9.8.2020

Set in 13th century Japan, the island of Tsushima is the first to face the Mongol invasion. You play Jin Sakai - a young samurai of the House Sakai - on the front lines facing the Mongol hordes where your entire clan is wiped out with you the sole survivor apart from your uncle Shimura who is captured. Resolving to do whatever it takes to save protect Japan, liberate the island, and save your uncle, Jin is forced to set aside the honours and traditions of the samurai and wage a new kind of war against the enemy - that of the Ghost of Tsushima.Ghost of Tushima is an open world game where you can run, climb, swim, and ride through the vast grasslands, forests, mountains, and villages of the island of Tushima,in your quest to gather allies and repel the Mongol invaders.The game prompts unguided exploration of your environment and lacks a mini map to show you nearby points of interest, relying instead on the wind to direct you to your destination. The island is littered with all manner of points of interest, including hot springs that increase your health, quiet spots where you can contemplate your adventures and compose Haiku, survivor camps filled with traders who will upgrade your weapons (for a price) or offer useful information about local events and nearby missions, random encounters with roving bands of Mongol warriors, bandits or citizens in need, towns under siege, or enemy strongholds to be attacked.The playing area is huge with the island split up into three sections - each of which will corresponds to an associated chapter - and you're probably looking at well in excess of sixty hours of game play from start to finish if you make the effort to explore the environment to it's fullest.As a samurai your main weapon will be your katana. Initially you will start with only basic fast and heavy attacks but as the game proceeds you will learn new combinations and techniques to add to your arsenal, including several stances - each of which is more effective against a certain type of enemy. Combat usually involves facing a number of different enemies at once, such as swordsmen, spearmen, shield bearers, and "brutes", and so the key to success is to rapidly change between stances and use the most effective technique for the job at hand. You will also obtain charms that can be attached to your weapons, each of which will provide your character with a specific buff to your abilities.Despite your increasing skill with a blade it soon becomes apparent that winning this war is going to require a different kind of warrior, and to this end you also start to learn and adopt the tools and skills of the assassin, utilizing stealth, silent kills, and "ghost" weapons such as the kunai and black powder bomb to confuse and disorient your foes, stalking and striking from the shadows to remove your enemies with one swift blow. It reminded me a lot of the PSOne game Tenchu, for those old enough to remember that.In most scenarios you have a free choice regarding which approach you wish to adopt. Challenging foes directly is the honourable samurai way but may result in you being vastly outnumbered by your enemies, whilst sneaking through the shadows will allow you to avoid conflict or whittle enemy numbers down one by one but is an approach that leaves Jin conflicted and shamed.Samurai, Ghost skills, and stances have their own independent skill trees that can be upgraded each time you level up to unlock new abilities, so it is for you to decide what kind of warrior you wish to be as the story progresses. Also available are numerous upgrades for your weapons and armour, new costumes with distinct advantages, and legendary weapons and techniques that can be learned or obtained. Also important is your "resolve" - a limited but replenishing resource representing your will and tenacity that enables you to restore your health and unleash deadly attacks.In terms of controls the game has a lot in common with Witcher 3. Combat occurs over 360 degrees with you being able to strike out in any direction with a flick of the control stick and pressing the attack buttons, using a combination of swift strikes and heavy blows that break your opponents guard as well as blocking incoming attacks with your blade, dodging or rolling out of the way, using counter strikes, and using environmental hazards such as explosive barrels and hornets nests to distract or destroy your foes. It all makes for an extremely fluid and cinematic combat experience.There are lots of nice little touches to the game that really help to nail the genre, such as the ability to challenge opponents (think Red Dead Redemptions quick draw shoot outs but with blades!), duels where you face off against a single (usually powerful) opponent, and the ability to finish off downed enemies with a merciful killing blow.The graphics are excellent and the environment beautiful, and the game really shows that there's still some life left in the old console yet. You even have the option of playing the game in a grainy black and white filter akin to a traditional samurai movie. Effects, soundtrack, and voice acting are equally excellent and you have the choice of playing with an English translation or Japanese language with subtitles if you are looking for a more authentic experience.In terms of complaints there's not much to moan about. One issue is that there is no punishment or penalty for adopting the "dishonourable" ghost techniques or any reward for adopting the honourable samurai techniques even though Jin being conflicted by having to balance these two approaches is a persistent theme that runs throughout the game, although this doesn't really effect the quality of the story.Additionally, whilst there are a number of different costumes to be obtained that provide boosts to skills like archery, exploration, and stealth, as the majority of game play will involve sword play there's little incentive to explore these and the temptation is to stick with Samurai armours that boost things like your damage, health, and damage resistance. Also, whilst your sword can be upgraded, it is the only hand to hand weapon you will use throughout the game and it would have been nice to see some of the other weapons used by samurai in the game.Ghost of Tushima is a truly excellent and compelling gaming experience that's worth every penny and gets my highest recommendation.

