When I first started playing Ghost of Tsushima, I was really unsure of it. One of the most common narratives I remember seeing is how this wasn't "like one of those poopy modern AC games, there is no level gating for a start!" and while that is true in a very strict sense (yes there is no 'you need to be x level to do this task'), I feel like this is somewhat of a disingenuous statement.
Vanilla Jin sucks ass. I was roaming around the map thinking there was no level gating and getting absolutely destroyed everywhere I went. Once you've done the opening few missions Jin's arsenal and power expands exponentially and from there Jin becomes basically a God in a matter of hours of open world messing around but for some reason no one talks about those early few hours, even though it is kinda vital to know.
I pushed through, however, and while I'd argue that maybe the game is a little too easy now (yes even for me), it is just so much fun and while its template references many titles, there is something unique about how everything is blended together.
It has extreme, brutal, violence but often this takes place on backdrops of almost supernatural beauty, the PS5 upgrade truly capturing the way this world glows and sings, with its vibrant flowers, atmospheric weather and day night cycles and gorgeous lighting.
The preaching about violence and honour and all that ***** is a little cliche and grows wearisome even in these opening ten or so hours, but other than snide comments from locals, there is no other punishment for just being a badass and I wish more games just let me enjoy being this cool.
Like stealth is actually pretty robust if you want to play that way, even without gyro aiming on the bow with the haptics etc is pretty nice if you use it only on mostly stationary targets for stealth purposes. The animations for a lot of the stealth takedowns are just so wonderfully brutal and things like the Longbow just allow for some ridiculous power fantasy. I tend to use the sticky bombs anyway for the sheer ridiculousness of it, but then lobbing in an explosive arrow to set everyone on fire for good measure is nice too. That is ignoring all the emergent things you can do like disturbing hornets' nests, or spilling fire from lanterns or letting beasts out of cages. You can create a lot of carnage from the shadows if you want to. And I do want to, over and over again.
But it is the full-frontal assault where the game really sings and often in games like this, it feels like you are expected to stealth as much as you can as a full-frontal assault is like playing on hard mode, but here it is just glorious.
Initiate a standoff as Jin shouts something badass like 'Send out your strongest warrior'. Voice raised, but still somehow calm. His cadence, and emotional levels in his speech somehow mirror how he fights.
You immediately slice down the first three guys who rush you. Those remaining pause for a second and then commit. Jin doesn't care, four guys, eight, twelve? He effortlessly glides between a style suited to his enemy. Parrying, weaving, each strike measured and precise. Each style coming with its own rich animations as he swings his sword, his feet and body. Slicing down each foe, one by one, while deflecting arrows like a lightsaber does blaster fire. As the final enemies remain, you strike one down with a Heaven's Strike, just to make sure the remaining few enemies die with fear in their hearts.
The Vengeful Spirit of Tsushima.
(God damn this is my cheesiest post of all time, but I am full UwU guys. This game!!!!)
Love your write-up @Pizzamorg, can't say much more than that. Thing I love most about this game is how utterly beautiful it is. The storytelling, music, writing, even the cinematography. It really feels like a movie first and a game second.
Love your write-up @Pizzamorg, can't say much more than that. Thing I love most about this game is how utterly beautiful it is. The storytelling, music, writing, even the cinematography. It really feels like a movie first and a game second.
100%! It is amazing how cinematic it is able to be, even in messy open world engagements. Like those initial frames when you initiate a standoff, or the duels you have during some of the missions are all incredible, but you can have really cinematic moments just by accident in moment-to-moment gameplay as well. I also just love as the blood cakes onto Jin, or the mud, or the rain, just looking at him as he sheathes his sword, covered in blood. So cool.
I also think it is really cool that there seems to be enough canned shot types to avoid repetition and constantly surprise. Like the camera swooping around from underneath, or like a crane shot looking straight down, or a manipulation of the FOV to get more of the surroundings in the frame around you. I am just constantly in awe of all of it.
@Pizzamorg Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Ghost, and similar to you I had a wonderful experience with this game!
I played earlier this year, and was lucky enough to get the Director's Cut version - including the 'Iki Island' expansion DLC.
Ghost is a phenomenal game in so many ways. Its story is actually a relatively simple narrative, but told in such an engaging way - and driven by characters you genuinely begin to care for.
