Ghost of Tsushima's beautiful open-world is held down by repetitive gameplay

Why watch a samurai game when you can play through one?

There’s a lot riding on Ghost of Tsushima. It’s pretty much the last big PlayStation 4-exclusive game, capping off an incredible run for Sony’s current console generation. This is also developer Sucker Punch Productions’ first game in six whole years, since 2014’s Infamous First Light. Was the wait worth it?

The short answer is yes. This is the Assassin’s Creed: Japan game that fans have begged Ubisoft to make for ages. Exploring the utterly breathtaking island of Tsushima alone is more than worth its price tag. While its combat and environmental design veer towards perfection however, its story and core mission structure is bog-standard. I won’t remember Ghost of Tsushima for much beyond its stunning vistas and fantastic combat. The rest, I will only remember as unfulfilled potential. 

The Mongol invasion has begun

The year is 1274. Tsushima Island was once a peaceful place, before that peace was disrupted by the first Mongol invasion of Japan. Mongol armies have found their way into Tsushima, where only the island’s various samurai clans can defend their people against total subjugation. They fail, of course. The samurai Jin Sakai is one of the few left alive after a brutal battle, leaving him alone, outnumbered and near death. 

With the help of a new friend, Jin recovers and swears to free his uncle from the clutches of the Mongol leader Khotun Khan, and restore order to his island. Of course, this is easier said than done. Unlike the samurai, the Mongol army has no reservations about keeping things honourable, and resorts to darker tactics to complete their conquest. To save his people, Jin will have to turn his back on everything he knows... and learn the way of the Ghost. 

Sony’s first-party games are known for having a strong focus on story, and Ghost of Tsushima is no different. Though you might find yourself lost for tens of hours at a time while roaming Tsushima, Mongol patrols and side characters will constantly remind you of the main mission: freedom. Jin essentially becomes Batman in Arkham Knight, struggling to retake his home from a hostile force - while chaos erupts at every turn, endangering more lives than he can save. 

Ghost of Tsushima has high stakes and a memorable (if wasted) villain, but none of that interests me as much as Jin’s own journey throughout the game. The more allies he recruits to his cause, the more he finds himself divided between becoming the Ghost and being a samurai. Stabbing enemies in the back and throwing bombs is not the samurai way after all, but it’s the only way Tsushima gets saved. His interactions with the unbendingly honourable Lord Shimura are particularly fascinating, as tensions rise due to Jin’s actions. 

While Jin’s transformation into the Ghost is compelling, it simply doesn’t save the game’s story - which is fairly by the numbers in every other aspect. It’s not necessarily bad, but it is incredibly predictable at every turn, with few surprises and very little emotional depth. Main story missions can be big and bombastic - with huge battles and one-on-one duels, but the second half of the game only builds up to an unsatisfying ending. 

Some will compare this favourably to The Last of Us Part 2’s shocking story choices, but I’d prefer something risky over a milquetoast journey like this any day. It’s better than finishing a game and going, “Huh… that’s it?”

Combat

If Jin has to fend off entire armies of Mongols, he’s going to need his tools. Swordfighting is a huge part of this game, and it functions a lot like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Enemy attacks can be parried, countered or dodged - depending on how good your skills are with a blade. You'll have to break a Mongol's defense with heavy attacks, at which point they get staggered and become vulnerable to a flurry of light attacks. 

As the game progresses, you’ll find that the Mongols come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. For example, besides the normal brutes with swords, you might run into shield-bearing enemies, massive enemies with big health pools or spear-wielding enemies. To counter each of these enemies and their different weapons, Jin will have to switch between four different sword stances on the fly. Seamlessly switching between every stance is an incredibly satisfying albeit chaotic affair, especially when you're fending off close to ten enemies at once. 

Add to that Jin’s variety of gadgets, and combat becomes a well-oiled machine. By tapping R1, Jin can make use of a variety of throwable weapons, such as kunai, explosives and smoke bombs. He can also wield a bow and arrow for faraway enemies, giving him a Spider-Man-like array of weapons and gadgets to bring to battle. That becomes very important in the second half of the game, where the game throws an insane amount of Mongols at Jin all at once, and relying on one-on-one parries stops being an option. 

When Ghost of Tsushima’s combat clicks, it becomes a magical experience. Taking on a dozen enemies by juggling all my weaponry, gadgets, stances and parries never got old, despite the fact that a combat scenario triggered just about every ten minutes. In one-on-one duels and bossfights, Jin usually embraces the samurai way and relies on his katana alone - and that’s when combat really shines. As long as you've mastered your parries and dodges, that is. No smoke bombs will save you in those fights. 

