Ghost of Tsushima - open world game set in feudal Japan

[DalekFlay]

Most people didn't use fast travel in spider-man ps4 because it was so fun and effortless to just swing around the city even if it took longer. The same thing happens with Ghost's exploration and combat, the world is so beautiful, the combat is so entertaining that you dont mind traversing a big open world and getting into fights every time you run into mongols.

That sounds more like praising mechanics and design, which makes sense. I'm saying "the world is so MASSIVE!" isn't some great thing on its own. Massive open worlds are a dime a dozen at this point, and usually present a design challenge to keep them interesting rather than a raw benefit, IMO.

 

[Grotesque]

Is this popamole game ever get a PC releasE?

 

[Roguey]

Is this popamole game will ever get a PC releasE?

Sucker Punch is a subsidiary of Sony and only make games for Playstation consoles, so not happening.

 

[Sentinel]

Is this popamole game will ever get a PC releasE?

Sucker Punch is a subsidiary of Sony and only make games for Playstation consoles, so not happening.

Guerrilla Games is also a subsidiary of Sony, and Horizon is coming to PC.

 

[Roguey]

Guerrilla Games is also a subsidiary of Sony, and Horizon is coming to PC.

Three years later, as an experiment.

I think it’s important that we stay open to new ideas of how to introduce more people to PlayStation, and show people maybe what they’ve been missing out on.

And to maybe put a few minds at ease, releasing one first-party AAA title to PC doesn’t necessarily mean that every game now will come to PC. In my mind, Horizon Zero Dawn was just a great fit in this particular instance. We don’t have plans for day and date [PC releases], and we remain 100% committed to dedicated hardware.

Edit: Further elaboration. Porting Zero Dawn to PC makes sense because it's an RPG (RPGs do well on PC of course) and it's advertising for Forbidden West which will only be on the PS5 for the foreseeable future. I'd sooner expect a PS5 remaster of Ghost than a PC port.

 

[Latelistener]

I have a feeling that it's mostly connected to Death Stranding being on PC. They use the same Decima engine and Kojima probably gave them access to all the things they built atop of it for Death Stranding. I don't think Sony gave the engine for free.

Horizon was already quite an achievement technical-wise and Kojima has great engineers to develop it further. He somehow managed to snatch most of the team who worked on FOX Engine in Konami. MGSV was a marvel. 60fps on both consoles, great PC port and beautiful visuals.

Compared to this, Tsushima runs on a different engine and Sucker Punch never ported anything to PC. Sony will have to release something else that has no ties to Kojima or Guerilla before I start hoping.

 

[DalekFlay]

I have a feeling that it's mostly connected to Death Stranding being on PC. They use the same Decima engine and Kojima probably gave them access to all the things they built atop of it for Death Stranding. I don't think Sony gave the engine for free.

I think that's why Horizon was a good test case for them, but that doesn't mean it won't lead to more in the future. Theoretically Horizon enhanced for PS5 would still be a system seller, especially early on when PS5 only games are thin, so it's not like they took no possible impact to port it. If it sells well I could see other exclusives being ported down the line, after their man draw as console sellers wears off for the most part. I would think Bloodbourne would be the next obvious candidate.

 

[cretin]

I have a feeling that it's mostly connected to Death Stranding being on PC. They use the same Decima engine and Kojima probably gave them access to all the things they built atop of it for Death Stranding. I don't think Sony gave the engine for free.

Horizon was already quite an achievement technical-wise and Kojima has great engineers to develop it further. He somehow managed to snatch most of the team who worked on FOX Engine in Konami. MGSV was a marvel. 60fps on both consoles, great PC port and beautiful visuals.

Compared to this, Tsushima runs on a different engine and Sucker Punch never ported anything to PC. Sony will have to release something else that has no ties to Kojima or Guerilla before I start hoping.

