Ghost of Tsushima - Review

 Become what they fear. Become the Ghost. 

Console: PlayStation 4 game played on a PlayStation 5.

I've always had a casual interest in history; it was one of my better subjects in high school, and that interest started to peak again this year after picking up some history magazines. Luckily for me, thanks to a local discounter, I have four historically focused games sitting on my shelf to scratch this itch even further: three Assassin's Creed games and, as you've already gathered, Ghost of Tsushima.

Why did I choose Ghost of Tsushima over those Assassin's Creed games? Well, simply put: the upcoming PC release. I couldn't keep seeing ads and people sharing their experiences with the game without getting the urge to play it. Plus, that PC version makes this review at least somewhat relevant, something my reviews barely ever are, and that's nice. 

Experiencing that 'Ubisoft open-world formula' I've often heard people talk about has to wait a little while longer. Well, little did I know I would be experiencing that formula after all. While Ghost of Tsushima is a well-crafted first-party title with attention to detail and faithfulness to Japan, it is held back by its solid but rather underwhelming open-world gameplay.

Let's dive in.

In 1274, a Mongol Fleet led by the vicious Khotun Khan invades Tsushima Island. Led by the island's Jito, Lord Shimura, the island's brave Samurai warriors face the Mongols head-on at Komoda Beach. The battle turns into a slaughter. Only the now-captured Lord Shimura and his nephew Jin Sakai survive. After getting nursed back to health by the thief Yuna, Jin swears to free his island from the invaders.

To do so, Jin gathers allies, both old and new, honourable and duplicitous, to build a new army. Along his journey, his sense of honour and right and wrong are put to the test by war's brutality and atrocities. Will he stay true to the lessons his uncle taught him, or does the end justify the means?

Will Jin remain a Samurai or will he choose a different path?

Ghost of Tsushima aims to recreate 1270s Tsushima Island as authentically as possible while, of course, adjusting it to fit the developer's vision. This results in a strong setting. From the architecture to the general geography to some of the clans, it all fits what we understand was Tsushima in 1274. Elements such as Katanas and Haiku were anachronistically incorporated, however, as they are simply such a big part of old Japan in Western eyes.

The characters and events are also entirely fictional. For example, Clan Sakai was a real Japanese samurai clan, but Jin is entirely Sucker Punch's creation. The studio initially wanted to incorporate real historical figures but was advised against it by Sony Japan as their depictions could be perceived as insensitive by Japanese audiences.

Not only does the game try its best to be authentic to the time period, but it also incorporates many elements from those 50's Japanese samurai films, specifically those by Akira Kurosawa. We don't just have the black and white Kurosawa visual mode, we also have his trademark 1-on-1 duels. 

Then there is the narrative angle of the cost of the samurai code and the never-ending cycle of violence. A plot beat that is well conveyed here in both the writing and the world. You come across plenty of ruined villages, burned-down forests and whatnot. Nearly all quests have something to do with war. With its atrocities, like a 'Sophie's Choice' quest, but also with people coming together and having hope in the most desperate of times. Of rival clans coming together for the greater good. 

It's all of the above, plus the gradual evolution of Jin Sakai's character, that makes the story of this game worth investing in. Ghost of Tsushima takes things slow and steady. It gradually builds towards its moments. It takes time for character conflicts to build and reach a boiling point. For the initially stoic and stiff Jin to show his complexity and become a lot more interesting and relatable. As the cost of war erodes his belief in the Samurai Code. He even becomes a bit dislikable; Jin is way too eager to break the Geneva Conventions but that does make him a better-realized character.

The direction the story is going in is clear, yet, the journey is so well-told, and the characters so well-realized that this fact didn't matter to me. Yuna, Tomoe, Norio. All interesting characters with great side-quests. Add in a few wide-scale battles, such as the opening clash at Komoda Beach and you get one compelling narrative.

Gameplay-wise, Ghost of Tsushima is an open-world title. Tsushima Island is filled with activities for you to do at your own leisure. From saving towns, finding hidden areas, doing quests, finding new tools, and gathering resources for you to upgrade your skills and gear. You know, all the stuff you expect a modern open-world game made by Ubisoft (or so I hear) to boast. That is where the weakness of this title lies. That its game design is so standard to what is expected. From its ups, the freedom, to its flaws, such as repetitiveness.

However, while standard open-world design in a lot of ways, what I will commend Sucker Punch for is cutting the fat. Games such as Forspoken, while I like it dearly, litter the map with icons and activities to the point it's overwhelming and fills the game with grinding. Ghost of Tsushima doesn't.

While there might, say, be many fox shrines in Tsushima, you only need to find a handful of them to get all the charm slots. The rest you find go towards unlocking powerful, but clearly meant as a bonus, charms. Experience is plentiful enough, and the game's difficulty curve is so smooth that you don't really need to do any grinding to level up and unlock in the skill tree to keep up. 

Decisions like these mean that the game really doesn't pressure you to do everything to make the most out of its gameplay layers. They keep the side content as truly optional activities. Not as something that's "optional" but the game expects you to do anyway. The guiding wind feature is also a nice addition. It guides you to your goal without relying on a mini-map so you can keep your eyes on the world itself. 

Whatever you set out to do, combat and stealth are a big part of it. Choosing between pragmatic but dishonourable tactics or staying true to the Samurai code of conduct is an integral part of the narrative. These two ways to fight the Mongols and clear objectives are how they tie this into the gameplay.

