pretty shallow exposure for me. And gameplay aside from duels is purely Assassin’s Creed 1 in great entourage, which was as refreshing as repetitive for it’s time, kind of like AC: Mirage today

Sadly a great story in video game require decade of production and loads of GaaS money to invest in, it seems. In first years of 2010s it seemed like the media would rise the bar higher without them , with RDR, TLoU, Bioshock Infinite, SpecOps… All went wrong so that even Sony can no longer deliver a decent one.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Is that a free patch?

The PS4 version has a higher resolution free patch on PS4 Pro. On PS5 the PS4/PS4 Pro version of the game running in BC mode (free patch too) renders at 60 FPS in the higher resolution mode too.

DF video:

 

[Panajev2001a]

The PS5 Native version included only with the upgrade to the Director’s Cut edition (again, you get extra content and proper Dual Sense support, shorter loading times, etc…) has slightly higher resolution/image quality still:

 

[CuteFaceJay]

This game coming to PC?

 

[Drizzlehell]

It's called "Far East" not "Far West". A better title would be "RDR goes east" or something like that.

CHECK YOUR FACTS!

 

[Hudo]

This game coming to PC?

Who knows. Maybe when Sony begin their marketing for Ghost of Tsushima 2.

Edit: That being said, I'd love for Sucker Punch to change the setting to the Crusades. Slaying some infidels as a crusader would be cool as fuck.

 

[yansolo]

good to see people enjoying it and i dont mean to get anyone cut, but personally i thought it was average at best

other than the main missions and the special duel ones, everything else was your stock standard open world stuff, side quests were terrible, gameplay was repetitive. Struggled to finish it, RDR is in a different league and it came out in 2010 (if were talking about the first one)

 

[Bennytehsmeghead]

I finished the main campaign and the bulk of the side content last November, but finished the remaining ~35 or so Tales of Tsushima (side-quests) over the past week or so and Earned the Platinum tonight.

Ghost of Tsushima reminds me so much of an Eastern take on Red Dead Redemption 1. Both games play with the myths of their respective regions (unstoppable gunslingers who can pull off six headshots all around him before anyone else can get a shot off and masterful samurai who can cut down multiple enemies before they even draw their swords), involve a lot of talking to a small group of main side characters for help that ultimately leads the protagonist to his goal (Bonnie/Seth/Nigel West Dickens and Yuna/Ishikawa/Masako), feature a lot of horse-back riding including while talking to other characters to progress the plot, and both are quite cynical games.

Ghost of Tsushima, however, has very little levity. It's a very somber and serious game in which the vast majority of missions and quests end with Innocents dying. And if it isn't in the plot of a quests, it's in the environment itself, as you are constantly reminded that this island is in the midst of a brutal invasion. The game is as much about death and dying as it is about the debunking/propagation of myths.

And I love it.

I suspect this is why it only has a metacritic rating of 87, despite being a more interesting and less "on-wheels" game than some other Sony first-party games. People generally like levity with their drama and the higher-rated Sony games tend to be of a more "blockbuster" quality, whereas this game goes for a more muted and poignant tone.

It's also in the running for my favorite visual style of any game I've played. From the saturation of colors to the little interstitials before and after missions, It's absolutely drenched in style.

It's not a perfect game, of course, and has its flaws; its mission design is fairly repetitive, there are too many collectibles, and it's a bit too long (~60 hours for the Platinum), but I still consider it to be the best Sony exclusive that I've played this far.

Well thanks for selling me on this! If they do a PC port, I'll happily make this the second of three modern Sony titles I'll pick up (the others being Marvel's Spider-Man (done) and Days Gone (to do)). I love games that aren't afraid to go into darker territory when it's done right (I.E. Spec Ops: The Line, which is my favourite story based game of all time).

 

[Slothbeing1209]

I'm replaying it right now. Beside from stupid honor thing in story, the combat is really good, art direction is one of the best. I don't like the ubisoft formula but because of the great combat, it doesn't bother me too much.

The dlc has some interesting/goofy side activities. Feels like japanese game lol.

This is one of the most potential new IP Sony has recently. Hope the sequel will be great.