I enjoyed it so much that I pushed for the platinum on the base game, and then went straight into Iki Island. I thought Iki was even better than the main game, and did a great job of fleshing out Jin's backstory and character. Iki Island gave me real 'Resident Evil' vibes at times (in the best way possible!) due to the campy horror style and voodoo antagonist.
A great blueprint for open-world games, and gets much more 'right' than it does 'wrong'. It sits in my top3 open-world alongside BOTW and Elden Ring.
@Pizzamorg Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Ghost, and similar to you I had a wonderful experience with this game!
I played earlier this year, and was lucky enough to get the Director's Cut version - including the 'Iki Island' expansion DLC.
Ghost is a phenomenal game in so many ways. Its story is actually a relatively simple narrative, but told in such an engaging way - and driven by characters you genuinely begin to care for.
I enjoyed it so much that I pushed for the platinum on the base game, and then went straight into Iki Island. I thought Iki was even better than the main game, and did a great job of fleshing out Jin's backstory and character. Iki Island gave me real 'Resident Evil' vibes at times (in the best way possible!) due to the campy horror style and voodoo antagonist.
A great blueprint for open-world games, and gets much more 'right' than it does 'wrong'. It sits in my top3 open-world alongside BOTW and Elden Ring.
I am pleased you liked it, I thought I was being a bit cringe haha.
I am playing the game through PS Plus, so I believe that includes Iki Island too, right? I haven't unlocked that yet though in my playthrough (not really sure how all that works).
I also only just realised I am only in one third of the map and I am already over 15 hours in. The HLTB timeframe is between 20 to 60 hours, and unless the next two map parts are very light on content, I have no idea how you clear this in 20 hours!
But yeah, I will need to reserve judgement, but if my enjoyment in this portion carries all the way through, this has to go down as one my favourite open world games ever.
@Pizzamorg No not cringe at all mate, it is genuinely a really really great game!
Yes I believe it is the 'Director's Cut' version on PS+, so you'll have the pleasure of going to Iki Island
Iki unlocks sometime through 'Act 2' of the main game, but honestly IMO you are best waiting and leaving Iki until after you've beaten the base game for 2 reasons:
1) Open-world games are big, and you might have burn out by the end of Base-Ghost. By leaving Iki on the side, you could play something else different and then return.
2) The enemies are much stronger in Iki, so completing the base game first will allow you to have best gear and skill unlocks.
Ha yeh the HLTB timeframe of 20hrs (!) is ambitious. I got the platinum on the base game in about 60hrs, and then the Iki trophies took another 8-10 hrs. If you just want to smash out the main game, and do a few side quests along the way, I reckon you're looking at 30-35 minimum. Also I played on lethal difficulty, and some camps took me a fair few tries - which obviously increased my play time.
Take your time with it and savour it, this game is one of the reasons I got a PS5!
(nb I added you on PS Online mate, if you see a friend req pop up it will be me)
(nb I added you on PS Online mate, if you see a friend req pop up it will be me)
Thanks bud, I accepted it yesterday.
@NeonPizza yeah, the HDR is weird. One of the first things the PS5 got me to do was calibrate HDR, which I did, but it just makes my TV look really washed out? Like for ages I was like 'why is everything so grey?' and then remembered they made me set that HDR thing, once I turned that off, everything looked so much better. Colours are so much more vibrant and solid; everything has better balance and contrast. HDR seems worthless.
Also, I was hoping after more time I would feel better about the user experience of navigating my PS5, but I don't really. Thankfully searching around the internet would show that it is a pretty common complaint, outside of Sony Pony apologists, so maybe Sony will make a better user experience at some point? But with all their recent vaguely anti-consumer moves, maybe not.
So after 15ish hours I finished Act 2 of Ghost of Tsushima, brining my total playtime to around 35ish hours. I am not sure how long or short Act 3 is but I guess we are on track for a 50ish hour playthrough by the end.
Act 2 was weird, because in an objective sense it was a vast improvement over Act 1. Much more varied locations and a combination of your skill at the game naturally increasing, plus the introduction of more interesting gear sets and charms leads to more engaging encounters. It probably sounds so odd with no context, but I got this charm that turns wind chimes into poison traps and my God is it fun. As is maxing out the family armour so I can now kill almost an entire camp with one stand off. Usually whoever is left runs away in fear or I can cut down with a Blade Dance. Plus, just generally this part of Tsushima has the most amount of resonance with Jin as a character, almost making it odd to sandwich it between two locations that Jin doesn't have as deep of a connection to.
