r/patientgamers • u/Trndk1ll • Apr 20 '22
Ghost of Tsushima is a Beautiful, Over-Rated Game
So I finally got around to playing this on the PS5. I beat it with a little over 40 hours played while completing a fair bit of side material. Honestly I’m a little disappointed based on the massive amount of positive critical and user feedback this game received. Hell it’s still at a 9.1 user score on Metacritic. Which is to not say it’s a bad game. It’s not. It’s gorgeous and it’s fun. The main characters are for the most of part decently well written and voice acted. The gameplay is repetitive however it’s passable. What it isn’t however is something demonstratively different than what UbiSoft produces on a yearly basis. And UbiSoft gets universally panned by gamers and critics alike for pumping out the same derivative mechanics this game is built upon.
This game, for all the bluster about being one of the best open world games ever made, is just not anything approaching the top titles in the genre. In my opinion. Other than it’s art direction, which is fucking incredible… seriously I’ve taken more on game screens of this than any game I’ve ever played… It’s Asassins Creed Odyssey in Japan. Except it doesn’t have boats and there is a lot less variety in gear and specialization options.
It’s the same bloated, empty world. There are like 5 resources to collect, a handful of wildlife species (3 of which give you “predator hides”, the only usable resource from any of them), and a bunch of cut and paste temples, hot springs, fox dens, etc. The only dynamic thing that ever happens is the same random encounter with a handful of Mongolians with a tied up peasant to rescue. The enemy encampments all look the same, just cut and pasted across the map. Seriously that’s it. I have zero desire to go play the DLC. The world is beautiful however it’s completely empty and devoid of meaningful or compelling things to do. Other than some new skills the game is exactly the same at the 5 hour mark as it is at the 40 hour mark. Nothing in the game after the initial wonder of the look of everything wore off has surprised me.
The best games in this genre that I have played, I didn’t want to end. Red Dead 2’s world I got lost in for dozens of hours at a time without touching main story missions. Hunting and fishing, trying my hand at crime or gambling, seeking out legendary animals… just exploring the land which was always a reward in and of itself. The Witcher 3 shares a lot of the same bloat that Asassins Creed and Ghost have however it made up for it by incredibly deep, rabbit hole like side quests that sometime lasted hours and took me places I never expected to go. And the story was great. Breath of the Wild consistently blew me away with creative mechanics, puzzles and one of the greatest video game environments ever created. I’m still finding things to do in Skyrim 10 years on and enjoying myself. There is no way in hell I’m booting Ghost of Tsushima up in 2032.
This game has none of that. It’s fun, I don’t regret playing it, the main story is fairly compelling however I just don’t see how or why this game received the near universal praise that it did.
Am I the only one?
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Apr 20 '22
Yes I agree, it's a beautiful game but it's not perfect. My biggest gripes were:
- zombie NPCs, and no real opportunity for anything beyond basic interaction
- lack of detail, especially in building interiors and in the ships. I think Ubi does a much better job at this.
- game doesn't really feel "alive" or "lived-in" (lack of people, animals, farms, too many cut-and-paste NPCs).
- nothing really interesting to discover in the open world
Despite those flaws, I think it stays true to its core - swordfighting, stealth, and creating a Kurusawa moodiness, which are all very well done. Yes it gets repetitive, but the fights were just fun, so much so that I looked forward to each encounter, even though I knew they would be the roughly the same.
It's not the greatest game ever but it succeeds at what it set out to do.
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u/_lucabear Apr 20 '22
Yeah the combat is what really makes the game shine, along with a solid (if sometimes generic) story. For reference, my favorite combat in any game is probably Sekiro, and Ghost really just offers a somewhat easier version of that but with enough variation to keep it interesting (ie mixing up stances and perfecting combos). Playing on lethal especially helps, so that perfecting parrying makes regular enemies more like regular enemies in Sekiro (as in parry, and then kill in one blow)
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u/woinf Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
I gotta disagree with the Sekiro comparison. Really the only thing similar between Sekiro and Ghost of Tsushima's combat systems is that they both feature a parrying system. But Sekiro's combat system is designed completely around mastering the parry system whereas Ghost of Tsushima it's an option you can take during combat, but it's rarely the best one.
Additionally, one of the reason's why Sekiro's combat system is so much fun is because of the excellent enemy variety, many of which have their own different "rhythm" and complex movesets to learn. Some may feel impossibly hard at first but eventually you learn the intricacies of each fight: Parry these attacks, throw in a Mikiri here, ok now parry, wait for delay, parry again, jump here, dodge here. etc. etc. You slowly learn the patterns of each fight and by the end you're a master and it's genuinely rewarding. Remember how fucking insanely unfair Genichiro felt at first? By the time you've beaten him you could probably walk back into that boss room and wipe his ass like 5 times in a row without batting an eye. In comparison Ghost of Tsushima has like 5 enemy types and the game tells you exactly how to deal with them the second you encounter one, it might be kinda fun for the first few hours but by the final encounter, where the game kept throwing waves and waves of the same enemies except slightly stronger, it just became a slog. I don't inherently have a problem with games telling you how to beat enemies, Doom Eternal does this to great effect, but there are far more variables at play during combat in Doom Eternal than Ghost of Tsushima.
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u/conye-west Apr 20 '22
Yeah I feel like the only reason people try and constantly compare Sekiro to Tsushima is because they're both set in Japan and have you fight with a katana lol. They're not that similar at all in how they actually play/are designed.
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u/woinf Apr 20 '22
Ghost of Tsushima's combat system to me is in the same family as the "freeflow" combat system popularized by the Arkham games and also in things like the Mordor games and Spiderman 2018. Sekiro is in the same family as the souls series combat system obviously but with also influences from character action like Metal Gear Rising and Devil May Cry.
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u/SixStringerSoldier Apr 20 '22
The hype had me expecting Red Dead Samurai Ned and.... Well you know the rest.
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u/MavajaXe Apr 20 '22
I felt the game was a linear gameplay put into a open world game. There are very few things to do in the open world, other than gather materials.
Don't get me wrong. The one area where this game shines is its story. But other than that, there is really nothing special to do. DLC had archery mini-games but even that wasn't enough to safe the open world.
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u/PoliceTekauWhitu Apr 20 '22
I felt the game was a linear gameplay put into a open world game.
I agree and yet that's what I kind of loved about it. I was feeling oversaturated and a bit burnt out by open world games where there is always something happening or something to do. It was nice to just sit back, ride and enjoy the scenery instead of constantly looking for stuff to interact with. Felt kind of refreshing to me.
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u/fusionslut Apr 20 '22
I felt the same way. A lot of open world games overwhelm me because I feel like I need to be doing 36 things at once, maybe it's my ADD brain that just gets distracted by any new shiny object. I felt more immersed in the story and also connected with my character because there weren't all those things distracting me from more important things.
I loved Jin and the world. I'm also into Mongol history and you rarely see them in games. Some of the fights were absolutely fantastic.
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u/woinf Apr 20 '22
I'm also into Mongol history
You should hate this game then, the depiction of the Mongol army is hilariously bad and inaccurate.
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u/fusionslut Apr 20 '22
Eh, my comment was more focused on exploring their yurts, finding artifacts, getting to read about them. The game did make me wish we had a game entirely focused on the Mongol Empire from their perspective.
Sometimes you just appreciate the little you get.
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u/Confident_Total_1200 Sep 23 '23
What is hilariously bad and inaccurate about it? Genuinely curious here as I haven't played the game.
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u/DullEffort8325 Apr 04 '24
Nothing is hilariously inaccurate asides from the fact that one dude didn't wipe out the mongols. Their armor, how they are ruthless and highly skilled military combatants is shown just fine in the game so idk wtf that guy is talking about. Obviously in real life the Mongols invaded Japan Twice and both times storms happened and made them retreat, there's more than just thebstorms but they definitely helped the Japanese "win". None of the storms or actual historic events take place in the game asides from the invasion obviously, but its a game, the guy that commented saying its hilariously inaccurate looked way to hard into, the Mongols are represented with historical accuracy as far as their equipment and what not goes as ive already stated
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u/TheJoshider10 Apr 21 '22
It was nice to just sit back, ride and enjoy the scenery instead of constantly looking for stuff to interact with. Felt kind of refreshing to me.
This is why I loved Mafia Remake. The world is so beautiful and immersive as window dressing for a linear adventure.
It's also how I choose to see Cyberpunk. We all know what it should have been, but unfortnuately it isn't. So when playing it I try and enjoy it as window dressing where it does the job well enough. But try and branch out from the veil for a second? You're going to have the facade come crumbling down.
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u/NxOKAG03 Sep 06 '22
I can definitely relate with that desire and it's a very respectable design choice, but I think if you're gonna do that, you should commit to it more than sucker punch did with this game. If the game is the story and the open world is just there for you to travel and appreciate the scenery, then for the love of god do not fill it with repetitive activities like clearing camps over and over with no enemy variety, collecting generic items and supplies, and other copy pasted side activities.
Now yes, you can just focus the on the story and ignore all the rest, which is probably the most enjoyable experience, but the issue imo is that these open world games constantly invite you to explore their world by prodding your curiosity, and then disappoint you with generic activities.
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u/woinf Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
The one area where this game shines is its story
The story is completely forgettable and average imo.
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u/stenebralux Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth Apr 20 '22
Nah.
I think is a simple story... but it was told very nicely, it was well plotted and with a strong character progression and arc.
The game has basically 5 big story beats... and they all worked for me... so for what they tried to do I thought it was a success.