 

[Xtib81]

Took me some time to get into this game but I liked it. There's something about the world that I didn't like. It felt barren, repetitive and overall bland. It looks beautiful but there's nothing interesting in it. Following animals becomes very tedious after the 10th time. The lack of cities was also a problem for me. Basically, there's nothing to do except to go from A to B. Can't wait for GOT2 though, it has a great potential.

 

[Skifi28]

My only real issues with the game were:

1)Enemy variety, could have really used a few more interesting enemies other than just armoring up the existing variety.
2)The side-stories were ok, but the game could have used more and with a little more variety/length. Some of them were over in 5 minutes.
3)The cutscenes were really low-budget, 90% of them were characters standing still just moving their mouths.

Other than those issues the game was great and really sucked me in. I finished it and got the platinum twice, it was the type of game where I was slow-walking almost everywhere and dramatically drawing/seathing my blade in every encounter. Its sequel is my most anticipated Sony game.

 

[Kindela]

I agree with the sentiment that on the surface, it's nothing more but yet another by the book open world game. It has that same addictive game loop seen before, but what made it stood out for me was how good it feels to play.
The combat especially is excellent and has great Dualsense support which elevates the experience even more. It also has a very fun and easy to grasp combat system, where you quickly juggle between melee attacks, range attacks, parrying, blocking, evading and using tools. Same reason I like Batman's and Spiderman's combat systems. They're very reactive and you can feel powerful by simply being quick on your feet, versus learning a large set of moves beforehand.

 

[nowhat]

Beside from stupid honor thing in story

I don't think it's stupid as such, I just wish they'd do something with it. Like people would react differently if you take the ninja route more often. As it is, there are reactions (like for poisoning the Mongol camp), but they are related to events the player must do so you get them regardless.

 

[Trilobit]

Can you cook food or eat in Ghost of Tsushima? Having seen some anime I love the Japanese fascination with food and eating together. I'd love to visit a beach in the game and have some seafood.

 

[GymWolf]

Except one has state of the art euphoria engine for his kills and the other has shitty precanned death animations and no ragdoll, just that make rdr1 vastly superior.

Also the writing and characters in rdr1 are light years better than tsushima is not even funny.

One is a cult classic, the other is a ubilol open world with better combat and art design.

But yeah they are both games that you play with a controller on a gaming dedicated hardware.

 

[Cashon]

No no no, putting it in the same league as RDR is completely wrong.

Revenge theme of RDR is only the surface, background of what is used to unravel complexity of John Marston’s character and choices. And revelation is happening from the beginning to the end, and even beyond. That is what made the game great

Jin on the other hand, his story ends with the first killing from the back, and his female sidekick’s appreciation for that.
He don’t like samuraic way of life, due to childhood trauma and that’s all - a bit of a different vibe for revenge. Pretty shallow exposure for me. And gameplay aside from duels is purely Assassin’s Creed 1 in great entourage, which was as refreshing as repetitive for it’s time, kind of like AC: Mirage today

Sadly a great story in video game require decade of production and loads of GaaS money to invest in, it seems. In first years of 2010s it seemed like the media would rise the bar higher without them , with RDR, TLoU, Bioshock Infinite, SpecOps… All went wrong so that even Sony can no longer deliver a decent one.

Actually, you made me realize another similarity;
Red Dead Redemption is about the death of the old West - the death of the outlaw.
Ghost of Tsushima is about the death of the way of the samurai.
The former is more borne from society whereas the latter is borne from necessity.

 

[Hudo]

Can you cook food or eat in Ghost of Tsushima? Having seen some anime I love the Japanese fascination with food and eating together. I'd love to visit a beach in the game and have some seafood.

There are 7-ELEVEN and Lawson konbinis in every village where you can buy cup noodles.

 

[Cashon]

good to see people enjoying it and i dont mean to get anyone cut, but personally i thought it was average at best

other than the main missions and the special duel ones, everything else was your stock standard open world stuff, side quests were terrible, gameplay was repetitive. Struggled to finish it, RDR is in a different league and it came out in 2010 (if were talking about the first one)

How does Red Dead Redemption's open world feel differently to you, in terms of what you said here (side quests, gameplay, standard open world stuff)?