However, I dunno whether it's just because of natural fatigue and the wearing off of some of that honeymoon shine but I feel like I had more wow moments during Act 1. I think maybe the biggest issue is the moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't really evolve nor do the activities change. I kinda wish there were activities unique to each area or something, so it doesn't just all feel the same. I think inherently the more you are asked to do the same thing over and over again the more tiresome it becomes and the more critical you become of those motions than you might have otherwise.
I thought the closing couple of missions in Act 2 might have been the low point of the whole game for me. I am so tired of the way of the Samurai honour debates at this point, the argument hasn't raised any new or interesting points for dozens of hours at this point. And while Ghost sings as a sandbox, every time a mission forces me to use a very specific approach with no deviation, I feel like I want to lob my controller at the wall. The mechanics just aren't robust enough to make these sections enjoyable.
Gran Turismo 7's had another update... good God we need more stuff. The base game has 34 tracks, three of which are new to the game. Every single track otherwise was taken from GT Sport. Since the game's release in March, 6 months ago, we've gotten 1 new track (Watkin's Glen)... and various layouts of existing tracks. And every now and then we'd get a few new cars. A few new menus here and there, and maybe a new mission if they feel like it.
The game's great and has massive replay value in terms of tracks, but more needs to be done.
Have I not said repeatedly how much I hate it when AAA gaming companies try to put out as few new games as possible? Ok, let me say it again. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I HATE IT.
This is almost like when Alphadream, instead of doing anything on Switch, remade a DS game for 3DS in 2019. And they went bankrupt from that shortsighted decision making, which was sad but wtf was even the point? I'd bet actual money they would've done way better doing a simple port of their 3DS games to Switch.
I get that Sony has often relied on 3rd party games, but this is just stupid.
With the Horizon tv series around the corner, Sony will want people who are familiar to the tv series (yet new to gaming) to buy a $70 version of the game. Just like The Last of Us. It's a cyclical business strategy.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,555 games (as of March 31st, 2026)
Switch 2 Physical Collection - 4 games (as of December 8th, 2025)
I am finding myself getting a little burnt out on Ghost. I am about 40ish hours in. The final area is all just one single biome, and the wider map is locked off from you for a few missions during that act. I feel like that really killed a lot of momentum. I am now back to being able to access the full map again, but as said before, the gameplay hasn't really meaningfully evolved since those opening hours and so it just feels like tough going.
That said, whenever I go and play anything else, I am always just sorta reminded just how good Ghost is and how you sort of take it for granted when you play it for long stretches.
I am trying to replay 2018's God of War in prep for the new one as I played the game once around release and never again, but the whole time I can't just help but think about how much better Ghost's combat is. I know, apple and oranges you might say. But like why is God of War's FOV so tight, I am so constantly getting hit by stuff literally off screen. You could counter this with something like Jin's ability to parry at a full 360 degrees, but Kratos can only parry in the direction they are facing, and the use of that instant turn around thing on the D-Pad feels like a weird bandage they tossed in at the last minute as they knew the combat wasn't really working.
Plus, just like everything else, it feels so seamless as Jin to move through your different stances, or to use your various abilities or tools, but Kratos just never has that kind of flow, everything feels so stiff, awkward and clumsy. Jin has techniques that work on different types of enemies, but no enemy can just completely cancel out an approach. God of War is full of enemies that have to be fought in a super specific way, this is initially really overwhelming but the game as it goes on lacks enemy variety I suppose because they ask the player to have a mental index of every single solution each enemy type has. It is so boring.
And it is even stranger that you have this cutscene Kratos who is having like DBZ battles and can insta heal, but then you go into combat you control, and you are just getting shredded by stuff off screen or getting constantly interrupted as enemy attack animations seem to overrule your own (something that just doesn't ever happen in Ghost). I dunno, I just never feel cool as Kratos.
And maybe that would be fine if everything else picked up the slack, but the puzzles are tedious, the activities repetitive and while the story and characters are fine, I don't think they deserve the insane amount of praise they receive.
At the time when I played this, I remember saying to me it was a 7/10 rent over a weekend game you play and then never think about again and if anything, this replay has made me think I was too generous before.
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