While i appreciate very much how clean MGSV looks, feels and runs, i think to be fair, it has to be noted that a large part of that performance is probably owed to the fact that any given instance has fuck all going on. For example, if they actually populated those maps with wildlife, civilians, patrols, firebases and so on, it would run a hell of a lot worse I'd bet. MGSV's maps were absolutely empty outside of their POIs. Not even dense foliage, even on the africa map, for example.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Been playing this and I see exactly why SJWs hate it. It has nothing to do with 'cultural appropriation,' that's just a red herring. This game not only depicts a classic paternalistic warrior culture, which the left already considers one of the worst things to ever have existed, but also romanticizes the ever living fuck out of it. This is a game where you go from chopping down Mongols left and right to writing haiku about the divine beauty of falling leaves while honoring your wise ancestors and praying at shrines. Jin Sakai isn't just a badass, he's deeply thoughtful and spiritual. His only moral quandary isn't whether to kill but whether to give his enemies a fighting chance against him. The violence being depicted is unquestionably justified. This is rarely done in media anymore. In all the Assassin's Creed games, there's the implicit assumption that your character is not a 'hero' or 'good' guy, so therefore is allowed to kill most anyone he feels like. Every Ubisoft Far Cry game is about the inherent amorality of violence and conflict. Elder Scrolls, nuFallout, and Dragon Age are all highly nihilistic, generally viewing no one as truly good. We aren't accustomed to seeing warrior heroes without a heavy layer of cynicism slathered on top of them.

KCD came kind of close with it's moral rulers and positive presentation of Christianity, but still often showed knights as either bullies or dunces while shying away from making the hero overtly religious. Paladins in fantasy literature have largely gone the same way, depicted as either naive fools or near-villainous zealots, far off from Three Hearts and Three Lions. The medieval romance has been a subject of mockery for centuries (re Cervantes) so it's almost impossible to find a depiction of knights and chivalry anymore that is anywhere close to idealized. The equivalent would be a game where you play as Roland swinging Durandal around chopping up muslims by the hundreds while piously praying to god and Jesus between every battle. Such a story would trigger every reviewer this side of the Atlantic.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

trigger

Detonate, morelike.

 

[karoliner]

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Finished Act 1 and getting a little sick of it. I'll try bumping up the difficulty level.

-The game buries you under side quests. I finished all of them and had enough to get about 80% of the weapon and armor upgrades with two whole regions left to explore. My bows are fully upgraded and the two useful armors early on are maxed. Tanto fully maxed and Katana only has 2 upgrades left. I guess there are still the legendary skills/items to get.

-Combat is becoming boring. Switch to effective style -> Mash triangle/parry-instakill. Ninja weapons are win buttons but I guess that's the idea. I was trying to be Most Honorburu Samurai but now I'm like eh fuck it just explode the fuckers.

-Collectibles out the wazoo. I really like the haiku but holy crap there is so much junk to find. The game isn't consistent about putting question marks on the map and the whole 'follow the bird' mechanic is too vague to be reliable.

Rockstar tries to keep the open world format interesting with long form storytelling/environmental shifts, while Ubisoft gives you a lot of progress bars to fill. This game doesn't quite have the balance. They should have made unlocking upgrades take longer, given you some kind of town-rebuilding side quests to eat up resources, or drawn out the story.

This somehow makes Horizon Zero Dawn look even better in comparison, since it seemed to have the perfect balance of free roam, story, side missions, and upgrades.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Finished it, pretty standard open world action adventure, but well made. Just as I was getting sick of the combat it threw some new abilities into the mix that spiced it up. By killing multiple enemies without taking a hit, you get a berserk mode where you can insta-kill three dudes while they all freak the fuck out and cower, and you just execute them on the spot. Any enemy, even leaders. This in turn can cause a fear-chain, letting you get more free kills, until you berserk again, allowing you to decimate an entire enemy camp very quickly.

I liked how this tied the gameplay into the story. At the beginning you are told to be honorable, attack head on, and this works pretty well. The early standoffs are easy to win, enemies can be defeated in a single counter, and aren't that numerous. But as the mongols get tougher, the camps get bigger, standoffs get trickier, the ghost weapons start to become irresistible if only as a way to end combats quicker. Then by the end of the game, after using stealth kills, poison, bombs, kunai, exploding arrows, and everything else, Jin's reputation as an unstoppable killing machine causes the enemies to cower in fear before you, and suddenly charging in the front and facing the enemies head on is perfectly viable once again.

The ending was good and appropriate but also disappointing:

Spoiler

After beating the Khan your uncle attacks you for violating the oaths of Bushido. You fight him and choose to kill him or spare him.

This bugged me because the choice should have been whether to kill yourself. Seppuku is never mentioned once in the game. I'm not sure how historically prominent it was at the time, but in pretty much all samurai stories when the shogun orders a samurai to be executed they are given the option to carry it out themselves. Jin killing himself at the end of the game would have been a nice way to tie the story together: you became the ruthless Ghost but you restored your honor in death. Delete the save file too even. Would have been great.

