Topic: Ghost of Tsushima OT II

After playing some more extended sessions, a few notable observations:

Of the open world side activities, the shrines are probably my favorite. Each one is a nice platforming and climbing diversion. They are quite well designed with just the right level of “hmm... where do I go now to get to the top?” yet not too frustrating because the path to take is always fairly clear if you just observe your surroundings. The design also thoughtfully places a random glistening pick-ups like a flower or some supplies in a clever place to divert your eyes to the next platform to jump to in many cases.

The climbing is quite forgiving; yet it’s less basic than Horizon Zero Dawn, with a good level of challenge, but also quite forgiving with very little fuss to line up the perfect jump. The traversal and climbing is less “sticky” than Infamous, which was always one of my complaints about the climbing in those games. Infamous traversal always felt a little strange, like a smidge too “gamey” and “floaty” instead of realistic. GoT strikes a better balance.
The grappling hook is somewhat limited in its implementation but it works alright and is easy to use, even if it seems utilitarian and situational (like how you can only throw it when jumping and only at the places with the markers)

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A couple nagging small complaints regarding item pick-ups though —
The registration of the R2 icon when hovering over an item to collect is a little figgity. I especially notice this over slain enemies, but it’s particularly frustrating at chests which should be preloaded into the game area. I occasionally even have to move around a little at Fox shrines, singing crickets, NPC conversation starter icons, and other major points of interest to get in ‘just the right position’ to be able to push R2 and have it recognize the input.
— This has long been a minor pet peeve of mine with video game item collection, and open world games seem to be the biggest offender, especially when the item is a random drop on a dead body. Many games struggle with getting the balance of “how close is close enough” when you walk next to a pick-up. Furthermore, GoT has the issue many games have (like Assassin’s Creed) where if you kill an enemy next to something in the environment like a boulder or a wall that sometimes the dead body clips halfway into the environment and then the item to loot from the enemy is unobtainable because you can’t hover over the body close enough to get the button to register.
I expect some of these minor glitches, but I’ve just had far too many times when I’m moving around in minute little circles and mini-steps around an item or NPC to get the “R2” prompt you show up. Sometimes you even have to move further away or be in motion as the button prompt will disappear when the character animation halts. I’ve even had a glowing item like supplies right in front of me and after spending few moments trying to pick it up, I just never get the prompt even when I’m right on top of it so I just give up. It’s just a mild annoyance but I’m just not sure why this isn’t easier to fix.

On the subject, another small complaint is the abundance of sparkling and particle effects in the game. It makes for a really pretty aesthetic with multiple fireflies, blowing leaves, fire embers, and other particles; and the feeling of movement in the environment is part of the core charm and beauty of the game. I love the wind and the swaying of the grass and plants and Jin’s cape in the breeze. Nevertheless, there is constant glittering particles on the ground and in the air for aesthetics and so when the game uses light sparks coming up from a body to note that there is an item drop there, it makes it really hard to recognize when you go to collect from all the enemies you’ve killed. If you defeated a group of 15 enemies strewn over a large area, it will take a long time mopping up the items because they aren’t very obviously marked when there are glitters everywhere in the background. Again, it’s a minor thing, but as someone who is obsessive about cleaning up after a fight, I wish there was a better system of marking those items.

Props to Sucker Punch for trying to keep the mechanics and the artistry intact and mostly it works well. Overall they’ve done a great balance and I love the game still; just a few small observations that stuck out to me.

@MightyDemon82 Did you upgrade the Typhoon Kick? Once you've done that it's quite easy to get that trophy. Either lure free roam enemy encounters to a ledge or a cliff if possible which is what I did or climb up one of those high watch towers in Mongol territories and kick them off.

I just completed the tale of The Broken Blacksmith, and am onto The Iron Hook now, interesting game, I have mixed feelings with it and just started Mortal Shell, so I don't know when I will come back to it.

@WanderingBullet I finished th e main story a few hours ago, just 6 trophies to grab before the platinum pops mainly the collectables and that one. Just need to look for some wandering enemies. Truly fantastic game I'll happily roam the island till I've got everything!

@Th3solution I agree with most of your nitpicks. I'll also add that the charms are mostly useless after a certain point. For a large portion of the game I didn't feel I needed to swap them out and I had loads of duplicates by the end of game, which seem to serve very little purpose.

Well that was one excellent game, platinum just popped, needed a guide for those hidden shrines but all good. Will still mess about in it to get all the collectables!

@MightyDemon82 Well done! And that is exactly what I did!

@JohnnyShoulder cheers, think I'll have a wee break from gaming then concentrate on A Plague tale!

Finally finished Act 1 after taking my time visiting nearly every area in the first island. I really took my time and although I didn’t complete all the collectibles (but probably have most of them), I finished all available side quests / tales and am leveled up about half or more of all available technique points. I’m leveled enough they I can typically handle the average Mongol or bandit group without even losing any health. However, at the end of Act 1, the betrayal by Jin’s straw hat friend was particularly well done. The boss fight and outdoor castle group combat was the hardest combat I’ve encountered so far and bordered on a Dark Souls feel for the boss fight. I died about 4 times before besting him by the skin of my teeth with a sliver of health left. It is strange how the boss battles don’t allow you to change stances or use your ghost weapons. Makes for some slight disassociation. Anyways, In one of the tussles with a particularly powerful group of enemies outside of the Castle, my companion Yuna died a few times in battle so I kept restarting the checkpoint. Is it possible to continue playing and complete the game with permadeath of an NPC companion? If Yuna dies, then part of Act 2 would certainly play out differently. Anyone try to go on without her? It appears that the game was allowing me to keep fighting without her and I didn’t get a “game over.” But I restarted the checkpoint pretty quickly to avoid an autosave since I’d rather keep her alive.