21.7.2020

This year is a strong year for gaming and Sony (with other brilliant titles like Doom Eternal, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and now Ghost of Tsushima) and there's still Cyberpunk to come. I didn't see an awful lot about this game before launch which is how I wanted to keep it for a change, and it's turned out to be quite a surprise.Visuals: 10/10FF7 Remake looked incredible, but as far as large fully open worlds go, this game can only be compared to RDR2. It's a truly beautiful game that captures the stylized look of classic samurai movies (tall grass and tree's flowing in the wind, leaf strewn forests of vibrant tones, fireflies, embers and smoke of wartorn area's and settlements)there's also a day/night cycle that gives some of the prettiest sunsets you'll see to date. There's a weather system too, which though not on RDR2's level, still looks very nice as a storm blows in.The character models and emotions of their faces feel realistic as do the combat animations, maybe minor hard to notice blimps like blocking certain attacks, but hard to notice. The design of clothing, weapons, armour, buildings etc also all seem accurate to the time period (13th century Japan). There's even a black and white filter with movie reel grain to make the game look like an authentic samurai classic, but the game is so pretty I couldn't leave this on.Sound: 10/10Again, really nothing I can fault. The voice acting for English and Japanese are both great, and never break immersion of world you're absorbed into. Japanese VA's are used (and probably Chinese for the Mongols) so even with English voice selected the game doesn't feel too immersion breaking. The music in it is just as you'd hope from a game like this, and the sound effects from combat to traversing the environment are all spot on.Gameplay: 9/10The game is open world (I've heard it compared to assassins creed, although it's an insult to compare to compare this to assassins creed, it is similar in nature) also to Witcher or RDR2. Albeit this is 13th century Japan during a Mongol invasion, and going for realism, so there are no large cities like Nodigrad of Witcher III, but rather many smaller settlements, farm steads and places of refuge. The map is generous sized, you can roam it freely and set a way point, which cleverly shows as 'guiding wind', with aswipe up of the touch pad. There's a strong storyline to follow plus a number of side quests, findables and opressed settlements to free.Combat is fantastic, better than Witcher III and far better than Assassins creed. There's no lock on, yet it's designed so well you don't need it. The direction you're facing and pushing your left thumbstick leaves you accurately attacking the enemy you're aiming for, even when performing combos. There's a lot of skills to unlock and techniques to master (from different parrying, evasive maneuvers, even different fighting stances) plus different weapons from bow and kunai blades to black powder and smoke bombs. The unlockables give a healthy amount of levelling up and progression to sink your teeth into. Then there's gear customization (aesthetics like headwear, mask or clothing/armour, colour dyes, weapon appearance for katana and tanto blades, horse saddle) or charms you can equip to weapons for various defensive and offensive perks. The game also has a real stealth element to it like Tenchu, where you can sneak behind ends assassinate with your tanto blade, you have a focussed hearing mode that helps hear better and highlights enemies a bit more. Stealth kills are however considered dishonorable or against the samurai (and Sakai clan) code, it's deemed honorable to face enemies head on and look them in the eye. This has some bearing on gameplay but haven't yet noticed it being a huge story altering mechanic.The game even has some Tomb Raider/Unchartered wall scaling mechanics, albeit not of the same caliber, but adds refreshing platforming/puzzle sections to the game that it could've otherwise completely omitted.You can find a number of supplies and materials in houses and the world (plus flowers and raw materials like wood, bamboo etc) all used for upgrading weapons, armour/clothing, colour dying etc). The only reason I don't give it a 10 is sometimes getting down from cliff edges/rocks can be a bit janky (not pressing R2 to use the Tomb Raider esque mechanic, but literally just trying to walk off a rock or edge) Jin suddenly feels like he has vertigo sometimes and doesn't want to jump off, it's been ok today, maybe it'll be patched. This game is most like RDR2, as you can't just walk inside any house like Skyrim and talk to everyone you meet.Other pointers, you can sheathe and draw your blade with right swiping touchpad, down swipe is to pray/bow. Left swipe is to play your flute, and left D-pad is to call your horse (which you can pick and choose a name for). Finally up swipe is the guiding wind. One other cool feature, when approaching groups/enemies from a distance in the open you can initiate a showdown by pressing up on D-pad. This never gets old and you can instantly strike down up to 3 enemies (with perk unlocks) in a cinema-esque scene.Storyline: 9/1013th century Japan, Mongols led by Khotun Khan (grandson of Ghengais Khan) invade Japan via Tsushima. You play as lord Jin Sakai, one of the last surviving Samurai in Tsushima after a battle goes awry. You must find and unite and remaining warriors and repel the Mongol invasion; saving the innocent where you can. There's good side quests and characters that don't tell unmemorable. Plus the game dives into the past at times to build upon it's story, I can't say much as don't want to spoil anything but the storyline is solid. Not as compelling as RDR2 but close, and nowhere near as disastrously bad as TLOU2.Verdict: 5*, a beautiful and highly engrossing game that should give 50+ hours and then some with the additional things to complete or do. I'm playing it on hard and the difficultly feels nice, sometimes I make silly mistakes and die, but you learn from them and the load times are wonderfully quick. This is the best Japanese sword game I've played since Tenchu on PS1, and after the awful release of TLOU2 followed by it's highly disappointing storyline and characters, this game really mends the wounds left and puts strong faith back in Sony, and their exclusives.