Ah well. I don't know why there's no seppuku at all in the game. They may have chickened out of it due to the obvious touchiness of suicide. But honorburu sudoku is such an intrinsic part of the samurai romance I just can't believe they left it out.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I finished watching a full LP today. Really great story and characters, no modern cliched shit. I wonder if there is any C&C in the game, like for choosing to sacrifice Yuna at a certain point?

 

[Ash]

Meh. Looks to be style over substance sadly. Though that's only my first impression.

So, playing this. Not beat it yet, but it's better than I expected so far by quite some margin.

Looting/Upgrades/Exploration: I am already sick of getting constantly harassed by golden birds and foxes. The game tricked me at first. Fog of war on the map? No minimap? No loot icons everywhere? Great lord of incline...but then you have these annoying things in the world guiding you to nearby important loot. However, I don't want to undersell this aspect: it's only sometimes. Plenty loot you do find yourself via exploration, and there are sometimes secrets. It's not a trick: exploration is, to some extent, meaningful relative to other AAA.
NO pickup animations. You can even insta-pickup items from a horse. This is refreshing.
I've been told the economy falls apart at some point, but hey, this is a very common trend with open world games, and also RPGs.
Locations are somewhat interesting and diverse enough though it is a little limited by the game's overall focus on realism. Most other Japanese games set in feudal Japan include Japanese mythology and fantasy in their game design for a reason. The houses also get a bit copy-pasty quick, but you spend little time in them. The game is also extremely pretty to look at, absolutely stunning, award-worthy, but this is a gameplayfag quick review/first impressions so I'm doing my best to disregard how amazing it is to look at.
Upgrades: It's all very simple: loot stuff, upgrade 100% linear trees, but there are perks of sorts you can mix and match and swap out to suit your playstyle, which is nice. Up to 6 active at any given time. More on the upgrades in a minute.
Exploration is mostly worth it (so far) and there is minimal to no stuff on screen leading you by the nose. Except the wildlife anyway. Overall exploration could be better, but it's acceptable.
Ultimately it is inspired by the Ubisoft school of world design, but don't let that deter you as it's a little better in its execution. Not greatly. So far the world design is my least favorite aspect, but it's certainly not bad. I enjoy exploring it. That's the least you can expect. Again it's another thing I don't want to undersell. It has flaws, but it's better than most AAA. Good advertisement right there.

Mission Design: nothing really stands out neither in a very bad or very good way so far. There is little that has annoyed me and little that has impressed me. Can't really complain. Most of the time it's an excuse to murder mongols. I don't have much a problem with that.

Combat: The highlight of the game. The camera is pulled up behind the player, but not quite as close as the new trash God of War so you can see attacks coming from behind most of the time. the combat also has a lot more mechanical depth than that game, for reference.
You perform sword combos with the standard light attack & heavy attack inputs. There's stances that alter your moveset and help stagger differing enemy types. There's lovely smoothly flowing animations and brutally-depicted gore. Unfortunately there is no dismemberment system though. Weirdly enough Sekiro didn't have this either. On hard I die in 2-4 hits (if I don't heal). Evasion is key here. Dodge, parry (and "perfect" dodge and parry) are your primary evasive moves, but also crowd control - don't let yourself get surrounded. Enemies won't stand around and wait for you like those other AAA games. they can be relentless.
You get a bow. Manual aim. I upgraded the first one (possibly the fastest but with the least amount of damage and range) and like to pull off quick shots to the head in the middle of combat. The bow is one of few ranged attacks you get and it fills that role very nicely. I have few issues with it. Also ammo types: normal, flaming, explosive. Sometimes shooting stuff in the environment can aid you in battle, like beehives and obligatory explosive barrels. Nice! There are other "Ghost" weapons. Black powder bomb: manually aimed contact detonation ranged attack. Quite powerful. Instakill. Can't carry many. It's good. Kunai is a quick, powerful auto-aimed knife toss targeting multiple enemies. I am so far refusing to upgrade it to avoid becoming overpowered. Smoke bomb is OP. I am refusing to upgrade it for now. That seems like a common trend: you later unlock multi-instakill attacks although they can't 100% be relied on (resources, other context). My friend also says you come up against so many enemies to the point that this overpowered shit is needed. I don't find the awesome button fun, so I'm going to refuse getting these particular skills and see how it goes. He may possibly be right: I'm not that far in the game and already fought a battle with approximately 20 enemies. It was tough. This game is ballsy with its combat and enemy counts, I like it. I will report back how things progress in this regard. I don't want to be spamming instakills over and over and if it comes to that I may quit, but given the game is pretty decent so far I'll give it a chance.

