Ghost of Tsushima - The Ultimate Critique

Ghost of Tsushima is a phenomenal game. It proves that the formula established by the likes of Assassin's Creed and Far Cry can still work if implemented properly.
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TIMESTAMPS:
INTRO - 00:00:00
WORLD DESIGN - 00:03:18
COMBAT - 00:42:19
NARRATIVE - 01:24:06
DLC - 01:47:06
CONCLUSIONS - 02:01:43
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Luke Stephens
P.O. Box 13
Milliken, CO 80543, USA
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[LukeStephensTV]

I love you all so much. Thank you for watching. It means more than you know.

[SomeUnkindledAsh]

One of the greatest moments in any game is after Jin helps Yarikawa hold off the invasion. You get the ghost stance in a super epic way, and then he delivers that speech. Such a sick moment

[senshai]

playing this game without using the map, using the wind, natural elements to the quest and other contents, is absolutely beautiful

[yackson]

I personally didn’t mind the Mongol occupied bases because they are most definitely repetitive, for me at least, they were addictive. Though I definitely wouldn’t mind if it was more diverse with how they present things like more diverse boss fights and what not

[ArchLordXarnor]

This is one of those games where you select the hardest difficulty and just enjoy the challenge (which isn't impossible), but makes it feel even better.

[rhaibi]

I don't know how anyone could dislike this game. I had my jaw on the floor.... All three playthroughs.

[samuelrichards]

I appreciate getting to have something like this to watch while I spend a few nights in the hospital. Thanks Luke

[Corrupted]

I REALLY recommended anyone who wants to play it, do it on lethal difficulty - it completely carried the game for me and feels extremely immersive and rewarding. Everything, including you, dies in 1-2 hits. For a game focussed on parrying and super smooth combat animations, this will feel satisfying for the entire playthrough

[xerpenta]

Ghost of Tsushima taught me about the Japanese honor system. Not conceptually but emotionally. Thanks to it I could internally understand stories like 47 ronin. The narrative is so good and it basically all serves as thought fuel for the one choice in the game. There is one choice the world doesn't change due to player's decision at all, but this one choice weights 16 tons. For me, this game is a rare occurrence of giving a fair shot at understanding Japan culturally, not just tokenize its most bizzare out of the ordinary elements.

[shawnlawson]

I also think the reason the khan left Jin alive on that post, is because just like Dutch, the khan is arrogant in his ego, he legitimately acknowledged Jin as dangerous, but never s threat. I think he left Jin alive, for the soul purpose of going back to camp with yet another tale of defeat. Hoping to further scare the native people.

[Butter_Warrior]

In all honesty whenever I play this game at my Aunts and Uncles house, I just completely jive with the gameplay.

[ReadyPlayerDog]

I absolutely adore this game. I love the use of colour, the way the gameplay can go from having a fast stand off fight with Mongols to sitting quietly to compose a poem, and the minimalistic approach to the HUD. I've played it about 5 times so far, and have a kind of set starting off path to get the most useful charms and gear early on.

I'm actually in the process of uploading my latest play through onto my YouTube channel 😉. The Golden Birds are supposed to be the spirit of your mother leading you to things, not just haiku but other things as well, where as the wind is supposed to be your father guiding you.

You mentioned about it feeling a bit grindy when you ride from hot spring to bamboo stand to hot spring. The reason is that that's not the way it's intended to be done. The idea of the minimalistic HUD is that you can navigate just by looking around. So you explore the area you in and mix things up. For instance, if you visually look around you will see clues. A plume of grey smoke will signify a allied camp or mission; black smoke an enemy base; white smoke will be a hot spring, birds circling with be a haiku; and so on. So the idea is to ride around an area naturally. Do a side mission and spot a bamboo stand, from there you see an enemy camp. We've been so used to hand holding in open world games that the use of maps and tunnel vision has become a habit. Ghost is designed with the idea that you can just explore, and if you pay attention then you will discover all sorts of things. There are a number of side missions that never appear on the map at all, you only discover these by exploring.

As for stances. You earn points/progression towards unlocking the next stance by either observing an enemy leader or killing him. So if you observe him before you kill him you get 2 points instead of one. But there are enough leaders that you can unlock all stances just by killing them, it just means it takes longer. All of this, plus many more tips, are available to watch on my YouTube channel!

But shameless self promotion on somebody else's channel aside, it truly is a wonderful game. I don't think it does anything revolutionary, but what is does do is take all those aspects of an open world game and polish them up. Highly recommended.

Maybe Luke didn't enjoy it the first time because he was playing it for "work" purposes? When that had passed and a newly polished version is released, the pressure is off and he played it just for the enjoyment? I've played both the original PS4 version and the new PS5 version. The new one is a significant improvement and just irons out some of the wrinkles of the first.

[norma]

The golden bird doesn't lead you to only haikus, they lead you to shrines, bamboo cutting places, fox dens and mythic quest givers and sometimes just to some side quests.

[heitorvida]

Interesting choice of posting the video in parts but after all, I think it is a smoother experience having the video all at once.
Anyway, expecting to see the how them both perform in statistics
Great video Luke!

[standuseroreo]

I feel like part of the combat’s depth is finding more uses to the actual skill set as opposed to the stance. IE don’t just mindlessly swap to water for shield etc but make the decision to use a windstance kick to throw a shield into a halbred user then swap to water’s very high speed attacks to carve up the sword user while they’re mid animation and chain into the stone stance pierce to one shot the brute you stunned with your kunai while doing all that

[saucemaster]

I would hope and assume for the sequel that they would explore the second mongol invasion that reached the Japanese mainland. It would allow Jins actions on Tsushima to have some more repercussions and could more deeply explore the ways of the Samurai and the government as a whole.

[GrabaCuppaPodcast]

I really like how op the wind chimes can get cos you have four of them and you can unlock a skill where they release a lethal amount of poison in stealth encounters

[MrHarry-hxbo]

I think your problems with this game (repetitive camps and tedious haiku and the sort) stem from you playing it as a job and running through it in a few days. I don't know anybody that explored just by going from one bamboo stand to the next instead of finding them on your way to do something else. I also was so immersed in the story and the conflict of the game that the camps were enjoyable and I felt it was my duty to rid the Mongols from them. That being said this is a great critique.

[zerg]

35:40 the mountain with campfires where you get cold and die without warming Jin up by the fire was one of those things in ghost of Tsushima. When I figured out there was a path to take and not just try to brute force up and figured out there was something at the top I was blown away

[rangerghost]

Been waiting for the ultimate critique excited to listen🎉