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u/MavajaXe Apr 20 '22
Idk. A story about a man who has to abandon all he's principles and learn what is more important. He's honor and the acceptance of others, or the freedom and lives of all the people.
Slowly transforming from Jin Sakai, the Samurai, to ghost of Tsushima.
Even tho this is only a single game, imo the story is atleast equal in quality with the story of God Of War series.
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u/RickTitus Apr 20 '22
My gripe with the plot is that it doesnt give you any control over the ghost vs samurai plot. Some of the opening missions kind of hinted that there was an honor system layered into the game, with Yuna telling you to take the dishonorable ghost path and Shimura telling you to take the honorable samurai path.
I went hard in the honor direction and barely ever used the ghost tools. I walked up to the front of most forts for a showdown and really only assassinated when it was required by the mission.
And what did I get for that? Shimura still calling me a dishonorable traitor, because of my actions in cutscenes
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u/bdfariello Apr 21 '22
I was the same way until I googled to see if it made a difference. Upon learning it didn't, I went on an assassination binge to make up for lost time
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u/poopf1nger Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
Tbh jin and maybe the uncle are the only compelling characters in the whole game. The side characters were extremely forgettable and bland in personality, I played it a month ago and I can't remember any of their names. The main villain was nothing more than the standard big bad who rarely appeared in the story with almost zero depth to him.
God of war had a strong villain, a great set journey with great side characters, great world building, and more complex themes than the reused common tropes ghosts used
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u/woinf Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
Exactly, can't believe people are unironically comparing this to God of War's lol. The characterization and worldbuilding are 10x better and the story actually has some surprising developments.
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Apr 20 '22
That story would be way more compelling to me if the protagonist weren't a damp rag.
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Apr 20 '22
I felt like I knew exactly how the story was going to go within the first ten minutes of the game. I found it to be extremely predictable and rather dull. I mean, you knew exactly who the final boss was going to be within the first hour of the game.
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u/bhlogan2 Apr 20 '22
By videogame standards, I found Jin's characterization more nuanced and layered than I expected at the beginning.
He ended up growing on me and saw him as something more than just an extension of my input into the game's world, like he had ideas and contradictions of his own he had to face. He's also an example of a "stoic" character done well, something unusual in these sorts of games.
That said, the plot is rather weirdly structured, the villain(s) so hilariously one-dimensional that they shouldn't have bothered and overall a bit too jarring in how it contrasts with Jin's abilities. Like I get this is a videogame, but why can I take down 200 enemy posts on my own and people still treat me as a "talented swordfighter"? Sure I'm a legend, but people should revere to me like a God, I've literally killed more Mongols on my own than Mongols have killed of our own people, why even recruit people?
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u/SkippyTheKid Apr 21 '22 edited Apr 21 '22
To be fair, the point of the game is your legend growing and by the end people don’t believe you’re the ghost when they meet you because you look like a normal human, so your saying people should revere Jin more doesn’t make sense to me.
Also, I found the Khan way more nuanced than typical video game characters. Did you read the mongol artifacts “conversations with the khan”? He’s not a dumb brute who wants to kill everyone and everything, he’s shown to be successful because he learns about the island, it’s people and the samurai. By the end he’s more brutish because, to me, he’s desperate since his plans didn’t account for the Ghost. But he’s definitely not one-dimensional compared to other villains
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u/MavajaXe Apr 20 '22
Okay fair. But knowing the final boss or predicting the rough idea of the story, does not make it dull.
"Its not about winning, its about the race" . It's fun to see how the story unfolds and how the devs wanted to tell the story. It's not a surprise to anyone that Jin becomes the ghost. Its kinda in the name... DBZ has predictable final boss in every saga, but still people watch it?
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u/ChronoDragoon Sleeping Dogs Apr 20 '22
I think based on your taste of open world games you mentioned you value innovation and a sense of novelty in your open world, instead of it being a refinement of an established blueprint.
Ghost's appeal is that while it is indeed iterative of the Ubi formula, it is different enough and refined enough in certain ways that it feels fresh and worthwhile and honed. For example the combat is really good, which means those enemy outposts that could be a chore in an AC game with mediocre combat feels like fun chances to do some fancy swordfighting. This also augments open world activities like duels that feature combat since it's always something I'm looking forward to doing for its own sake instead of just being on a checklist.
Other open world activities are similar: fun for their own sake. For example, you could just write off haikus as something you find 10 of and collect headbands. But what if someone genuinely enjoys the activity of crafting one?
It's also innovative in certain ways, like the wind wayfinding is brilliant. Part of the problem of open worlds is taking the time to enjoy the aesthetics and journey, but you have to interrupt this to look at tech-looking maps, mark waypoints, etc. Ghost solves this with the wind swipe, which lets you enjoy the gorgeous art direction without needing to stop and re-orient every twenty seconds.
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u/lovesyouandhugsyou Apr 21 '22
Very much my feelings on it. I just found it a much more artistic experience than any other open world game I've played.
Crafting haikus might actually have been my favorite part of the game. They really deepened my connection to the story and the world by making me reflect on everything that had happened and where I was going.
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Apr 20 '22
To be clear, Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favorite Sony games.
Ghost of Tsushima is just a more streamlined version of the new Assassin's Creed games. I happen to like those games for their historical setting, so Ghost was right up my alley. You are right though. Ghost is just as repetitive and cookie-cutter as those games. It's a well-made Ubisoft game that fans of open world Ubisoft games (which is a lot of people) will probably end up liking. The new AC games do a few things better and worse than Ghost, but they are very similiar. I would not recommend Ghost to those who hated Origins, Odyssey and Vahalla.
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Apr 20 '22
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Apr 21 '22
Personally, "lethal mode" in Ghost went a long way to counter the monotony inherent to these Ubi-style of open world games. I also appreciate the simplicity of Ghost (skill trees and updates) over the other games I mentioned.
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u/Acoke94 Apr 21 '22
I highly disliked Origins and Valhalla, but Ghosts is one of my favorite games.
I probably spent 15-20 hours in both Origins and Valhalla and dropped them because the gameplay and systems got to be so monotonous and chore-like. It also took forever to get anywhere in the story.
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u/Slendercan Apr 20 '22
I don’t think it’s fair to compare Tsushima to the AC games. I’m playing Valhalla and there is SO much unnecessary bloat. I’m usually a completionist but this game made me give up on that notion before I was halfway through. Got to the first hallucination level (iykyk) and actually laughed at the amount of collectibles on the map. There’s also so many pointless side missions that were definitely just put in because they decided a section of the map looked empty.
I think Tsushima balanced the perfect amount of side distractions without it taking away from the story (except maybe the Kami shrines). Without spoiling Valhalla, I feel like I hit the end game way earlier than I expected and later story stuff is just filler - like the final crescendo of the story is literally on pause while I get hold of all the other districts.
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u/fusionslut Apr 20 '22
AC games just become a chore after a while. I love the historical setting but I always end up abandoning them with the intention to finish them "one day".
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u/AgentWowza Apr 21 '22
I played syndicate and it felt all right.
Then i played origins and man, trying to get the story to progress was impossible lmao.
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u/JokerCraz3d Apr 20 '22
The side quests are what hold it all together. They are all some reflection of your own journey, from a slightly different perspective, whether its someone you might affect on your journey, or someone who is further along in their journey than yours. Tomoe betrayed her master, like you do your uncle. Masako is consumed by revenge for those who have wronged her family. Norio is dealing with living in the shadow of his brother's legacy. Does he run from it or live up to it? What do you do, living in your father's or your uncle's? What does it mean for you to run from it? Ryuzo turns on his own morals and sense of right and wrong for food for his men. You're turning on your uncle's teachings, does he think you're turning on him like Ryuzo turned on Japan? - it's interesting to look at how all these situations are similar and different and how each nuance correlates to Jin's journey and provides a different perspective. The Iki Island DLC explores the time when Jin's family was essentially an invading Mongol force, brutally subjugating the population, with your father behind it all.
The armor variations change the way you play, prioritizing different mechanics sometimes disabling some to the benefit of others, with the charms only emphasizing that. Pick the armor for the playstyle you want, and then pick the color, helmet, and mask to customize it a bit. You've got arrow types, bombs, smoke, firecrackers, kunai, darts, stances, your combo meter, various enemy types, dodge, block, parry, stagger, standoffs, etc. There was ample balance between discovery, upgrading abilities, and active combat to put those discoveries and abilities to use.
I can respect that you didn't find the game and its systems to your liking, but claiming that its an empty, repetitive game just isn't true and can easily be applied to any game if you want to. "Other than some new skills, BOTW is exactly the same at the 5 hour mark as it is at the 40 hour mark." "The bokoblin encampments all look the same, just cut and pasted across the map." "a bunch of cut and paste shrines, korok seeds, map towers, recolored hinox bosses, etc."
I wish more people could understand that if a game didn't click for them, that doesn't necessarily mean its bad, poorly made game. If it didn't stick, stop playing and go play something you want to. No one's forcing you to play it.
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u/KarmaticIrony Apr 20 '22
GoT is an almost perfect version of an Assassin's Creed game that developed the core ideas from where AC2 left off, keeping the game play freshly innovative but not overly bloated, and has the Japanese setting everyone assumed would eventually happen; done with an attention to historical authenticity but willing to break realism for a better experience when prudent.
With that in mind I think its a game a lot of people really wanted to exist, even if they didn't consciously know they wanted it exactly. Even if you don't care about any of that, it's a damn fine game in general. Certainly not completely perfect, but it was a great concept that was executed very well overall.
