Ghost of Tsushima is an action-adventure samurai game made by Sucker Punch that takes place in Japan in 1274 where an island called Tsushima is invaded by Mongols. This game is a Playstation exclusive meaning it’s only available on ps4/ps5. I would give this game a 5 out of 5.
Game Play:
The story follows the main character, Jin Sakai, who tries to stop the invasion of Tsushima, free his uncle from being captured, and kill the leader Khotun Khan. This game delves into the honor that Jin and his uncle follow as throughout the game Jin starts to become less honorable. The code of honor they would follow is that they face the enemy head on and look them in the eyes when killing them but later throughout the game we start seeing Jin use things like poison on the enemies and stealth killing them like thieves would. Earlier in the game we see Jin ignore the “ghost” descriptor and not actually be the ghost and treat it as just a name.
We see how Jin’s uncle tries to stop him from going down that path and to be honorable. But Jin realizes that being honorable won’t save Tsushima, so he decides to fully embrace the ignoble status of “ghost”. The ghost is a nickname given to Jin by the people of Tsushima as he is considered a legend. At the start of the game where the Mongols first invaded Tsushima Jin, his uncle and other samurai try to stop it on a place called Komoda beach where the samurai were defeated and the people of Tsushima thought they all died from the battle. When people see Jin again they say he came back from the dead to kill the Mongols especially with his new way of fighting where people say they’ve never seen a samurai fight like he did. This ghost legend starts to make the people of Tsushima defend themselves instead of hiding and praising the ghost.
The gameplay of Ghost of Tsushima allows you to play with different builds as armor gives you different buffs (status bonuses) and alongside charms that give you even more buffs. These builds help you experiment with how you play the game and how you take on different fights during the game. Another mechanic is resolve which you can use to heal yourself, use special skills, and when a certain ability is unlocked you can revive yourself when you get killed the max resolve you can get is 10.
There are four different stances you unlock throughout the game consisting of the water stance, stone stance, wind stance, and the moon stance. The water stance is good against sword enemies, the stone stance is good against shield enemies, wind stance is good against spear enemies, and the moon stance is good against big enemies. These stances help you break the enemies shield easier, which is indicated as a white bar above the enemies health bar and once broken leaves the enemy vulnerable.
Players also have other ways of approaching combat like using poison or hallucination darts or by using the short bow or the longbow. When taking out enemy bases around the map you can always approach stealthy by using silent assassinations and when getting a certain upgrade called the chain assassin you can do up to three assassinations if the enemies are nearby each other. The upgrade had three different categories including samurai, stances, and ghosts. These upgrades allow you to do extra moves like being able to do more moves with the stances and upgrades that help you find stuff better on the map.
The island of Tsushima consists of 3 different regions with each religion being unlocked as you progress through the story. Instead of a map on your screen the game uses the guiding wind mechanic. When you mark something on the map instead of there being a marker on your screen the guiding wind guides you to that location. With features like this there’s no HUD on UR screen until in combat allowing you to feel more immersed in the game.
The main way of travel is by horse which you get near the start of the game. Your horse can be called at anytime. The map consists of different activities you can do that give you stuff in return like side missions, and mythic side missions which give you new armor or new skills. Things like bamboo strikes increase your resolve and hot springs increase your health while other things like haikus only give headbands. Things like fox dens give you a charm and then doing other ones upgrade that charm and shrines that also give you charms. All these things are usually marked as a question mark on the map until you go to it and these question marks show up on your map once you go near that area since the map is initially covered by fog. You can defog the map by liberating the three regions and you can do this by clearing out all enemy bases. These enemy bases are usually marked as question marks too but once you progress through the story some of them show up or when you’re on a road you might see enemies with a captured stranger and when you save them the stranger will tell you the location of one base.
Review:
I gave this game a 5 out of 5 because of it’s immersive game play that allows you to play with any play style you want and being able to go to each counter with a different approach allowing you to be truly immersed with the game play. The open world is also one of the best open worlds with beautiful and immersive views that really grasp the feeling of being in Japan. The story is also amazing with Jin having to deal with a inner and outer conflict with having to not only deal with the conflict of going against the code of honor but also the conflict he has with is uncle after he keeps going against it.
