Ghost of Tsushima Catch All

I love the foxs/fox shrines sooooo much.

I think I discovered a foolproof way to win every standoff (tried and tested at least to Act 2, not sure if it works in Act 3, will update once I try it out there)

The key is to not actually look at the person you’re standing off against. Instead look at their knee. It seems all the fakes are based off of upper body movements and weapon thrusts so if you can block those out and just focus on the leading leg/knee (it’s the enemy’s left knee, on screen right knee). The second that leg shifts forward, you release your triangle hold and voila!

I was winning about 30-40% of my standoffs before I discovered this and since I started trying it out I’m on a 13 standoff streak

Just got at act 3....not enjoying it so far

They seem to have done the simple out and made enemies much harder and more numerous. I guess they want to kept upping the ante but it always leaves me annoyed.

Happened in Spider-Man after the prison scene, happened in Second Son too as I recall.

It feels like developers often want to make the game longer but and keep a challenge but just do it the easiest way “more!”

I am still enjoying it but I might have to take a break before I find the enhanced challenge fun

It's been a long time since I was so bummed to finish a game. I have a few ?s around to get to at my leisure but everything else is done. What a game.

farley3k wrote:

Just got at act 3....not enjoying it so far

They seem to have done the simple out and made enemies much harder and more numerous. I guess they want to kept upping the ante but it always leaves me annoyed.

Happened in Spider-Man after the prison scene, happened in Second Son too as I recall.

It feels like developers often want to make the game longer but and keep a challenge but just do it the easiest way “more!”

I am still enjoying it but I might have to take a break before I find the enhanced challenge fun

Interesting. I found they increased the challenge in subtle ways, such as decreasing the window the enemy strikes during a standoff or increasing the number of enemy patrols, or in terms of direct combat more archer options (poison arrows alongside fire and rapid-fire), and additional enemy attacks. However, nothing so egregious as the typical open world model, which is to have actual difficult units everywhere that are a pain to avoid.

Spider-Man and the Arkham series both did this by placing snipers on just about every rooftop, with Arkham Knight in particular also increasing roaming tanks in the environment. While patrols are more numerous in Ghost of Tsushima, they can still easily be avoided and fled from. It's the only thing about the island I'd change, as I'd rather they maintain the same rate of appearance as before, but I'd rather that and the minor adjustments to up the difficulty than for them to do what every other open-world game (but Breath of the Wild) does by populating the world with more enemies and therefore discouraging exploration.

ccesarano wrote:

Interesting. I found they increased the challenge in subtle ways, such as decreasing the window the enemy strikes during a standoff or increasing the number of enemy patrols, or in terms of direct combat more archer options (poison arrows alongside fire and rapid-fire), and additional enemy attacks. However, nothing so egregious as the typical open world model, which is to have actual difficult units everywhere that are a pain to avoid.

Spider-Man and the Arkham series both did this by placing snipers on just about every rooftop, with Arkham Knight in particular also increasing roaming tanks in the environment. While patrols are more numerous in Ghost of Tsushima, they can still easily be avoided and fled from. It's the only thing about the island I'd change, as I'd rather they maintain the same rate of appearance as before, but I'd rather that and the minor adjustments to up the difficulty than for them to do what every other open-world game (but Breath of the Wild) does by populating the world with more enemies and therefore discouraging exploration.

Here is what made me annoyed - the end of Act 2 introduced a new rare, dangerous, and powerful weapon! Then in the first place I went in Act 3 there were two of those weapons guarding a relatively unimportant spot. I found it annoying.

It feels like ramping up the challenge as a game goes on is a hard thing to get right.

The thing that has annoyed me about Act 3 and the increase in enemy patrols is that I maxed out the skill tree and upgrades a few minutes in. Now I'm just getting from point A to B as fast as possible and they offer nothing. Other than cosmetic rewards, there's no in-game reason to fill out the map. I will because the combat is fun and I can just walk in and take out an encampment in under a minute.

Yeah I basically filled the map out for the sake of the Platinum, but otherwise it felt like Act 3 was simply too big.

Farley you might need to spoiler tag whatever weapon you're discussing because I don't remember any significant weaponry introduced in the third act.

ccesarano wrote:

Farley you might need to spoiler tag whatever weapon you're discussing because I don't remember any significant weaponry introduced in the third act.

Spoiler:

Maybe the poison arrows? Those are annoying as hell.

farley3k wrote:

Just got at act 3....not enjoying it so far

They seem to have done the simple out and made enemies much harder and more numerous. I guess they want to kept upping the ante but it always leaves me annoyed.

Happened in Spider-Man after the prison scene, happened in Second Son too as I recall.

It feels like developers often want to make the game longer but and keep a challenge but just do it the easiest way “more!”

I am still enjoying it but I might have to take a break before I find the enhanced challenge fun

I'm just in to Act 2, and I'm already having similar feelings. All of a sudden the window on Standoffs seems to have shrunk, and enemies are more numerous and tougher.

