If you all remember when I did my Ghosts of Tsushima impressions thread, I was very luke warm on the game. Maybe because I was on hour 170 of Final Fantasy 7 remake at the time and was looking for excuses to go back to the game, and Ghosts really didn't impress me much on first take. I have since been away from the game for (checks calendar) 6 months or something and having seen the game reach number 1 on a LOT of GOTY lists for many many many people, and the fact that there has been practically nothing released yet this year. So in my downtime I figured I should probably go back and actually finish the game that made the top of a lot of lists last year.
What I can say is that Ghosts really tries to stick to the style of it's inspiration. Personally I think it sticks to it a little too hard and it can get a little annoying at times. The slow cinematic that plays before every major duel, designed to build tension of course but this is just a random dumbass that's literally going to quit and second I raise my sword so maybe you don't need the long dramatic setup this one time. But credit to the game for having a clear vision and sticking to it regardless of how it might dig at the player.
The second time around I feel like I'm actually liking the game less when I'm trying to pay attention to the story and liking it more when I'm just hunting map markers and killing Mongols. And I think this comes from the characters within, the set up for the game is that Mongol's have invaded and killed pretty much every warrior and friend you've ever known and the few that or left are scattered about Tsushima for you to collect and get back into the fight. This being the case, every character is super serious and grim which makes sense and is perfectly understandable, but it hurts the fun factor for me. I grow so tired of the melodrama of how sad and angry everyone is that I have a hard time rooting for anyone.
"My brother is missing."
"Bandits killing my whole family"
"I trained a monster and I'm sad about it."
"Stop stabbing people in the back"
The misery of the characters is highlighted even more when you do encounter one character with some brevity, namely the sleazy Sake saleman who is hilarious because he keeps convincing Jin to hide in random shit to sneak into Mongol camps. He is clearly trying to help Jin but all his ideas are gross and it adds a nice touch of lightness to the game which I think could have been used more. Especially with minor characters, the small quests you can take on should have had more "fun" to them to help balance the grimness of the rest of the game.
That being sad the combat is really pretty fun here. You have four stances that act like a Rock, Paper, Scissors system to the different enemy types and you can swap between them pretty quickly and on the fly which is good. However these stances also feel a bit broken as you will destroy anyone you fight so long as you are in the right stance. But what really stands out as a weakness to the combat is that if you are in the wrong stance you are basically useless to the enemy as somehow your sword no longer cuts or breaks armor because you are holding it wrong I guess. What you have left is a very easy, but enjoyable enough combat system that really makes clearing out camps and fighting enemies the stand out of the game.
I mentioned above how every duel comes with an annoyingly long and unskippable cut scene, and there is one other place in which that takes place. The Standoff system. When you approach a camp or group of enemies you can talk shit about there Mom's and challenge a few of them to a quick time event. Every time you do this, you have to deal with a cutscene as the game sets up enemies and I guess triggers the special animations that this event requires. These cut scenes are much shorter than the dueling ones, but they add up and leave me ignoring the stand off system more often than not because I can charge in and kill them all in less time that doing the quick time event, and then STILL having to fight whoever I didn't duel. It's just an added step. I would have like the stand-off system to give you some sort of benefit like scaring away enemies that watch you slice up a homie or something. Stun them for a few seconds to give you an advantage on letting go of a button fast enough.
Like all open world game you also have the random mini things on the map you can do. Ghosts has hot springs, in which you take a bath and gain a little increase to max hp. Fox Shrines in which you follow a fox for a little bit to pray at a little shrine to unlock gear accessory slots. Bamboo slice things, where you press a rapid order of buttons to cut through bamboo to increase your resolve resource. Shrines which are just Ubisoft towers that don't grant you map visibility and i forgot what they do give you because it must not be that important. And slam poetry spots which you point the camera at a thing and spit out a few lyrics, I don't remember what these give you either. Oh and there are also monuments that also give you nothing I can remember.
And that's kind of the problem isn't it. There is plenty to do in Ghosts but none of it feels worth while. I do like the rush of dopamine I get when I see the map marker clear or a red village turn gray because I've killed all the baddies there, but for all the charms and bandana's I've gotten, none of them have felt like they matter or offer incentive to hunt for other more powerful versions. Maybe it's because the combat is too easy and therefore powering myself up feels meaningless.
The power scaling for leveling also feels strange. I've not yet saved my uncle and have cleared almost everything in the first map and I have unlocked almost everything I can in the skill tree. Every stance is maxed out, I've maxed my deflection tree, the only things I need are some more points into the ghost weapons that I never use anyway. Things like bombs, kunai, and distracting bells, your character has so much shit at his disposal that too much of them go to waste because you simply don't need them. Your stances gain so much power that all the little side shit you can do in combat is a waste because you'll never need nor even think about using them.
All that being said, I do fine myself enjoying the game more this time around. It's become my mindless game, where I can fart around the open world and clear up some random tasks, do a couple of missions and move on. The world is pretty, the combat is fun if too easy, and the story is passable if you like the overly serious drama of it all which I will admit has it's place.
Oh there is one last thing. The way the game uses the wind to show you where your map marker is....it is a brilliant idea on paper but in practice I hate it. I have to constantly swipe my touch pad to keep the wind blowing to make sure I'm still going the right way. I get that they didn't want to clutter the screen with and UI elements and the HUD in game is practically nonexistent as it is, but if that was the idea then how come once I'm within 50 yards of the thing I tracked does a marker then appear in the world? You're fine with marking it once I'm there already? I don't understand. Just give me a map marker that's why I placed one on the fucking map in the first place. Or if you are going to use the wind, then keep the wind blowing with the noticeable streams until I reach my destination because every time it dies down, I'm swiping to get it to blow again just leave it blowing goddamn it.