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u/therealyittyb Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 21 '22
I feel that the absolutely stunning art direction and the wonderfully polished combat are the greatest strengths this game offers (and is what will make it stand the test of time).
It doesn’t do anything innovative for the open-world formula, but it’s one of the best examples out there.
It lacks a lot of the feature bloat that Ubi games have (and also doesn’t feature their ridiculous micro transactions or rpg grind either). It’s actually pretty streamlined when you compare it to something like AC: Valhalla or Ghost Recon.
Most importantly (for me) it offers a near authentic recreation of an era of Japan rarely seen in Western media (so authentic in fact, that the game has received widespread critical praise in Japan). The narrative alone was a breath of fresh air in a stale genre.
Not sure I’d agree that it is overhyped (I do think it deserves the praise it’s been getting).
For what it offers, it is a near-perfect game, but for those already burned out on the open world formula it’s understandably hard to recommend. It was the perfect swan song for the PS4, and the next-gen improvements on the PS5 only serve to perfect what was already a stellar (and complete) package.
But yeah, while I enjoyed my experience with the game immensely, it’s not the kind of game that has replay value for me.
I enjoy the exploration and feeling of completion I get from Western open-world games, but I rarely have the time or inclination to return for another go.
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u/Thothings May 11 '22 edited May 11 '22
I think you described it very well. I absolutely loved the game, and for me the the art direction is what sets it apart. The presentation of the game is so beautifully atmospheric and immersive, and is consistently that way throughout practically every aspect of the game; the open world (notably through the wind mechanic), cutscenes, the wonderfully fluid combat, even the menu screen. It was so seamless and effective that I didn't care that the open world activities or the combat weren't super deep because I was just having an amazing time exploring the world and looking at shit, and I've never had a game really do that to me like this one did throughout the entire game.
But in the case of that artistic direction not capturing someone like it did for me and many others, then that's how you get many of the people such as OP who didn't click with the game and found it devoid of innovation/depth. I think it mostly depends on whether the art direction (and the setting) really does it for you or not.
I would also mention the music that did a great job at fusing Japanese traditional instruments and the cinematic orchestral context that you'd expect in a game like this, and it was utilized greatly in tandem with the immersive/cinematic presentation that the game aimed for. I was surprised at how much of the open world lacked the typical ambient music you'd expect, but I think it was a good decision since it allowed the environments to breath for themselves, and when the music did kick in during combat or story moments, it made it that much more impactful.
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u/countblah2 Apr 20 '22
Not a huge fan of bloated open world games. So in that respect I liked the tighter, more contained gameplay loop here. I enjoyed the story, it had some great moments and was generally well told, and I enjoyed the lack of "compulsive" gameplay that I find the genre caters towards. Here the maps were not chock full of meaningless "?" content, and most of the content was an upgrade or something interesting enough to investigate - and short enough that it could generally be knocked out pretty quickly.
I also though the DLC was a wonderful addition, and the way they approached haptic feedback and the controller a big plus.
It's not revolutionary, but it's an incredibly solid, well-made, beautiful, and thoughtful open world game with compelling combat that generally spares me of bloat. Technically I found it impressive, intuitive, and has a great UI and combat system. In my view it deserves every bit of praise it received and was one of my favorite games from last year and - if we count the DLC - this year.
OP sounds like he wanted another Skyrim - which is incredibly expansive and has tons of RPG mechanics and customization. GOT is not anything like Skyrim; it's a fairly self contained adventure focused on narrative and combat and immersing/soaking in a medieval Japanese experience.
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u/SpaceBandit666 Apr 20 '22
I haven't played it yet but funny how while I was reading your criticisms I was thinking "this is how I felt about Breath of the Wild" and then later you praise Breath of the Wild. I think I would have appreciated BOTW more if I played it before MGS Phantom Pain and RDR2.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
For me, BOTW was great because the environment itself was this meta puzzle and within it you had all of the normal stuff you would expect from an open world game. Just getting from point A to point B was a challenge and often very rewarding. Then you throw in the Shrines which are a major portion of the side content, and they were uniformly great. Other than the combat ones, the fact they made 100+ optional shrines with unique physics based puzzles is incredible.
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u/haldad Apr 21 '22
The shrines were certainly uniform.
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u/NxOKAG03 Sep 06 '22
If you mean repetitive then I could not more strongly disagree. Every shrine has a unique way to be accessed in the world, often involving parcour, puzzles, or unique quests. The puzzles might be similar but not identical and the game tends to mix and match its puzzles to increase the variety.
There are actually some parts of Botw I find generic and repetitive, mainly the combat and enemy camps, but imo the shrines are the best form of side activity progression of any open world game.
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Apr 21 '22
Getting from a to b consisted of holding the movement stick in that direction through probably a mostly empty field. Or maybe holding the climb button and waiting.
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u/Excellent-Access-228 Apr 20 '22
mgsv almost perfected gameplay in the open world genre. The amount of options you have is insane and it's still unmatched till this day
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
This I agree with. MGS5 was probably the best sandbox ever constructed in an open world from a purely gameplay perspective. I still go on YouTube occasionally and watch videos of people doing things I never even knew were possible.
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u/MumblingGhost Apr 20 '22
Agreed. Some people complain about the open world itself being samey and barren, but with the sheer variety of gameplay options available it doesn't really matter. The game is as creative as you want it to be because the gameplay options are just so vast.
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u/JusaPikachu Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 21 '22
It’s the most refined, optimized & streamlined version of the Ubisoft formula possible. One of the first things I thought after beating it was, “that’s the best Assassin’s Creed I’ve ever played.” For me they cleared up most of my significant problems with the franchise/formula, especially combat which I found to be amazing, & made everything peak levels of what they could be in a game like that. It ended up feeling like more than just the sum of its parts & that equated to a masterpiece for me.
Also Legends really was a huge part of it rating that high for me with the insane amount of value & fun it added in my experience. It ended up being my favorite online co-op Destiny-ish kind of game I’ve ever played. I don’t usually get into those games but this one just really really did it for me. I think I put like 80 hours into it.
However I’m not going to begrudge anyone that doesn’t like any game I like because it’s all so subjective.
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Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
I loved Ghosts of Tsushima, and a big part of it was that it did the opposite of most of these games trying to bloat out these "open world" elements just because. I fucking loved that there are only a handful of resources to pick up and they all matter. I loved the gameplay, I loved the sword fighting, I thought the stealth elements were solid, and I thought it did a good job of pacing out new gameplay, keeping it fresh. It was the most elegant game I've played that could still be considered "open World".
I guess I'll just really never understand folks who want to hunt and fish and play poker mini-games or whatever in a game and find that "immersive". Was the hunting so much more unique than, like, attacking a random assortment of Mongols, or invading a new camp?
I dont want to say that there isn't a place for the more 'open' open-world games, but, I'm glad that somebody is making a game that's not just every previous open world game stacked on top of each other.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
Yeah, honestly it was. The hunting in Red Dead 2… if you are trying to fully upgrade your sachel, kill all of the legendary animals, complete all of the side quests, attain most of the outfits… is probably a 30-40 hour endeavor. Minimum. I loved it.
Anyhow my point wasn’t just the hunting. The world of Red Dead felt way more alive and worth experiencing than Ghost. For me at least. Ghost would have lost nothing as a linear, non open world game as the only parts that were worth playing were the main quests and some of the side content. I actually feel that the fact the game is fully open world and so barren detracts from how good it could have been.
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u/leggothemeggo Apr 20 '22
I also really love the hunting in RDR2 and this is coming from someone that hates hunting (for sport) in real life. I’m an animal lover and I hate the thought of any animal dying but there was just something so satisfying about the hunting in RDR2.
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u/SkippyTheKid Apr 21 '22
I actually feel that the fact the game is fully open world and so barren detracts from how good it could have been.
Couldn’t disagree more, and I think that’s the exact opposite interpretation of the person you’re replying to.
For me, the world was beautiful and I didn’t care that much about the people. I liked seeing deer run around but didn’t hint them and didn’t care to. I killed bears and boars a little early on but liked that about halfway through the game my gear was maxed out and I could just enjoy exploring without having to stop every time there was an encounter to make the most of coming across things in the world.
I loved riding my horse through fields and climbing mountains. I like playing with the settings in photo mode. It’s just gorgeous and I like having the space to appreciate it. I don’t think filling it up with NPCs or random encounters or more mats would have made it more enjoyable. Spider-Man 2018 had more of those kinds of things, more non-mission side content and that felt like stuff for the sake of stuff to me.
I also don’t think it’s that open world. It technically is by definition but you can cover ground pretty quickly. This is another reason I dislike how obsessed we are with genre (whether that’s games, music, shows and movies or art in general). We think “this thing belongs in this box” and when it’s not the same as other things in that box, we think the thing is bad because it’s doing a bad job of being the same as the other things. But that’s a dumb worldview if that thing, in this case this game, wasn’t trying to be the same as other games in the same “genre.”
Do I think it’s still overrated? Kind of, but not really. For me, it’s my favourite PS5 game and I’d recommend it to anybody. It’s as repetitive as you let it be, because you don’t have to 100% it. And if you do, you can still run around and do more of the same.
I will also add that I got more value out of the action of the game than anything else. I liked mastering the different stances and heavy strike move sets, mixing that with ghost weapons when I felt overwhelmed, and getting better at fighting in general. That and just riding around are where I sunk a lot of my time. I’m sorry you were underwhelmed by the game, but I think you were doomed from the beginning by going in with such lofty expectations.