You're spot on about Spiderman suffering from the same design choice in its final third.

As opposed to Spider Man, the upgraded enemies are just in the new third of the island. The other areas still have the same enemies. Also, for Act 3, you get a set of armor that really helps.

Spoiler:

The Ghost Armor plus the charm that increases the terror probability is a great combo.

Eh, I didn't feel any difficulty spike during Act 3. By that time you have so many tools, upgrades, armor and charm options to deal with these fools. The one thing I did notice, and I wondered if it was my imagination, was that the timing for standoffs seemed to get tougher as you progressed through the acts.

It did, though I don't know if it's specifically tied to the acts themselves or not. I started seeing more feints in Act One that then carried on towards Act Two. And as I noted in a response to Farley above, by Act Three the enemies had far smaller windows when they did lunge and strike, especially spear wielders. So standoffs certainly became more difficult, but I also think it was tied to how many enemies you could take out in a single standoff (at least in part).

Finished last night. Got the platinum shortly afterwards. Great game. Loved the aesthetic, the story right for me, and the final moments were appropriately emotional, well acted, and made sense. Might be the most beautiful game I've ever played.

The Act 3 difficulty increase felt like it worked and didn't have the same problem I did in Spider-Man. You can still use your horse to avoid every unwanted encounter. In Spider-Man, the rocket and jet-pack dudes were constantly knocking me out of travel animations.

Yo dawg.

Introducing Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, a new cooperative multiplayer* experience inspired by Japanese folk tales and mythology. Choose from one of four classes -- Samurai, Hunter, Ronin, or Assassin – and play with friends or via online matchmaking in a series of two-player story missions or four-player wave-based survival missions.

*Internet connection and active PS Plus membership required for online multiplayer.

Ghost of Tsushima: Legends will be available as a free download for Ghost of Tsushima owners in Fall 2020.

I am down for this.

Woah...fascinating.

I may have to buy GOS earlier than anticipated.

So a couple hours into it, I'm pretty positive on this. It doesn't feel as hand-holdy or as familiar as I was expecting, and honestly, I think playing it in Kurosawa mode has had a lot to do with that.

On an aesthetic level, it gives the game a very unique look and feel. Sony's games—especially recently—tend to have a sort of house style in the way they're lit and colored. Kurosawa mode upends a lot of that and as a result helps the game avoid a kind of visual familiarity.

Unexpectedly, that mode has a significant effect on the game's mechanics. It toggles off enemy status indicators like stagger by default, so you're forced to pay more attention to tells in animation. But the greater impact across the game play experience comes from the removal of color as a way to direct the player's attention.

Normally, this game uses all the modern tricks of lighting and coloration to direct your eye to different things. A dark smoke cloud against the sky leads you to a camp fire; an ostentatiously red flower is a crafting resource you can spot from a great distance; a brightly colored animal flits off into the woods to lead you to a collectable; white ledges tell you where to climb. But with a monochromatic palette, all of those color-based clues go away. They become simply more gray amongst a sea of grays and blacks and whites. A golden bird in a red wood is distractingly visible; a white bird in a white forest is subtle and easy to miss. This affects combat as well: red X-shaped warnings for attacks that need to be dodged become much more subdued weapon glints. It's easier to miss enemies in deep listening when their outline is simply white (sometimes against white) then bright red.

It's remarkable how much fresher the game feels (at least so far) as a result. It's still obviously an open world game in the same lineage as so many others, but Kurosawa mode makes it feel less like a retread and more like a novel take. I'm having to pay attention to it in a way that I haven't had to pay attention to other games in the same genre. It could fall apart as it goes further in (and the comments above about the last act aren't encouraging to me) but so far, it's been really enchanting.

omg omg omg

BadKen wrote:

omg omg omg

Never has anyone been so excited for my opinion.

Yep, it was totally your opinion I was responding to. Well done.

Completed this over the weekend. Overall, I really enjoyed it, although by the end of act 3 the repetition was more obvious. In particular, I think they leaned far too hard on the 'follow the footprints' mechanic - probably close on half of the story missions and side missions featured it.

But by gum it was a really pretty world to be doing things in. And I thought the voice acting, storylines and conclusion were really terrific.

I'd be totally up for Sucker Punch doing similar warrior-ish historical settings and stories - give me a game like this but set in Imperial Rome and I'm there for it. I like Assassin's Creed, but their sci-fi framing story has become increasingly bananas and irrelevant to the main games.

Gradually realizing that I would be perfectly happy if this game ended at the end of Act 1. I'll probably stop playing at that point. Video games are too long.

I am starting to feel that way in Act 3. It is a lot of fun but I am ready to be done. I think I will just do main story missions rather than every question mark or new lead that people give me.

Game compete. Maybe a bit too many side things but foxes were cute and all stories were fun yo play. Loved the side characters.

Art style was amazing and this was the first open world I enjoyed in a while. The wind and animal system really kept me in the world while showing me where I could go.

