Ghost of Tsushima – one warrior in the field

May 18, 2022
Ghost of Tsushima – one warrior in the field

Ghost of Tsushima takes place in the Tsushima archipelago – a group of islands located between modern South Korea and Japan.

In 1274, the Mongols launched an invasion of Japan and Tsushima took the first blow. All the samurai of the island died during the defense, and Lord Shimura, the leader of one of the clans, was captured by Khan Khotun.

The main character of the game is Jin Sakai – the nephew of the captive lord. It is for him that you will play and gather forces and allies to defeat the Mongol invaders. It should be noted right away that with the exception of the setting – medieval Japan during the Mongol invasion – the game does not reflect real historical events and characters. According to the developers, this would be reckless.

Who designed the game

The in-house Sony studio called Sucker Punch Productions is responsible for the game. She is best known for the Infamous series of games about people with superpowers.

Despite a long history in game development, Ghost of Tsushima was a step into the unknown for the studio, as they have only dealt with the world of Infamous for the past decade.

Gameplay of Ghost of Tsushima

You play as Jin from a third-person perspective in a completely open world: that is, you can get to any point on the map at any time, but we still recommend that you move through the story. The fact is that the open world in Ghost of Tsushima is more of a huge location filled with various points of interest than a living system. In simple words, nothing happens there by itself, and exploring such a world outside of story missions is not very interesting.

Ghost of Tsushima – one warrior in the field

But here it is worth actually praising the developers. Fortunately, the studio does not suffer from megalomania and soberly assesses its abilities. The Tsushima Islands did not turn into giant voids. Traveling between highlights and quest points is not very long, which means it’s not boring, and along the way you can make beautiful screenshots.

In addition, touching small creative solutions that make the gameplay more immersive, immerse deeper into the atmosphere. For example, instead of a mini-map and a compass, you will have to navigate by the wind or the singing of golden birds. And instead of numerous question marks scattered around the map, you will have to learn about interesting places from local residents.

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According to the plot, Jin was brought up according to Bushido all his life, but the Mongol invasion and the death of many samurai of the island makes the hero deviate further and further from the samurai code of honor, turning into the Ghost of Tsushima – an avenger-killer, not compressed by ethics and morality. This is reflected both in the plot and in the gameplay – you will receive the abilities of the Ghost gradually, as your character develops as a person. Therefore, you will have to fight openly a lot throughout the game.

And this can become a problem if your gaming experience is not very great. The combat system in Ghost of Tsushima is similar to that of the latest Assassin’s Creed games, but unlike them, it is not forgiving. One hit can take off half of your health, and the second one can finish off your character completely. Subsequently, combat becomes somewhat easier thanks to unlocked abilities. In addition, sometimes it can be avoided altogether, but inexperienced players are encouraged to initially switch the difficulty to easy.

Atmosphere

Although the developers emphasized that the game does not reproduce real historical events, an unprecedented amount of attention was paid to the transfer of the atmosphere instead. For example, during development, the studio sent its sound team to Japan to record purely Japanese sounds – even the sounds of birds were specially recorded.

Ghost of Tsushima

The visual solution of the game is also striking. Although Ghost of Tsushima’s graphics technically look a bit dated (given close-ups), it more than makes up for the art direction chosen by the art director. Social media is flooded with extraordinary screenshots taken with the in-game photo mode.

Akira Kurosawa

To pay tribute to the work of the iconic Japanese director, Sucker Punch Productions created a special visual mode called Akira Kurosawa Mode, in which you can play the game in its entirety.

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This mode turns the picture into black and white and also changes the sound from stereo to mono. If we also turn on the Japanese voice acting (which we recommend doing anyway), it really seems that we got the opportunity to take part in the filming of the great director’s new film.

Ghost of Tsushima reviews from critics

The game received positive reviews from most critics. On the review aggregator Metacritic, the game has a rating of 83/100 based on 103 reviews, and the site’s users rated the project at 9.3/10.

However, this extreme action-adventure game in the open world solves several problems that have been neglected in the genre for a long time while remaining a typical samurai “hack”. Studio Sucker Punch has managed to recreate the atmosphere of a samurai day and make sure you never want to hide your katana.

Ghost of Tsushima

Separately, it is worth noting that the game caused discussions about its authenticity. In particular, the question is raised about the ethics of the very fact that a game about Japan was created by developers from the United States.

At the same time, in Japan itself, the game received extremely positive reviews, even from those publications that usually criticize the Western approach to their culture and traditions. The Japanese liked the game so much that it broke the all-time first-week sales record, and PlayStation even warned of potential delays in shipping physical copies of the game due to extreme demand.

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Who will like Ghost of Tsushima

  • Japanese culture lovers;
  • Those who have been waiting for Assassin’s Creed in an Asian setting for a long time, and still can’t wait;
  • Visual people who appreciate good art direction.

Who wouldn’t like it

  • For those who are tired of playing in an empty open world.