Sucker Punch has been known by many players for a whole lot of reasons. They are the talented team behind Infamous and the Sly Raccoon saga. By saying this, you probably won’t even be surprised if I said that Sucker Punch has created yet another awesome game that deserves a place in the hall of fame Playstation Exclusives. The developers can be proud of its development of Ghost Of Tsushima. It’s a great way to end the Playstation 4 cycle and set an example for future likewise games.
The setting of Ghost of Tsushima is fairly simple. You’ll play Jin Sakau which is a descendent from a well-known samurai clan. Jin Sakau lives on the Japanese island “Tsushima” which is a very valuable piece of land where the economy blossoms thanks to the trade section on the island. The island lays strategically in the ocean and could even be the perfect place to start an invasion towards Japan. That’s where the Mongols play a part and that’s where things go bad for Jin Sakua. Jin Sakua tries his best to withstand the invasion alongside fellow Samurai clans but everything seems lost when his uncle became a captive of the Mongols and Jin Sakua has been left on the battlefield to die… Thankfully a faithful resident of Tsushima rescues Jin hoping for some light at the end of this darkening tunnel. Here is where your story starts as an underdeveloped samurai clutching with his inner feelings.
“Bring honor to your clan, young samurai!”
In other words, it’s up to you to restore the land to its former glory by eliminating the Mongols’ grasp on Tsushima by attacking camps, taking over sieges, and creating chaos in the midst of the Mongols’ army. By doing all of these activities, helping the residents and uncovering the secrets of the most fearsome Tsushima’s warriors, … you’ll gain experience that’ll grow your legend throughout the country. Stir fear in the hearts of your opponents, create an army yourself, rescue your uncle, and bring honor to your clan, young samurai! This is Ghost of Tsushima in a nutshell.
Ghost of Tsushima seems like a cliché story but in a Samurai setting… however, there’s an interesting story twist that helps to heighten the story’s quality. The Samurai is all about honor, this means always hungry for a fair fight, stare your defeated opponent into the eyes, help where you can, only use fair tactics, … but Jin is conflicted throughout the story between being honorable and put himself into danger or be a little more ninja and heighten the success of your survival. Even though the story tries to push you into this line of Samurai fighting, you quickly notice that being stealthy also has some benefits that’ll help you with the progression of your story. However, there’s no real samurai/ ninja bar to keep track of your actions but Sucker Punch has told that the island’s weather conditions adapt to your fighting style. Tsushima will be more of a dark place when you wander a lot more along the ninja path, in other words the island becomes more suited for the Ghost of Tsushima.
“There isn’t a real progression of wrong or right, it’s all about your playstyle.”
Ghost of Tsushima offers you a lot to choose a playstyle that suits you perfectly. Yes, you can go all-out in the Samurai talent tree but there are also some interesting talents in the Ghost tree. Choose however you want to play, there aren’t any restrictions when it comes to your playstyle. You can switch on-the-fly between a more head-on kind of fighting or stealthier approach. You can also use the benefits of the Ghost tree during your head-on battles. There isn’t a real progression of wrong or right, it’s all about your playstyle.
The game also offers a coherent open world that’s filled with main quests, side quests, and extra techniques quest. All of these quests offer different things but all of them help to build the setting of the story, an island trapped by enemies. The open world is a great system to discover the game on your own pace but they could have done a bit more innovative quests except for the same old objectives like free this camp, observe the boss, kill an enemy on the other side of the island, gather some supplies, … Don’t get me wrong, the open world is decent enough to be enjoyable but I feel like they could have done better.
Also…go where the wind takes you, literally… Let me explain, the game doesn’t offer you an arrow that’ll help you out with the right direction however there’s an option that summons in-game wind that’ll give you the right sense of direction towards your objective. It’s not a mind-breaking feature but a very effective one, especially within this setting.
You might say that the game is a samurai skin of the latest Assassin’s Creed where an open world is filled with quest and it’s your choice on how to approach it… You can say that it looks like an Assassin’s Creed but it plays differently because of the emphasis on the Samurai fighting style. As a Ghost of Tsushima, you can plan out everything perfectly: distract an enemy, assassinate key targets, hide from enemies in tall grass, use hidden doors to get from point A to B, … there’s a lot of control. However, the moment you fight like a Samurai, your playstyle will change completely and you’ll have to keep your eyes on all of your surroundings. You are a powerful warrior but one mistake can be fatal. The Samurai fighting technique is all about timing, use it to throw an enemy off balance and strike quickly before another enemy tries his luck with you. Using your timing perfectly will give you an opportunity to almost instantly kill an enemy. If the parrying is difficult for you, change your fighting stance to attune to the enemy’s techniques and become a terrifying counter-attack warrior. You can even do a standoff to kills some enemies ahead and strike fear into the hearts of his companions. Fear will allow you to hit them even harder and push the battle to an early ending. During your battle or even ahead of the battle, there’s the option to use tools or a bow to strike your enemies down from afar. However you see fit, the game has an answer.
Graphically speaking the game looks okay and even amazing at some point. Sucker Punch really captivated the style of the Samurai’s homeworld and made it their own. Thanks to a coherent open world the game plays fluently and helps with the immersion. But at some points the game falters by weird lip-syncing and outdated characters, this blasts you right out of the immersion. Some of the environments look great and at some point, all of the game’s elements click into this wonderful scenery that is very keen on the eyes. At that point, I forget about its faults and think to myself: this game is a great way to end the PS4 legend and I’m excited to see what Sucker Punch has in store for us in the near future. It amazes me that this console hardware can still surprise us in a way we wouldn’t expect.
Conclusion:
Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t bring a lot of new things to the table except for a great style of presentation and switch-on-the-fly combat system. The open-world is old and lacks some innovation all around but it’s all of the things that Ghost of Tsushima does splendid and the moment all of these great developed features intertwine with each other, you’re looking at a great game to end the PS4’s saga. The game will offer a lot of hours of enjoyment and Sucker Punch has already released some new information about a co-op multiplayer DLC that’ll be free for all Ghost of Tsushima owners. If you ask me, this is a great way to enjoy the last hours of the PS4.