Even in 1-on-1 fights, don't underestimate your Mongol foes. They pack a punch!

Fighting Mongols head to head with your Katana is a dance of dodging, blocking, and parrying until your foe hits the ground. What spices this tried-and-true approach up a bit is the five different stances. The Stone, Water, Wind, and Moon stances are each more effective in breaking certain enemy defences. The Water stance, for example, is most effective against shield enemies. While the primary function of each stance is breaking enemies, you can use each stance's unique attributes for more. I found the Wind stance to be a good way to both dodge and attack, just to name one such use.

Switching stances on the fly, knowing when to dodge or parry or use one of your many Ghost skills is the name of the game here. It might not be an intricate system, but slicing and dicing enemies is still fun and approachable in its simplicity while still challenging.

The Ghost stance, meanwhile, is special. When you kill 7 enemies in a row without getting hit, you can cut down 3 enemies with only one slash. Feeling overwhelmed, low on hits points and with sweat on my fingers, seeing my effort pay off and my Ghost meter full is one of the best feelings I had in fights. The switch to black, white, and red visual effects and seeing your enemies terrified of Jin, it's oh-so-satisfying. 

Enemies aren't quite damage sponges, Sucker Punch readjusted that after lots of playtesting, but they can take quite a few hits and are very aggressive, and they always come in groups. There's also always at least one archer somewhere just out of the screen. Watching. Waiting. For just the right moment. That moment when you only have to kill one more enemy to enter the Ghost stance to hit you out of nowhere ruins your streak. Every. Single. Time.

Anyway, they sure love strength in numbers, those pesky Mongols! While early on I quickly felt ganged up on, with some practice, I learned to handle large groups. And, whenever I did start to feel overwhelmed, I threw one of Jin's Ghost skills in the mix to give myself an opening.

Right, those Ghost skills. An honourable Samurai always faces his opponent head-on with his Katana. Over the course of his quest to save Tsushima, Jin adopts more practical methods than this to dispatch foes. Explosives, poisons, and those sorts of things. While using them can be a bit of a pain (pressing L1 + L2? Seriously?) mixing them with your normal moves can be very effective. The Kunai is my personal favourite: a good way to quickly stagger foes. It´s the trick I used to beat Khotun Khan in the end. Throw kunai to stagger him and get some good licks in before retreating back out of his range. Rinse and repeat. 

When talking about the Ghost skills, stealth is not far behind. Jin can sneak through long grass, prowl rooftops while stealthily killing opponents one by one, or simply sneak right past them. Rudimentary in that it´s as basic as a stealth system can get and not nearly as refined or precise in controls and movement, yes, but functional and enjoyable in small doses. One of my favourite quests involves killing three slave owners without being seen by a single soul and it was positively tense. 

I will say, though, that I wish there was some sort of morality system. That there are gameplay consequences for leaning more towards the Samurai or the Ghost aside from story reasons. Villagers running away from you scared if you do to much brutal Ghost stuff vs. coming across more dead NPC's if you stick more to the honourable Samurai route. Something for the Iki Island expansion or a sequel, perhaps?

Graphically, Ghost of Tsushima looks really good. Compared to the contemporary PS4 open-world game Horizon Zero Dawn, it has better lighting and less plasticky character models and such but the real game-changer is the landscaping. The beautifully realized Japanese geography combined with vibrant colours, such as the golden sunsets and the red tree forests, give this game the feel like it was made by a talented painter. One that specializes in serene landscapes and it's really nice, those sunsets over red-leafed forests especially. Because of this, even with the dark undertone of war, I found myself easily relaxing while playing. 

Just look at this beautiful frame of a sunset against a golden-leafed forest. 

More mixed is the game's music. It's solid but not very memorable. It's clearly recognizable as 'Japanese' and fits the game's moments, both big and small well, but I can't say I can recall any tracks. The only thing that made my ears perk up is a track that often plays while sneaking around at night, reminds me of The Witcher 3.

Performance-wise, this PS4 version still has some bugs and glitches crawling through its code. I encountered pop-in issues, models loading backwards, and other such stuff. The worse it got was getting soft-locked twice, one of which was falling off a drawbridge with nothing to climb back onto the boat. I encountered no framerate dips or crashes, but these minor, and sometimes amusing, annoyances show that the PS4 iteration has kinks that were never ironed out. Better stick with the PS5 version if stuff like that is a deal-breaker for you. It has fewer bugs, as far as I'm aware, and comes with some extra features like haptic feedback 

Conclusion 

Ghost of Tsushima is a spiritually faithful recreation of 13th-century Tsushima Island that, combined with nods to classic black-and-white samurai films, creates an immersive and surprisingly serene experience. The story isn't the most surprising, but Jin's gradual evolution from an honourable Samurai to a legend to his people is what got me invested. Gameplay-wise, Ghost of Tsushima delivers an enjoyable open-world experience with solid combat and stealth, albeit with some very predictable, Ubisoft-like, game design. It might streamline a lot of open-world conventions, but it does sparingly little to innovate that formula.

All in all, Ghost of Tsushima is worth looking out for if you're in the mood for a well-made Samurai title. It's not what I call a 'must-play', it failed to grip me or be that revolutionary, but you cannot say that it isn't a very well-crafted and fun game. I wouldn't have poured 40+ hours of gaming into it if I weren't enjoying myself.