Platforming: actually not bad. You can climb climb on everything. Most AAA open world games implement climbing to some extent, but often as a replacement for player skill and the jump button. Here it is not Dying Light, but it's a reasonable compromise: the climbing is simple and rarely testing, but the game gives you what meets a satisfactory level of freeform platforming control: jump whenever you like, from ladders, from ledges, in combat, from horses. Hit a button as you land to do a forward roll (like in Dying Light) to avoid taking damage from moderate heights. Jump from high ground and plunge your blade into the neck of enemies below. Hit a button to drop from whatever ledge you're currently holding. So while I expect a little more, it meets the bare minimum of what I expect: player skill and control, not brainless automation like Assassin's Creed/Batman/New God of War/whatever. However there are certain, specific jumps have automated assistance, usually on mountain climbs. You can't accidently fall off those tree branches or burning bridge supports for instance, but these rules don't apply to every obstacle in the game so I can stomach it.

Difficulty: Started on hard. The difficulty seems to fluctuate a little, but overall it's engaging. There's quite a few handholders (mostly related to combat) in the options, but they're off by default. This is so refreshing to see. People that don't understand the importance of challenge or don't explore options menus intently are robbed of a chance at the better experience when such things are enabled by default.
I've died. A lot. Mostly in combat. Any other form of challenge is not so testing but that's ok as the game is mostly about combat.

There's a lot more to write about, but I'll stop there. It's actually a decent game (so far) and I'm somewhat impressed, though it's not without flaw. We'll see how that transpires later in the game regarding the stupid instakill chaining, and whether or not the exploration diversifies or copies the same formula 1:1 of what I've experienced so far, much like a Ubisoft game.
I'll mention one non-gameplay related thing quickly: I'm arguing the game actually has substance. But damn it has quite a lot of style too.

Edit: damn, just read posts above me. Seems like it may indeed get repetitive and easy later. We'll see.

 

[Ash]

If the game had Target Lock-on, it would truly be an 11/10 game.

I can't count how many times I was beating a Mongol's ass and the game would randomly switch to another target.
Zep--

You the player determine (approximate) attack direction at all times, which is a better implementation. the game even teaches you that at the start but I guess you forgot and don't aim in any particular direction? Fuck lock-on target, imo a bad mechanic. Most devs for years have been overlooking better 3rd person hack and slash games that didn't need it, like Ninja Gaiden Black (and now this).

IDK I'll pay close attention next time I play but I've not had any targeting issues that I recall. I aim at a particular enemy, that enemy is struck. Not the other behind or to the side of me.

 

[Cromwell]

You the player determine (approximate) attack direction at all times, which is a better implementation.

it would be better if they gave you a way to center the camera on where your character is looking again without having to rotate it every time. Thats my main issue with its combat system.

 

[Ash]

I've no issue. It's not like Nu God of War where the camera is so far up your butt it needs constant adjustment. In Ghosts it only needs occasional adjustment and I consider it a worthy factor of player skill (be wary of positioning, check your six from time to time, don't keep backing up so far into your blind spot you end up running into more enemies, don't jump off a cliff -- spatial awareness, like every good samurai must have).

 

[ADL]

Is this popamole game will ever get a PC releasE?

If it does, it'll be years from now. Just "rent" a PS5, get Ghost of Tsushima, play and return both.

 

[Ash]

I wouldn't say it's worth that level of effort/investment. I'm surprised it's actually decent so far, but it's not worth going out your way for. Try it if it comes to PC, otherwise just play other games.

As it stands PS4/Xbone still have barely any reason to own over a good PC. Bloodborne is decent, Ghost is decent. Spiderman, God of War, TLoU, FF7:Remake, Uncharted 4 etc are for people with zero standards. Xbone has nothing of value.

 

[Ash]

Finished the game. Decent enough to complete but it's a lot of missed potential. The game starts out rather promising, but around half way through it gets too easy, mission design becomes repetitive, exploration becomes pointless because you have all the overpowered shit you could ever need and content is rehashed. For all its lack of typical handholding the game constantly throws foxes and birds at you that lead you around by the nose and ruin the fun.

+Solid combat that starts off strong is let down by the sheer amount of overpowered shit you get.
+Amazing art direction and graphics.
+Decent story, but why does every sub-plotline have a goddamn twist? Every damn time. It's like they can't write gripping enough content they have to always have a twist
+traversal of the game world is OK via parkour-lite mechanics. It's no Dying Light but it's no Bat-Spider's Creed Man either.