Ghost armor was really cool and I didn't even add in all optimal charms.

Spoiler:

Still mad they killed Kage. Such a good horse.

This had me in stitches.

BadKen wrote:

This had me in stitches.

That was great and contained the best rapid-fire listing of what we generally mean by "open world fatigue" that I've heard.

Thanks for that BadKen... and I agree totally with the review.

I'm still in Act 2, and I'm really losing my desire to continue playing. This is a game that feels a lot like 'The Witcher 3' and 'Red Dead Redemption' never happened. By which I mean:

There is no variety. Literally every quest involves fighting bandits and/or Mongols. I'm actually missing old fashioned 'fetch quests'.

There is no humour. Literally every quest involves fighting bandits and/or Mongols. Where's the comic relief of a finding Lenny-style mission?

The World is largely empty and uninteresting, and therefore not enjoyable to traverse. Foxes. Wild boar. Bears. Yellow birds. That's it. There's nothing 'non-functional' here. If you encounter an NPC on your travels, then its a Mongol patrol or a bunch of bandits. If you encounter wildlife, then its been spawned because the developers feel that you have reached a point where more resources would be handy.

I know the budgets and resources are very different, but compare that to RDR2, where it is often a pleasure just to stop and watch.

I know that I bore for England on this topic, but the more that I play other open world games, the more respect and admiration I have for RDR2.

I'm finding it tough to continue on to be honest & I'm still on Act 1. The gameplay is good but the world is a bit lacklustre with lots of repeated content. The story is serviceable so far with a couple of decent characters.

I do think after playing RDR2, BOTW & especially Witcher 3 that an interesting, unique world, with either deep systems or story content wins out everytime over something that's mechanically maybe superior but lacking in those other aspects.

RDR 2 is a prime example, the input lag makes the combat very sluggish & its very by the numbers for a 3rd person cover based shooter, although dead eye elevates it up a notch. When you look at all the other aspects of the game they are incredible, the world building is just outrageous, the landscapes are complex, diverse & unique. The cast of characters stand out, with excellent writing & the wildlife ecosystem is bonkers in terms of its scope & detail. Side content is really interesting & the lore you find out in the world makes it feel there's stuff happening in the world independent of what you do. It really feels live in.

I even like Second Son much more than Ghost so far, it was a blast to traverse & the diversity in powers made the encounters really engaging. The story was more silly & Delsin was annoying a lot of the time but going from A to B was pure fun & the combat was superb.

This is sharing similarities with FF7R for me, far too bloated for its own good. Cut the content by 50-60% & you'd have a far better game.

Spikeout wrote:

Cut the content by 50-60% & you'd have a far better game.

Interestingly, I made the decision a few days ago to stop playing at the end of Act 1, and it's significantly increased my enjoyment of the game. To be fair, I was already enjoying it a lot more than the rest of you. I either don't have the same open world fatigue or I'm inoculated against some of the complaints by virtue of having not liked The Witcher 3 and having had no interest in Red Dead Redemption 2.

(Also, as I mentioned, I've been playing in Kurosawa mode, which gives the game a very distinct look and feel. I would strongly recommend it to everyone playing.)

But by consciously and deliberately scaling back the scope of the game to just the first act, I've enjoyed what's there a lot more. I'm more inclined to pursue side stories or check out a fox den I come across because, hey, I'm near the end of the game anyway. Likewise, the power curve has been ideal as I've reached a point where I can confidently clear a Mongol camp or patrol while still having some new abilities to experiment with. I also haven't done two dozen of them already, so they're still engaging.

There are a lot of things that I think the game fundamentally does well, though, that compliment this style of play that also make the scope of the full game problematic. For example, I love that they've largely done away with experience points and have instead tied advancement to a kind of reputation system. Unlike a lot of open world games lately, you don't get a little XP boost for finding new places, killing individual enemies, crafting things, getting headshots, doing stealth kills, etc., etc., etc. Likewise, they've pretty stubbornly stuck to assassination attacks and showdowns actually being one-hit kills on anyone but a boss (who require all of two such attacks).

This is great for preventing the absolutely agonizing level grind of games like The Witcher 3, or the weird dissonance where you can instantly kill one type of bandit but can't even land a hit on another bandit on the other side of the map (also like... the Witcher 3). However, it also means that rewards drop off pretty fast and there's not much they can do to make you feel more lethal as you go along. Those long-ass open world RPGs really rely on level gating and content grind to keep things feeling minty fresh after seventy hours. This game has a 20 hour level curve in an 80 hour world, and that mismatch is a problem.

Unless you deliberately make the game shorter. Then all your side characters get ambiguous endings, the fate of Tsushima itself seems up in the air, and Jin feels a bit less like a super hero who single-handedly saved the country and more like someone who made a difference at a particular moment in time. It actually makes the narrative better, too! (And seriously: KUROSAWA MODE.)

In summary:

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Video games are too long.