Ghosts of Tsushima Review thread

CriticalGaming

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Looks like Ghosts of Tsushima is going to be a good game. I've been watching the reviews since the embargo lifted this morning, and the consensus is that it's pretty good.

Though it is yet another open world game, with all the gibberish that tends to come with those kinds of games. The rest of the game around that world seems to be built so well that you don't really notice that you are dealing with a lot of the same open world trappings because the moment to moment gameplay is great. I will, as usual, save my judgement for when I actually get my hands on the game on Friday and will review it when I can, it's still good to see the contrastic difference of an antisipated release living up to that build up.






What do you guys think. Gonna take a chance on this one, or giving it a skip.
 

CriticalGaming

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To be fair, there are still a few less-than-stellar reviews out there, such as this'n...
Yeah the Gamespot review I linked also only gave it a 7/10. But these big companies favoring it slightly less than something pretentious like TLOU2 indicates to me that the game has more merit to it than TLOU2 did.

I'm glad to see that there are no perfect 10's on this thing thusfar, because I feel like a 10/10 is a shady thing to throw around these days. And many of the youtube reviewers don't score like that anymore.
 

BrawlMan

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I will give it a chance, but right now I am busy with wonderful 101. I just started that. I've already seen acg's review.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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Way too much else to play, but otherwise I’d have this preordered. As it stands it’ll probably be a PS+ freebie by the time I’d get to it. Same with Death Stranding and Days Gone.

Having said that, I wonder if a lot of people aren’t also a bit relieved to have another swan song - untainted this time - to wipe the bad taste out after all the TLoU2 drama.
 

Specter Von Baren

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Yeah the Gamespot review I linked also only gave it a 7/10. But these big companies favoring it slightly less than something pretentious like TLOU2 indicates to me that the game has more merit to it than TLOU2 did.

I'm glad to see that there are no perfect 10's on this thing thusfar, because I feel like a 10/10 is a shady thing to throw around these days. And many of the youtube reviewers don't score like that anymore.
Only time I'll trust a 10/10 is if it's a mainline Mario or Zelda game. This isn't my kind of game though and I'm enjoying finally getting the chance to play Crosscode on my Switch.
 

Casual Shinji

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From what I've seen in reviews thus far I'm absolutely loving the soft, glossy lighting to the world of this game. So yeah, I'm looking forward to playing a game that actually looks beautiful instead of looking like I'm watching it through a dirty screendoor. *cough* TLoU2 *cough*
 

Kwak

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To be fair, there are still a few less-than-stellar reviews out there, such as this'n...
This seems such an elitist take...

- The world as a whole is beautiful - utterly, undeniably, oppressively beautiful. Such colour! Everywhere you look, it's crimson, windswept fields and forests of golden yolk. Sunsets and oceans, beaches and snowy mountain peaks - environments of improbable range for a temperate island of Tsushima's kind, set to broad, enrapturing splashes of orange and teal. The vivid green bamboo jungles, the ephemeral fireflies, the swirling, milky petals that rise and fall with the wind - a wind that could be a game of its own, a magic thing bending everything around you. It's a sign of a studio that's mastered the tech, with a console generation's worth of experience behind it, but what it's missing is the maturity or restraint to put it to use. Ghost of Tsushima's bursting with undeniable beauty, yes, but beauty of the obvious, in-your-face kind, the kind that doesn't offer much thematic or tonal subtlety but makes a great ad for HDR OLED televisions. It's an odd thing to find a problem with - an excess of sumptuousness - but Sucker Punch is best imagined here less as master painter than overexcited barkeeper, serving up shot after shot of wincingly concentrated emotion, slamming the table and pouring out another - bigger moon! more falling leaves! make it a double! - before you've gulped the last one down.

It seems to imply if you are swept up and get immersed due to the visuals you're low bar-trash.
 

happyninja42

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Same with Death Stranding and Days Gone.
I highly recommend Days Gone. I picked that up sort of...well I won't say reluctantly, but it wasn't a burning priority for sure on my new game list. But I was very happily surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The gameplay was really solid, if a bit clunky at times in some of the interface systems. The acting from the entire cast was really good, though the main character and his buddy could be a little too Manly Man Macho Man of Manliness, who no feel icky things like Emotions! sometimes. They weren't like DudeBro level of toxic manliness, but their almost pathologic reaction to acknowledgement of feelings of compassion and caring got a bit grating at times. But I really enjoyed it a lot. Highly recommend it.