8.8.2020

I loved the look of this game from its very first teaser trailer that I saw and couldn't wait to give this title a go especially as it had a great studio behind it (Sucker Punch) whose other previous titles I'd had a lot of fun with.So what does this title offer?Well firstly and perhaps most importantly its a game that is a huge open world setting during the time of the Mongol invasion of the Japanese island of Tsushima in 1274. It has beautiful scenery, is idyllically coloured and brings a realism to the landscape that just captures your imagination.The protagonist has flaws who in the opening sequence sees his beliefs and way of life devastated and has to find his own way in a new world that challenges him to the core in order to save his people.

4.9.2020

This is an excellent open world samurai game. It's very close in spirit to the dramatic and psychological realism of the Kurosawa films it pays homage to. I played it with Japanese dialogue and subtitles for the full fat experience. It was awesome.It tells a superb story that gets you from the start. It has an excellent central character. Some great twists and turns along the way also, with compelling secondary characters. Seriously, beautiful graphics and sound design aside, the storytelling in this game is its primary selling point for me. For a video game, it's amazingly adult - presenting compelling dilemmas with no good outcomes; characters compromised morally by their choices; judged for past sins...

15.8.2020

I bought it for my son and he is loving it. I am a gamer myself, not really fond of this genre though, but I must say Ghost Of Tsushima is a stunning game. However, during the sporadic game sessions it left me the taste of something already experienced and couldn't help comparing it to GTA5 with which I found a lot of elements in common. Don't get me wrong, it's a MUST have and it will shine in your game collection, but at the end of the day it's nothing revolutionary; that is the path the video game industry decided for us gamers... A bunch of clone games.

2.8.2020

Got my PS4 game on time & :in really good condition & delivered by a nice, helpful polite delivery person. It's a really good game with good combat sword moves & a big open world to explore with nice scenery that's very different to the usual background scenery we see in games like The Last of us part 2 or Batman Arkham games. If you like Samurai films then you may enjoy this game. Thankyou all for this many thanks again, much appreciated. :)

6.9.2020

A highly enjoyable game that kept my interest all the way to 100% completion. It does however fall into the same holes that a lot of current gen open world games do. Some of the marked locations on the map can really drag on as you near the end. And you’ll notice certain elements that show in this title. The gameplay however is satisfying and loading screens non-existent. Good samurai fun.

17.7.2020

Love this game!! Combat is fantastic, responsive and makes you feel like a samurai, when you get it right.Slightly disappointed that it's a 'digital only art book', especially when my copy of the Last of us 2 came with a physical copy, for the same price, however if you grew up with the karate kid, ninja and samurai films, this game is a must!

28.7.2020

Absolutely stunning game graphically and story wise. One of the best PS4 games, the photomode is one of the best I have used in a game so many options. The gameplay if fun and satisfying, it’s a blend of the batman games with a bit of assassins creed thrown in. My personal game of the year. Perfect end to the PS4 generation.

21.8.2020

I love this game, the scenery is beautiful. As a fan of the samurai genre this game is full of amazing set pieces that invoke the classic movies.I am nearly at the end of the story, have collected most collectables and done most side missions - I must have put in about 50 hours to date.

23.7.2020

Having just completed last of us 2 ( which was truly amazing ) I decided to purchase this . I thought it would be good . I was wrong . It’s absolutely brilliant !!! Gameplay and presentation is stunning throughout . A must buy game in my opinion .

18.7.2020

Absolutely amazing game, to people who think the no map/wind direction will be awkward it isn't works so well and simply, combat is very solid Camara can be slightly slow when numerous enemies but isn't a issue really

14.8.2020

The game has super real graphics and the game play is unimaginable. I can't describe enough the content in this game.Got this game way ahead of schedule thank you for this game, and to those that shipped it out.

20.8.2020

This game is incredible! Gorgeous open world, combat is very well balanced, especially with the recently added LETHAL difficulty.The steelbook that comes with the special edition is very nice.

4.1.2021

One of the best games of 2020 and maybe ever! Artistct and beautiful world with awesome fighting and world exploration rivaling breath of the wild zelda. This is a masterpiece and a must play

Ghost of Tsushima: Special Edition (PS4) - Reviews

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