Gaming Ghost of Tsushima

Oh, the spoiler tags are definitely needed, the content is that good.

Your brother wolfed it down.

 

Got the Platinum trophy yesterday.

GOTY 2020.

 

Did the final pieces before the finale of Act 2 today. It..... Didn't go well.

Spoiler

First, the Yarikawa quest starts off with a god awful stealth bit. Successful stealth games work on a basis of clearly indicated endpoint, hiding spots, indications of enemy positions and consistency over what they can and cannot do. Ghost does none of this, which makes its stealth frequently awful, even with that assist switched on.

The next bits got better, then the game just did some bizarre crap like instructing me to shoot an explosive, so I shoot it with a fire arrow. Nothing happens. Oh, it went on fire, but it did not explode! Now, if the idea is I should have used the explosive arrow instead of fire arrow, my retort is: It's an explosive barrel, who gives a ****? Fire + Bomb = Boom, it's an easy equation. But not here. So went with the more reliable solution - slice everyone up.

Spoiler

The other flaw here was the usual one: Oh, it'll be an epic fight with loads of people on your side - yeah, that's the theory. The reality? Total ****ing chaos, coupled with poor to zero enemy location indicators.

Oh and you know what all Jin's enemies should do? Fight on different tiers of ground, Jin's useless if they do that.

Also, across the entire session, camera sabotage hit new lows. Entire walls, houses, trees - whenever it could it completely obscured my vision in combat and that wasn't the only thing but more on that shortly.

Spoiler

The problem with the final Yarikawa quests is the game just couldn't help stopping itself dead in its tracks whenever it got some momentum. It would do a fight and, just as you were in the rhythm of it, cut scene halted it. Or you do a duel then it follows that up with an awfully timed Ghost Stance (aka Rage) tutorial. One that, given the nature of it and how they have set it up, is utterly useless to me. It works only so long as you don't get hit - yeah, that is really going to work well for me. It would have been far better to just behead the guy and then go after all his men, killing every single one of them, which the game starts, as part of that tutorial, but it stops it after you've killed an arbitrary number. I would have preferred going after and killing every single damn one of that army, that would have boosted the Ghost legend.

What I'm also finding is that, in subsequent fights, the Ghost Stance icon overlays and blocks my view of the stance indicator and I really need that indicator. Especially as it remains less than 100% reliable on switching.

And then there was the Reckoning in Blood quest.

Spoiler

Dumb, predictable, artificial - these story beats did not work at all and what should have been two sequences of epic, righteous slaughter was wrecked by an erratic camera and the Ghost Stance ****ing up the display.

I enjoyed pieces of these missions, some short sections, but just about every time it started getting good, it halted dead in its tracks.

I can't say I'm optimistic about the finale because the main plot sections of any AAA game tend to always be the weakest.

 

Those DLCs will take you longer than a weekend.

 

Yeaaah that's like 20 hours of DLC.

 

What’s the update about? Don’t want to look up in case of random spoilers.

 

Probably my favorite part of the game.

 

On act 2 and while this isn’t a story spoiler I ll go ahead and tag it as I didn’t run across any of these randomly outside of mythic quest. I loved it. A bird lead me to

Spoiler

a duel spot someone was waiting for me in! That was awesome!

 

Oh my word...that Field of the Equinox Flowers..

Gorgeous.

Man I wish I had a Pro for this with this 4K 65 in tv.

 

To be honest, it looks spectacular on this 43" with standard PS4.... Can you imagine how it might be with a PS5 boost?

 

Same, I've been playing pretty often recently and I'm still in Act 1. Got the whole map explored (the first third anyway) and am just hunting down some side quests and a legendary mission before I move forward.

I did get

Spoiler: mild gear spoilers

the grappling hook though and that thing is pretty fun to swing on. Oh and the long bow, wish I had gotten that sooner.

 

So, Ghost of Tsuschima, Act 2 finale....

The Fate of Tsuschima

Spoiler

This is your standard, chaotic, intended-to-be-epic, big battle. One of the things it demonstrates is why games like Assassin's Creed have clear enemy indicators - so you know who is on your side and who isn't. As often enemies blur into the background or look similar enough to your character. This entire level shows up the benefit of this by the absence of it. Also, this is a game where a clear enough view of your enemies in order to assess them, so as to what stance you use, is pretty important. There was a bit where you get to fire a Hawcha, except it seems far less powerful than before, far smaller area of effect and it ends up a case of you firing at grey blobs. Lots of people will love this level, I didn't.

