Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

[Furry_Monkey]

I'm seeing favourable reports above from people who have this game, and I'm happy to agree. It is lovely.  
 

I can't Parry at all - like literally i have zero idea how to do it, but i just opened a move where you can sidestep and then attack, and that is a killer move! I'll probably get the hang of parrying just after completing the game

But seriously, it looks beautiful, fighting is very well done and most certainly not for button bashers, and despite what i saw some reviews say, I'm totally sucked into the story.  Yes, it is very much like an Assassin's Creed game, but i am more than fine with that.  For me it's like Assassin's Creed used to be when i loved it, so it's like an old friend that I've missed, and they've returned looking hotter than ever!
 

I can see myself going for Platinum on this. 

[Detective Phelps]

1 hour ago, Furry_Monkey said:

Yes, it is very much like an Assassin's Creed game, but i am more than fine with that.  For me it's like Assassin's Creed used to be when i loved it, so it's like an old friend that I've missed, and they've returned looking hotter than ever!

I've heard many people saying that. While it's sad to see what AC's become, this game seems to fill that void for many players. Also glad to hear that the combat doesn't seem  like a button mashing contest (like yakuza lmao). I should pick this game up soon, I would have gotten this game earlier if I didn't have a backlog of titles from the steam sale...

[LittleJesus]

 

[Zello]

I'm just not a fan of some of the controls. R2 to get on a horse R3 to crouch.

[Mokrie Dela]

3 hours ago, Furry_Monkey said:

It is very much like an Assassin's Creed game, but i am more than fine with that.  For me it's like Assassin's Creed used to be when i loved it

There was a part od me hoping this would be the case  though i will be going into it under its own merit. I wonder if the devs had this in the back of their mind at all

1 hour ago, Zello said:

I'm just not a fan of some of the controls. R2 to get on a horse R3 to crouch.

That's a bit weird. Hoping to get my hands on it this week. Can you customise controls at all?

[LittleJesus]

Haven't even finished act 1, I'm too invested exploring the world.

[Electric_Spectral]

This game looks awesome, sadly though i don't own a Playstation

[Jason]

Took the plunge and have been playing it most of the day, I'd say the average score is about right on this one. Good fun, but has it's niggles.

 

Combat is good but early game it's easy to get overwhelmed if you go the samurai route, it's best to at least try and stealth kill a few enemies first in my experience. Lot of the good moves, parries, dodges etc require skill points so it can be a bit of a learning curve if you aren't familiar with combat of this type.

 

Quest design so far is nothing really interesting and I've noticed a few missions are padded out with "oh, one more thing..." type of things but he quests for the the legendary moves and armour are pretty damn cool. Some challenging fights in cool locations and I do like how some quest objectives are as simple as "look for the purple flowers", the game in general uses the games foliage and nature to push you towards quest objectives, which is cool.

 

The whole gust of wind thing I'm 50/50 on. On one hand I absolutely love the wind blowing in the direction of your way point, even without the wind gusts you'll see the leaves and whatnot blowing in that direction. Sometimes you haven't got a scooby doo though and have to swipe up on the touch pad... and even then it can take a few goes to figure out where you're going cause various stuff like being in an awkward spot or having to fight the camera to work out where it's blowing. The whole animals taking you to places is okay but not particularly interesting to be honest. I feel like it's actually kind of needed though due to how well hidden some stuff is, PoI's don't stick out like a sore thumb in the game which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does make it easy to miss stuff when exploring on your own accord.

[Zello]

 The camera during combat is bad.

[DEADWOODZ]

1 hour ago, Zello said:

 The camera during combat is bad.

It’s got me killed multiple times to be fair. 

[Corndawg93]

2 things annoy me, the camera in combat, Sucker Punch have always been masters of the dopy camera, and R2 to hop on my horse, I can't count how many times I've sliced my poor Sora horse when pressing Triangle

[Jason]

I've been okay with the camera during combat, it can be dopy but I've been playing the game like I'd play MHW, claw grip so I'm fighting + moving the camera at the same time so it's been fine for the most part during combat. One issue however is when aiming the bow stuff can get in your way.

 

I do think the FoV is a bit small though, vertically especially.

