#Ghost of tsushima metacritic series#
Players can engage in a direct confrontation with enemies, called a stand off, using their katana, which can chain up a series of fatal strikes against a set number of enemies. The game features side quests and non-playable characters with which the player can interact. An item that acts as a grappling hook is available to access difficult to reach areas. Players can travel to different parts of the island on horseback. The game features a large open world, with no visible waypoints on the HUD, which can be explored with or without guidance by wind direction. Ghost of Tsushima is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Only rarely do you find games that literally have it all (I’d put God of War in that category), but often you’re giving up one thing or another.Pre-release gameplay screenshot depicting the player winning a stand off Gaming is complicated, a balance between the mechanics of gameplay and the systems you experience, and the meat of the story and performances. That’s why I can land on a statement like “Ghost of Tsushima is more enjoyable but Red Dead 2 is better overall.” Those are kind of at odds, but that’s the point. Though players that stuck with Red Dead for the long haul and experienced its brilliant conclusion may think it’s ultimately the better game. Players that simply became too exhausted with Red Dead cannot get enough of Tsushima. That’s kind of the split I’m seeing here. And for that, I think it ends up above Ghost of Tsushima on that front, at least.Īll of this reminds me of what Naughty Dog was saying about The Last of Us Part 2 before its release, that games don’t have to be “fun” to be good. I think there were one too many “we should trust Dutch for no reason” moments, and some entire sections like that bizarre bit on the island could have been cut, but overall, it’s one of the most compelling narratives in gaming. And while Tsushima did have a much better story than I might have anticipated, it is hard to compare to the sprawling epic tale of Arthur, John and Dutch, which features some of the best writing and performances in the entire medium. It has gorgeous performance capture tech that is simply a level or two above what Tsushima uses. So is Ghost of Tsushima the clear winner? I don’t think it’s that simple.Ī hyper focus on realism works to Red Dead’s benefits in other ways. For some, this may bolster the vibrancy of the world, for others, it’s just unnecessary padding that makes controlling Arthur feel arduous, while Jin can get what he needs and get back to the important work of slashing up Mongols. Arthur has more deliberate and realistic movements than Jin, both in combat or horseback riding or even just collecting items. This is the push and pull of realism in games. Arthur’s horse behaves more “realistically,” yet Jin’s horse makes for more engaging gameplay with that not being something you need to ever worry about. Without question, one of my biggest irritations with Red Dead was Arthur’s propensity to constantly hit trees head on with his horse, something that is impossible to do in Tsushima as Jin just glides right past them. This translates into more pressing annoyances too. The same goes for skinning animals, done in an instant for Jin, a whole (horrifying) cutscene each time for Arthur. Arthur needs to open every drawer or cabinet manually and deliberately place everything in his pack. Jin will run around a camp hitting R2 and picking up currency or supplies around him with little effort. Now repeat that 200x with how many flowers you’ll collect over the course of the game. In Red Dead, that would require you to dismount your horse and go through a literal cutscene showing Arthur cutting the plant and putting it in his satchel. He can see it flashing on the screen, drive over it while on his horse at 20 miles an hour, and if you hit R2 anywhere near it, you’ll pick it up. Say Jin needs a specific flower to make a poison you find in the wild. The same goes for smaller aspects of the game. It’s passable, but no one really leaves Red Dead thinking that its gunplay is industry best.
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As “advanced” as we see combat get in Red Dead is through horseback chases or Eagle Eye slo-mo mode, but that’s about it. Traditional Rockstar-style auto aim where a headshot or a center mass shot or two puts down enemies. Red Dead, meanwhile, has less engaging combat. All has been tuned to perfection so you feel the right balance of challenge, but also feeling like a total samurai badass. Tsushima combat is an expert blend of parrying, dodging, blocking, different combat stances, different Ghost weapons and then outright combat or stealth assassination. Here, I think Ghost of Tsushima takes it.
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We see a split here both in combat, and how you interact with the world.