Ghost of Tsushima -PS5- 9

December 13, 2022

I just beat Act III of Ghost of Tsushima, which means I’ve beaten the main part of the story. I put about 38 hours into it, and did a good amount of the side missions before getting to the ending, but there is still more to do in new-game-plus, such as more parts of the land to conquer, as well as the Iki Island DLC. But for now, I’m putting the game and down and ready for my review….I thought Ghost of Tsushima on ps5 was great. 9 out of ten. It’s an epic adventure that clearly takes inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s classic movies, like Seven Samurai and Ran. I got really involved with the characters and their stories of revenge and honor. The subplots with Norio, Isikawa&Tomoe, and Lady Masako were very intriguing and ended on very dark tones. And the main plot with saving your uncle, but going against his teachings to defeat the Khan was fascinating and well told. There were a lot of truly epic moments and big battle scenes throughout the campaign.

On the gameplay side…The combat is very good. It’s not nearly as deep as Sekiro or Nioh, but it’s still just plain fun to dice up the bad guys. The skill trees you unlock deepen the swordplay over the course of the game, so you never get bored of the fighting. The stealth segments feel much better here than the ps4 version, which I briefly played for a few hours a couple years ago. That older version seemed to have a lot of glitches that were fixed up here for the most part. There are still some, but they don’t hurt the overall experience.

And finally, exploring the gorgeous landscapes of Japan on horseback felt like a dream. This is a beautiful open-world game with a great sense of freedom and direction at the same time. It reminded me of how I felt about the first Red Dead Redemption on ps3 back in 2010 (I gave that a 9, as well.)

Oh, and for the record, I played the game mostly in medium difficulty. There were only about three fights with so many enemies that I had to briefly switch to easy mode. In conclusion, Ghost of Tsushima is not to be missed. This ps5 version of the game is a modern day classic.

March 20, 2023

I went back to playing some Ghost of Tsushima the last couple days. Three months ago, I beat the main game and saw the end credits, but I never went to Iki Island until now. I beat the main missions there, and wrapped up a couple other side missions I didn’t get to in the main land. I will say that Iki Island is a lot harder than the rest of the game, and I had to keep the difficulty on easy for much of the time. I thought the revelations about Jin’s dad and how Jin teams up with his killer was interesting stuff. Very good backstory. I believe this segment was originally DLC, but it’s included in the ps5 director’s cut. I rated Ghost of Tsushima a 9 when I reviewed it last year, and I’m sticking with that score. This is a must play if you have a ps5.