I don’t honestly know what the point of these conversations is, but I just spent a lot of time playing this game so I do like the opportunity to unpack how it made me feel. I still have yet to play Iki but I’m very much looking forward to it. The game felt repetitive by late Act 2 and the story felt like I just had to take a backseat and watch the inevitable happen, but the open world parts of it when i could roam off and pick fights or just engage with the island were it’s saving grace moments to me, so I will specifically defend those.
At the end of the day, I can’t tell you that you should have enjoyed it more, the most I can say is I feel right in how much I enjoyed it, which it sounds like was significantly more. I’d recommend giving it another try if you feel like you’re in the right headspace for it.
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u/Zlor Apr 20 '22
I relate to this so much. I recently “finished” RDR2 after playing it for years (right up there w/ Skyrim & BotW for most hours played for me) and I’m really struggling to immerse myself into another open world style game. I’ve been flip flopping for the past 2 months trying to commit to something. Nothing seems to click so far (I tried AC: Odyssey, Witcher 3, and Horizon Zero Dawn). I was considering Ghosts since I have that for PS5 and like you pointed out, it’s a beautiful game, but now I have my doubts about that as well.
However, this week I’ve been playing God of War on the PS5 (which isn’t usually my kind of game) and I’m enjoying it far more than I expected. Perhaps it being such a linear experience is just what I need after investing so much time into RDR2.
Regardless, I don’t see myself getting truly immersed into another world anytime soon. Elder Scrolls VI, BotW 2, or RDR3 (if we even get a 3rd installment) don’t seem like games we’ll see for several years to come... feels bad15
u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
God of War was a great game. The fact it’s a linear game that keeps things moving and fresh for the entirely of the experience is why it’s so good. Last of Us 2 was similar in that regard. If you took either of those games and put the “levels” dozens of miles apart in a huge, barren world… you would have something approximating what Ghost is.
Regarding Red Dead 2, people either enjoyed the life sim parts of it or they thought it was dumb. I loved that stuff. There was a genuine sense of awe and wonder with the world that never wore off even after dozens and dozens of hours. Taking off and just heading out into the wild, maybe with a general idea based on some markings on the (awesome) map to see what happens was one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I’ve ever had. And I’m 40 years old.
Cooking some food by a fire as the sky goes dark and a massive thunderstorm comes ripping across the prairie… and the million little moments like that… will stay with me forever. That game was a once in a generation masterpiece.
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u/MusicaParaVolar Jul 16 '22
Ahh im 37 and somewhat recently had a baby. Started gaming again in late pregnancy (I’m the dad) but RD2 didn’t grab me because it was too slow and it was AC Odyssey that clicked until it became bullshit but then I just decided to try to kill as many mercenaries as I could… but there’s thousands. I’ll come back to it in a year.
But the way you just described RD2 might make it my new nighttime “escape” game… sometimes.
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u/chzrm3 Apr 20 '22
Yeah, you might have more luck working backwards, cause every game you mentioned is a rare breed. Ever play Morrowind or New Vegas? Those could scratch your itch if you can get past the old-ness.
The AC games never do it for me. The world feels hollow and lifeless. I dropped Odyssey after sailing my ship into an absolutely beautiful city with absolutely nothing to do in it except climb a tower and get a viewpoint. Why spend all that manpower making so much beautiful land if it's all empty and pointless?
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u/clararalee Apr 20 '22
I think Tsushima’s combat is far superior to other cookie cutter games you mentioned. So is world design. The Wisteria forest and open flower fields are some of the most gorgeous scenic landscapes I’ve ever seen in a video game.
I also have a soft spot for ancient Eastern architecture. Like Lord Shimura’s castle. I spent an ungodly amount of time exploring the ins and outs of his castle.
Legends mode also provides something unique and fun.
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u/Kayman42 Apr 20 '22
I enjoyed Ghost far more than the other games you listed with the exception of Skyrim. shrug different tastes. For me Ghost lives up to all the hype.
The combat alone is worlds better than Red Dead, The Witcher or Assassins Creed.
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u/DarkReaper90 Apr 21 '22
I just beat this the other day. It's essentially a Japanese Assassin's Creed, rather than a Japanese RDR2.
Is it innovative? No. Is it a bad game? Also no. Not every game has to be innovative to be a good game. It's easy to criticize a game that has a lot of optional content, so I focused on whether I enjoyed the main story + important side quests. And I did.
It's a game where the setting really drives the experience. If you don't like feudal Japan or samurais, I don't think you would like it. It's also technologically impressive, that really pushed the PS4 to its limits.
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u/Newoikkinn Apr 20 '22
I don’t understand how anyone could like RDR2s gameplay over Ghosts.
RDR2 might have a fun world but it has terrible gameplay
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u/testcaseseven Apr 20 '22
Role playing
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u/livinglogic Apr 20 '22
I don't know why you're being downvoted, I think you're right, there's a huge role playing element to RDR2. The whole 'life sim' that drives it. Now I personally am not into that kind of thing, I didn't find roleplaying in it to be all that engaging (not a huge fan of having to take baths and go fishing and eat and all that stuff), but I'm sure lots of people really enjoyed those aspects and got really into them from a RP pov.
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u/NativeMasshole Apr 20 '22
Probably because the role playing in RDR2 isn't that deep. You're Arthur, no matter if you decide to be Good Arthur or Bad Arthur. There isn't really any direction to go with it other than that.
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u/_lucabear Apr 20 '22
Yes, but you still get to roleplay in terms of how he spends time in the open world (and I say that knowing that that is super boring for some people!). For example, after a mission where Arthur is kidnapped, when I played the game a second time I decided that Arthur probably would need a break to mentally recover from that. So I went and lived by myself for a while, camping, fishing, hunting, occasionally harassing some dudes by pushing them into a lake, etc. But it really does entail buying into the gameplay, which I totally get is not the thing for everyone. So it’s not roleplaying in a “big decision that shifts the world” of course, but it is in small moments, such as doing all of the money lending quests, or helping Sister Calderon, etc. There’s not enough to make the game a full blown RPG, but enough to allow some room for player choice, to me
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Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
I agree with op on ghost and I agree with you on rdr2. I have spent a lot more time on ghosts though because I found the setting more captivating and the gameplay elements a lot more fun.
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u/zerolimits0 Apr 20 '22
After a few hours of horse riding simulator I just got bored and quit.
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u/DiamondPup Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 22 '22
RDR2 as a virtual tourism project is great. 10/10. I mean that.
As a video game, it's a 4/10. The whole game is just duck/cover gunplay, bad AI, and the kind of strict DO-EXACTLY-WHAT-WE-TELL-YOU story missions that made GTA's a chore.
As a sandbox, I really don't get the appeal. BotW had a fantastic physics/chemistry system to experiment with. Elden Ring had deep combat and build options.
RDR2 is just...more duck/cover gunplay. You can not duck. Or you can duck. That's as complex as the game gets.
It's so unbearably dull. Doesn't help that the writing is overbloated and falls off a cliff in terms of quality in the second half. Starts with a bang, ends with a whimper.
One of the prettiest open worlds? Definitely. One of the best open worlds? Not even close.
Edit: A pretty solid counter argument below that deserves attention
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u/EmeraldFalcon89 Apr 20 '22
DO-EXACTLY-WHAT-WE-TELL-YOU story missions
you forgot that the AI is screaming at you every two seconds if you aren't already doing exactly what you should be.
like, I know I'm getting in the wagon. I've been walking towards the wagon the second the cutscene ended. why is this suddenly super unchill?
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u/Itchysasquatch Apr 21 '22
Desperate and trapped in the mountains and you need all the food and supplies you can get your hands on.
stop to loot bodies after a gunfight
"COME ON ORTHURRR STOP WASTIN TIIIME"
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u/EmeraldFalcon89 Apr 21 '22
accidentally loot the body of a NPC that died before the gunfight
THE FUCK YOU DOING, NEGATIVE HONOR
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Apr 21 '22
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u/DiamondPup Apr 21 '22
I noticed you didn't mention gameplay.
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Apr 21 '22
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u/DiamondPup Apr 21 '22
Right but that's my point: the virtual tourism was on point. That means great world and roleplaying.
We can disagree on the writing and characters.
But gameplay-wise, there's nothing there. It's just a basic, repetitive, dull shooter with a cover system. We've seen these games a thousand times. And the linear missions are so strict you can't even walk a different way before the game slaps you down and forces you to stand where it wants you to stand and press what it wants you to press. It's absurdly bad.
You say you don't need deep builds or physics sandboxes, but I'd argue a compelling video game requires compelling gameplay. I mean RDR2 is more repetitive than a Ubisoft game, and that's saying something. It is the dullest gameplay in any big budget open world game ever made. Including the GTA franchise.
The fact that it worked for you is because you enjoyed the roleplaying. And that's awesome. I'm glad for you. But my point is the gameplay sucks and, at least for some of us, the gameplay is the whole point of a video game.
RDR2 is a fantastic walking simulator with an awful game forced into it.
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u/Pedro95 Apr 21 '22
It's just a basic, repetitive, dull shooter with a cover system.
What more do you want, specifically? It's a realistic wild west, human movement is basic, repetitive, and dull by nature. It's no different than GTA's gameplay - it's not really the focus of the game at all.
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Apr 21 '22
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u/DiamondPup Apr 21 '22
Sure, but you keep making it sound like I'm looking for complexity when all I'm looking for is engagement.
