Gaming Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

b82REZ

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People who were luke warm on Ghost, did you play with the English dub?

I found myself becoming far more immersed when I switched the language to Japanese, early on.
 

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Trailer for Returnal has come out.

Not my kind of game at all, looks like a Gears clone.
 

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People who were luke warm on Ghost, did you play with the English dub?

I found myself becoming far more immersed when I switched the language to Japanese, early on.
What kind of heathens didn't play in Japanese?

It took all my might not to activate Kurosawa mode from the off too.
 

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It's a very good basis to build a top sequel on. It's flaws in many places (characters, story, stealth to name a few), but the gameplay was strong throughout and it was interesting enough to keep even me entertained for longer than most of these games.

Hopefully they push forward and the next one has more depth to the story and missions.
I forgot to mention stealth. It was really really basic. But the positives more than outweight the negatives.
 

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Finished this yesterday and enjoyed it from start to finish. Can see why those with ocd would find it a repetitive slog but I think the main missions and character side missions are really strong.

I won't start New Game+ but I will certainly have a crack on Legends mode and I might mop up a few of the collectables that are near completed. If anything it's just cool to stroll around the map with a fully maxed out character and obliterate the enemy. Love going into Ghost mode especially...oh and the chain assassinations are brutal. Only realised you could decapitate the camp leaders in Act 3.
 

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May give this another go and just focus on the main story. Problem is with open world games I get sidetracked with side quests and optional stuff and then if that doesn’t hold me enough I get bored.
 

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I thought it was a beautiful game with fun combat and ghost weapon system and balance. However the characters and missions were so bland and the game so long that in the end I just wanted to finish it and it felt like a chore.
 

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I actually finished it over the weekend too.

I still think my initial criticisms are valid, act 1 was a real slog cause the characters are crap and the story is fairly bland. if anything the Khan is the best character in it and I was almost rooting for him more! Also the fox dens and birds are really annoying and that's why I stopped playing the game for like 5 months until I got the ps5.

However act 2 and 3 are much better, mainly cause the combat does get far more fun as you unlock more and encounter different enemy types, and as I was basically ignoring all the foxes and birds and just doing main and side missions that helped too.

so yeah it's a good game if you stick with it, and there's enough in there that I think if they fix what was wrong with it, a sequel could be a great game.
 

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May give this another go and just focus on the main story. Problem is with open world games I get sidetracked with side quests and optional stuff and then if that doesn’t hold me enough I get bored.
Yeah I think you should. The fox dens etc don't really add anything tbh and you do end up with a lot of duplicate charms. Probably just worth doing enough to open up the slots, if that.

I did enjoy the bamboo strikes though. I think them (to increase resolve slots) and the spa's (for health0 are worth doing although you'll be massively overpowered by end game anyway.

@Massive Spanner The yellow birds lead you to everything though (inc story missions). They aren't anything of themselves. Or do you mean the bird cages? I didn't go out of my way to look for them either.

Whoever said the duels were the best bit was right as well. Love em. That whole side quest with the 6 straw hat duelists was cool and the music when you defeat someone is epic.
 

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Yeah I think you should. The fox dens etc don't really add anything tbh and you do end up with a lot of duplicate charms. Probably just worth doing enough to open up the slots, if that.

I did enjoy the bamboo strikes though. I think them (to increase resolve slots) and the spa's (for health0 are worth doing although you'll be massively overpowered by end game anyway.

@Massive Spanner The yellow birds lead you to everything though (inc story missions). They aren't anything of themselves. Or do you mean the bird cages? I didn't go out of my way to look for them either.

Whoever said the duels were the best bit was right as well. Love em. That whole side quest with the 6 straw hat duelists was cool and the music when you defeat someone is epic.
Do they? For me when I followed it was usually a shrine or whistle thing or whatever. I don't get why they'd lead to missions themselves otherwise what's the point of the whole guiding wind thing? Or do you mean missions that I haven't gotten yet?

Either way I found them annoying, there were multiple times I'd be on my merry way somewhere and those feckers would be hooting away around me trying to drag me off course. For a game that is all about simplicity in the UI etc. and attempting to get you maximized in the world itself they were an annoying distraction. I just didn't see the point of them at all. If I wanted to find something there was a marker or question mark on the map anyway.

Oh and yeah the duels are brilliant, loved them, especially the straw hats.
 

CassiusClaymore

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Do they? For me when I followed it was usually a shrine or whistle thing or whatever. I don't get why they'd lead to missions themselves otherwise what's the point of the whole guiding wind thing? Or do you mean missions that I haven't gotten yet?

