I said I was done talking about Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions), but I’m not. I’m at the very end of the second act, and I may not go into the third. Why? Well, let me tell you all about it. Needless to say, there will be *SPOILERS*.
I was already getting weary by the end of Act 1. That was roughly 35 hours of play. Now, 25 hours later, I am not sure I want to push on to Act 3. I’m in the last mission of the sceond act, and once again, I had to push myself to finish the main story missions once again because it’s the least-interesting part of the game to me.
Yeah, I’ll say it. It’s very bog standard honor, loyalty to family/clan/country, yadda yadda yadda. There is very little that stands out about Jin Sakai or his uncle, Lord Shimura. The side characters are more interesting, but I’ll get to that in a bit. There is tension between the two because Lord Shimura is all about honor and the samurai way. Jin isn’t so straightforward–at least not how I play him. You can do the honorable thing, but you can also do the dishonorable thing like assassinate enemies.
Lord Shimura: Blah, blah, blah, honor. Blah, blah, blah, look them in the eye as you kill them.
Me as Jin: Shank them hard, shank them fast, shank them often.
I have now acquired a ghost technique that means if I stealth kill a warlord or kill enough enemies without getting hit, I can press in RS and LS to auto-kill three enemies while the screen goes black-and-white. It’s called ghost mode, I believe, and it’s sick as hell. I have a hard time getting in that mode because I’m going to get hit. I am just going to get hit. I accept it and have made my peace with it.
It’s sick as fuck, though. I will admit that when I was farming for predator hides (I’ll get that in a second), I was able to mow down enemies without getting hit because I was farming in a very low-level area. So, I was able to get in ghost mode, and, man, I felt so fucking powerful.
Back to my issues with the game in general and the second act in particular. I just fired up the game to mop up some random shit before going back to the main mission. I got to the point where it told me that I was about to go on a long journey, heaved a huge sigh, and turned it back off. I assumed it meant that I could not do any of the open world stuff while finishing up the main story of the second act, and I was not in the mood.
Here’s the thing. In theory, I am not against that. If they want to curate this part of the game so that it’s on-the-rails, that’s fine. However, because I’m already a bit miffed at the game for other reasons, this just irritated me. I’m assuming that it just means I can’t just wander about and not that I can’t quit at any given point and pick it up again later. If it’s the latter, I’ll be really ticked off about that. I can’t imagine the game would do that, though. They’ve been pretty respectful about my time. I mean, there’s too much filler, but I just accept that’s just how open world games are.
Here’s what has happened recently that has me think that my time with the game may be over. I have said that I find the story to be very meh. It’s fine. It’s adequate. It carries things along. But I don’t think anyone would say that the story is what kept them going. There are some modern touches to the story, and you have to remember that an American developer made this game. I mentioned the latter because one of my biggest issues is how Westernized certain plot points seem to be (to me). I will get to that later.
First, though, I have to mention a completely meaningless mini-mission that nearly had me quitting the game on the spot. After fighting endless Mongols (god, I am SO TIRED of this bullshit), you reach the hwacha they have brought with them. It’s a weapon that can shoot 100-200 flaming projectiles at a time. It’s no fun to get hit by it, I’ll tell you what. But this mission called A Message in Fire suddenly turns into a shooting gallery game. You have to protect Lord Shimura’s messenger ship as it sails slooooowly by other ships shooting at it. Oh, and archers down below. Oh, and big ships shooting at it. If Goro’s ship (the envoy) takes enough damage, it sinks and mission failed. Or if one of the smaller ships reach it, the Mongols board Goro’s ship and mission failed. Because I have depth perception issues, I could not hit all the tiny ships. And the archers who I couldn’t even see. And then when I managed to do all that, there were small ships coming from behind Goro’s ship on the second leg that I couldn’t see.
I was not the only person who hated this section, apparently. It is so poorly done, and there is no reason to include it. i failed it so many times, the game asked me if I wanted to knock it down to easy. I did not because I was stubborn and furious at that point. This was mandatory, so I couldn’t even skip it.
I hate when games put in shit like this that is not in their wheelhouse. There was just no reason for it, and it didn’t add anything to the game. What a terrible choice. Yes, I know some of it is my own issues (lack of perception, mostly), but it is just shitty, and nothing would have been lost if it wasn’t there.
That, while supremely annoying, was one mission. Yes, it should have been cut, but that’s neither here nor there. My bigger issue with the end of the second act is this. One of Jin’s allies is a woman called Yuna. I met her at the very start because she saved my life. She’s a thief and below Jin’s station in terms of hierarchy,, but they form a bond because of the aforementioned her saving his life.
I liked her a lot as well because she was a flawed human being. She had some unsavory aspects to her, which was understandable given her background. I liked how they were developing her over the game. In fact, she was fast becoming my favorite character. Not because she was the hero and/or the savior–but because she wasn’t.
Hm. More on that later. I’m done for now.