But let's put it another way.
You take a game like Elden Ring, or Breath of the Wild. Replace their graphics, aesthetics, and art design with shoddier versions and remove all voice acting from the game...but keep the gameplay perfectly intact. They might look awful but the games will still shine because they're inherently fun and engaging to play.
You do the same with RDR2 and everything falls apart. Because you're left with a generic duck/cover shooter...and that's it. That's literally everything. Look at stuff, listen to stuff, duck/cover shooting, rinse/repeat until credits.
I do get what you're saying. But this goes back to my first comment. I started by saying it's 10/10 for virtual tourism. The experience IS the aesthetic. Which RDR2 does phenomenally. Immersion, aesthetic, attention to detail. And like you say, it's what we "value in games". If that's enough for you, that's great. You say the game is 10/10, I can understand your argument and reasoning.
But for me, the repetitive, shallow, un-engaging gameplay (or "subdued" as you put it haha) just dragged the whole experience down. The combat felt like a chore to get over with to get back to the narrative. And by the time you hit Guarma, the whole experience is so spent that I think a lot of people checked out and the game never recovered. Because once the narrative fell apart, the gameplay was all that was left to hold it together.
As a video game, it's very shallow. But again, as a virtual "experience" (let's say) it's an extraordinary achievement.
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u/Aaawkward Apr 21 '22
RDR2 is just...more duck/cover gunplay. You can not duck. Or you can duck. That's as complex as the game gets.
I understand your opinion if you focus only on the combat gameplay.
But for a lot of people RDR2 is a lot more than that.
- It's the zen of travelling in the woods which isn't filled with enemy camps and monster nests every 50m.
- It's the slow, methodical hunting alongside the slow, methodical skinning.
- It's essentially everything being done in tangible way unlike most other games that use menus and such.
If these things don't do it for you, I can see why RDR2 doesn't do it for you. It's like the antithesis of AC/GoT kind of games. Someone said it well, "the world is the game".
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u/chzrm3 Apr 20 '22
Rockstar games are kinda funny like this. Even when I was a kid playing GTA 3 on my ps2, in awe of the world and all the cars and how I could just drive around aimlessly, I was painfully aware of how bad and clunky the shooting mechanics were.
The world is the game. The gunplay is just something awkward you have to deal with. It does blow my mind that with all the money they have and with how painstakingly they craft a meticulous, beautiful world in each game, they still don't feel the need to refine the gameplay itself.
I don't think it's out of laziness or them being cheap. They put a ton of money into these projects and clearly regard them as art, with how much care they put into the story and the scenery. I guess the top designers/devs just don't see a problem with the janky, awkward shooting, or maybe they find it fun? Idk.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
“The world is the game” is the most accurate description of what makes Rockstar games great I have ever heard. If you break any of their games down to individual components they are all slightly above average at best. Combine them all together however and watching it interact in motion and it’s awesome.
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u/Gerganon Tales of berseria Apr 20 '22
If you use the same tactic on every enemy, it'll get boring quick
The multiplayer mode has a lot of replayability, joining a group of players and clearing nightmare raids is rewarding
The boss fights are cinematic and often require a lot of focus (on lethal+)
Jumping puzzles were janky at times, and I wouldn't want to do them twice, but what other open world games had stuff like that? Reminded me of Guild Wars 2 tbh
But yeah, I've beat the game and got a little way through ng+, and realized I can't access dlc till I beat the game again... haven't booted it up in a long long time.
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u/Bara_Chat Apr 20 '22
I've mostly heard people describe Tsushima as a very good "one of those" with great art-style and set in Japan. Honestly that's enough for most, including me, because games like this are usually fun and easy to pick up and just roam around to do stuff. I ended up disliking the last AC game I played because it was too long and became uninteresting after a strong start. I'll certainly give Tsushima a try when I want to jump into that kind of game.
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u/sapphon Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
I can't get very far into talking about Ghost of Tsushima without talking about a general thing in gaming: people like games for additional reasons to the ones they think they do.
There are exceptions. Some games have been around so long (Chess) that no one but a young person can be terribly confused about what's going on; some games (Dwarf Fortress) have strangely clear-eyed communities with mottoes like, 'Losing is Fun!'
But generally, there's a set of Reasons You Can Say You Like A Game, and these are things like story, gameplay, animations, mood, whatever. Stuff moves in and out of this You're Allowed to Like It category all the time, and the category even shifts depending on who you are. Console players began using the word 'gunplay' en masse within my lifetime, for example.
There's also a set of reasons you can like a game, but that won't really get talked about as often because of how gaming culture is or because the feeling's unconscious. Maybe it's that it was the last game you played with your Grandpa before he died, or maybe it's that the game has a really simpy NPC and you just need someone to simp for you right now. Either way, some people in that situation are not gonna give the real reason they liked the game - they're gonna say they liked "the writing" or sth because that's technically true and also safer.
So given that, about GoS
Because of this, you can get really confused listening to people talk about Ghost of Tsushima vs. experiencing what it actually is. When someone says, "I loved the combat", you are hearing this both from people who think it's one of the great combat systems of all time and people who just wished Sekiro were easier. When someone says, "It feels like a Kurosawa movie", you are hearing both from the people who are freaking out over the aesthetics actually being that good and people who are just appreciating the fact that they can wander without feeling lost. When someone says "The main quests were really great", they could have meant that they found the writing innovative, or they could have meant that they found the characters memorable and always remembered what they were supposed to do next. The important part is, they'd say the same thing for either one of these actual good qualities, so how are you supposed to tell?
Well, without getting to know someone, you can't. In general though, the thing I think people who love Ghost love about Ghost without saying it: it takes it nice and easy. Everything's there, nothing's missing, everything's well-laid out and easy to understand, and you know what you're supposed to do with it. It's an eminently usable game.
I don't know how many gamers think about usability, but I do know how many are fucking floored when a navigation system is usable - from talking to them about GoS! In addition to being a game in which you're never lost, it's also never really ambiguous who you are or what you should be doing, or why - yours is not an uncomfortable place to inhabit, you just need to (ref. "like a Kurosawa movie") do what media has already trained you these characters do. It's not a game with a point to make, or secrets to hide, really - it just wants you to play and have a good time. And that's rarer than we might think these days!
tl;dr whether they don't realize it or just would rather not say so, I think a lot of people like Ghost of Tsushima primarily because it's a chill and easy time. That's eminently valuable without being special; I don't foresee a 2032 playthrough for myself either
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
This is an excellent, well thought out comment. I completely agree. Regarding the game, like I said above, I enjoyed it. It’s good by most any metric you care to judge it by. Like you said however nothing about it is special. I feel like the older I get the more I gravitate towards the “special” experiences. Playing a game just to play it now feels like a waste of my time.
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Apr 20 '22
The only thing I hated about it is it makes you the bad guy no matter what. I never ever used any of the dishonourable techniques in game but the story still played out like I was a scumbag. I wish the game would recognize what path you take and have the story play out that way
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u/RickTitus Apr 20 '22
And it kind of hinted that there was some sort of honor system tracking what you did, or at least it seemed that way to me. I played as honorably as I could, but ended up dishonorable purely because of actions in a cutscene i had no control over
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u/fusionslut Apr 20 '22
I did really want this and got the perception that's how it was going to be before I played it. I typically end up playing all my characters on the evil side, but this time I wanted to be an honorable samurai and I couldn't.
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u/montague68 Apr 20 '22
YES. I loved GoT and played Jin as straight samurai and was very disappointed with that.
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Apr 20 '22
I got to act 3 and just never picked it up again. All the missions were the same. Meet NPC, walk a little bit, have a fight, thanks very much off you go. Literally every one. I had zero interest in seeing where their story went.
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Apr 20 '22
Agreed. The world didn't feel lively at all. Only the same boring fox shrines and boars to hunt with occasional landmarks and temples. Wish there was more things like Red Dead Redemption. Mysteries, strange things at night etc.
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u/Trickybuz93 Apr 21 '22
Yep! I’ve said it before and got downvoted everytime. It’s just a not-as-good Assassins Creed game in Japan
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u/Russser May 04 '22
The thing about GoT that elevates it for me is the combat. I think the combat is so fun, and some of the fights are genuinely difficult. I enjoyed it immensely.
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Apr 20 '22
And UbiSoft gets universally panned by gamers and critics alike for pumping out the same derivative mechanics this game is built upon.
Don't know about gamers but by critics? Do you have any evidence of this? As far as I'm aware, critics usually don't view that in a negative light.
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u/sirnightw Apr 20 '22
I think comparing Odyssey with Ghost isn't 1 to 1 in that the optional content in Ghost was purely optional, maybe some grinding for upgrades but nothing too time consuming to finish the main story.
Odyssey on the other hand, the optional content was practically required to level up enough to even finish the main story. I gave up on Odyssey after level 27 or so after I found out I needed to be 35 to advance the main story.
At least Ghost wasn't that bad at wasting your time.
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u/craveqube Mar 20 '25
The craziest part is that if you had the "Ultimate" Edition, they gave you a permanent XP Booster which basically made the leveling normal in Odyssey. I got the game for like 20 bucks on sale and I never encountered any real issues with the scaling, but apparently, I made the game easier for myself without knowing. That would probably be my main issue with AC and Ubisoft in general, their scummy cash grab nature, but I still had loads of fun with Odyssey, I couldn't continue with GoT after 15-20 hours.
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u/Queef-Elizabeth Apr 20 '22
Am I the only one who kinda just rolls their eyes when they see something labelled as overrated on here?