[LittleJesus]

The loading screens are no joke, they're super fast... they don't even let me read the hints lol

[DEADWOODZ]

I'm hooked at the moment between this and Death Stranding so i'm sorted. I gotta say, it feels like a breath of fresh air having a new open world game! I've heard people say the world is bland of sorts...but i honeslty think there's a lot to do and be immersed in + photomode takes half my time.

[Furry_Monkey]

2 hours ago, DEADWOODZ said:

I've heard people say the world is bland of sorts...but i honeslty think there's a lot to do and be immersed in

I can see why some people would say it's bland, because you can ride for quite a while without seeing anything, and I guess some people need more tangible substance, the same reason why many people never go out of the city in GTAO.

 

I'm with you though.  I think it's such a stunning looking game that I could ride for half an hour and not even realise how long it had been.  The flora & fauna, the lighting - it's easily one of the best looking games I've ever played.  That's more than enough substance for me. I get annoyed at the squads of Mongols interrupting my pleasant ride through the forest, so much so that they have to feel my blade

 

Oh, and I finally got the hang of parrying.  I won't go into spoiler detail, but there was a fight with a character that I don't think I could have won without it.  I do still bash the triangle button every now and then, but most of the time now the fighting is very controlled.  I shrugged at the idea of different stances at first, but now that I've got used to using them I think it's a really nice feature.  I find myself changing stance and throwable weapons very often in fights, and it just turns the whole thing into an almost choreographed fight scene from a Samurai film.  They really have nailed the vibe of the game.

[Jason]

The world isn't bland, it's... realistic? There's tons of stuff in it, the checklist open world stuff, places to liberate, side missions to find etc, but you have to find it as it's naturally placed and as a result, very easy to miss. I think this maybe why they went with the foxes and birds luring you to things cause f*ck, some of these shrines and stuff would be impossible to find otherwise. Visually it's probably the most picturesque game I've ever played, it really is stunning and it is up there with RDR2 as the best looking game I've ever played, it's genuinely stunning.

 

Speaking of the side missions, I've been really enjoying them to be honest. There's some meh ones but there's some great ones so far too, some good stories there, even the smaller one off ones where you're saving a few of your people. I also really kinda like how everyone knows Jin, it's a hero game where the hero isn't going around having to explain who he is, he is will respected by the people on the island. It's also cool they they've sorta done the switcheroo when it comes to the protagonist's knowledge, some guy I gave some banners to asked what I thought was a rhetorical question regarding some history but instead Jin just rattles off history like it's nothing. They've kinda flipped the tropes around in a few ways like that, it's kinda refreshing.

 

Also the combat and combat encounters really open up once you get some more Ghost weapons and unlock more skills. Stealth is, as it usually is in these games, quite OP although once you get the jist of fighting and some upgrades you can really tear through groups of enemies as a Samurai. I'm still having trouble when I aggro an entire camp, but I think that's to be expected. Smoke bomb out of there or pick a couple off with kunai and arrows to thin the crowd.

[Corndawg93]

Silly me could have gotten the grapple hook a lot earlier if I did Yuna's mission first

Edited July 22, 2020 by Corndawg93

[Jason]

The game really grows into its own once you get past the early act 1 missions and especially when you get into act 2. It starts pretty slow but once you start getting the various skills, abilities, equipment and upgrades it all starts coming together.

 

There's also a pretty noticeable difficulty spike when you enter the act 2 area, enemies get a lot quicker and have more dangerous combos which have been catching me out. Big fan of jump attacks though, love drop kicking people or jumping onto boxes and going for an aerial attack on enemies, the games combat feels really fleshed out in the same way Spider-Man and God of War's did, it encourages improvisation and allows you fight with flair, it's a lot of fun once you, as I said, start unlocking everything.

 

Oh and the music. F*ck it's so good.

[Zello]

How the game makes every mechanic relate to the story is so good. I was doing a side mission where I randomly decided to assassinate someone instead of playing like a normal samurai and I got a small cutscene of Jin and his uncle again a reminder telling him to never stab people in the back from that earlier mission.

