Ghost of Tsushima

[Joe]

I've been playing it almost non-stop since the weekend. Stealth gameplay is pretty typical of an Assassin's Creed like game but the combat gameplay feels phenomenal. The visuals are stunning. Story is serious but engaging.
Very hard to put down.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I actually bought it for my son and I'm watching him play.
Another thing I like about it is that the characters haven't been beautified. They look like regular human beings.
But OMG the foxes!!!!

 

[Lulcielid]

Ghost of Tsushima becomes the best selling Sony first party PS4 game in Japan, selling over 212k on its opening week.

-----
Some food for though: Ghost of Tsushima, Kurosawa and the Political Myth of the Samurai

 

[Lulcielid]

Ghost of Tsushima debuts with 2.4M units sold globally in 3 days, making it the fastest selling first party original IP debut.

To put things into perspective:

TLOU Part II: 4M in 3 days
Spider-Man: 3.3M in 3 days
God of War: 3.1M in 3 days
Ghost of Tsushima: 2.4M in 3 days
Uncharted 4: 2.7M in 1 week
Horizon Zero Dawn: 2.6M in 2 weeks
inFamous SS: 1M in 9 days
Bloodborne: 1M in 12 days
Detroit Become Human: 1M in 2 weeks

 

[Glaurung]

Some food for though: Ghost of Tsushima, Kurosawa and the Political Myth of the Samurai

That's a very interesting article, though the food for thought for me is another issue:

I love how gaijins (especially... no, specifically US folks) like to patronize every other country about how they should look back at their own history, how they should interpret it, and how they should portray it so that they don't offend modern, Western sensitivities. Since this article is directed at a US-based society, my bet is that they try their hardest to disparage this way of looking back into your own past, lest there are some americans who decide (in the midst of this wave of hatred and revisionism you have over there) to do the same with their young country and suddenly start feeling proud of their 200 years of history.

Not every country is going to issue and statement telling their citizens to get on their knees and grovel for whatever happened centuries ago, because back in the day there were as many war criminals as they were victims on each side. That's something for western big-city dwellers with zero knowledge of History and nothing better to do with their very abundant free time.



@thread: Gosh I want this game on PC so bad...

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Spoiler: So basically in Ghost

a samurai learns that if he wants to save his homeland he has to fight dirty, ally with peasants, and invent guerilla warfare. This is after practically ever other samurai on the island did it the honourable samurai way and met a quick death. They had one job - protect the people - and their code made them useless at it. Our hero does what he set out to do, but doesn't win a happy ending for himself. Idealism v. realism.

Americans have plenty to be proud of in their history, as well as plenty to be ashamed of. Like everybody else.

 

[Mayo Master]

I've been playing it for a week now - this is a brilliant game.
I love this big contrast with, on the one hand, the quiet moments of travel following the flower petals swirling in the wind, composing haikus, meditating in the hot springs, and on the other hand the quick and brutal combat.
The aesthetic and the general atmosphere of the game is awesome. The combat gameplay is deep. The story and characters are engaging.
It's a feat that a Western studio was able to produce a game about medieval Japan and meet commercial success in Japan, and IMO it is totally deserved.

 

[Fangu]

My boyfriend is playing this and enjoying it. He's playing with English audio. I thought I would find Japanese characters with Western style dialogue and mo capping too strange for me (having played almost all of the Yakuza games), but I got over it pretty quickly. The Japanese audio makes the game a bit too odd for me tho. I'm glad he's doing English.

My boyfriend tends to start games and quit after a few hours, but this is a game he's actually excited to get back to.

 

[Tetsujin]

That's a very interesting article, though the food for thought for me is another issue:

I love how gaijins (especially... no, specifically US folks) like to patronize every other country about how they should look back at their own history, how they should interpret it, and how they should portray it so that they don't offend modern, Western sensitivities. Since this article is directed at a US-based society, my bet is that they try their hardest to disparage this way of looking back into your own past, lest there are some americans who decide (in the midst of this wave of hatred and revisionism you have over there) to do the same with their young country and suddenly start feeling proud of their 200 years of history.

Not every country is going to issue and statement telling their citizens to get on their knees and grovel for whatever happened centuries ago, because back in the day there were as many war criminals as they were victims on each side. That's something for western big-city dwellers with zero knowledge of History and nothing better to do with their very abundant free time.



@thread: Gosh I want this game on PC so bad...

This is kind of an odd take tbh, especially in response to an article written by a Japanese.
Looking back at your past and acknowledging the bad shit to learn from it is generally a good idea. It's unfortunately rarely done.

 

[Glaurung]

Looking back at your past and acknowledging the bad shit to learn from it is generally a good idea. It's unfortunately rarely done.

Agreed. Past events should be always looked upon with all their historical context. It's rarely done because, most of the times, people who give their opinion (now with the internet, while in past times it was debating in "cultured" social circles whether they should censor or ban this or that book or play) rarely put themselves in the proper context. That takes time, and we have no time for that.



Also:

Spoiler: I don't want to derail the thread, so it goes in spoiler ;)

The journalist being japanese is irrelevant if they publish through an american media, with american editorial policies, and for an american public.

One could go the tin-foil, conspiranoic way and think that they used such person with such name to give the message they want to give a patina of legitimacy, instead of the take I had on the article. Just look how differently we reacted, you and me, depending on whether we knew or not the name of the journalist before forming our opinion.

