Ghost of Tsushima

In this episode of Ghost of Tsushima, our samurai warrior helps a woman track down a traitor. Our samurai warrior meets up with Masako to try to track down a woman that stole things from her family and now is selling those precious items. This is one of many tales we will be doing for Lady Masako. She is broken after her entire family was slaughtered and she is after all involved. Will she get her revenge?

The Masako tales are interesting. Apparently another clan wiped out her family but she survived and that clan used the Mongol invasion as a cover. Her children, grandchildren, husband and in-laws were slaughtered and now she wants the culprits to pay. Being close to Jin she has a trusted and fierce ally that will help her. She is no push over. You will not be spending your time saving or helping her. You do not have to watch out for her. She takes care of herself and is not an annoying tag along that causes you to fail a mission if she dies. Trust me the Mongols and her enemies cannot take her out. Her story is perhaps one of the sadder stories in the game.

Ghost of Tsushima takes place in the 13th century after the Mongols invaded Japan. They are met with heavy resistance and history tells us they got their butts handed to them. In this beautiful game the Mongols wiped out many samurai and now our samurai, Jin is looking for revenge. This game has amazing graphics and I have yet encountered frame drops or freezing. Jin is easy to control and I am enjoying the story.

It does have many elements from Assassin’s Creed and that is not a bad thing. The stealth and assassin kills are fun. It is almost like Assassin’s Creed in Japan but without the Assassins or Templars. Ghost of Tsushima has what is called Stand off were you can kill up to three Mongols in quick succession and I highly recommend upgraded the Stand Off and Assassin as well as the four main stances as early as possible.

The combat is fairly easy and it can be Batman-like which is both good and bad. The problem I have with Batman like combat is your character will move from enemy to enemy even though you are trying to take out a rather bothersome enemy first but at least in Ghost of Tsushima my character has not been killed because of it like the so many times my character died in Shadow of War.

Ghost of Tsushima had nice graphics. It is on the level of Horizon Zero Dawn, although I feel that Horizon Zero Dawn a better game. Combat is smooth and you have four stances for combat. Water, Stone, and two more. Each one is for either shielded enemy, brutes, spearmen and swordsmen. It can be difficult to remember which stance is best for which enemy but that is vital and you will want to max out these stances.

Levelling up is straight forward. You kill enemies you encounter in your travels, do missions, do side missions, and follow foxes and golden birds. Foxes and golden birds will take you to places that will allow you to increase your health, focus and earn charm slots. Once you max out you charm slots you will earn more charms. You certainly want the one that allows Jin to heal.

You can use dishonorable tactics which would be the Assassin’s Creed route or you can face the Mongols like a samurai. I use a mixture of the two because when you have too many enemies it is better to be dishonorable besides a real samurai reviewed this game and said there is no honorable way to kill someone.

That’s it for my review.