Either way I found them annoying, there were multiple times I'd be on my merry way somewhere and those feckers would be hooting away around me trying to drag me off course. For a game that is all about simplicity in the UI etc. and attempting to get you maximized in the world itself they were an annoying distraction. I just didn't see the point of them at all. If I wanted to find something there was a marker or question mark on the map anyway.

Oh and yeah the duels are brilliant, loved them, especially the straw hats.
Yeah they direct you to survivor camps, gifts, altars, shrines and I swear they took me to people that kicked off a side mission. Pretty much everything.

I'll admit the tweeting got annoying after a while though :lol:
 

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Finished it this morning. I loved every bit of it... Definitely would be in my top 5 PS4 games.

The combat is a proper delight... And yeah you do become a bit of an overpowered beast at the end (though isn't that the case in most games these days?) but it's just fun mowing down an army of Mongols.

Thought the characters and stories were all decent too... Nothing groundbreaking, but nice enough to get me invested.

The side stuff didn't bother me at all... One of those games where I didn't mind exploring and collecting stuff (maybe because the world is bloomin beautiful?) and I particularly enjoyed the shrines, the haikus and the bamboo strikes. The Fox Dens were the only ones I found a bit tedious, probably because there were loads of them and they didn't have much interaction.

But yeah, great game. Will probably play through it again in a couple of years
 
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Redlambs

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Finished it this morning. I loved every bit of it... Definitely would be in my top 5 PS4 games.

The combat is a proper delight... And yeah you do become a bit of an overpowered beast at the end (though isn't that the case in most games these days?) but it's just fun mowing down an army of Mongols.

Thought the characters and stories were all decent too... Nothing groundbreaking, but nice enough to get me invested.

The side stuff didn't bother me at all... One of those games where I didn't mind exploring and collecting stuff (maybe because the world is bloomin beautiful?) and I particularly enjoyed the shrines, the haikus and the bamboo strikes. The Fox Dens were the only ones I found a bit tedious, probably because there were loads of them and they didn't have much interaction.

But yeah, great game. Will probably play through it again in a couple of years
I wonder if the people who didn't like it so much are the ones burned out on open world games like this?

I mean I didn't actually finish this in the end as I did get bored because these kind of games aren't really my thing and the progression always bugs me so I don't play many to completion, but I think that this was a particularly good example of the genre. It's a very solid base to build on.
 

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It certainly suffers from some of the same missteps as so many other open world games. The game would literally improve if you removed all collectibles and fox dens and offered nothing in exchange. I know some people will argue you can just ignore those, but there are always rewards involved so you feel compelled to do them anyway. There's just nothing fun about following a fox and pressing a button to pray at a shrine. It's vapid padding and a blight on video gaming in general. It needs to die. I thought stealth was also pretty tedious.

If they make a sequel, they need to cut away all the fat and just make sure the sword fighting takes center stage, especially the one-on-one fights. Those cinematic duels are the game at its very best, more of that please. I also generally liked the tales, especially those of Masako and Ishikawa. It's a good quest structure.

If there's one thing I want from the PS5/Series X era of video games, it's less to-do lists masquerading as open world video games. Not holding my breath though.
 

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It certainly suffers from some of the same missteps as so many other open world games. The game would literally improve if you removed all collectibles and fox dens and offered nothing in exchange. I know some people will argue you can just ignore those, but there are always rewards involved so you feel compelled to do them anyway. There's just nothing fun about following a fox and pressing a button to pray at a shrine. It's vapid padding and a blight on video gaming in general. It needs to die. I thought stealth was also pretty tedious.

If they make a sequel, they need to cut away all the fat and just make sure the sword fighting takes center stage, especially the one-on-one fights. Those cinematic duels are the game at its very best, more of that please. I also generally liked the tales, especially those of Masako and Ishikawa. It's a good quest structure.

If there's one thing I want from the PS5/Series X era of video games, it's less to-do lists masquerading as open world video games. Not holding my breath though.
Yeah I do agree with all this. The problem with "open world games" is that people are suckered into believing that the fetch quest nonsense in the Ubisoft games is the way to go and that those kinds of things lead to depth and 100's of hours played.

Ghosts had some decent combat ideas mixed with a good looking setting, if they focus on those strengths and made the overall story/acting stronger, then I think the sequel could be a goat. As for stealth, it's about time we came full circle and stopped treating console gamers like trash kids and started making it a challenge to actually do it again. But sadly even with all this extra power, no way AI gets improved as the console wars and the idiots arguing in them will continue to only give a shit about shiny stuff and numbers.
 

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I wonder if the people who didn't like it so much are the ones burned out on open world games like this?

