Game Review: Ghost of Tsushima

For Christmas I was gifted a PS5 thank to several members of my family and my Personal Trainer, Ben. (Hi Ben! Thank you!!)

Encase it isn't obvious to anyone, I love gaming. I've never considered myself particularly good at it, but it brings me a great deal of joy and satisfaction. I consider games to be another way of telling and receiving stories in our ever changing human experience.

I have wanted a PS5 for a VERY long time, pretty sure I've spoken about it since I met Ben about five years ago. So, as you can imagine, when I received one for Christmas, I was rather emotional.

One of the games I've wanted to play is Ghost of Tsushima - and yes - yes - before you all come at me - I am aware, it is a PS4 game. Not important. What's important is that it's one of the games Ben let me borrow, because I think I mentioned it several times during training. So I was super excited to find it in his pile. I remember when it first released, and how desperately I wanted to buy it, and how depressed I was that I couldn't afford it. I saw all the stuff online, and I had to just block it out.

So, yes, I am late to this game. Ghost of Tsushima came out in 2020! Thus, this is my review of an almost six year old game. A game I have wanted to play for six years, and finally have had the chance to experience.

First, I want to say - this game is breathtakingly BEAUTIFUL.

As an artist - I could just spend my time running around taking screenshots/photos of the main character, Jin Sakai. Every image in this blog is one of mine from my gameplay. I love it when games allow for the creativity of screen-capture mode.

So, you - as the player - are actively playing as Jin Sakai, the nephew of Lord Shimura. You are thrown into the story during a battle at the time of the Mongol invasion of the island of Tsushima, lead by Khotan Khan. The scene is set - Lord Shimura is taken captive, and Jin must save his uncle and, ultimately, the island.

To save his uncle, and his island, Jin Sakai gathers allies, learns abilities, and eventually becomes known as 'The Ghost' - sort of...hm...forsaking the samurai path of honor, it's kind of complicated and an emotional journey.

I really like how the developers strongly leaned into the concept of stories and tales. Jin Sakai moves through his world, interacting with people and his allies as though we - the player - are experiencing the retelling of his legend. I find this marvelous.

My favorite of the 'side tales' we are taken on is that of Masako Adachi, the female Samurai, who's entire family is slaughtered by the Mongols. I find her story full of such aching sorrow, and honestly, I could have played an entire game with her as the main protagonist. Like, send me on a quest for vengeance as the grandmother of an entire slaughtered clan - please - yes - that's an amazing story!

Some of the other features I loved where the finding of Haiku spots - in which you can choose from different selections to form a poem, and you'd be given a cool head-band for the completion. It's just something fun to do I suppose, but I really enjoyed it as an added atmospheric addition to the whole vibe.

Among thing to do was to hunt down the Fox Shrines. Though, you'll usually just come across these while exploring. I ran around everywhere, tried to explore all edges of the map - so I bumped into all the Fox Shrines. The Fox shrines would eventually unlock a new protection charm. Also, you can pat the foxes!! squeee

I highly enjoyed the other activity of finding the shrines and figuring out how to climb up to them to pray at them. As the game progresses, this task become increasingly more interesting as you gain a few more abilities. I will admit, I probably enjoyed finding and climbing up to the Shrine's the most...

Okay - so - now we come to the combat/gaming mechanics.

I LOVED the concept of the Guiding Wind. This was fantastic. Basically, the wind guides you around to where you need to go and it's such a brilliant and cool visual idea, and ohhhh, it makes me wish we had immersive dive-gaming.

I went into this game on the medium difficulty level. This might have been a mistake. I maybe should have gone hard mode. I do not consider myself to be a 'good' gamer.

I struggle often with hand-eye coordination needed for quick joystick, button movements. It will take me many-many-many tries to defeat a boss. However, I have come to enjoy this challenge. It is in this frustration of failure, learn, fail, relearn and repeat that I find my satisfaction - just like the first time I defeated Bowser in Mario 64, which took me FOREVER.

So, when I say that I found this game painfully easy on medium - I feel...worried. It wasn't easy to begin, it was annoying. But learning new gaming mechanics is always annoying - then as I levelled Jin up, the game became mundane and a game this beautiful and with this wonderful of a story-line should not have combat that is mundane.

I feel like the issue is, I levelled up far to fast. It was by about the end of Act 1 that I'd just about levelled Jin up entirely, other than several of the legendary actions he can do - those do take going further in the story, and they are rather epic.

But even earning those...doesn't feel like enough to drive me forward.

I was so bored.

And that's when I felt it - no - no - no - no I shouldn't be BORED in this game!! This is a beautiful, masterfully crafted game, the story is stunning, the graphics are still fantastic, the combat system is pretty cool. But...

That was it, I guess...

It found it to repetitive, and as someone who is working on her fifth playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3 (review of that game coming soon), and who can spam a boss fight over and over for several hours until she wins said fight, I find it a problem if I'm feeling something...is...boring and mundane.

So I think this game peaked too soon.

That's my compliant.

For as big as it is, for as big as the sprawling map is, its a little to repetitive and Jin's awesomeness comes to early. I keep seeing online that this game is supposed to be 'challenging' - that's not the vibe I'm getting, but again, maybe I didn't play it in hardcore mode, and maybe that was my mistake. However, I could also be used to entirely different styles of grinding for experience and Tsushima simply has a different progression system.

I loved how much like a work of art this game was. I loved the character of Jin Sakai, and his slow decent into becoming The Ghost. I was always going to love a game set in Japan, a game about samurai, that was pretty much a given from the moment I saw the first trailer.

I am glad I finally had an opportunity to experience this game, to enjoy the atmosphere it evokes. It is truly gorgeous as a work of art and story-telling.

It just isn't a game I'll find myself replaying.

So, now - question - should I play Elden Ring, Ratchet&Clank: Rift Apart or Expedition 33 next while I wait for to play Resident Evil Requiem?