What I can say is that Ghosts really tries to stick to the style of it's inspiration. Personally I think it sticks to it a little too hard and it can get a little annoying at times. The slow cinematic that plays before every major duel, designed to build tension of course but this is just a random dumbass that's literally going to quit and second I raise my sword so maybe you don't need the long dramatic setup this one time. But credit to the game for having a clear vision and sticking to it regardless of how it might dig at the player.
The second time around I feel like I'm actually liking the game less when I'm trying to pay attention to the story and liking it more when I'm just hunting map markers and killing Mongols. And I think this comes from the characters within, the set up for the game is that Mongol's have invaded and killed pretty much every warrior and friend you've ever known and the few that or left are scattered about Tsushima for you to collect and get back into the fight. This being the case, every character is super serious and grim which makes sense and is perfectly understandable, but it hurts the fun factor for me. I grow so tired of the melodrama of how sad and angry everyone is that I have a hard time rooting for anyone.
"My brother is missing."
"Bandits killing my whole family"
"I trained a monster and I'm sad about it."
"Stop stabbing people in the back"
The misery of the characters is highlighted even more when you do encounter one character with some brevity, namely the sleazy Sake saleman who is hilarious because he keeps convincing Jin to hide in random shit to sneak into Mongol camps. He is clearly trying to help Jin but all his ideas are gross and it adds a nice touch of lightness to the game which I think could have been used more. Especially with minor characters, the small quests you can take on should have had more "fun" to them to help balance the grimness of the rest of the game.
That being sad the combat is really pretty fun here. You have four stances that act like a Rock, Paper, Scissors system to the different enemy types and you can swap between them pretty quickly and on the fly which is good. However these stances also feel a bit broken as you will destroy anyone you fight so long as you are in the right stance. But what really stands out as a weakness to the combat is that if you are in the wrong stance you are basically useless to the enemy as somehow your sword no longer cuts or breaks armor because you are holding it wrong I guess. What you have left is a very easy, but enjoyable enough combat system that really makes clearing out camps and fighting enemies the stand out of the game.
I mentioned above how every duel comes with an annoyingly long and unskippable cut scene, and there is one other place in which that takes place. The Standoff system. When you approach a camp or group of enemies you can talk shit about there Mom's and challenge a few of them to a quick time event. Every time you do this, you have to deal with a cutscene as the game sets up enemies and I guess triggers the special animations that this event requires. These cut scenes are much shorter than the dueling ones, but they add up and leave me ignoring the stand off system more often than not because I can charge in and kill them all in less time that doing the quick time event, and then STILL having to fight whoever I didn't duel. It's just an added step. I would have like the stand-off system to give you some sort of benefit like scaring away enemies that watch you slice up a homie or something. Stun them for a few seconds to give you an advantage on letting go of a button fast enough.
Like all open world game you also have the random mini things on the map you can do. Ghosts has hot springs, in which you take a bath and gain a little increase to max hp. Fox Shrines in which you follow a fox for a little bit to pray at a little shrine to unlock gear accessory slots. Bamboo slice things, where you press a rapid order of buttons to cut through bamboo to increase your resolve resource. Shrines which are just Ubisoft towers that don't grant you map visibility and i forgot what they do give you because it must not be that important. And slam poetry spots which you point the camera at a thing and spit out a few lyrics, I don't remember what these give you either. Oh and there are also monuments that also give you nothing I can remember.
And that's kind of the problem isn't it. There is plenty to do in Ghosts but none of it feels worth while. I do like the rush of dopamine I get when I see the map marker clear or a red village turn gray because I've killed all the baddies there, but for all the charms and bandana's I've gotten, none of them have felt like they matter or offer incentive to hunt for other more powerful versions. Maybe it's because the combat is too easy and therefore powering myself up feels meaningless.
The power scaling for leveling also feels strange. I've not yet saved my uncle and have cleared almost everything in the first map and I have unlocked almost everything I can in the skill tree. Every stance is maxed out, I've maxed my deflection tree, the only things I need are some more points into the ghost weapons that I never use anyway. Things like bombs, kunai, and distracting bells, your character has so much shit at his disposal that too much of them go to waste because you simply don't need them. Your stances gain so much power that all the little side shit you can do in combat is a waste because you'll never need nor even think about using them.
All that being said, I do fine myself enjoying the game more this time around. It's become my mindless game, where I can fart around the open world and clear up some random tasks, do a couple of missions and move on. The world is pretty, the combat is fun if too easy, and the story is passable if you like the overly serious drama of it all which I will admit has it's place.
Oh there is one last thing. The way the game uses the wind to show you where your map marker is....it is a brilliant idea on paper but in practice I hate it. I have to constantly swipe my touch pad to keep the wind blowing to make sure I'm still going the right way. I get that they didn't want to clutter the screen with and UI elements and the HUD in game is practically nonexistent as it is, but if that was the idea then how come once I'm within 50 yards of the thing I tracked does a marker then appear in the world? You're fine with marking it once I'm there already? I don't understand. Just give me a map marker that's why I placed one on the fucking map in the first place. Or if you are going to use the wind, then keep the wind blowing with the noticeable streams until I reach my destination because every time it dies down, I'm swiping to get it to blow again just leave it blowing goddamn it.