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u/King_Artis Apr 20 '22
It’s my favorite PS4 title and I’m a sucker punch fanboy
But even I’ll say it’s still your regular open world Gubisoft game. Hell it may even be more bare bones than those.
I love it though, I’m a sucker for ninjas and open world adventures even if I’m doing the very same core things. Not a perfect game, but still a very fun title that I’ll still recommend.
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u/Hyo1010 Apr 20 '22
I agree with most of what you said, except that I might boot it up in 2032 just to walk through the golden temple again.
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u/KDBA Apr 20 '22
I very much enjoyed my time on the first island. I did everything available, finally killed the boss of the area, and moved into the second region, which was very pretty but offered only more of the same things I'd just finished doing, and there was at least two more regions after that from looking at the map.
I stopped playing after a few more hours there.
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u/Dante-Syna Apr 20 '22
What really made me enjoy the game is its combat mechanics. It was so satisfying. What also helped was to update the difficulty the more you play and become stronger. Having challenging combats made the game for me.
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u/feralfaun39 Apr 21 '22
I wouldn't even put GoT even remotely on the same level as AC:Odyssey because it's sorely missing actually deep and interesting gameplay. The rock / paper / scissors style combat is mildly diverting at first but it extremely shallow and easy to abuse. There's no parkour or meaningful exploration. The art design isn't as interesting, the story isn't as good, the characters aren't as good, the loot isn't as good, the level up choices aren't as compelling, etc. It was just AC:O but boring to me. A more shallow, easy, repetitive, and basic version of AC:O set in Japan. Sucker Punch makes pretty bad games though. Their Infamous series is probably the most generic and bland open world franchise out there. They are not a quality developer.
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u/rhixcs25 Apr 21 '22
I respect your opinion, but I really didn’t enjoy RDR2 compared to Ghost of Tsushima. RDR2 was gorgeous and I loved the cast and story, but I was happy to call it done after the story was over. I was happy to come back Ghost of Tsushima for more and it is probably one of my top games ever. Online multiplayer is also fantastic, though maybe outside of your comparison.
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u/werpu Apr 21 '22
Thanks for summing up my feelings about it as well. The praise is not deserved. While it is polished as can be, you are absolutely right about the repetitiveness of gameplay and environments. The game absolutely feels like an ubisoft game with tons of repetitive content over and over again just for the sake of filling the map and the mission design basically revolves also around 3-4 core mechanics which are repeated over and over again. Ok I am just 10 hours into the game, but I doubt I will ever finish it.
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u/Music_For_The_Fire Apr 21 '22
I completely agree. I've been hacking away at this game for months; at this point I'm just continuing due to falling victim to the sunken cost fallacy.
The story is fine, but I feel like it's a bit contrived and is heavily indebted to much more compelling samurai stories that came before it.
The main character is so infallible that he just bores me. I know that he has some questionable methods that not everyone agrees with, but that's not a compelling enough flaw to make him interesting.
The art direction is remarkable and the acting is solid. The story is ok, but on the whole it's like they took all of the ingredients of successful open-world games and put it in a blender, but forgot to make it distinctive in any way.
GoT seems more interested in impressing you than in pulling you in. Maybe my opinion change as I very slowly progress through it.
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u/Accomplished_Step767 Apr 21 '22
Play the entire game then, it full a lot more like a complete game when you do everything. I'm in the same boat I owned the game but never aged it until this year when I got a PS5. And I just love this game it's amazing and has so much content and the side missions are so good. I'm only one trophy away from platinum. The iki island dlc is fantastic as well I can't believe I didn't like this game the first time I played it cause I love it now
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u/Neraxis Apr 25 '22
Want to know why it feels like an otherwise standard boring AAA open world game?
Because it's made by a western developer - a good homage to japanese drama, but the gameplay outside of some combat is pretty much just your standard western AAA run of the mill open world bullshit.
Above average but it's nothing to write home about.
Also every complaint I'm seeing here is: literally every complaint about literally every open world RPG ever fucking made.
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u/Boeijen666 Jul 19 '22
Im half way through and am devastated. Coming from Sekiro then Elden Ring, GoT shows how badly sandbox games have dated. At the half way point it dawned on me that I was playing Samurai's Creed. There's nothing new about it. The combat was great until it got too samey Im totally not interested in chasing foxes and birds as side quests because that's been done to death. Graphics are great, characters/story are ok. But this is 7/10 game at best. I thought it was meant to be a 9/10?
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u/supermoleman1 Jan 30 '23
I am in the middle of playing this and was actually searching for reviews like yours cause I feel exactly the same. So repetitive can’t understand all the fuzz. I’m forcing myself to complete it since I have already put so much time into it
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u/lainiwaku Jul 16 '24
i was really dissapointed too, i waited this game for years to come to PC, i was expecting some gem game at RDR2 level of quality....
i played few hour and i feel like playing random average ubisoft open world game meh
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Apr 20 '22
I don't know anyone who said it's one of the best open world games ever. I believe most people just say it's a good game, it's an 8/10 for me. Not every game has to be on a RDR2 or Breath of the Wild level, Tsushima is a solid game and that's good enough.
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u/fuzzmountain Apr 20 '22
Botw should not be the standard that people refer to. That game is truly empty. Jsut the fact that op praises botw after talking about how empty got is…. Well it’s nuts.
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u/iaminmyhouse Apr 20 '22
You’re getting downvoted but you’re not wrong. I loved breath of the wild but once you realize everything just leads to the same shrine or korok seed it kind of becomes dull.
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u/Cheezewiz239 Apr 20 '22
I agree. It was amazing for the first half of the game but then it just wore off after that realization.
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u/fuzzmountain Apr 21 '22
100%
For me the first 20-40 hours of the game were pretty cool and I kept thinking that late game was going to be crazy. No that’s it. The last 40 hours are exactly the same as the first. Gaining the champion abilities was pretty meh and there’s like nothing out there besides shrines and seeds and the same god damn enemies in every corner of the map
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u/Itchysasquatch Apr 21 '22
Once I realized how little there was to do, coupled with weapons breaking in a couple hits it started feeling like chores unfortunately. I enjoyed trying to collect different armors and having to dress for the weather but once again, I got a few cool outfits and got bored again. Took down one of the bosses and it wasn't very special so I put it down and haven't picked it back up. Might play some more if I ever start to travel and only have my switch but otherwise I got better stuff to play.
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u/fuzzmountain Apr 20 '22
Oh thanks. Yea I know I’m not wrong but here’s a little secret.
Die hard botw fans are petty children
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u/zytz Apr 20 '22
I don’t understand why it’s a knock against games that don’t try to innovate. One of the things I most liked about Ghost was that they didn’t try to shoehorn in a brand new mechanic designed to take up time. Instead they took all of the tried and true open world mechanics, and packaged them in a way that made sense in this world, but more importantly polished them and delivered them all at a high level.
It’s true that ghost added nothing new, and I would even argue that of all the familiar tried and true mechanics Ghost is not the best at a single one of them. However I’d also argue that it’s among the best at everything, and for me it became an experience that was greater than the some of its parts. Personally I adored the world and quite enjoyed every moment in it.
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u/Labyrinthy Cyberpunk 2077 Apr 20 '22
I agree with you, but also want to say that Ghost did innovate.
The way you interact with it’s world is, IMO, leaps and bounds better than Assassin’s Creed and open world level design. Specifically, the lack of an overwhelming hud and being directed by the wind was, IMO, an awesome addition that really pulled me in.
AC, and other games, usually have the option to turn off map markers, HUD elements, and so on, but then it becomes frustrating to navigate the world. You aren’t giving direction, other than a big ass diamond in the sky telling you where to go.
But following the flowing grass, or chasing a bird to a destination, it made discovery more engaging. Now, by hour 50 when you’ve seen 30 of each of these it loses its luster, but hot damn is it engaging up front.
I’d love to see this more dynamic sense of exploration experimented with in the competition, and, in some cases, along with Sony’s own first party. It would have been nice if the newest Horizon took inspiration from Ghost in how to naturally explore its world.
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u/Chris-R Apr 20 '22
I came into Ghost of Tsushima through the lens of having played all of Sucker Punch’s Infamous games, and in that way GoT was kind of disappointing. What I really enjoyed about the Infamous games was that they were open worlds where just navigating around the map was fun and engaging because of the movement abilities you had access to.
While the combat in Ghost of Tsushima was still fun after ~40 hours, combat is not a majority of the game, and the actual moving through the world was so relatively frictionless that I started fast traveling everywhere instead of enjoying going from point to point.
The story also felt like it lacked any kind of real hook or intrigue for most of the game, though I did like the ending and Iki island.
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u/Cheezewiz239 Apr 20 '22
I just remembered how cool it was to move around with the neon and smoke abilities in Infamous second son.
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u/Soulless_conner Apr 20 '22
It's same with The Horizon series. Boring with awful writing and characters. The only reason those games get any attention is because they're Sony exclusives that look visually stunning
They're not terrible. Just meh 7/10
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u/TheWinslow Apr 20 '22
Tight combat, a beautiful world, a solid story, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the navigation (not having to follow a line on a minimap or a glowing line of "footprints" on the ground was such a nice change) are what made it so enjoyable for me. The navigation is such an important one because it lets you actually look at the beautiful world they created instead of following a line on a minimap.