Edited July 22, 2020 by Zello

[Corndawg93]

25 minutes ago, Zello said:

How the game makes every mechanic relate to the story is so good. I was doing a side mission where I randomly decided to assassinate someone instead of playing like a normal samurai and I got a small cutscene of Jin and his uncle again a reminder telling him to never stab people in the back from that earlier mission.

Same, I was wondering what that was about

[Mokrie Dela]

Seems to be his inner conflict between his traditions and the samurai honor and what is needed to be done. 

 

Enjoying it so far but damn the enemies are unforgiving! Took ten tries to clear an outpost earlier. Almost ragequited. 

[Corndawg93]

Finally in act 2 and holy difficulty spike batman

[Jason]

Yea the act 2 difficulty spike keeps you on your toes. It forces you to become better at the combat for sure, learning to dodge and in particular parry those attacks has helped me a lot in duels especially.

[Mokrie Dela]

17 minutes ago, Jason said:

 In particular parry those attacks has helped me a lot in duels especially.

*gulp*

I can NOT parry.

 

I'm afraid.

[Jason]

15 minutes ago, Mokrie Dela said:

*gulp*

I can NOT parry.

 

I'm afraid.

Dodge will be alright but learning to parry will make your life a lot easier in act 2. Try and parry earlier than you think you need to, I was always trying react to animations, parrying once they've started their attack but I got hit a lot doing that, since learning to parry earlier I've had a lot more success. There's also a major charm from a shrine on the first island that increases the window for parries, perfect parries and perfect dodges that I've been using on and off that helps.

 

Also, without spoiling, act 2 adds some new side content (in the vein of Fox Dens, Haiku's, etc) that are really cool and in some really cool locations. I love that they added those, I wasn't expecting them at all but they're very cool.

[Mokrie Dela]

My first ever screenshot of the game 

 

And my second:

Photo mode is so good. 

 

My first haiku (in the game, I've written them irl before)

Unknown Horizons,

Peer through the mist and we'll be,

Shattered but alive.

Kind of fits real life atm.

 

Edit: thanks Jason, I'll practice and seek out that charm. Where abouts should I begin my search? Very rough area

 

 

Edit 2: its frustrating how you cant hide bodies in this game, and it would have been nice to be able to customise Jin's hair (very pedantic nitpick)

I do hate the arrow drop of feature though. I hate when games make it unnecessarily difficult to do the simpler things and drop off is one of them. I should just aim at an enemy in range and wherever I aim is where the arrow goes. Kills the game when I have to guess how far and how much to aim over head for, or sit there drawing out a diagram and mathematical equations to figure out how to shoot 

[Jason]

39 minutes ago, Mokrie Dela said:

Edit: thanks Jason, I'll practice and seek out that charm. Where abouts should I begin my search? Very rough area

 

 

Edit 2: its frustrating how you cant hide bodies in this game, and it would have been nice to be able to customise Jin's hair (very pedantic nitpick)

I do hate the arrow drop of feature though. I hate when games make it unnecessarily difficult to do the simpler things and drop off is one of them. I should just aim at an enemy in range and wherever I aim is where the arrow goes. Kills the game when I have to guess how far and how much to aim over head for, or sit there drawing out a diagram and mathematical equations to figure out how to shoot 

I honestly cannot remember, it's on the bottom/1st island, some of the shrines around there are off the coast so maybe sure you get those ones. I also 100% agree w/ hiding bodies thing, it's annoying that someone on the other side of the camp can get alerted because there's a body you couldn't hide.

 

Nearly at the end of act 2 and man, this game delivers a power samurai power fantasy so well, without spoiling there's a main story mission chain in act 2 that is straight up 10/10. Such a cool moment.

[LittleJesus]

Just reached act 2 just when I thought this world couldn't get more prettier! 

I feel too op even on hard mode... I already unlocked all stances and the long bow.

[Corndawg93]

I'd love to post photos from the game but I don't know how to do so

[Jason]

Yea they really change the terrain up with every act which I wasn't expecting at all but it really breathed a new lease of life into exploration in act 2 for me. Haven't seen act 3's area yet but from what I can see of it from act 2's area it looks like that's going to be a brand new terrain as well, so I'm looking forward to getting there.