I mean I didn't actually finish this in the end as I did get bored because these kind of games aren't really my thing and the progression always bugs me so I don't play many to completion, but I think that this was a particularly good example of the genre. It's a very solid base to build on.
Quite possibly... There are a hell of a lot. Before this I played a couple hours each of WatchDogs 2, Days Gone, Kingdom Come and gave up on all of them fairly quickly as they just weren't my thing for one reason or another.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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Quite possibly... There are a hell of a lot. Before this I played a couple hours each of WatchDogs 2, Days Gone, Kingdom Come and gave up on all of them fairly quickly as they just weren't my thing for one reason or another.
I’m kind of the same. That’s why despite the criticism I think Cyberpunk is one of the best open world RPGs of the last few years of not longer. I actually played that through for 90 hours and at the end all I could think was I can’t wait for playthrough number two, that’s despite all the bugs, crashes and cuts.

I think I’m going to try give this one abit more time to see if I can get back into it as the combat is truly great.
 

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Quite possibly... There are a hell of a lot. Before this I played a couple hours each of WatchDogs 2, Days Gone, Kingdom Come and gave up on all of them fairly quickly as they just weren't my thing for one reason or another.
I know that fans of Days Gone always talk about how its underrated. But it really is. A fun game once you get past the first few hours. Taking on hordes is so much fun.

After I finished the game, I read some of the reviews to see why they were so negative. It was obvious that they had barely played the game.
 

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Yeah I do agree with all this. The problem with "open world games" is that people are suckered into believing that the fetch quest nonsense in the Ubisoft games is the way to go and that those kinds of things lead to depth and 100's of hours played.

Ghosts had some decent combat ideas mixed with a good looking setting, if they focus on those strengths and made the overall story/acting stronger, then I think the sequel could be a goat. As for stealth, it's about time we came full circle and stopped treating console gamers like trash kids and started making it a challenge to actually do it again. But sadly even with all this extra power, no way AI gets improved as the console wars and the idiots arguing in them will continue to only give a shit about shiny stuff and numbers.
Stealth in general is so terrible it's laughable. I hate how binary it is. You enter bushes, tall grass or whatever and you're instantly invisible. I don't know what game started that bullshit but it seems to be everywhere now. Assassin's Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, hell even a game like Uncharted 4 has it like that. At least in The Last of Us 2 it's a bit more organic, but you could say that's simply how it was in a game like Metal Gear Solid 3, which is ancient by now. It's all these "conventions" I can't stand, because it leads to so many gameplay elements feeling identical across a wide range of games. It must've started at some point - I want to say the PS360 era, but I'm not sure - and I feel that before that point, games just did their own thing. Sure games were always iterating on ideas from earlier ones, but nowadays it all feels so structured and formulaic. It's shit.

Well, anyway, rant over. :lol:

Quite possibly... There are a hell of a lot. Before this I played a couple hours each of WatchDogs 2, Days Gone, Kingdom Come and gave up on all of them fairly quickly as they just weren't my thing for one reason or another.
I've never played Kingdom Come but I was under the impression it's more like a blend of The Witcher 3 and Skyrim and not necessarily as formulaic as Ubisoft games. Did I get that wrong?
 

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I thought it was a beautiful game with fun combat and ghost weapon system and balance. However the characters and missions were so bland and the game so long that in the end I just wanted to finish it and it felt like a chore.
I'm considering buying this, given your experience I felt the exact same way about RDR2. Never a good sign with games.
 

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Fox dens would be okay if there wasn't literally 50-something of them.

But then I platinum'd it so I'm just another sap.
 

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Stealth in general is so terrible it's laughable. I hate how binary it is. You enter bushes, tall grass or whatever and you're instantly invisible. I don't know what game started that bullshit but it seems to be everywhere now. Assassin's Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, hell even a game like Uncharted 4 has it like that. At least in The Last of Us 2 it's a bit more organic, but you could say that's simply how it was in a game like Metal Gear Solid 3, which is ancient by now. It's all these "conventions" I can't stand, because it leads to so many gameplay elements feeling identical across a wide range of games. It must've started at some point - I want to say the PS360 era, but I'm not sure - and I feel that before that point, games just did their own thing. Sure games were always iterating on ideas from earlier ones, but nowadays it all feels so structured and formulaic. It's shit.

Well, anyway, rant over. :lol:
No, you rant away my dude! I always get misunderstood on here because I tend to rant about things like this :lol:

I could go in to a long rant about stealth games and dumbing down for what they thought were "console gamers" of the time (and I know first hand on some fronts), but perhaps that's for another day.
 

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The platinum level for this game is very high. I think it was 13% the last time I looked at it on the PSN. I'm surprised because it's quite a lot of hours work to put in, especially the collectibles and clearing out the Mongol camps. Guess people really loved the core experience enough to do it all.
 

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I know that fans of Days Gone always talk about how its underrated. But it really is. A fun game once you get past the first few hours. Taking on hordes is so much fun.