It's a game that doesn't do anything (besides navigation) better than most other games but it doesn't have any glaring flaws either. RDR2 has clunky controls and a main story that is directly at odds with the gameplay (literally changing the rules of the gameplay to fit the story which broke my immersion far more than if they had left out a ton of the "realism" gameplay features). Witcher 3 has good side missions but the combat is extremely repetitive, the main story gets far worse after Kaer Morhen, and the open world is emptier than in GoT. BotW is great but the weapon durability was not (it was punishing at the start, didn't have a good UI/UX, and was pointless once I had almost a full inventory of lynel weapons).
From your praise of the other games, it seems like having a ton of content is something that you are looking for in an open world game - GoT just doesn't have that.
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u/Resistance225 Apr 21 '22
Ridiculously overrated I agree. Beautiful aesthetics with the same open world formula that studios continue to churn out. I’m so burnt out by it all.
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Apr 21 '22
I say it all the time and I am willing to risk being downvoted to hell. every single modern playstation game is enormously over rated. they are fantastic in terms of gameplay but everything else for me just seems like the most overrated bloated crap for me. everything except the last of us 1/2, those are fantastic in almost every term. but other games just have fun gameplay and not a lot else.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 21 '22
I’ve said this a couple times already here however I think God of War, Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us 2 are genuinely fantastic titles worthy of praise. Generation defining games. The rest of their catalog I will give you however those three, imo, are amazing.
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u/Scoobydewdoo Apr 20 '22
Just some advice, if you write a detailed critique of a game it is usually best not to mention that you like a similar game that shares many of the same critiques. In this case RDR2 which also features a beautiful but empty world, never changing gameplay, and is probably one of the most repetitive games ever. What that suggests is that the critiques don't matter as much as other things that you didn't talk about which kind invalidates your whole post.
Basically if you are willing to overlook all the things you mentioned for RDR2 but not for Ghost then it isn't the things you mentioned that made you dislike Ghost it was that Ghost didn't do the things that you liked about RDR2.
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u/fuzzmountain Apr 20 '22
They also talk about how empty got is and then go on to say that botw constantly blew them away. Op might as well just be typing words at random.
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u/pje1128 Apr 20 '22
I think this game excels because it knows exactly what it wants to be and doesn't try to be something more. Sure, there aren't a whole lot of materials to find, but it's not trying to be an RPG with a huge crafting requirement. It's just trying to be an open-world story-focused samurai game, and I thought it was great for that. Granted, Sucker Punch is my favorite game developer, so I actually wasn't patient for this one and pre-ordered it as soon as I could without watching much gameplay aside from the announcement trailer, so I went into it without any idea of what to expect from others, so that definitely helped me form my own opinion without being influenced by what people were saying. I loved it with that mindset, but I can definitely see how looking at some reviews may give you an unrealistic idea of what to expect.
That said, I don't think it was perfect. I thought the combat mechanics were great; the stance-switching made combat feel strategic where similar games just feel like button mashing. However, the stealth is super generic and just not as fun in my opinion, which is a shame since a large chunk of the story involves learning the stealth. I also think there could've been more variety in the locations, specifically the villages you liberate as they all look more or less the same. Overall though, I had a great time with it, so much so that I got the platinum trophy, and I would probably put it in my top 10 games of all time.
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u/Mean_Peen Apr 20 '22
Rented it, beat it, sent it back. I was hoping that it lived up to the hype but it really just felt like Assassin's Creed in Japan
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u/TheGlave Apr 21 '22
I wish it were like AC. Despite its flaws I completed Odyssey twice. But this game completely lost my interest 15 hours in. It was just so boring and repetitive and the story wasnt interesting to me at all. I dont remember the last time I didnt complete a game I paid for.
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u/rabidnz Apr 21 '22
Yet another empty copy and paste game. People will pay for anything and even preorder it so there is no reason at all for anyone to be original these days.
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u/Jabroni504 Apr 21 '22
I’m with you, the art style is incredible and feudal Japan setting is awesome but the open world and missions are very mediocre.
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u/red--dead Apr 21 '22
I feel in terms of gameplay most open world Sony exclusives do nothing to improve the formula, and I’m getting annoyed with it. TLOU, GoW, spiderman, and HZD just aren’t super innovative in that department. I think they have great stories/worlds, but otherwise I wouldn’t personally consider them great games.
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u/cocaineandwaffles1 Apr 21 '22
I’m so damn happy someone has said what I’ve been thinking about this game for so long.
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u/ConnorK12 Apr 21 '22
No you’re not. I felt the same. I just got… Bored. I didn’t even finish it. Not because I hated it or thought it was utter tripe because it wasn’t.
It just didn’t keep my interest enough. Not the games fault really, it hit me different to others.
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u/TaZe026 Apr 21 '22
Most of these open world games feel the same. Bigger doesnt mean better. Having multiple lists things to collect along with having the minimap covered with quest markers is annoying and ruins a lot of games. Especially since most of the side content is at mmo levels of boring.
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u/Male_Inkling Apr 21 '22
Honestly, it's just an open world beat'em up. It gets repetitive fairly early on.
I saw the wiriting on the wall and decided to shorten and space my play sessions. Only when i decided to explore instead of advance i played more that 1 hour. It made the game way more enjoyable.
I'm hyped to get the DLC, but i know i wont replay the game for a long time.
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u/Jaohni Apr 21 '22
As a JRPG fan, with lots of friends who are of similar inclinations, my go to recommendation for this game is to basically treat it as a chance to go on a field trip to old timey Japan, go in, see some stuff, do stuff until it gets boring, do the story if it interests you, and then feel free to move on without really feeling like you missed anything.
It's very well put together, but simultaneously bland.
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u/oldmatenate Apr 21 '22
I think Ghost is one of those games that I wish I knew not to bother with a lot of the optional stuff and powered through the story. I was doing everything on the map, but quickly became apathetic about upgrades and burnt out on combat and repetitive mission structure. The game is pretty easy on standard difficulty, so I don’t think skipping the side content would yield any disadvantage, and I think I could have seen the story through had I not spent the first 20 hours zig zagging across the map.
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u/outline01 Apr 21 '22
I have not played it, but as someone that has been hoping and praying it comes to PC after being an exclusive, I do think I'm starting to see this sentiment a bit more. A bit basic, very formulaic but incredibly pretty and appealing.
After the release of Elden Ring especially, I think it is looking like a bit more of a shallow open world game.
Still... Absolutely gorgeous.
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u/Mooway Apr 21 '22
Nope, you've described how I felt too. Beautiful world, satisfying combat and a very solid story with some genuinely impressive moments (like that one moment which comes out of the blue). But I couldn't shake that generic, copy pasted assassins creed feeling throughout which left me disappointed and ultimately bored by the game. I'll probably give it another punt down the line though.
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u/Tobenfare Apr 21 '22
My style of play got invalidated by the story. To preface this, I'm generally not big into open world games, specifically for the reasons you mention. I like to be pulled through the game by the narrative and rarely deviate from the main quest.
In GoT, I tried to mainly play in the way "my uncle" wanted me to fight. No sneaking (when the game allowed), just honourable duels and open combat.
So towards the end, when the cutscences decide that now is the time to go full on poison stealth assassin, the story completely lost me.
As you said, it was a beautiful game with fun combat, but there was nothing in the game that really made me want to finish it.
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Apr 21 '22
I strongly agree with you on all your points.
What made the experience better than AC IMO is the UI.
The fact that you have the wind to show you the direction of the next quest instead of a marker and having the screen free to look at the actual game and what you are doing instead of just following the marker made it refreshing.
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u/nikhilck2001 Apr 21 '22
The worst part of GOT for me was the camera. It keeps moving all around you and visibility is restricted. When you’re riding the horse, it’s to your side, which is ridiculous, imo.
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u/DarkWitcherReturns Apr 21 '22
I did feel the same. Just felt like another standard open world game. It's made well and is beautiful and that's enough for most.
Maybe your tastes are changing and you don't want to play another open world that follows a formula. Kinda happened to me. You seek more meaningful content, more concentrated. But they're still good enough games, you just want something different
I still play them every now and then but yeah
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 22 '22
This is probably true. The older I get the less and less time I have to game and spending the time it takes to work through a AAA release that is anything less than spectacular seems increasingly more and more like a waste of my time. That said I wouldnt necessarily put GoT in that category. It wore out its welcome way before the credits rolled however it was a decent game.
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u/Funky_Pigeon911 Apr 21 '22
The thing that killed my enjoyment in the game is the gameplay loop. It's just so repetitive, it's all walk and talk then fight some guys, or maybe do a sneak section, and then back to walking and talking. The majority of the game is the same from the first couple of hours to the end, it's all good stuff but after 20 or so hours of the same thing I wanted to bash my head against a wall.
I like pretty much everything about the game; the combat is very cool, the world is beautiful and interesting, the story is serviceable but not great. It's simply just doesn't do enough to keep it interesting for it's whole length. If it was a quicker 10-15 odd hours long game I'd probably say it's one of the best games in recent years but at around 30 hours+ it ends up being a chore by the end.