 

[ExampleZ]

Beat the game yesterday, an easy GOTY for me, yes even more so than the FF7 remake. Amazing how a brand new IP with barely any marketing is able to sell gangbusters in such a short period.

 

[Lulcielid]

Patch 1.05 details, coming later today.

1) New difficulty level: Lethal

• – Enemy weapons are more deadly, but Jin’s katana is also more deadly
• – Enemies are more aggressive in combat
• – Enemies detect you faster
• – Tighter Parry and Dodge windows

2) Lower Intensity Combat

Lower intensity mode is meant to maintain the heart and feel of Ghost of Tsushima combat while relaxing several timing-specific elements. Combat is less intense, giving you more time to react. Stealth settings are more forgiving, and enemies take longer to detect you.

• – Most enemy attacks which are normally unblockable become blockable when Lower Intensity is enabled. Blocking with L1 will keep you safe from more attacks than standard combat, though some attacks must still be dodged.
• – Enemies break off their attack combos after damaging you, giving you a chance to recover before the next wave of attacks. In addition, your heavy attacks will interrupt attacks from Brutes, giving you another way to stop their combos.
• – Enemies will not attack you while you’re using Resolve to heal
• – Enemy awareness builds more slowly, giving you more time to recover after being spotted

3) Text changes

• – Large Text option: Increases text size of subtitles, mission objectives and interact prompts by 150% when enabled
• – Added option to turn speaker name off when subtitles are enabled
• – New subtitle text color options in addition to white: Yellow, Blue, Red, Green

4) Bug Fixes

 

[Fangu]

lol my boyfriend just commented 'this sunset is really realistic, I can't see shit!'

 

[Lulcielid]

Stats for the first 10 days of the game.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The complete absence of fanservice in this game is really refreshing. The two main female characters are a complete joy as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Lulcielid]

Free Update: Legends Co-Op Mode. Releasing on Fall 2020.

• new separate mode
• more "haunting and fantastical" than the main campaign
• inspired by Japanese folk tales and mythology
• matchmaking
• 2-4 players
• 4 classes with unique advantages
• Story and Survival missions

PS+ requiered for online multiplayer.

 

[Lulcielid]

 

[looneymoon]

I watched my S/O play this. Gotta echo the sentiments that this is probably my favourite art direction of the PS4 library. What a pretty game.

 

[Tetsujin]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1314641549406265346

 

[Claymore]

I've had to delay my playthrough due to personal circumstances, so it's going to be great to get back into this with the PS5.

 

[Lulcielid]

Movie in the work, directed by Chad Stahelski (John Wick).

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Well that's basically guaranteed beautiful action & stealth, and with the Matrix already being a lot of the East+West combination of elements in film and starting out there with Keanu Reeves being what lead to John Wick, I think that he's a spectacular choice for it.



X

 

[Clement Rage]

Playing through Act 1. Heard a lot of great things about this game, so far it's solid but not super engaging, I'm quickly getting tired of the same encounters over and over, and the whole 'fight honourably or not' thing stretches my credibility a bit, like people who have been in combat their whole lives have never encountered 'but what if they don't play fair' before.

 

[Clement Rage]

Starting to resent the NPCs, they seem to be going out of their way to be as obstructive as possible.

Spoiler: Act 2

Masako, it might be easier to find the relevant information if you stopped murdering all our informants in the middle of the interrogation. My money is on Junshin as the mastermind, as there was no reason for him to suddenly leave the Golden temple and come to district 2 and he seems to mysteriously know where all these people are. Feels like such a waste of time when Masako keeps needlessly murdering the leads.

Sensei Ishikawa's quests are getting stale as well, infiltrate base, find out Tomoe was here, rinse, repeat.

Just did the first Yuna one, eh, another hunt down specific person to kill quest.

Kenji's quests are actually the most fun, you know what you're getting with him.

Does the real Tsushima actually have a giant cliff that prevents you from moving to the top of the island until you take a specific fortress?

If I had bothered to liberate area 1, it would have been annoying to have a bunch of farmsteads immediately recaptured, but I have no real incentive to do that, I'm not even bothering to hunt down the hot springs or bamboo stands.

The lack of a mounted combat mechanic is conspicuous, even though I know that'd be a lot of work. I know you can get an upgraded saddle, so maybe there's a way to do it if do the work.

Reclaiming my armour was a rather good quest.

This is a very polished game, but not sure it's for me. Sad, because I'd heard so many good things.

 

[Clement Rage]

Apologies for using this thread as my game diary.

Spoiler: Yarikawa

Woohoo, half the city is fire and the population are half dead, what a glorious victory.

Interesting contrast to the opening, where the story was emphatic on 'don't challenge big leader guy to duel, it accomplishes nothing' and here we turn around a battle by challenging the big leader guy to a duel.

Did Yuna's quests, pretty sure the game wants you to as they're quick and easy. Not sure whether I'm going to do Norio's or not. Yorikos was way more time consuming than I bargained for, got sick of it and gave up.

I like the straw hats, as enemies they have personality, and Ryuza is most engaging for me.

Slowly checking out of sidequests. I enjoyed the early mythic tales, but the latest two are 'do five duels' and 'clear five farmsteads' scattered across the map. I completed one of each by accident while on other quests, (the farmstead hostage handed over the key before Jin knew he was looking for it, but the dialogue doesn't reflect that.) but not going to intentionally try them.