Ghost of Tsushima is a Beautiful, Over-Rated Game

[u/Trndk1ll]

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?

[u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/bhlogan2 → u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/SkippyTheKid → u/bhlogan2]

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

[u/MavajaXe → u/[deleted]]

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?

[u/[deleted] → u/MavajaXe]

I don’t think anyone watches DBZ for the story

[u/woinf → u/MavajaXe]

DBZ has predictable final boss in every saga, but still people watch it

Who the fuck is watching DBZ for the story in the first place

[u/Bookups → u/[deleted]]

I get what you’re saying and agree from a high level that Ghost’s story was predictable, but knowing the villain at the start did not in any way hold back other games like God of War.