After I finished the game, I read some of the reviews to see why they were so negative. It was obvious that they had barely played the game.
Of the three Days Gone was the one I played the most... Probably about 10 hours or so. Its a good game and I can see why people would like it, just didn't grab me

I've never played Kingdom Come but I was under the impression it's more like a blend of The Witcher 3 and Skyrim and not necessarily as formulaic as Ubisoft games. Did I get that wrong?
Definitely more Skyrim then Witcher... I just found it a bit joyless. Also just didn't enjoy the combat, and that's a make or break thing for me personally in a game.

The platinum level for this game is very high. I think it was 13% the last time I looked at it on the PSN. I'm surprised because it's quite a lot of hours work to put in, especially the collectibles and clearing out the Mongol camps. Guess people really loved the core experience enough to do it all.
I think the fact that just by finishing the game and doing whatever you naturally come across will get you about 80%of the way there has something to do with it. I platinumed it and I've platinumed about 4 or 5 games in my life.
 

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The platinum level for this game is very high. I think it was 13% the last time I looked at it on the PSN. I'm surprised because it's quite a lot of hours work to put in, especially the collectibles and clearing out the Mongol camps. Guess people really loved the core experience enough to do it all.
Got it myself earlier.

Really not that much effort. I'd done most of it as part of the story. I think the little statues you have to bow at were the only confusing one which needed a guide.
 

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No, you rant away my dude! I always get misunderstood on here because I tend to rant about things like this :lol:

I could go in to a long rant about stealth games and dumbing down for what they thought were "console gamers" of the time (and I know first hand on some fronts), but perhaps that's for another day.
What recent PC game has great stealth?
 

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I got the platinum for this game. All open world games that have straight forward trophies have a high platinum percentage because they are pretty much autopilot. Trophy collectors like that type of thing.

I thought it was a very good game. The combat was very enjoyable, especially on higher difficulty. The production values and graphics are impressive considering the tech in the PS4, it's pretty incredible, and of course it runs better on the PS5 too.

The story was fairly average, nothing particularly grabbed me about it but it was decent, so were the side quests. I also thought some of the gameplay elements were lacking variety, there's only so many fox dens and camps I can do before it gets pretty tedious.The usual trappings of open world games, I think. A lot of go here, do a mind numbing task, rinse and repeat. But it's still within the top tier of this type of thing, it's probably more my apathy towards them in general.
 

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What recent PC game has great stealth?
My favorite stealth games were the first Splinter cell games. I’m not really sure if that’s just nostalgia and how much the stealth aspects there were actually better than in games like Hitman or TLOU.
 

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My favorite stealth games were the first Splinter cell games. I’m not really sure if that’s just nostalgia and how much the stealth aspects there were actually better than in games like Hitman or TLOU.
Yeah definitely. Really enjoyed those. Deus Ex and MGS would be my other preferred Stealth based games. I was just wondering which recent PC stealth titles he was referring to.
 

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Finished it earlier. Overall a very fun and enjoyable game, and I don't think the story was as weak as others have made out. Jin's journey from Samurai to Ghost, his conflict with his mentor and his subsequent expulsion was well done. The journey to that point was enjoyable too. Combat was lots of fun. Biggest criticisms would be dumb AI and poor stealth mechanics, but I don't think they detract too much from the overall experience.

As an aside I've always wanted to visit Japan so when I do I will make sure to visit Tsushima :lol:
 

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Finished it earlier. Overall a very fun and enjoyable game, and I don't think the story was as weak as others have made out. Jin's journey from Samurai to Ghost, his conflict with his mentor and his subsequent expulsion was well done. The journey to that point was enjoyable too. Combat was lots of fun. Biggest criticisms would be dumb AI and poor stealth mechanics, but I don't think they detract too much from the overall experience.

As an aside I've always wanted to visit Japan so when I do I will make sure to visit Tsushima :lol:
Considering you are not allowed on your consoles after 5pm, I find that hard to believe.

Copyright © 2021 by Bojan.
 

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If you already own Ghost of Tsushima on PS4:
  • You can pre-order an upgrade to Director’s Cut on PS4 for $19.99 USD. This upgrade will become available starting on August 20.
Starting on August 20:

  • If you bought Director’s Cut PS4, you’ll be able to upgrade to Director’s Cut PS5 at any time for $9.99 USD
  • You can also upgrade directly (from original Ghost of Tsushima PS4) to Director’s Cut on PS5 for $29.99 USD
Additional details about upgrades will be available at PlayStation Store closer to launch.
 

Paxi

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Hopefully the textures will be more high res and tessellation will be higher. And maybe bump the resolution up on ps5. I’d really love that.