-There's barely a soundtrack
-world design follows the typical modern open world AAA format. It's not terrible but could be a lot better.
-Mission design is mediocre
-Too easy past a certain point. The challenges posed scales as is game design standard but only slightly, meanwhile the player is given tons of overpowered shit.

regarding lack of challenge: this is with me starting on hard, refraining from upgrading my character somewhat and wearing the weakest armor (travellers attire) for 90% of the game. I advise you do the same. There is one higher level of difficulty but it actually makes you even more powerful (take and deal more damage, lame).

7.5/10 under my self-imposed restrictions, but in reality it's a 7/10 at best. This is still pretty good for a AAA modern open world game. I recommend it if you want a AAA open world game, mainly because there is next to nothing else worth a damn in that space these days.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Finished the game. Decent enough to complete but it's a lot of missed potential. The game starts out rather promising, but around half way through it gets too easy, mission design becomes repetitive, exploration becomes pointless because you have all the overpowered shit you could ever need and content is rehashed. For all its lack of typical handholding the game constantly throws foxes and birds at you that lead you around by the nose and ruin the fun.

You know this perfectly coincides with my impression that most games nowadays are too stretched out for their own good. The game could easily have been half as long or less to just complete without lacking anything in terms of gameplay or difficulty curve. Think how many games is this statement valid for. They could have stopped at the first third of the game, but they had to include obligatory snowy area, obligatory "escape from burning maze" section, etc.

 

[Ash]

Agree and disagree.

Agree: game must have cost some serious dollar and took a long time to make. Condense the size, up the quality and diversity of the content instead. Open world games on the smaller side are typically better for it.

Disagree: the game isn't THAT big and plenty studios have been able to make high quality large games in the past. Yes, the game suffers from repetition but a lot of it is a failure of design and priorities rather than just padding out a large space. Why does every side quest have a twist? Not an issue of padding just direction.
Why are Fox Dens lame and repetitive? Because you just mindlessly follow the fox rather than discover the hidden shrines on your own. fox dens weren't needed. cut them, the fox itself (including pet the fox animation). You just freed up dev time for other, better stuff. They just added mindless repetition. Instead they could have subtly gave away SOME secrets, and added an ability or charm that made the discovery of them easier without making it mindless.
Why do hostage rescue missions feel repetitive even though there's only like 10 of them? Because the "free captive" animation is too long, there's zero difference between them, the combat by this point easy, and the reward for doing them inadequate. Why is there 10 of these hostage missions with no difference between them? Because design priorities. It wouldn't have took much time or cost to add a little flavor to each. It's not necessarily size of the game world that has to suffer for mission design to prosper. Other recycled content, such as the duels, it's perfectly fine because they're awesome and actually challenging. The five straw hat duels are recycled, the only difference being a few lines of dialogue.

Generally I agree and have thought AAA have been misguidedly aiming for size (and all the tards lapping it up) for a long time, but I don't think Ghost is actually that big (just googled: 11 sq mi compared to GTAV 49 sq mi) however most of Ghost could have been way better if they just had better design principles. Ultimately it's still a modern casual mass market AAA sellout game, just less shitty than the majority.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I mean specifically the repetition of activities or overcoming the same problem with the same solution as a condition to progress in the game. I can understand this being done for larp reasons, and when the game presupposes it. Lighting a fire every time in RDR2, for example, didn't put me off. But having to kill between 20 and 50 bad guys in a story mission (and in multiple story missions) when 10 would have given me all the tactical challenges that could be offered by the scene of the shootout is going needlessly into popamole for the combat, and into grind for the multiple missions that need it. Ghost of Tsushima doesn't suffer from the usual GTA routine of "you travel towards a spot - something goes wrong - you have to kill a big number of bad guys - you have to run away - mission complete", because at least you already know you are in a war and you know what you'll be doing in most of the story missions. Still, it has its own problems with repetitive mission design where I'm left wondering what did the experience gain from this mission being present in the game.

 

[Lautreamont]

Try Legends mode if you like Tsushima's combat and want a challenge. Sucker Punch must have listened to feedback about the game being too easy. They introduce much tougher enemies and mechanics, and limit resolve so you can't steamroll everything with abilities. Once you play any map in Legends, NG+ is a joke. Apart from that, Legends is really a remarkable rarity in AAA DLC. It is virtually a new game and it's free. They could have easily charged $20 for it.