Ghost of Tsushima (and Outer Worlds).

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peter
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Ghost of Tsushima (and Outer Worlds).

Post by peter »

I finally, out of desperation really, sprung for Ghost after a month of hand-wringing over the cost of buying an essentially new game and am very glad I did.

I'd used a voucher I had to buy Outer Worlds and was a week into playing it when suddenly I knew it wasn't doing it for me. It wasn't that bad, it's just that it wasn't......well....... Skyrim. It'd been an impulse buy - I'd heard it'd been made by Obsidian, the guys who made the very well received Fallout; New Vegas and was hoping for a game that would rekindle my enthusiasm for loosing myself in a world that, albeit full of bugs and monsters, was free of Covid and Brexit.

For me gaming is about immersion - and in role playing games especially, I need for a while to be somewhere (and someone) else. While Outer Worlds did have some elements of depth to it - side quests were more than the 'fetch and carry' stuff of AC Odyssey - it still seemed in some 'flat' in comparison to my favourite games. In fairness, it was quite good at mirroring the complexity of choice of real life decisions, in that often there was no clear 'right or wrong' path, and decisions could have bad consequences either way you went, for one or another group that you didn't want to let down - but in some way it wasn't enough.

I don't think that the budget for the game was all that high and this was reflected in a very old-school dialogue mechanic (think the face-on style of Oblivion) that seems dated and one dimensional these days. Similarly with the graphics, having gotten used to the almost art-like palate of Skyrim, I found the world of the Halcyon system bright and garish, but with no depth of field worthy of the name and a uniformity that soon became dull and repetative. I could have continued to play it - but the thought of spending potentially months in this place where I could not seem to loose myself (to get a brief holiday from being me) gave me no pleasure and so I decided to call it a day.

Immediately I loaded Ghost however, I knew I was in a different place. I simply love the world and the attention to detail that has been put into making it soft on the eye, but rich and satisfying at the same time. I'm only a couple of days into it, and haven't yet gone far into the main quest, but would at this point put it down more as a Witcher type experience with the character you are playing essentially set out for you, but with the freedom to go out and play him as you will.

The game mechanics are tip top; I'm not good at combat so tend to play on easy, but even on this level the difficulty is just right for me- difficult enough to be challenging but not such as to get overly frustrating. Importantly on this score, the saving system is really generous; loading is super fast and seems always to bring you back right to the point just before you entered the combat where you fell. This way you don't mind getting beaten a few times before winning the challenge. Fighting is a joy as well. The sword play is just what you'd expect from a samurai bout, with your different stances and combinations making a dance of all the scenes that unfold before you. And when it all becomes a bit too much, well you can always go to a mountain top and play your flute or write a haiku. Bliss.

Okay, it's early days and if my recent form is anything to go by I could loose it with this one as I have with other games of late, but on first encounter it's promising, very promising indeed!

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

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Post by peter »

A week in and the further I go into the world of feudal Tsushima the more I love it. All of the 'advice' vids on YouTube say that you should stick with the main quest in order to "built up some defenses" before setting out on your own - but I as usual am having none of it. When starting a new open-world game I want to "get in amongst it" at the earliest possible opportunity, and GofT makes it almost impossible (for me) to do otherwise.

And it has been a remarkably successful approach. The sheer beauty of the landscape simply calls to you to 'stop here!', run there - though I rarely run anywhere in this game, being content simply to walk, wandering Ronin style, either on foot or on my trusty steed Kagu ("Shadow" - chosen because he's black and reminds me of Shadowmere from Skyrim). Also I avoid fast-travel; I simply don't need it. The landscape is too lovely, too utterly enchanting to miss any opportunity to travel through it in actuality. And it is on these walks that the game truly reveals itself. If, as I am doing, you tend to focus on one area of the map at a time, visiting it's 'undiscovered destinations' or side-quest starting points in leisurely pace, you soon discover that small golden birds and foxes will try to attract your attention to lure you to destinations - shrines, temples and treasures that you otherwise would have missed. It becomes almost impossible to resist the desire to break off what you are doing, to investigate what these little ones are trying to show you - and it's fine! The divine wind system of navigation is forgiving in the extreme, can be turned on and off at will, and allows the screen to be blissfully clear of all that crap that clutters up the view in lesser games.

The story unfolds at a pace depending on how you play the game, and for me this is slowly. There is simply so much effort put into this game that (exactly the opposite to Outer Worlds) I want it to go on and on. I'm spending my time building up my allies, discovering the map (which unfolds at a very narrow bandwidth on your traversal of the territory - a feature that you can modify later with perks if you choose, but is fine for me - and learning my craft. I could no more race through this game than I could gobble down a fine-dinning meal as though I were at a speed-eating contest. The periods and encounters between fights with the invading Mongol forces (and these are not infrequent) are peaceful and serene. The weather system lends reality to the whole and the depth of field both stylistic and realistic at the same time - really cleverly done.

Okay. By now you will understand that I love this game; it works for me in every detail of the way it is put together, the way it plays, the way it looks, but I am bound to touch on the small (and they are small) places where I think improvement could be made. I think that the following points are not entirely fair, because I'd say this is not an RPG experience (in that you don't construct your own character) so much as a plain open-world that you play a predetermined character in - but I miss not being able to sleep, sit-down and having my own home base. Also, while there is possibility for altering the weather at any given time (but as it happens, I love the rainy stormy scenes when your clothes stick to you and are slick with water) there is no system for waiting out time. This is a tiny problem, but when I've cleared out a Mongol camp at night and want to peruse the buildings and tents at leisure looking for provisions and crafting materials (quite sparsely dotted around and quickly used by the very expensive upgrading system for weaponry) I like to do so in the daylight. The game is quite dark in appearance in places and not being able to wait until light dawns (or indeed having a torch {yet - it could change}) if inside, can be a bit of a problem. But it's small stuff really.