From the Darkness

Spoiler

Clearly, after an intended-to-be-epic set piece, Sucker Punch decided that what the game needed was a super-stealth level. Even with the assist turned on, it was awful. The problem is the game hasn't set any rules for its stealth, so there's no clear indicator of what enemies can or can't do, in terms of hearing or line of sight and few to zero cover spots. The duel with Ryuzo was, OK, bar the blatant video game power-up applied because he's now Act 2 Boss instead of Act I boss. Overall, very awful. The plot revelations, though the game tried its hardest, didn't really work for me. Turns out Samurai only really care about the lives of other Samurai, everyone else? Be grateful to die for the cause of their betters.

Honour and Ash

Spoiler

This is the seemingly obligatory, but ought to be consigned to the dustbin of gaming history, 'you need to regain your gear' mission, combined with super stealth. Yep, you called it - it's ****. After regaining your gear, it gets better as you take a fishing village back from the Mongols then a temple. The game did be underhanded by adding in hostages without warning - so you end up with the irritating 'protect the hostage' bits. The plot revelation that the Mongols are using the same poison as Jin is odd, as there were no survivors from that battle so how did they know?

Wolves at the Gate

Spoiler

This was the best quest of the lot by far. It allows you to see more of the new area and there are sections that are stunning. There was a farce with a climb section where, instead of just going up the cliff, you run to the building to grapple to the cliff. This was on par with the grapple points at the start of From the Darkness, could not spot them at all. Where it went off is with the Hawcha again being far too weakened to be of practical use, just slash everyone up, it'll be quicker. Even so, while this was another big battle quest, it felt less irritatingly chaotic than the first one.

With this set done Jin regained access to the earlier areas, not that there's anything left to do in them, but it is still better to have than not. I also love the title for Act III - Kill the Khan. That's not a spoiler, it's what the game has been about from the start.

So now? Now I get to do the best bit - exploration, sidequests, shrines, haikus.

 

I just finished the Komatsu forge mission, so I have the last one to get that piece of equipment next. I am 19 hours in according to my time tracker.

The thing is, I still haven't defogged the whole first third. I have done all the side missions I have found, but worry there are other side missions in those areas I just haven't found yet. I may look up a guide to find them. Because I definitely love the little stories and don't want to miss them.

 

If it isn't a sidequest it'll be shrine, pool, bamboo, fox den - exploration is always worth it in this game.

 

Finished Act 1! Have some new things to upgrade now but I'm just gonna keep grinding through the new area of the map.

 

You'll be at it for ages, the area's huge and the amount of stuff that you end up with to do.....

 

I can't understand how on earth some reviewers said this game took 20 hours. I have almost played that much in act one.

 

There's an easy, non-spoiler answer - they just did the main quest only. Probably used fast travel as much as possible too. I can easily buy that some people will speed-run this. Don't see the benefit but it'll be done.

I estimate my play time will be in the region of 40-45 hours, though I only started using Timetracker - which is great by the way - about 2-3 days in, but had played a lot in those days before I started using it.

 

Are you a highly aggressive, always favouring the offensive warrior? Preferred MO being the classic stagger-and-kill?

We have the armour for you - Gosaku.

Couldn't resist, needed something more for the Act 3 enemies - this was perfect!

 

OK, about that final Mythic Tale.... Spoilers? Spoilers are for honourable and worthy content deserving of the protection granted, this is dishonourable content undeserving of naught but scorn.

It is an abomination of outdated gaming concepts. Worst of all is it ****s with the checkpoints, even if I save at each fire, if anything goes wrong, it defaults to the bottom, which is ****ing awful.

The L3 button is not reliable enough for me to have Jin sprinting all the time and this is a time test. Visibility is awful and only gets worse as the time reduces, which in turn stops you dead, which then kills you more.

Plus, you're looking for white-grey specks on grey walls, in a ****ing blizzard.

The entire experience was highly depressing and the "quest" a disgrace of game design. Outmoded, obsolete, old design that should not be in the game at all. Everyone involved in it should hang their head in shame.

As it happens, I've barely used any of the heavenly techniques, save for the Explosive Arrows, but it would have been nice to complete this. As it is, it assembles all the worst elements of the game into a single, compact package and then makes them even worse.

 

Oh, more than likely. My expectation is most people will find the big set pieces more effective than I do and enjoy them more. Ditto stealth.

Though, on the latter, the assist is superb - probably wouldn't have accessed Act III without it.

 

Pushed up into Kubara region yesterday. Not far to keep my Fog of Art being to wonky but what I saw.. dayum son! It was stunning as I suspected it would be as I looked north more then a week ago and caught some of the fuzz shades. Then when I was there I looked north again and saw some snowy mountains way off in the distance. Phew I can’t wait to finally get there.

Im still in Act 2. I haven’t completed a single main quest. I’m doing my Tales and random side quests.