OT: Eh, I'll probably hold off on this one for a while. When I watched the first gameplay reveal, I really just felt like I was watching a Japanese reskin mod for AC: Odyssey in a lot of ways. And that didn't really draw my interest too much.

Perhaps it will be a great game, but I'll wait until it's on sale.

Hmm, just noticed this is made by Sucker Punch....hmm....they made 2 of my all time favorite games, inFamous 1&2.....I might have to rethink this then, as I really dig their games. The subsequent inFamous games were good too, in my opinion anyway.

*ponder face*
 

Specter Von Baren

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This seems such an elitist take...

- The world as a whole is beautiful - utterly, undeniably, oppressively beautiful. Such colour! Everywhere you look, it's crimson, windswept fields and forests of golden yolk. Sunsets and oceans, beaches and snowy mountain peaks - environments of improbable range for a temperate island of Tsushima's kind, set to broad, enrapturing splashes of orange and teal. The vivid green bamboo jungles, the ephemeral fireflies, the swirling, milky petals that rise and fall with the wind - a wind that could be a game of its own, a magic thing bending everything around you. It's a sign of a studio that's mastered the tech, with a console generation's worth of experience behind it, but what it's missing is the maturity or restraint to put it to use. Ghost of Tsushima's bursting with undeniable beauty, yes, but beauty of the obvious, in-your-face kind, the kind that doesn't offer much thematic or tonal subtlety but makes a great ad for HDR OLED televisions. It's an odd thing to find a problem with - an excess of sumptuousness - but Sucker Punch is best imagined here less as master painter than overexcited barkeeper, serving up shot after shot of wincingly concentrated emotion, slamming the table and pouring out another - bigger moon! more falling leaves! make it a double! - before you've gulped the last one down.

It seems to imply if you are swept up and get immersed due to the visuals you're low bar-trash.
This reminds me of one of Mauler's GDELB videos honestly.
 

CriticalGaming

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Only time I'll trust a 10/10 is if it's a mainline Mario or Zelda game. This isn't my kind of game though and I'm enjoying finally getting the chance to play Crosscode on my Switch.
hey thanks for tossing me my 100th like. You got me a trophy.

I do like how they've made the UI much more subtle in this game.

Like there are no way point markers. Instead if you set a point on the map you want to go to, the wind in the game will blow in that direction so all you have to do is follow the way the grass is blowing and you'll get to where you want to go. I think that is such a neat way to do it, I hope it doesn't become annoying in practice during long gameplay sessions.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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hey thanks for tossing me my 100th like. You got me a trophy.

I do like how they've made the UI much more subtle in this game.

Like there are no way point markers. Instead if you set a point on the map you want to go to, the wind in the game will blow in that direction so all you have to do is follow the way the grass is blowing and you'll get to where you want to go. I think that is such a neat way to do it, I hope it doesn't become annoying in practice during long gameplay sessions.

Doesn’t it also use birds or foxes to lead you to things? I like the natural aspect. Reminds me of that upcoming game (Wild I think?) where you can inhabit different animals to gain unique abilities. If that ever gets a PS4 release it’ll probably be my last current gen purchase.
 

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It looks like a breath of fresh air in comparison to all the souls-likes these days. I remember playing Prince of Persia SOT on PS2 and being like "oh, you can just press in the direction of the enemy to attack, what a great idea" and more games built on that. Then, Souls came out and had an archaic lock-on system that only has you fighting with the controls to fight groups of enemies at once. And everybody is still wanting to copy Souls to the nth degree for whatever damn reason.

I think I might get this on release and play it as I'm only into Fire Watch right now (which is pretty short).

Doesn’t it also use birds or foxes to lead you to things? I like the natural aspect. Reminds me of that upcoming game (Wild I think?) where you can inhabit different animals to gain unique abilities. If that ever gets a PS4 release it’ll probably be my last current gen purchase.
I recall that game being shown so far back, I don't think it's coming out. I remember when Outer Wilds came out and I was thinking "is that that game with the animals?" and it obviously not that game.
 

SckizoBoy

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Me being the skinflint I am and suffering from zero FOMO, I'll be waiting until the price drops before getting it, but I will definitely get it.

