Review #835: Ghost of Tsushima

 Assassin's Creed Ninja

 It's been a while since Sucker Punch released anything, hasn't it? But they mark their return with Ghost of Tsushima, an open world action-stealth game that is pretty much Assassin's Creed but with Samurai, or rather, ninja. Yeah, that's right, I said it, this is not a Samurai game, but a Ninja game

 The game is set in a 13th century Japan, during which Japanese forces thwarted an invasion by the Mongul empire. You play as Jin, the last surviving big-name Samurai after a Mongul attack, and he, as the lone survivor, must now rescue his captured Uncle and free Tsushima from the Mongul. But a honor-bound Samurai can't hope to match the Mongul forces who knows no such limit, so he'll have to learn to fight without honor. Kill the enemies while hiding under the shadows, poison them as if he were another bandit and exploit every advantage in his favor. The internal struggle within Jin between everything he considered sacred against his very survival is a very interesting story. That said, the story is incredibly predictable, I figured out that I would have to fight a certain someone, as well as a certain character dying as soon as I met them. It does have its moments though, and Jin's trusty allies are very compelling characters themselves, thanks in no small part due to the fact that they even get their own sets of missions that develops them. All in all, it's a mostly solid plot, with a few low points here and there, but a few high points that make up for them.

 The game plays pretty much exactly like Assassin's Creed. You get a huge open-world to explore, and each act opens up a new section of Tsushima to explore. Besides your main missions, the game is filled with side activities to find and items to collect. There are 18 hot springs that extend your life bar, 18 Bamboo button-pressing tests to upgrade your resolve, about 49 fox shrines to find that'll give you more charm slots as well as the best charm in the game, 15 Shrines to platform your way to the top for great charms, 19 Haiku to compose for headbands(This are silly, as you must pick three verses between three options and no way of knowing what comes next, so they can end up being quite nonsensical), 23 Pillars of Honor to get new sheathes for your Katana and Tanto, a ton of encampments and villages you must free from Mongols as well as side missions from NPCs. And those are the ones that matter, there are also Mongol artifacts to find, caged crickets, Mongol records and banners that you can collect if you just can't avoid that dopamine rush you get every time you get a collectible. Oh, and let's not forget, this is an open world game, so of course there are all sorts of materials, like wood, bamboo, flowers, iron and gold that you can collect from the environment in order to upgrade your equipment or get dyes for your armors. Open-world tropes, this game's got you covered. While Jin isn't as nimble as an Assassin or an Infamous hero, there are multiple ledges spread throughout most mountains so that you can climb then one way or another, as well as a trusty horse that'll find you every time you whistle. Lastly, the more you open up the map, the more places you'll be able to fast travel to you'll get.

 Combat starts off interesting but ends up formulaic. You get two attacks: Fast and Strong, and you can also dodge, block and parry. Block and Parry have their own skill trees, so you can eventually unlock perfect versions of those, relying on timing, that will make them even better. The only reason you aren't block or parrying all the time is that attacks with a red glint on them are unblockable and must be dodged. You can also help yourself in combat with quick weapons, such as Kunai, Sticky bombs or even a stone to put fire on your blade. You also have Resolve, which fills as you parry attacks and kill enemies. At first, resolve can only be used to heal yourself, but if you're an explorer you'll find quests that will grant you new uses for your resolve, mostly in the form of powerful new attacks. Now, here's where it gets formulaic: You'll eventually unlock four 'stances' and each stance is strong against a specific type of enemy: Shields, Lances, Swords and Brutes. Not facing enemies in the correct stance will have fighting an uphill battle, which means that battles just turn into selecting the right stance and then mashing triangle until you break the enemy's defense and then mashing square, while being mindful of incoming attacks. You could also take a more defensive approach and wait for them to attack and parry into an opening, the time window is pretty generous anyways. Either way, the combat is decent, and it looks and feels intense, but it's nothing special. As for the challenge, if you screw up you can get yourself killed quite easily, but it's not a hard game at all and death is quite forgiving. One thing is true, however, it doesn't matter how brainless the combat gets, it remains entertaining from beginning to end. The animations are stylish and swift, and everything feels intense and violent, making combat not get as boring as it should.

