Ghost of Tsushima

I looked at all the RPGs I’ve played this year, trying to pick the one of them all that would be the best of the year. Several stood out, but I couldn’t pick just one. I guess if there were a game that I felt worth spending hours of my life playing, that proved its quality, maybe? Outer Wilds (PS4; finished January 26) This indie game about a hapless astronaut who is trying to stop their sun from exploding in (looks at watch) 24 minutes made a huge splash when it came out last year for all the right reasons. The clockwork solar system our astronaut lives in is full of puzzles everywhere you look. The lore is amazing. The physics are on point. And every 24 minutes, the sun explodes and you start from the beginning again, but you still have retained all you learned. ...

It is known that the best bad guys are mirror reflections of the good guys. Batman and the Joker. Superman and Darkseid. Wonder Woman and Cheetah. Captain Marvel* and Black Adam. I imagine the same holds true with the Marvel heroes, but I’m not very familiar with them. They should make some movies, get some publicity. * This is the real and only Captain Marvel. Fight me. The very best villains go beyond the mirror, with goals and dreams all their own, and perhaps knowing them so well, they wouldn’t seem like villains at all. Misguided, but perhaps not beyond redemption. ...

Since at least the thumbnail to this post will be shared where people who have not completed Ghost of Tsushima will see it, I headed this with a picture of Jin and Yuna limping together off the battlefield after the final battle with the Khan. But, it was clear from almost the beginning of Act II that this game would not have a happy ending. In history, the Mongols invaded Tsushima twice. The first time, they swept through the island (which is really quite small), moved on to Iki Island and on to the Japan mainland, where they were beaten back by hundreds of samurai. The second time, they were repelled in Tsushima, and Iki, and an unusual typhoon – the kaze-no-kami, would help the mainlanders drive the Mongols back to Korea. Since this was set during the first Mongol invasion, I fully accepted and expected that Sakai would fall to the Khan. ...

Having now completed (I estimate) the first third of the game, I think I can talk a little more about how I feel about it. Ghost of Tsushima promotes itself as a Kurosawa samurai movie come to life, and it’s pretty explicit in its classic movie references. This, however, is just a skin over what turns out to be a fairly standard open world action adventure game. But, a really fun, standard, open world action adventure game. ...

Since finishing Chocobo Mystery Dungeon, I’ve been sorta casually playing some Tomb Raider; Rise of the Tomb Raider, one of this month’s free Playstation Plus offerings. And it’s been no small amount of fun to be the badass Lara Croft, able to take on – and crush – entire Siberian prison camps with a couple sticks and a bit of string. But the buzz surrounding today’s release of Ghost of Tsushima (a name I am training myself to pronounce correctly) was too much to ignore. Last night I left Lara at one of her innumerable base camps beneath the very noses of the enemy, and took up the *katana and bushido of Jin Satai, last of the Tsushima samurai, off to avenge his honor against Hans Gruber and the rest of the Mongol horde. ...