Through the years the video games industry has grown in many ways depending on the category. Nowadays there are games that are not just about gameplay but also about telling a good story like The Last of Us, and others that are about the visuals and art style like Life is Strange, and so on. Even nowadays there are video games that are masterpieces in gameplay and story and were nominated or also won a game award like Kena Bridge Of Spirits. Talking about this last category, there is even a better game where you not only have fun with the narrative and gameplay but also enjoy learning cultural aspects and even the history of it. And, obviously, it is nothing more and nothing less than this big project called Ghost of Tsushima created by Sucker Punch Productions. First of all, let's talk about the best feature of the game: The cultural aspects!!
The game is very cultural!
I would say this is the most educational and cultural video game ever created which also has great quality, and gameplay, and was also nominated for the Game of The Year award. The first thing I have to mention is the fantastic and beautiful environment which is perfectly inspired by Japanese culture and history. We can appreciate this even more while we are doing Haiku (which is a Japanese poem that bonds the environment and the situation you are facing right at that moment) and we can see more exact details of the place we are like trees, rivers, animals, and so on, or while we are having a duel and the leaves and flowers are just falling by the air.
Also in the game, you can go to hot springs and take a bath, reflect, and after finishing it your health increases, which also communicates very well the tradition of the Japanese people that love Hot Springs since ancient times because they heal the body and soul.
On the other hand, we can visit Shinto Shrines which are very characteristic of Japan and are the sanctuaries of the Shinto gods like Amaterasu Ōmikami (Goddess of the sun), Fūjin (God of the wind), etc. Other cultural places you visit in the game are the Inari Shrines or the fox dens and this animal is sacred in Japan because, in their beliefs, the fox is the messenger of Inari (God of fertility and rice cultivation). As collectibles, you can also find Sashimono Banners which are small flags that represent the leader's name, a slogan, or the clan's name a soldier or samurai belongs and the Japanese people used these to identify their allies. You can find the singing crickets and identify them in the game too and those are kept as pets because they symbolize autumn. Another interesting fact is that we can learn about the Shinto gods but also Buddhism as there are also people who are part of that culture and are actually monks.
Another and awesome feature of the game is that you can enjoy seeing the cultural costumes, outfits, and armor you can wear or see. We can appreciate a lot the sword techniques and stances of the samurais and an interesting practice that consists of striking all bamboos in order to have a perfect technique and strength.
Finally, and talking a little more about an important topic to understand the story of the game, there is also the law and the honor codes of the shogun where every samurai must take an oath and always fight with honor and that would mean fighting fairly - one against one - not killing them by surprise at the back or by infiltrating and so on.
Story
The whole game is even inspired by history, during the Mongol invasion of Japan. In this story, the Mongols arrive on the island of Tsushima, and they do not have honor codes like the samurais do. As a result, they invade successfully Tsushima and eradicated the samurais except for Jin Sakai. As the only survivor of the Mongol attack, Jin Sakai finds himself in a difficult decision where he has to break the warrior code and use other practical but dishonored methods in order to eliminate the Mongols and save his uncle and Tsushima. Even you can learn about traditions, history, and the law of the shogun in the game and it tells us what might happen if someone breaks the code and dishonors the samurai's traditions and their unique ways of fighting!
Gameplay
The gameplay offers actually interesting features because, as the main character dishonors the code, we are open to fighting like we want - facing the enemy face to face or using stealth and other strategies and weapons. You will get lots of fun in both ways for certain. Some weapons of the game are katanas, bows, kunais, sticky bombs, smoke bombs, and more! You can use different stances too where each one will work better for certain enemies. Besides, there is also one special stance which is the ghost stance where you can activate it after killing a certain number of enemies. When it activates everything turns in black and white and you can kill the enemies immediately. Also, the gameplay is very fun because in many features they manage themselves to keep a good dramatic and epic scent in the game like when you are having a duel or when you have the option to challenge the enemies and kill them at the perfect timing. You feel satisfaction in each situation I previously describe but nothing compares with the satisfaction of doing a perfect parry. In this game, the gameplay is brutal and feels satisfying doing a perfect parry to enemies and then striking back!
If that is not enough, the game also shows amazing and epic assassination cinematics!!
Quality
These are the most beautiful graphics I have seen in the video game industry. And because of that, the gameplay is even more perfect. They did successfully a rich mix of gameplay, culture, history, and narrative, with the quality of the graphics. If the quality wasn't that good, then it obviously wouldn't look as beautiful as it is, and, as a result, the game maybe wouldn't mark so much tendency as it did.
Credits
I feel I have to name some people who were responsible for doing a such beautiful masterpiece. Here are some names: Nate Fox (director), Jason Connell (director), Brian Fleming (producer), Ilan Eshkeri (composer), Shigeru Umebayashi (composer), and Darren Bridges (video games designer).
Other features
The map of the game consists of three regions, so you will get to see unique environments in each one although, in my opinion, maybe it would have been good if they just did one or two regions and concentrated more on doing even more beautiful places. You can also do secondary missions and activities like freeing the villagers, killing Mongol leaders, and more! Also while you proceed in the story, you will unlock some tales that will be about the friends and allies you were making.
On the other hand, there is also the Director's Cut version where they improve some things like the graphics, loading times, frame, and more!
The game has also an online version called Legends where you choose your own character depending on the abilities you want to have. You can play with three players and there are different kinds of activities you can play like missions, tales, survival waves, and even more challenger missions where the only way to go through them is by cooperating with your team.
There is also a DLC where Jin has to return to the place he lived as a child and where his father died. Here he will deal with a new threat and his past.
Talking now about other features, they made the good decision to not censor scenes and show the brutality they must have in order to reflect the invasion very well. The kills you do will be brutal!!
Finally, I have to mention the soundtracks because their symphonies are also unforgettable where they used specific cultural instruments like the shakuhachi (flute), biwa (short-necked fretted lute), koto (stringed musical instrument), and more! So even the music you hear while you fight, duel, or something else fits very well with all the other cultural and historical features inside the game!
On the other hand, I have to say that if you want to complete the game 100% after a while you can feel that it is too long and many activities and secondary missions can even be a lot repetitive. It still is a masterpiece but in my opinion, they didn't need to do a long map and a lot of the same activities. It would be even better maybe if they optimize the map in order to do an optimized number of activities and missions and maybe even other features we can enjoy.
Conclusion
Ghost of Tsushima is a cultural masterpiece that can be also educational because we can learn a lot about the traditions and history of Japan. The graphics and environments we can witness in the game are the most beautiful I've seen. The gameplay is also spectacular and brutal as it must be and the story is pretty interesting because it shows what can happen if a person has no other choice than breaking their codes in order to save his people and how the shogun would react against him. On the other hand, and in my personal opinion, maybe the map and the activities could have been better optimized in order to reach even better results.
It is also a shame that Ghost of Tsushima had a fierce rival in the Game Awards which was The Last of Us Part II, where both are fantastic and high-quality games. It is very difficult to decide a winner between these two and I think if Ghost of Tsushima had been released in a different year, it would have won for sure The Game Of The Year Award. But I am also happy that there is such a competence where there can be years where we can enjoy a lot of fantastic video games!
Ghost of Tsushima Trailer
Comments