 

[Punished Miku]

I’ve tried to play Ghost of Tsushima twice - first time quit after 7 hours, second time after 10. There’s something about the tone: It’s somber, but also lifeless. The game is so damn boring. I found myself not liking any of the characters nor caring about anything that was happening. The missions also became super repetitive, even at that early stage. I even enjoyed Days Gone significantly more.

I'm obsessed with samurai movies, and I think it's a great game. I played it about a year after going on a trip to Japan and would just stare up close at many of the temples, and was blown away by how cool it looked and how accurate it is.

The game needed better pacing, progression, variety though. I got to Act 3 or whatever and just turned the game off. I still rate it very highly and didn't regret my playtime or purchase. Probably 8/10 for me, despite not finishing it.

Things I hope they address in the sequel:

• More in depth stealth with a functioning cover system. Stealth should literally be one of the primary pillars of the game. It is currently not much more advanced than Uncharted or Tomb Raider reboot stealth. Very light, surface level open world stuff on roofs, or bushes. I don't think it's asking too much to make the ninja game have stealth at least on par with Tenchu, which is extremely old.
• More interiors in buildings. This should have the most detailed, and demanding stealth. The whole point of the story is that you're using stealth and guerrilla tactics to take on overwhelming odds. You should feel in danger a lot more than you do.
• The combat system is fun, but the stances need work. They aren't even close to the stances in Nioh.
• More variety in quests and pacing. If you are breaking game game into chapters like they did on inFamous SS also, each chapter needs a bit more variety.
• Story didn't do much for me either, but I don't expect a great story from most games.

 

[Cashon]

It's called "Far East" not "Far West". A better title would be "RDR goes east" or something like that.

CHECK YOUR FACTS!

It's a geographical joke. "The Wild West" was called such relative to the US, specifically the East Coast. You had to travel west to get to those states. Directionally, if you just continued traveling west, across the Pacific, you'd reach Japan.

 

[Games of Today]

Who knows. Maybe when Sony begin their marketing for Ghost of Tsushima 2.

Edit: That being said, I'd love for Sucker Punch to change the setting to the Crusades. Slaying some infidels as a crusader would be cool as fuck.

I wish they had the balls to make me a Japanese soldier in WWII. They could give you an Arisaka with a bayonet as your main weapon but significantly limit your ammo so you have to go hand to hand.

 

[Fbh]

I was personally underwhelmed by it after all the praise I saw online.

The main story is fine and the combat is fun (though lacks more enemy variety). But the world design is very bland and most of the side content sucks. Almost every sidequest involves following footsteps and killing the same 5 Mongol enemies again and again.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Loved Ghosts of Tsushima. One of my favorite games of the PS4. I would love to replay it, but I'm still either holding out for a PC port or eventually getting a PS5 and replaying it on that. Not quite the Tenchu: Stealth Assassins game I wanted, but damn close enough and I'm happy to have it.

 

[Chuck Berry]

This and Days Gone are my favorite PS exclusives

Tsushima's bows and arrows don't get enough credit. Love love LOVE the way that heavy bow sends foes flying backwards like a shotgun blast.

Fire arrows were also super OP

 

[Games of Today]

I was personally underwhelmed by it after all the praise I saw online.

The main story is fine and the combat is fun (though lacks more enemy variety). But the world design is very bland and most of the side content sucks. Almost every sidequest involves following footsteps and killing the same 5 Mongol enemies again and again.

Calling the world design in GoT bland is one of the greatest travesties of the known universe.

This is the ONLY game that looks like this, no other game holds foliage and wind in such high regard. One of the most immersive experiences you can possibly have in any game.

If you compare certain forested areas to Red Dead 2, this game feels and looks like a real forest, Red Dead does not. That's how well this art style works. In Red Dead most trees are very evenly spaced for gameplay purposes.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

The game looks fucking incredible but I also found it as unbearably dull as basically every other open world game of this ilk. I made it about 8 hours. I've never finished a single one of these.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Loved Ghosts of Tsushima. One of my favorite games of the PS4. I would love to replay it, but I'm still either holding out for a PC port or eventually getting a PS5 and replaying it on that. Not quite the Tenchu: Stealth Assassins game I wanted, but damn close enough and I'm happy to have it.

