Ghost of Tsushima – Legendary Review by Part Time Samurai

📽 Genre	Action-Adventure
🕹 Available On	PS4 and PS5
⏳ How long to complete?	25h
🔥 My Rating	9.3⭐

It’s one of my all-time favorites, one of those games that will forever have a spot in my heart. 

This masterpiece is an action-adventure game, developed by Sucker Punch Production and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment on July 17th, only 4 days after my birthday, so you can imagine I was a pretty happy birthday boy.

My excitement and my expectations were high, and that was the most worrying part. That I was setting myself up for disappointment. I’m so glad that this wasn’t the case.

Ghost of Tsushima Review: My Thoughts

Ghost of Tsushima is a third-person perspective game that features a large and stunning open world that you can explore freely or with a little guidance from the wind.

From the start of the game, I found everything informative and easy to grasp. Now before I continue, I want to make it perfectly clear. It’s my first playthrough out of many and I decided to take it slow and play in easy mode (no shame in it) and absorb every little thing, get familiar with a game before I go hardcore mode.

The game allows you to play at your own pace, you can explore every corner of the map, do all the side quests, collect all hidden loot, and fight all kinds of bandits. Or you can just stick to the main story and finish the game as fast as possible (DO NOT RECOMMEND).

Unique Features

Before I start babbling about the game and trying my best to not spoil it as much as I can, I gotta mention a few things that make this game unique.

First is Kurosawa mode, named after Akira Kurosawa, who is arguably the most acclaimed and widely recognized Japanese filmmaker, even legendary one might say. This black-and-white cinematic mode mimics the visual style of Kurosawa’s classic samurai films, giving the game a unique and immersive aesthetic.

You also have the option to use the original Japanese voice acting and English subtitles, which makes the samurai experience so much better, in my personal opinion

Instead of the traditional minimap, the game offers a wind as your guide. The direction of the wind is a visual cue that helps players navigate the open world to their desired objective or place they want to get to.

Another thing that is in the game is Combat stances. As a player, you can use stances to deal with different types of enemies: stone stance for hostile swordsmen; water stance for shielded enemies; wind stance for spearmen; and moon stance for brutes. And eventually, you unlock Ghost stance which allows you to kill enemies with one hit for a limited period of time.

The next one is Haiku Compositions, as a part of the game exploration, players can go to specific locations and craft their Haikus and reflect on their past or what is currently happening. And yes I do consider myself a Haiku master, among other things.

Story and Narrative

In 1274, Mongols (led by Khotun Kan) invaded the Japanese island of Tsushima. Lord Jin Sakai(main character) and his uncle/father Lord Shimura led Tsushima’s samurai to fight against foreign invaders.

The battle ends terribly for the samurai, Lord Shimura is captured, Jin is badly wounded and the rest of them are killed. Yuna finds him and heals him, as well as tells him that his uncle is captured and held in the castle.

After that Jin goes to free his uncle ALONE (because it’s obviously the smart thing to do) and he gets defeated by Kan and thrown off the bridge. Jin realizes after his defeat that he can’t do this alone, so he goes around the island and searches for people who are willing to fight beside him and free his uncle. 

As far as the story goes, the developers did really great job of keeping us included in the whole character development as we progress through the game.

Graphics and Art Design

The visual quality of the game is phenomenal. I was absolutely stunned by the beauty and level of details present in the game. 

Riding horses on meadows of Tsushima, while the wind blows in your back and cherry blossom petals fall around is so relaxing that I felt like I could do that for days. 

Combine all of that with the divine music they’ve put in there and you’ll be even more mesmerized by everything.

Conclusion

It’s fair to say I spent a decent time exploring the game, chasing foxes all over the island, climbing those tricky rocks, and much more. I enjoyed every bit of the game as much as possible but I do have to admit one thing, that I wasn’t able to do.

SPOILER ALERT SO DO NOT READ NEXT

One thing that I refuse to do is face my uncle, I just couldn’t bear to disappoint the man who raised me because I wouldn’t be able to end his life. YEA I KNOW, LAMEEE. Boo-hoo, I know, I got too invested and didn’t want it to end that way.

I might be emotionally biased but yeah, I’d recommend this game to everyone.

If you liked this review, you might like some of my other reviews here.

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