Glad it's reviewing well and I'm looking forward to playing it, provided other shit of the productive sort doesn't get in the way too much.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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It looks like a breath of fresh air in comparison to all the souls-likes these days. I remember playing Prince of Persia SOT on PS2 and being like "oh, you can just press in the direction of the enemy to attack, what a great idea" and more games built on that. Then, Souls came out and had an archaic lock-on system that only has you fighting with the controls to fight groups of enemies at once. And everybody is still wanting to copy Souls to the nth degree for whatever damn reason.

I think I might get this on release and play it as I'm only into Fire Watch right now (which is pretty short).


I recall that game being shown so far back, I don't think it's coming out. I remember when Outer Wilds came out and I was thinking "is that that game with the animals?" and it obviously not that game.

You can also just attack in the direction of the enemy in SoulsBorne. The lock-on is mostly there to keep the enemy centered in front of you so you don’t have to keep reorienting. I wish the camera was more adjustable though which would help alleviate the need for it.

I still have hope for Wild. I never thought The Last Guardian was going to come out. Still haven’t played that yet either.
 

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Sounds like it's pretty good, though it'll have to wait for a while. I just started Red Dead Redemption and the next Open World type game on the list is Red Dead Redemption 2, but I doubt I'll jump into that just yet either.

GoT will probably be a game I get for Crimmis or something.

This seems such an elitist take...

- The world as a whole is beautiful - utterly, undeniably, oppressively beautiful. Such colour! Everywhere you look, it's crimson, windswept fields and forests of golden yolk. Sunsets and oceans, beaches and snowy mountain peaks - environments of improbable range for a temperate island of Tsushima's kind, set to broad, enrapturing splashes of orange and teal. The vivid green bamboo jungles, the ephemeral fireflies, the swirling, milky petals that rise and fall with the wind - a wind that could be a game of its own, a magic thing bending everything around you. It's a sign of a studio that's mastered the tech, with a console generation's worth of experience behind it, but what it's missing is the maturity or restraint to put it to use. Ghost of Tsushima's bursting with undeniable beauty, yes, but beauty of the obvious, in-your-face kind, the kind that doesn't offer much thematic or tonal subtlety but makes a great ad for HDR OLED televisions. It's an odd thing to find a problem with - an excess of sumptuousness - but Sucker Punch is best imagined here less as master painter than overexcited barkeeper, serving up shot after shot of wincingly concentrated emotion, slamming the table and pouring out another - bigger moon! more falling leaves! make it a double! - before you've gulped the last one down.

It seems to imply if you are swept up and get immersed due to the visuals you're low bar-trash.
I think it's more of a "This is very pretty but the rest of the game doesn't quite reach those heights" statement then anything else. And the article does go into plenty of detail of things they felt don't work as well.

There are many very good looking games out there. The problem is a lot of them(including possibly this) tend to falter in other departments. Ubisoft makes very, very beautiful maps in their Assassins Creed games but a lot of the gameplay tends to get a bit samey, to use an example of a similar type of game.
 
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Bob_McMillan

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The combat still looks a little clunky to me. Perhaps its something you need to experience for yourself.

Also a little disappointed that the facial animations match up horribly with the Japanese audio.

But hey, definitely something I'll buy used or on sale one day. I have a bad feeling Sony might be slipping up for the PS5, so it's nice to see them putting out good stuff for now.
 

CriticalGaming

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The combat still looks a little clunky to me. Perhaps its something you need to experience for yourself.

Also a little disappointed that the facial animations match up horribly with the Japanese audio.

But hey, definitely something I'll buy used or on sale one day. I have a bad feeling Sony might be slipping up for the PS5, so it's nice to see them putting out good stuff for now.
What do you mean Sony might be slipping up for the PS5? What have you seen?
 

Bob_McMillan

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What do you mean Sony might be slipping up for the PS5? What have you seen?
We haven't really heard much good about it have we? No price yet, supposedly less powerful hardware, and iffy on backwards compatibility. It's just a feeling really. The situation seems exactly what happened to Microsoft. Had a great run with the 360, got complacent, then shit the bed for the Xbone.
 

Jarrito3002

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I am interested in this one. Not going to get it until I get some house projects done. I played 2nd Son and it was alright didn't finish it. I don't know Sucker Punch and Naughty Dog haven't kept my attention since they abandoned Sly and Jak respectively.

Ghost does has my interest though.