Ghosts of Tsushima Review thread

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BrawlMan

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don't remember what stance it was, but I do remember the triangle charge attack on one of them being able to cut through pretty much every enemy defense, and I relegated to just using that during combat, which made it kinda boring.
That might have been the moon's stance. By the time I found out about the game breaker with that move, I already found two others that were way more useful, and fun.


I won a Charm that let's you set your weapon a blaze if you counter an enemy's fire weapon, and when on fire your weapon will completely circumvent the enemy's guard and set them on fire. It's pretty sick.
Damn, that actually sounds incredible. I know the previous game had some fire weapons, but that's on another level.
The first game sorta had this, but it wasn't a charm. You could actually get a flame maneuver for your weapon after beating a side quest and defeating the boss opponent that used it. The quest shows up about 3/4 into the game, if I remember correctly. I'm still glad to hear they brought it back in some capacity.
 

Dreiko

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Damn, that actually sounds incredible. I know the previous game had some fire weapons, but that's on another level.
It’s pretty normal to oil a blade as a form of maintenance but here I guess they amp it up by making it actually flammable so the friction of the parry ignites your sword. It’s definitely a good way of incentivizing hesitant players to engage with the parry system.
 

Brokencontroller

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I sunk a few more hours into the game on Sunday and while the game plays fine, I can't help but wonder what they were smoking when they came up with the story.

Atsu earns none of her reputation, which means her scary roar thing she gets immediately at the beginning of the game feels stupid because she's not earned it. At least we aren't a part of her earning it. Jin got away with it because you spent the whole game building his reputation and slaughtering the mongol forces to the point where they actually believe he is a demon or spirit of vengeance. It fits because it's earned.

Atsu is just given the reputation and earns nothing via the player's actions. Furthermore I think the weapon system really really stinks, because it plays out exactly the same as the first game in which you require a specific weapon (or stance) for a specific enemy type. It's rock, paper, scissors, all over again and it means you are not allowed to just use the weapon you like and must use everything. Why couldn't each weapon have stances so that the gameplay could be the same but also allow the player to use the weapons they like?

I guess making movesets is too hard for lazy western developers with no creativity. I look at games like Dark Souls, Nioh, and many other character action games like Bayonetta and DMC in which all the weapons have completely different movesets. Too difficult for stupid American developers I guess.

Man sometimes I really hate gaming, it is such a waste of potential for no reason.
 

BrawlMan

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I know i'm still early in but I wouldn't call the developers lazy. Also, there are plenty of Japanese developers that reuse old assets or recycle them in a certain ways. Some more obvious than others, but Koei Tecmo/Omega Force have been recycling their assets since DW7 and SW4, before Origins and SW5. They're still recycling the old ones now for that rogue, like they're doing. So let's not try to make it as if SP didn't care, nor that the Japanese are immune to doing this.

Do you know how many times capcom recycled at Morrigan sprite?
 

Brokencontroller

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I know i'm still early in but I wouldn't call the developers lazy. Also, there are plenty of Japanese developers that reuse old assets or recycle them in a certain ways. Some more obvious than others, but Koei Tecmo/Omega Force have been recycling their assets since DW7 and SW4, before Origins and SW5. They're still recycling the old ones now for that rogue, like they're doing. So let's not try to make it as if SP didn't care, nor that the Japanese are immune to doing this.

Do you know how many times capcom recycled at Morrigan sprite?
I don't recall saying anything about reuse. I expect reuse of some things in sequels. However this game seems like they barebones a story and just kick you into the open world with a reskinned version of the first combat system without really adding much.


And frankly i would be fine if the game played exactly the same as Tsushima, but I expect a great story built upon top of it, with interesting characters and something to work towards. Yotei doesn't feel like it's providing any of that for me.
 

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However this game seems like they barebones a story and just kick you into the open world with a reskinned version of the first combat system without really adding much.
Speak for yourself. I've been playing around with the combat, and it's already a huge improvement over the first game. If you were expecting them to rehaul everything or every single little thing, then that's on you.

You're entitled to your opinion but I have not forgotten that you tend to either exaggerate stuff or make it a bigger deal than necessary. Or you have really wild expectations. I already knew what I was getting into.And i'm still thoroughly enjoying it. If you want to quit, then quit and move on. You'll get no complaints out of me for you doing so. I and most others are having the time of our lives right now. I wouldn't have it any other way.
 

Casual Shinji

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Atsu earns none of her reputation, which means her scary roar thing she gets immediately at the beginning of the game feels stupid because she's not earned it. At least we aren't a part of her earning it. Jin got away with it because you spent the whole game building his reputation and slaughtering the mongol forces to the point where they actually believe he is a demon or spirit of vengeance. It fits because it's earned.
It's earned in that she killed the Snake and people saw her seemingly come back from the dead. It's also not the same as in Tsushima, because Atsu's thing just knocks one guy over leaving him open for an insta-kill, while Jin was given a good 10 seconds to decapitate dudes. Jin's was far stronger.

And it's important to remember that Jin could've always done what he did when he first went into Ghost mode, he simply didn't due to his strict adherence to being an honourable samurai. Him going Ghost wasn't about him earning it, it was about him no longer caring about being honourable to send a message of fear to his enemies. And Atsu never had any honour to begin with.

And her reputation evolves -the changing wanted posters- as the game and the kills progress, just like with JIn, which the player is very much part of.
 

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It's earned in that she killed the Snake and people saw her seemingly come back from the dead. It's also not the same as in Tsushima, because Atsu's thing just knocks one guy over leaving him open for an insta-kill, while Jin was given a good 10 seconds to decapitate dudes. Jin's was far stronger.