The first Tenchu game is still such a unique and atmospheric game. It's a shame nobody has done a modern iteration of it. The OST is still fucking amazing.

 

[VanCityGamer]

Calling the world design in GoT bland is one of the greatest travesties of the known universe.

This is the ONLY game that looks like this, no other game holds foliage and wind in such high regard. One of the most immersive experiences you can possibly have in any game.

If you compare certain forested areas to Red Dead 2, this game feels and looks like a real forest, Red Dead does not. That's how well this art style works. In Red Dead most trees are very evenly spaced for gameplay purposes.

Visually, it’s beautiful. In terms of game design and gameplay, it’s bland & boring as hell.

 

[Fbh]

Calling the world design in GoT bland is one of the greatest travesties of the known universe.

This is the ONLY game that looks like this, no other game holds foliage and wind in such high regard. One of the most immersive experiences you can possibly have in any game.

If you compare certain forested areas to Red Dead 2, this game feels and looks like a real forest, Red Dead does not. That's how well this art style works. In Red Dead most trees are very evenly spaced for gameplay purposes.

The visuals and art direction are really nice, I won't argue with that (and it's not what I'm talking about anyway)

But the actual design of the world is like a 2009 Ubisoft game, full of repetitive enemy bases, boring repetitive activities copy/pasted 10.000 times (like composing Haikus and following foxes), exploration designed around following a GPS and going to icons on the map (even if it's nicely integrated as wind) and with almost nothing interesting to find through real exploration. At most you'll get to a shrine in a cool looking location which you'll reach through the same uninteresting autopilot platforming we get in most AAA games these days.

 

[Games of Today]

Visually, it’s beautiful. In terms of game design and gameplay, it’s bland & boring as hell.

I would in general argue against that as well.

I think it does it's open world much better than most games. The wind is a huge factor for me.

You can play this game by looking at the environment, not by staring at the HUD like games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto, Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint, Far Cry 3 through 6 and most of Assassins Creed games.

It's very much in the vein of Kingdom Come deliverance.

The mission design? It's your standard open world game, some fetch quests, talking to side characters, etc.

I just don't know how you improve any of that? No one seems to have any real suggestions for any of these games. They just say the missions are repetitive. But in the same breath will hold Elden Ring as God tier when all you do is run up to enemies and fight them. It makes no sense to me.

I'm not saying that's your opinion but how can these open world games in general be improved?

 

[Games of Today]

The visuals and art direction are really nice, I won't argue with that (and it's not what I'm talking about anyway)

But the actual design of the world is like a 2009 Ubisoft game, full of repetitive enemy bases, boring repetitive activities copy/pasted 10.000 times (like composing Haikus and following foxes), exploration designed around following a GPS and going to icons on the map (even if it's nicely integrated as wind) and with almost nothing interesting to find through real exploration. At most you'll get to a shrine in a cool looking location which you'll reach through the same uninteresting autopilot platforming we get in most AAA games these days.

Sure the foxes especially get kind of old. The Haiku's and Bamboo chops however I loved and I wish you could replay them and infinite amount of times if you wanted to.

The shrines are also awesome, though I agree making climbing more difficult would be welcomed. Just the vistas and environments were enough for me alone. But the the combat is really fun so it only enhanced the game for me.

As for enemy bases and such, that's just the type of game this is. How else would they make this game? Enemies occupying an island are going to have bases. Sure they could be more dispersed and less predictable I guess?

 

[Solarstrike]

Hoping for a Steam release for this one and a PS5 Pro sequel/prequel

 

[Chuck Berry]

Wouldve loved to see more bamboo chopping minigames and more one on one fights. One of my favorite parts was during the 2nd area where you had a handful of skilled strawhat dudes spread around that were solely there to clash blades.

I will say I think the way they handled the ending was super dumb with that choice you had to make.

Like what are they going to consider canon for the sequel? Or will it simply star a whole new character with a whole new island?

 

[kiphalfton]

That’s because Days Gone is a fookin masterpiece!

Compared to this, let alone other open world games, nah.

Nothing special to set it apart; has the same cookie cutter design as every other major open world game out there.