In yesterday’s post, I talked about how I had lost all enthusiasm for Ghost of Tsushima. There were reasons for that in the end of the second act, and I want to talk explicitly about it. This is the big warning that I am going to spoil the shit out of the end of the second act/beginning of the third act.
*SPOILERS WARNING*
So many people loved the story in the game. I was surprised because I found it so generic. Only one person said he didn’t really gel with Jin because Jin was such a blank slate (Blessing from Kinda Funny Games), and the others said he was that way beacuse you can imprint yourself on him. Which I get, but I did not find him very interesting until the end of the second act, but I really resent how I got there.
Here’s when I’m going to be more specific. I am going to go into the details of the story because I can’t get over it. Again, I know it’s just me because most people (guys) were creaming in their jeans about how great the story was. The (guys) is important because this kind of power fantasy is more appealing to men than non-men in general.
Anyway.
Back to the end of the second act. Here’s the thing. I had an ex who had a description for situations in movies in which the action seems backwards-designed. He called it, “Please move your face to hit my fist” and what he meant was that the action was written in such a way that this had to happen in order for this to happen in order to get the end result the director wanted.
I bring this up because I strongly felt this at the end of the second act. Yuna, who has had my back the whole game up to this point (but with the very clear motive of getting her brother off the island) inexplicitly says that she can’t go with me on a mission because my uncle gave her the boat she wanted to get to the mainland. She says that Ryuzo (my childhood friend turned enemy, more on that later) was my problem so she wasn’t going to help me.
I was like, “Excuse me, what?” I had helped her rescue her brother, get her revenge for her village and her friend, and now she’s doing me like this? It didn’t make any sense to who Yuna was as a person, and what’s more, I had a sinking feeling it was setting me up for something that was supposed to be Very Emotional.
I was not wrong. I got betrayed by Ryuzo and captured, along with Taka, Yuna’s brother. He idolized me and followed me to the camp (wherever I was going. I forget the details because they were so bland and generic). We’re tied up and Khotun Khan (the main baddie) unties Taka and hands him a sword.
Taka has been portrayed as not a fighter. He is a blacksmith and the one who fashioned my grappling hook (which I hate). We had to save him, and Yuna told me the sad tale of their childhood. She had always looked after him and protected him, whicgh was why she was doing everything she’s doing. This was all fine and good. This was a serviceable story, and I really liked Yuna. In fact, I liked most of the NPCs and their stories–much more than I did Jin. I didn’t dislike Jin, but he was just so forgettable (again, until the end of the second act/beginning of the third).
Here is the ‘move your face to hit my fist’ moment. When Khan gives Taka the sword, all Taka has to do is cut Jin free. That is all he has to do! And it’s not as if Khan was making him act hurriedly. Khan was giving him all the time in the world to make his decision. All. He. Had. To. Do. Was. Cut. Jin. Free. But no. He makes a wild and inept swing at Khan, who, of course takes the sword from him and decapitates Taka.
And I sighed in annoyance because it was so predictable and avoidable. Jin gets free…how? I don’t remember because I blocked it out. Yuna comes and he has to tell her Taka is dead. Which all could have been avoided if she had just helped me out in the first place! I know this was supposed to be a big moment and it was supposed to have an emotional impact, but it was so poorly handled, it just made me angry.
Then, I defied my uncle (after we had a bonding moment in which he wanted to adopt me). He wanted to do things the honorable way, but I knew that wouldn’t work. Again, it could have made an impact, but I was just rollilng my eyes the whole time. It didn’t help that this was all done in one long mission that just felt like so much padding.
The thing that really broke me, though, was the beginning of Act 3. I tell Yuna to run and do something or the other while I’m taken prisoner. My uncle had begged me to asy that ‘she’ was the one who had mad e me this way (she being Yuna), but I wasn’t having any of it. Kenji, another NPC I had helped along the way, helps me escape and when I hop on Kage, my trusty steed, she gets shot. I force her to gallop for ages, and after some time, she dies. This is shown in a cutscene, and once again, I am angry.
This is all emotional manipulation, and it doesn’t feel good at all. They refrigerated my horse, and she did nothing to deserve that! I know it’s Sucker Punch trying to up the stakes and to make me feel several things. One, separated from my uncle (this is both emotionally and literally–I can’t go back to the previous two areas now that my uncle hates me). The schism is meant to make me more apt to go ghost, I think, which is how I play, anyway. Well, sort of. I don’t stealth much because stealth is bad in this game, but I do assassinate as much as possible. And I use my ghost tricks when I can remember how to do them. I now have the flaming sword, which is pretty cool. But it doesn’t last very long, especially if you want to do other fancy tricks (that cancels the flame). And it uses a consumable oil pot or whatever.
Getting the Way of the Flame was bullshit. It combined so many things I hate about games in general. I had to climb a mountain to go fight a guy. This was a very cold mountain and I started losing health like thirty seconds after leaving the campfire. I could not see the way to go because there were two fucking dogs yapping at my heels. They have an unblockable attack, too, which I think is bullshit. So. what I would do is make it to the next campfire, then leave the area and scan where I needed to go. Then I would go back to tthe campfire to make sure I had the maximum amount of time I could have for that section.
There were parts where I had to do platforming and parts where I had to use the grappling hook. I am horrible at both. At least the game checkpointed at each campfire. But near one, there was a bear. Who also has an unblockable attack. He bit me and threw me off the cliff, and I died. That was fun.
I’m trudgding through the third act, but with no joy in my heart. More on that tomorrow.