And it's important to remember that Jin could've always done what he did when he first went into Ghost mode, he simply didn't due to his strict adherence to being an honourable samurai. Him going Ghost wasn't about him earning it, it was about him no longer caring about being honourable to send a message of fear to his enemies. And Atsu never had any honour to begin with.

And her reputation evolves -the changing wanted posters- as the game and the kills progress, just like with JIn, which the player is very much part of.
This is why you're one of the users I love here, @Casual Shinji.
 

Casual Shinji

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So I beat the first of the Yotei Six (not counting the Snake), and it was one stiff fucking endeavor. It was the Oni and he took me an hour to beat. One thing about this game is that regular fights become so easy that when a real duel comes along it's almost unsettling how tough it can be.

I am really liking the dynamic between Atsu and Jubei. This initially felt like something a story like this would've kept for the final half or third of the narrative, but the game keeps their relationship moving in an engaging way. Though I don't know if you would've met them had you choosen a different member of the Yotei Six to target first, because I think you can.
 

BrawlMan

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One thing about this game is that regular fights become so easy that when a real duel comes along it's almost unsettling how tough it can be.
That's pretty much the first game in a nutshell. Now to be fair in the original, the one on one fight started easy enough. In this game, they are much more difficult and that even includes the side quests.
 

Jarrito3002

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I am loving the game so far it doesn't feel like much of straight line and gives that good illusion of choice. Like I aiming for the Kitsune cause I have leads but curious like can I just go straight to Kaito.

I like stumbling up on songs and shrines they trigger at the right time.

My only issue right now is damn photo mode. Like when bosses come up you have to be precise and for some reason every time I tried to drink same to restore spirit photo mode pops up. I had to run far away switch to left hand to put it on the X face button and then switch back. Not sure if my controller or game cause both of my controllers had that issue. Made want to disable photo mode it's getting in the gaming so curse it to the heavens.
 
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Like I aiming for the Kitsune cause I have leads but curious like can I just go straight to Kaito.
Same! As soon as I finish these two other side quests, I'm going to go for that main quest. Though there are some side quests, I can do around that area (which all related to that specific boss) as soon as I get there.


My only issue right now is damn photo mode. Like when bosses come up you have to be precise and for some reason every time I tried to drink same to restore spirit photo mode pops up. I had to run far away switch to left hand to put it on the X face button and then switch back. Not sure if my controller or game cause both of my controllers had that issue. Made want to disable photo mode it's getting in the gaming so curse it to the heavens.
Yours might be a controller issue, as i've never had this happen so far. I'm only about four hours in.

Btw, you doing good?
 

Jarrito3002

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Same! As soon as I finish these two other side quests, I'm going to go for that main quest. Though there are some side quests, I can do around that area (which all related to that specific boss) as soon as I get there.



Yours might be a controller issue, as i've never had this happen so far. I'm only about four hours in.

Btw, you doing good?
But both my controllers and PS5 directional are not that interconnected it's bizarre wish I was left handed to avoid this lol.

I want to get the feel of the game right like the parries before I mess with the cool filters like the Watanabe.

As for good doing what I can in spite of current events and fighting the green goblin mask in the corner of my mind to go off on people both online and in meat space. With that said the new Clipse album has been on repeat.
 
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Dreiko

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I know i'm still early in but I wouldn't call the developers lazy. Also, there are plenty of Japanese developers that reuse old assets or recycle them in a certain ways. Some more obvious than others, but Koei Tecmo/Omega Force have been recycling their assets since DW7 and SW4, before Origins and SW5. They're still recycling the old ones now for that rogue, like they're doing. So let's not try to make it as if SP didn't care, nor that the Japanese are immune to doing this.

Do you know how many times capcom recycled at Morrigan sprite?
Reusing assets intelligently is a huge part of fromsoft’s success. Like those skeleton dogs in ds3 clearly had the same rig as the sheep hounds from bloodborne but they didn’t just plop them there, they touched em up a bit. A bit of cosmetics go a long way.
 
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Casual Shinji

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So, Yotei is running into the same problem Tsushima had (or at least I had with it). And that is that the story feels divorced from much of the quests in the open-world. It's not generally dotted amongst the missions, it's clustered near the end of each open-world area. There's hints and references to the Yotei Six and Atsu's past, but it's presented with the same dull framed cutscenes as interacting with a random NPC is. Unlike when you meet ]Jubei and go after the Oni, for which the game pulls out the actual budget, with scene composition and facial animations. It makes everything else feel rather unimportant by comparison - it just doesn't blend the overall narrative experience.
 

Casual Shinji

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I think I broke the coin mini-game. I was playing against an NPC where if you make one error he pretty much wins, so during the fourth attempt and error I decided to just reload my checkpoint instead of having to sit through him winning again. But when I retried the game the coins where suddenly invisible. At first I thought this was some way of the game punishing you for opting out of a game by reload, but when I sat through the invisible coin game (and the guy won again) and retried again the coins where still invisible. So yeah, don't know what's going on there.
 
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Jarrito3002

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Good news I went to custom difficulty and turned off photo mode so now my prompts are not in a power struggle.

Now this game is messing with my "ooh a piece of candy" trigger. Like I do one side mission before doing a main mission but that side mission will sometimes in the process lead to 3 more side mission as now my whole plan is in ruins lol.

I think I broke the coin mini-game. I was playing against an NPC where if you make one error he pretty much wins, so during the fourth attempt and error I decided to just reload my checkpoint instead of having to sit through him winning again. But when I retried the game the coins where suddenly invisible. At first I thought this was some way of the game punishing you for opting out of a game by reload, but when I sat through the invisible coin game (and the guy won again) and retried again the coins where still invisible. So yeah, don't know what's going on there.
I just discovered and I love it probably the best use of the pressure triggers in any game. But I hope that glitch didn't mess anything else up.
 
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