A janky camera does put a damper on things, though. When bouncing around and cutting through enemies, the camera would often end up behind a bush or above a tree, obstructing the action and leaving me vulnerable. Stealth gameplay feels really shallow as well, largely due to laughably bad enemy AI that’s easy to manipulate. This extends to partner AI, too. You’d better get ready to revive them a dozen times, because they’re nigh useless in combat. 

The beauty of Tsushima

Exploring Tsushima Island is an arresting experience. Hands-down, the highlight of my time with this game was just strolling around on my horse and discovering new points of interest (and bringing up Photo Mode every five minutes). The open-world is essentially divided into three zones, with Jin travelling to a new zone in each of the story's three acts. These zones are absolutely massive and interconnected, with huge swathes of land populated with villages to liberate, sights to see and things to discover. And it’s all stunning. 

There is almost too much stuff to do in this game. As you speak to Tsushima's inhabitants, and hear about the various goings-on in the island, question marks will start to pop up all over the map in alarming amounts. These open-world activities come in many forms. You could sit at the edge of a mountain and construct a haiku, and get a special headband for it. You could find an abandoned sword kit in the middle of a grass field, which gives Jin's weapons a new colour scheme. You could stumble onto a Mongol-occupied village, and freeing it would get you a new fast travel point.

For the first half of the game, I was absolutely blown away by the sheer amount of stuff there was to do and find - but, like most open-world games, I think this one bit off more than it could chew. After a while, I got tired of constructing haikus for a new headband colour, and liberating my hundredth Mongol base so I have somewhere to fast travel to. Side activities became repetitive far too quickly, and suddenly the pick-ups and collectibles weren’t enough incentive to explore anymore. 

Most side quests boil down into going someplace, killing Mongols and coming back to the quest giver for mission rewards. Very little effort is put into making these side quests stand out in any way, with few exceptions. A large chunk of the game’s missions (including its main ones) involve forced slow-walking with companions from one place to another, which is a videogame trope I truly wish would die a painful death. 

The only side quests I actually liked were the character 'Tales', which allow you to complete the storylines of each ally that Jin picks up over the course of his journey. Lady Masako for example, needs Jin's help to exact justice on her family's killers. Her story unfolds over more than six different quests, and each one was quite affecting. These Tales really deepen your understanding of these main characters, and the story would feel incomplete without them. Unfortunately, they still suffer from the game's repetitive mission structure - usually boiling down to little more than escort missions. 

Overall however, it feels like Sucker Punch crafted a stunning, beautiful world - but fell short on what to put in it. They then multiplied every activity by twenty, edited them slightly and hoped we wouldn’t notice. All the open-world clichés are there. Towers to climb? Check. Bases to liberate? Check. Short, shallow side quests? Check. Collectible trinkets? Check. 20 of each of these to fill up the map? Check, check and check. 

There was a point in the late-game where I just stuck solely to the game’s main missions out of sheer boredom in anything else it had to offer me, because I had already done them a hundred times before. Small additions to the genre, like the guiding wind and animals that lead you to points of interest are a nice creative touch, however. It helps put a fresh spin on this tired formula. 

Verdict

Sucker Punch Productions has succeeded in crafting a unique and immersive open-world environment here. It’s an absolute joy to gallop around and explore Tsushima, which has a stunningly diverse collection of biomes and areas to explore. Places like the Otsuna Grasslands (seen in the E3 2018 demo) are just the tip of a jaw-dropping iceberg. My only complaint would be its heavy use of contrast - it opts for a cinematic look by crushing the blacks in every frame, which sometimes makes things hard to see. 

Jin’s journey is a long one, full of massive battles and unconventional tactics. The main story is a joy to play through, with huge setpieces and memorable bossfights. It’s a pretty unconventional samurai story - one where the samurai has to forget their teachings to win the day. That by itself makes Ghost of Tsushima’s story compelling, even if it lacks the emotional richness to make these themes fully impactful. 

While I had problems with its mission structure and ending, there is no doubt in my mind that this is an excellent end to first-party PS4 exclusives. What Sucker Punch has accomplished on seven-year-old hardware here is an actual marvel. With that, I leave you a haiku:

Tsushima exposed.

The last of the Sakai clan

sings for good weather.

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