I'm also loving the variety of the game; you climb, you investigate (ala the Witcher), you follow great roads of flowers to the tops of mountains, you use maps to guide you to treasure. As mentioned, you follow birds, foxes and even green glow-bugs in the dark, all to discover the game's rich content. It's all there. For me it's as if all of the best things have been taken out of the games I've loved and been put into one ......well, almost. The cut scenes are not overlong but are beautifully done, again as per the kind of detail seen in the Witcher. The save system is simply the best I've ever come across; it automatically saves almost continuously such that if you are killed in battle it reloads to a point just prior to your fatal encounter and with virtually no delay - literally in seconds - but you can also save the game yourself at chosen points or indeed re-begin at game checkpoints if you choose to. To date I've virtually had no cause to save myself whatsoever, relying entirely on the game to do the slog for me and without problem of any kind resulting. One, again minor, gripe is that if you die in one of the random fights you partake in during your perambulations, very often on reloading, the foe you had very nearly beaten but just failed to do so, is entirely absent on your respawning, denying you the opportunity to finish the job; but it is small fry - the next one will be just around the corner anyway. And lastly, as I've mentioned before, the game is so beautiful, so full of diversion, that it is easy to get lost in your sidetracks as you break of a quest to help with a request, then get distracted by a bird who while following you spot a new temple that turns out to have a side mission...... and so it goes..... But every now and again, and very infrequently after a day or two's play, the game will ever so gently remind you that you have a job to do and that wandering around like a kid in a giant sandbox is not what you are here for. Oh, and to date there has never been any question as to doing one quest meaning that others are denied you, or indeed problems about what order to tackle missions in - often a worry for me with other games.

And that's about it folks. We're all different in respect of how games work for us and I'm guessing you can tell from this that GofT hits the spot for me. I hope I've been able to give a sufficient feel of what the game can be like for you to make a judgement as to whether it could work for you as well.

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Avatar »

Seems that this will not come to PC, (or at least no plans to do so are known.) :D Pity, would have given it a go, especially on te basis of this recommendation.

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Post by peter »

Shame if it doesn't Av - you'd be modding it for years to come! ;) I bet it will though; simply too much money to miss out on if it doesn't! It might take time, but show up it will.

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by peter »

One further point to add to the above review of GofT; there is again a small problem I've encountered in that the range of speeds that can be adopted (in terms of the player's control via the handset) is too limited.

In Skyrim, the character (or yourself if you were playing in first person) could walk, jog run or race using either simply the thumbstick position or a button to go into full speed. In GofT you walk (either the character or the horse) until it decides to speed up to a trot or jog, which can take an inordinate amount of time - and you remain at this speed with no 'canter' or slow run speed available between this and an all-out sprint/gallop from which you soon tire. It means that you cannot cover ground at a reasonable pace, but still slowly enough that you are traversing the terrain at a speed that you can concentrate on it. It's a small point, but can get a bit frustrating at times - but by and large there are ways around it (for example you can break into a sprint and then use the terrain to slow you down a bit) or just chill and appreciate the sheer beauty of the world you are passing through.

It's no big deal.

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Avatar »

I usually just sprint everywhere. :D Life is short. :D

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Post by peter »

It's not actually too bad Av - the walking can be so relaxing in the settings provided that the game lends itself to a slower pace at times; but I do like to have ultimate control of the pace at any given point in the best of all worlds.

Other things that this game truly excels in are the really small stuff that give it a realistic edge; Ji (the main character) runs his fingers through the grass as you walk through it, the rain runs off rooftops in realistic streams and showers, clothing gets dirty and bloodspattered - then cleans up when you go for a swim; these types of effect have been raised to the level of art in this game and they make it a truly unique experience (for me at least) to date.

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Lazy Luke »

:goodpost:
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Post by peter »

The game gets better and better. I'm into the second chapter of three now - the quests both main and secondary have heft and interest - not mere fetch and carry or battle runs. The speed thing I mentioned above has rectified itself - Jin now moves at a respectable trot, as does his horse. The landscape of the second part is more varied than the first and absolutely stunning.

The game will go down as one of the greats.

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Rigel »

I've the week off so I went to Oregon for a few days to see my parents, then picked this up when I came back.

This game is incredible.

I'll write more later, but I need to get back to petting wild foxes and composing haikus.
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Post by peter »

Indeed Rigel - a stunning bit of gaming work!

(As an aside, I briefly flipped up through this thread and was momentarily gratified to see that someone had given one of my postings a thumbs up with the " Good Posting" emoji. Then I saw it was Lazy Luke with his spam posting that went to every thread on the Watch.

;)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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Post by Rigel »

Peter, have you tried Kurosawa mode? I turned it on a few times, but I'm mostly leaving it off - I plan on doing a NG+ run when I finish entirely in KM, with Japanese dialogue and English subtitles.
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Post by peter »

I haven't as yet Rigel. The game was so beautiful in the regular mode that I just stuck with it - but I can absolutely see appeal of doing it 'the authentic way' for full cinematic immersion effect. I'll give it a bit more time and then certainly go back for a re-run in this mode.

:)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'

We are the Bloodguard
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