 Other forms of combat come in the form of Stand Offs and Duels. A stand off can be pulled off when first approaching a group of enemies, which will initiate a minigame in which you must let go off the triangle button as soon as an enemy attacks, which will instantly kill an enemy and refill a ton of your resolve. They will try feints to make you mess up, and if you do, you'll be left with a sliver of health to try defend yourself. Duels on the other hand, are special and more dramatic one-on-one fights against bosses. These are cool, at first, but every single duel enemy fights exactly the same, from the very first duel in the game to the final one. Well, I lie, the big bad of the story actually has his own style, mostly because he fights with a halberd instead of a Katana. To get an edge in battle you can equip charms on your sword, for all sorts of benefits, such as getting a bit of health back every time you kill an enemy(This charm NEVER left my sword), as well as find and equip various armors with special properties to give you an advantage on different fronts.

 And you'll want some advantages, because besides how samey it can get, combat has a few issues. For instance, there's no lock-on or targeting system, so it's up to you and the right analog stick to try to keep up with every incoming attack. Remember how I mentioned how, while the game is overall pretty easy, one mistake could get you killed quite quickly? Well, when fighting groups of enemies they love to swarm you and attack you while you are attacking one of their buddies, and it's impossible to keep track of everyone. Switching stances mid-combat(R2+Any face button) can sometimes be spotty, because sometimes, quite uncommon to be honest, R2 won't bring up the stance select menu so you won't get the stance that you need. Oh, and the Stand Offs? This is an open world game, so you may come across a group of enemies at any time. Stand offs are one of the very few places in which you can't turn the camera, and the game is so rich in foliage and the such... that it's quite easy for shrubs, sticks and grass to actually cover your enemy, giving you no way of seeing if they are feinting or attacking!

 While the game chides you at first for using underhanded methods to win, such as showing you flashbacks between Jin and his Uncle when you first backstab someone and when you first use a poison dart against an enemy, stealth is a key element of the game. Jin can blend in tall grass, use a Asassin's Creed-like eagle eye to spot enemies around him, as well as all sorts of tools to help him, such as a wind chime to attract enemy attention. Jin also gets two types of bows to deal with enemies from afar, and a blowgun to use poison or berserk status-inducing darts. Did I mention this game borrows a lot from Assassin's Creed? Very late in the game, at the end of the second act, you'll unlock Ghost Stance. By killing 7 enemies without getting hit you'll be able to press L3+R3 to enter a super state in which you can kill three enemies for free, with high chances of terrifying enemies around you afterwards.

 As for the missions themselves, they are pretty much what you'd expect. Sometime you'll have to murder someone, sometimes you'll have to defeat some enemies, sometimes you'll have to track enemies... it pretty much feels like missions you'd get in Assassin's Creed, even the boring 'trail enemy from behind' objectives! On the other hand, this is easily Sucker Punch's most cinematic game, whenever a story scene plays out it's a pure treat. The camera angles, the voice acting, the music, everything is on point. The game is filled with beautiful scenery to marvel at too, this is easily one of the games I've taken the most screenshots of.

 The developers were so inspired by the Assassin's Creed template that they also kept bugs and glitches in the game. Nothing too game breaking, but for instance, every now and then your ammo will disappear. It seems that some sidequests forget about your enhanced capacity upgrades, so it'll bring down all your ammo counts to the default capacity. Another issue is that sometimes the game won't realize that you are actually not in combat, and thus it won't let you fast travel. But by far the biggest bug happened during one of Norio's sidequests, the final one. Every time I followed him, the game would teleport me to an enemy catapult a bit far away, which would make me lose the mission with no way to get back to Norio. I feared for my savefile, because I even reset the game, but I realized I could abandon the mission. So I went to the catapult on horse and as I neared it... the game, once again, teleported me right next to it, but since I wasn't on a quest, I was able to destroy the catapult. When I tried the quest again I was able to finish it just fine.

 Ghost of Tsushima is a very solid open world action-stealth game, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. It ticks every single box and follows every single trope these games contain, but, in the game's defense, everything it does it does really well, without really excelling anywhere. But what it lacks in depth it makes up in style, what it lacks in originality it makes up in quality. Now, then, I'm ready to return to the world of Infamous.
8.0 out of 10