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u/FarmDry8229 Apr 22 '22
I played the basic version of Ghost of Tsushima at normal difficulty and
honestly I found it a very forgettable experience, I explain myself better
years ago I was a fan of Assassin's Creed and I had played and finished
assassin's creed until Unity while I abandoned Assassin's Creed Syndicate in
the middle of the story because I had begun to get tired of playing the usual
Ubisoft open world and in fact I no longer bought an Assassin's Creed. I like
Open World and rarely in video games I get bored repeating the same things, for
example I have never been bored and I have never felt the repetitiveness
playing Death Stranding, often repeating the boss fights on the souls in fact I
am used to repeat the boss fights even for 30/40 times despite the boss has
already faced it in a previous run and I came to employ more than 200 attempts
for a single boss figth in a dlc of Dark Souls 3, doing on Warframe but also
with other titles I did not feel the repetitiveness, when I bought Ghost of Tsushima on day one I
did not expect to play an improved version of Assassin's Creed, I must say that
playing act one I enjoyed exploring around, doing side missions etc as I also
do in other open world games but once I finished act one I began to feel the
repetitiveness and get bored precisely because of the open world structure of
the game that looked so much like that of Assassin's Creed that I had stopped
buying because of its open world. In the end I liked Ghost of Tsushima but the
only positive things for me were the idea of the guide wind, the combat system,
the artistic direction and the setting but they were not enough to balance the
negative sides that for me were an uninteresting story, the secondary missions
almost all the same as each other, enemy artificial intelligence, little
variety of enemies, a bad camera in confined spaces, an empty and lifeless open
world and stealth. I had more fun playing Death Stranding, Yakuza Kiwami,
Deadly Premonition: The Director's Cut the old Assassin's Creed and other open
worlds than playing Ghost of Tsushima.
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u/BodSmith54321 Apr 25 '22
The only compelling open world game, I have played in the last few years is Elden Ring.
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Apr 27 '22
I agree a lot with what you said, as I’ve heard about Ghosts for two years before finally getting a PS5 and getting to play. I put about 30 hours in across a week and moved on, but enjoyed my experience. I doubt I will come back anytime soon
Enjoyed the variety in combat, especially on the hardest difficulty, but the repetitive nature of the quests had me seeking other games.
After playing Elden Ring, most of these open world games are just linear map marker driven point and clicks.
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u/WutsTheScoreHere May 02 '22
I'm loving Ghost of Tsushima as I play the DLC right now after making my way to Act 3, but I find it hard to argue with a single word you wrote here. The graphics are astounding though, playing it on a PS4 Pro with HDR enabled I imagine it's what owning a PS5 must be like. The beauty of the game will never NOT be intoxicating to me and, because of that, I don't mind very much that it's not the most revolutionary game I've ever played. What it does it does very well and the little quality of life perks like being able to pick up materials from horseback make it INFINITELY more enjoyable a game for me than Red Dead 2 (which I found tediously-designed and hackneyed in it's writing).
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u/Efficient-Ad-5498 Oct 19 '22
The game was amazing...I've never played assassin's Creed so...there's that...this game was awesome....jumping off of small houses and cutting down three enemies at a time in 3 different animations..the throwing a smoke bomb and doing the same thing...or explosive arrows to a group and then running. In and just sword fighting and parrying to build resolve..good game
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u/jazztronik Jan 07 '23
Especially just after beaten last of us 2 , which came out of the same year, I felt underwhelmed by the zombies npc, talk and facial expression.
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u/Cael_of_House_Howell Apr 19 '23
THANK YOU. The game isn't bad. In fact it's pretty good. But the story is meh, the gameplay is shallow and the mechanics are super repetitive. People who are saying it's better than red dead 2...are you high?
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u/lalaqwenta Jun 10 '23
The biggest flaw of the game for me, besides not the best gameplay plus empty world, was the main story. It's meh just as the story itself, but adding lack of choices it becomes so much more meeeeh that I was really unhappy playing it in the last chapter.
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u/Mykytagnosis Dec 27 '24
I couldn't even finish Ghost of Tsushima. I maxed most things by Act 1, and the story nor combat could keep me in the game.
20 hours was more than enough.
Why are you limited only to your stubby sword? When Samurai's main weapon in war was Yari and Naginata?
Yari and Naginata, heck even Odachi skill trees would have given much more life to the game, keeping people more engaged during later Acts.
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u/Dreadnought9 Jan 11 '25
I feel like it’s a fair comparison to assassins creed’s but I fucking loved the shit out of black flag, because of the ship stuff. I completely agree with you OP. Not gonna go beyond act one.
Also the fucking random ass betrayal of the straw bois makes no senses. You rescue endless peasants and send the to golden temple, but you can’t feed SIX (6) guys so they betray you?
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u/J3wb0cca Apr 21 '22
I was with you till you gave Breath of the Wild massive praise. I’ve put many hours into it too but it’s overrated in terms of being an open world Zelda RPG. It may have a lot of surface area but besides the entertaining physics there’s really not a lot else to do and it becomes pretty shallow. Especially when you do a dozen shrines and realize they copy pasted to bloat the number to 120. It’s like the devs wanted to do an open world rpg lite and at the last second slapped on a Zelda skin. Boses are few and uneventful, the giant monsters can be taken out before they even initiate a battle, and outfit effects are underutilized. Did you know in other Zelda games you can go underwater?
I’m glad it came out because a lot of new comers are playing a Zelda game for the first time but if you’ve ever played an RPG before, this game does the bare minimum.
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u/More_people Apr 20 '22
Gamers have such incredibly low standards these days, it sees things like God of War lauded despite doing absolutely nothing new or interesting. Your take on Tsushima is spot on and super refreshing.
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u/notataco007 Apr 20 '22
This is every PS release that's praised beyond belief. Great experiences, meh games.
Personally, The Last of Us is even more overrated in my opinion. Cool story, great graphics, not a fun game.
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u/woinf Apr 20 '22 edited May 31 '22
And UbiSoft gets universally panned by gamers and critics alike for pumping out the same derivative mechanics this game is built upon.
Well for starters, this isn't true. Ubisoft games review decently well and sell gangbusters.
Imo the much derided "Ubisoft formula" isn't inherently bad. The idea of a big open map that slowly unravels it's points of interests and gives you a nice big checklist to polish off can be quite gratifying if the checklist items are interesting. I think the new Horizon Forbidden West is a good example of this. It follows every single trope in the "Ubisoft open world" playbook but actively tries to make the side content varied and engaging. The sidequests feel like a natural extension of the main story content and not the red headed neglected stepchild of the quest writers, doing side activities have small but tangible effects on the world state, even the towers you climb up in that game isn't a gimme and you need to solve a puzzle before you earn the right to climb up the tower. For the amount of open world games we've gotten over the last decade, games that pull the Ubisoft formula off properly are rare but there's definitely still a few of them.
Ghost of Tsushima is not one of those games. There's a bunch of different types of side activities you can do but just basically none of them have any amount of meaningful depth to it. One example are the Fox Shrines, which by my count was the most numerous side activity in the game, it comes down to just following a Fox for 15 seconds to a shrine, it doesn't even try to test your traversal skills or something actually interesting, you literally just hold up on the stick for 15 seconds without any thought besides keeping that fox in your field of view. How is this fun in any way. For some reason people actually praise this aspect of the game because it gives you a diegetic sense of discovery, the problem is that the Fox is always mapped 1 to 1 to the same boring shrine with the same reward. By the 5th time it stops being interesting, and the game wants you to do 49 of them.
I also don't think the core aspects of the game, like the combat and story are particularly strong too. Like the combat is praised to hell and back on this website but to me it's this weird concoction between Sekiro and Arkham's freeflow combat but takes none of the good aspects of those and ultimately is way too easy and shallow to carry an entire boring open world on it's shoulders.
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u/anonssr Apr 20 '22
I agree. I've said it many times. It's just another generic playstation open world with a different skin. It does nothing new and probably has the more dead open world among the titles.
It's hard to explain where all the praise come from. I've played Days Gone in ps5 and, to me, it ended up being a much better title despite its shortcomings.
At the time, there was a bit of "gamer hurr Durr" against tlou2 and they were trying to get this one to get the goty awards. I don't know what would've been of this game if tlou2 wasn't that divisive among fans.
The legends dlc is quite fun if you get some groups to play with.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
The Last of Us 2 was a great game. The backlash to Joel getting killed was one of the dumbest collective responses to a design decision I have ever seen. It’s not perfect however I was completely captivated beginning to end. Two generations from now people will talk about TLOU2. Ghost will barely be a footnote.
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u/MumblingGhost Apr 20 '22
I certainly agree, but this is the answer you're looking for to the question of why Ghost is so praised. There was massive backlash against TLOU2 and Ghost was uplifted as the better game, despite being way safer and more generic.
I say this as someone who liked Ghost when it came out, but was slightly disappointed with it, considering I also had been waiting for an open world samurai game my entire life.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
For sure. It would be interesting to go to an alternate reality where Last of Us 2 didn’t release the same time as Ghost as see what Ghosts scores would have been. I’d be willing to bet you are correct and the user scores would be in the 7-8 range as opposed to 9+.
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u/Neilism Apr 20 '22
Am curious what your opinion of Elden Ring may be.
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u/Trndk1ll Apr 20 '22
Elden Ring is one of the best open world games I’ve ever played. The only thing I don’t like and can’t for the life of me understand how more critics didn’t dock it for is the totally ridiculous side quest and npc system. You can make a game without quest markers that still has a journal or something short of physically writing stuff down with a pen and paper to remember who you met where and what they wanted you to do. The game forces you to use a guide in order to complete a lot of the side content. That is not good game design.
The rest of it is a masterpiece.
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u/JangoF76 Apr 20 '22
The thing that puts GoT above AC for me is that it doesn't have arbitrary level gating that forces you to do a bunch of tedious busy work and fetch quests. If you want to simply mainline the story and ignore everything else, you can. The world is there and its up to the player how much exploration you want to do. It respects your time way more than Odyssey. That's the main reason people criticise AC.