@Th3solution You can change stances in the boss fights, i certainly did for a few of them. Maybe you can't for that one however. And the ghost weapons aren't available most likely to stop people spamming them against the bosses, they are supposed to be difficult, a test of your skills. They would then potentially too easy if Ghost weapons were allowed. You can still use any special moves you have unlocked though. I didn't get a Dark Souls vibe from them either as most of them were pretty straight forward I thought.

Can you not revive Yuna? I can definitely recall being able to revive any fallen comrades that were the main side characters. They call out to you and you have a time limit to revive them. If you don't it is game over. But, no I do not think you can carry on if she dies, it would be game over.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah the Kunai are seriously OP and work great to stun and attacker and get some free hits in. Perhaps it makes narrative sense to assume that when in a boss fight that Jin suddenly reverts back to ‘samurai mode’ and wants to do the duel honorably. Like it’s some kind of gentlemanly street rules for samurai duels.

I’ll have to try the stances again at my next boss fight. Could’ve sworn I tried and just didn’t change from the default stance.

As far as NPC companion death - yes, the option to revive was there for Yuna for 30 seconds or something like that. But I was swarmed such that I could never revive her and I got the “Yuna died” message but the fight didn’t stop, and it was like 5-10 seconds later that I decided I better abort and restart the checkpoint again because I didn’t want to lose her storyline and I didn’t have a recent manual save unfortunately or else I could have experimented with waiting to see what happened, but I didn’t want to take the chance.

@Th3solution I'm pretty sure you will be ok in regards to Yuna. It happened to me a couple of times and it was fine. Without spoiling things too much, she plays a pivotal role later on in the story. There are no branching story paths in this game, apart from tight at the end. If you are that worried about it, just make sure you save more often.

Man, I love Kenji. What a great NPC. 😄 He has really grown on me.

@Th3solution Ah yes he is great, about the only comic relief in the game. Which is probably about right given what is happening in the game.

Here's a confession. I suck at this game. My combat skills are awful. I'm halfway through the game and I realised I haven't been keeping up. I've used stealth so much, I rarely have to engage in combat. So when I have to, I fail miserably. However, instead of learning the combat system, I went the other way... I just run in circles around the enemy like a lunatic, wait for them to attack me (they will always miss because AI), and I strike once or twice, and back to running it is!

@Octane I like how the game has equal opportunity to do stealth or open combat; both work fine. But how are you doing at the mini boss fights? Like the ones oft associated with the end of a main story tale or mystic tale? For me I can breeze through most standard enemy encounters, but the boss fights are sometimes tough. I feel like these are where there is a smidgen of watered down ‘Soulsborne’ to the combat because of having to time dodges and parries, counter strike strategically, and memorize some of the enemies attack patterns. I had a boss fight last night in which I died like 4 times before I finally beat him with just a sliver of life and no resolve left.

If you neglect the combat too much then these boss fights might get tough, if you’ve not encountered many yet.

Also, as far as the combat, I have found that the ghost weapons will get you through most encounters fairly easily, the only problem being their limited availability, even after leveling up the pouches to carry more. The Kunai and sticky bombs are pretty helpful for crowd control when leveled up and the smoke screen is surprisingly helpful too; I’m only now learning the value of the smoke screen but you can typically count on 2-3 quick assassinations during each smoke screen, which is sometimes even better than what you’ll get with the Kunai.

Also don’t forget about the bow and arrow even when you’re in a group tussle. If you have enough spacing, then you can fire a couple shots and usually thin the crowd before they are on top of you.

Have you been utilizing the ‘challenge enemies’ duel options at all? Eventually if you get good at those then you can take out up to 5 enemies all at once.

Just rolling credits on the game now. I'm curious what choice the rest of you made at the end? I choose to spare him and I feel happy with how that played out. . I really enjoyed the game and only have a handful of trophies left to do. 2 are hidden so will have to see what they are for in a minute. The other is Body, Mind, and Spirit, I know I've done all the bamboo, hot springs and Inari shrines so I must have missed a Haiku somewhere. There are only small patches of fogged area left on the map so it must be hiding behind one of them. Doesn't seem to be a guiding wind option for them like the others. I'll give myself a bit of time exploring before I give in to looking it up.

@BearsEatBeets I chose the other choice to you. In regards to the trophies, I had to search for the hidden ones online and there was no way I would have found out how to get them otherwise. The haiku you to set the guiding wind to cosmetic items, and you should eventually find it.

@JohnnyShoulder Having looked now I don't believe a single person would have done the 'sly' one without being told how to do it. While looking up what made up that one I couldn't help having a quick look regarding the Haiku and it seems one of them doesn't show up as a '?' , an NPC at the hot baths tells you about it. It's probably that one I'm missing.

The origami pieces in Jin's cabin at the end were a nice touch.

@BearsEatBeets I think that Haiku is supposed to be done first as there is a tutorial, but was one of my last ones too.