I’m done talking about Ghost of Tsushima (Sucke Punch Productions) in specifc–well, kind of–but playing it has spuured thoughts about gaming in general. Here is my last post about GoT, which was about the game in general–and my issues with it.
I wish I didn’t have the kind of brain that, upon seeing an open world game, immediately wants to do all the things. I was reading about how long it takes to play GoT, and someone said that they finished the first act in 15 hours. But that was mainlining the main story. I’m over 30 hours and really had to push myself to finish the first act. Otherwise, I would have wandered about for much longer.
Because of my limitations and the way I play games, I always double how long it’s going to take me. Even that is not often enough. I have accepted that I am slower than most gamer–more than doubly so. I knew it was true before I started GoT, and this game just cemented my feelings. Why? Because it’s very generous with its timing in combat, and I’m still fucking it up sometimes. The parry, I mean. Although, I will say that I’m feeling like a badass right now. I’ve unlocked enough perks so that I rarely die except when I try to get across an area I’m not supposed to be in because I can’t see the way around it–
Which, let’s talk about this. I mentioned it in yesterday’s post, and I want to reiterate that I know this is mostly a me-problem. One of the most frustrating things to me is that I cannot see crucial bits no matter how hard I try. I can’t see the tracks that need to be tracked. I can’t even see the enemies when they’ve spotted me from a distance. That’s my perception issue, but also, they just blend into the environment. My eyes are baaaaaaaad.
I want to compare GoT and Elden Ring for a minute beacuse I can. And because they are both open world games, done in very different ways. I think we need to remember that I gave Ghost of Tsushima between a 7.5 and an 8. I’ve given Elden Ring roughly a 9.5. But, they’re on completely different scales for me. I tend to rate FromSoft games automatically above 9.0. So, Sekiro, which is the game I liked the least of their action adventure games is still a 9.0. Here’s the thing, though. I have much more fun playing GoT than I do playing Sekiro. If I was rating purely from that aspect, Sekiro would be a 2 or so.
But I digress.