SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
With intense combat and breathtaking visuals, Ghost of Tsushima serves as an epic swansong for the PlayStation 4 despite upholding stale open-world game conventions.
Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima is the game I never really knew I wanted until I first started to play it. Over the many hours I spent journeying across the war-torn landscapes of 13th Century Japan, I was struck not by the fact that this game was quite literally taking my breath away, but by just how often it was happening. I would stop to gape at new and stunning vistas, and at how the stories of its many characters unfolded before me on the screen. But truth be told, I think many people have long harboured a secret, unconscious itch to play a game exactly like this, and if you’re one of them, you have plenty of reasons to celebrate. This is, bar a few niggling flaws and inconsistencies, a truly spectacular experience that both honours the films that inspired it and is also genuinely thrilling all on its own.
Set on the Japanese island of Tsushima during the Mongol invasions of the 13th Century, players take on the role of Jin Sakai, one of the island’s few remaining samurai. After the Mongol hordes land at Komoda Beach and devastate the outnumbered Japanese army sent to face them, Jin discovers the true insufficiency of the Bushido code against this new enemy. To save his homeland, Jin takes on the mantle of the Ghost, striking from the shadows while struggling to balance his respect for time-held traditions with the need to liberate his people from Mongol rule.
After a sluggish first act, the story rapidly picks up momentum. Its main focus is on Jin’s own internal struggle between his values and the need to defeat the invading Mongols using unconventional tactics. It’s also a thematically rich tribute to the Akira Kurosawa films that inspired its drama and its duels, with a brutally simple story focused on concepts of honour and justice. At the end of every quest and story we return to these themes, to discuss them and to appreciate the nuance where it exists. And it doesn’t always. Sometimes things are simply black and white, and I’m not talking about the game’s in-built Kurosawa filter. The sober tone is leagues apart from anything else in Sucker Punch’s portfolio, but if anything, this game only makes it clearer why Kurosawa’s works have inspired and continue to inspire. It’s a highly stylish and cinematic experience, with duels in arenas strewn with falling autumnal leaves and a sense of theatricality that starts out feeling overdone but ultimately proves a perfect fit.
The game is also graced with compelling side characters like Jin’s allies, who have their own tales that are just as well-written as Jin’s own. There are also Mythic Tales, special side quests that see Jin searching for legendary armour and equipment, and learning exotic katana techniques long lost to time. These feature a heady mix of myth, legend and reality, contributing to the very real sense of shaping Jin into an almost-mythic figure for the peasants of Tsushima. Sadly though, the ordinary side quests you can find across the island are just that: ordinary. These quests, which generally involve searching for things, killing bandits or Mongols, and finding people who are usually already dead, are less well-thought out. The game fails to buck the trend of offering busywork quests to fill out its open world.
It’s in the open world that Ghost of Tsushima’s flaws are most evident. The map covers all of Tsushima Island and is filled with things to do. You can worship at secluded shrines after completing various obstacle courses, follow the local birds to scenic spots to compose haikus, practice chopping bamboo and even take a much-needed bath at one of the island’s scattered hot springs. Trouble is, though this represents an interesting variation on traditional open-world mechanics, it ultimately amounts to busywork of a different kind. I’d argue that Ghost of Tsushima actually does all the typical open-world stuff pretty well. But there were definitely points where, while slaughtering my way through yet another Mongol encampment, that I couldn’t help but think that someone should have been able to come up with something else to do by now.
The combat on the other hand is intricate and complex; striking the perfect balance between having implausibly strong enemies and allowing simple, one-hit kills. While the game doesn’t undersell the sheer deadliness of Jin’s katana and his shorter tanto knife, it also ensures that there is actually a game to play. Your standard enemies will go down in a few hits, while enemies in the game’s beautifully choreographed duels can take several. You also can swap stances to deal with enemies wielding different weapons: attacks in the water stance can batter through a shield defence while stone stance strikes are more efficient and better suited for enemies with dual swords for example. Aside from some of the techniques you learn in the mid-game, my favourite feature is the standoff, which allows Jin to challenge groups of enemies to a duel. Time it right, and you can unleash a devastating sequence of one-hit-kills that more closely mirror traditional combat with a katana. Blood sprays in gory arcs as your enemies rush you one by one only for you to dispatch them with swift slices at their torsos and necks.
It’s fun. In fact it’s too fun, since it dominates the game’s stealth component. Jin can sneak around in tall grass, picking off enemies with a bow and tossing wind chimes to distract them while he assassinates their friends. You can throw smoke bombs to make your escape and even perform deadly chain assassinations from the rooftops. The stealth gameplay is fairly comprehensive, but while you could quite feasibly wipe out entire groups of enemies from the shadows, I found that it was more often a precursor to actual combat, and something I’d use to thin the horde down to a number I could handle head on. Rather annoyingly, there is the occasional sequence where you have to use stealth and sneak by enemies rather than fight them, but when given the option, I usually decided to pick fights using the standoff button simply because it looked cooler. Make no mistake, stealth is still viable. It’s just not as attractive as combat.
The game’s visuals and sound make it a contender for the most stunning game on the PlayStation 4, with vistas that are genuinely breathtaking in scope. The magnificent natural beauty of Japan is effortlessly captured in-engine, with sights like a temple practically shrouded in a forest of rich golden yellow leaves, vast fields of pampas grass swaying in the breeze and mountaintop shrines with views out across endless expanses of ocean where you’ll swear you can almost see the mainland. The accompanying soundtrack is both striking and soulful, a haunting accompaniment to duels in ancient graveyards flooded with purple flowers. Encapsulated is a world that’s incredibly harsh but also undeniably beautiful. The only thing that detracts from the visuals are the character models, which are uncharacteristically stiff and look a little unnatural. It’s oddly even more jarring if you play using the Japanese audio, since all the facial animations are synced to the English dialogue.
Ghost of Tsushima makes for quite the swansong for the PlayStation 4, and serves as a fitting tribute to a generation of great games. That the console’s final months rank up there as some of its greatest is due in no small part to Sucker Punch’s work. Despite a few niggling flaws that ensure it falls frustratingly short of true greatness, it’s genuinely hard to imagine a more startling send-off for the current console generation.
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