Such an amazing game
I have been playing Ghost of Tsushima pretty much nonstop over the past 4 days or so and it is such a great game. I am really trying to take my time with this one, and I think I spend most of my time wandering the map looking at everything. I also spend a lot of time searching for materials for upgrades to my equipment as well.
There is a lot to explore throughout the game and one thing that I really like is that the game does not hold your hand and direct you from one point to another. It is really a game built around exploration. Like when you follow yellow birds and they lead you to a hot spring, which gives a small increase to your total health bar.
There is always so much going on onscreen in terms of different effects. Whether it be fog rolling in after a storm or as the sun is rising, or the wind blowing through thousands of pieces of grass, each moving independently, as you make your way through a field.
Each frame seems to be carefully crafted to create a truly cinematic journey. I am not sure what the game looked like on the PS4, but the visuals on the PS5 are pretty amazing.
It is pretty cool seeing how your character's appearance changes after each battle as well. They did a great job showing the true brutality of the fighting, with characters being covered in blood splatter with each strike of your blade.
The different NPCs you befriend on your journey each have a unique style. My favorite is the different members of the Straw Hats. They remind me of Raiden from Mortal Kombat and they just look super fierce with their armor and weathered hats.
Your own character's armor visually gets better and better with each upgrade you do to it as well. That is one thing that I really like. It is cool to see your armor progress with you throughout the game. I think this is way better than how a lot of these types of games would just have you get new armor every few levels. Doing it this way really shows how armor was sacred to Samurai and how they even passed armor down through generations.
I am really enjoying the story of this game. It is cool how the different tales all intertwine with each other as well. Normally in games like this, you do one quest or quest line all the way through, but this game has you do portions of quests and it will unlock the next portion of another quest, so what you do in one quest line affects the others.
If you are on the fence about this game, I would highly recommend picking it up. There are a few things that I do not like about it though. The jumping is pretty bad and your character seems to float and get stuck on things every now and then, which can really pull you out of the world and mess up the immersion.
One thing I am looking forward to is getting more into the Legends mode, which can really be a whole new game all by itself. It is a multiplayer game mode where you and other players around the world come together and fight. I have only done one mission in Legends and it was a lot of fun. I really want to get through the single player campaign before I get too engrossed in Legends.