Ghost of Tsushima Review - Defend Your Homeland How You Want In This Love Letter to Samurai Culture

Written by Chris Woodside  on July 14, 2020

Reviews: Repetitive mission structures frustrate the experience somewhat, but Ghost of Tsushima is Sucker Punch at their best.

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It is hard to think of a samurai movie without thinking of the incredible artistry of Akira Kurosawa. Not just a master of the samurai genre, Kurosawa is to this day still one of the most celebrated Japanese filmmakers of all time. It is no surprise, then, that Ghost of Tsushima is not just the cliche love letter to some of the best samurai movies ever made, but is also an ode to Kurosawa himself. While Ghost of Tsushima is not the best exclusive of the many great titles published on the Playstation 4, it is still an incredible experience and a new high point for Sucker Punch. The world they have built is a loving recreation of this small island between the Korean and Japanese mainland with plenty of secrets that will keep you exploring the beauty of this island well after wrapping up Jin’s tale.

Ghost of Tsushima follows the story of a young samurai named Jin Sakai as he fights back to protect his homeland of Tsushima during an invasion from the powerful and formidable Mongol Empire in the late 12th century. While this is an easily identifiable point in history, there is no attempt made to recreate history accurately on this island. You won’t find infamous Mongol leaders like Genghis or Kublai Khan (replaced with a different leader named Khotun Khan). No famous samurai or Japanese leaders either. This ultimately proves to be a good decision as it allows the game to focus on Jin’s story and not on creating a playable history lesson.



Jin is the last surviving member of his family, the proud Sakai clan. His father and remaining family were killed during a Mongol attack on his village. This early loss is what provides the crux of Jin’s character development. As he sees his father and loved ones slaughtered by the brutality and viciousness that the Mongols are well known for, he realizes that the tradition and honor of the Samurai will not be able to conquer the power of this new foreign enemy. Instead, he adopts the controversial fighting style of the Ghost, one that puts an emphasis on stealth and taking out the enemy from the shadows.

The result of this new and unconventional fighting style is an incredibly unique gameplay experience. While traditional samurai games and movies would feature almost exclusively epic sword fights (which there are still plenty of in Ghost of Tsushima), players are given complete freedom in how they choose to battle the Mongol forces. More often than not, players are well served to hide in the shadows and pick off enemies one by one silently, making use of your bow and poison to take out enemies from a distance when possible. If, however, the player prefers for a bit more action there are plenty of options as well. When you first approach groups of Mongols, you are often given the choice to challenge your enemies to a tense standoff. These standoffs are a bit of a gamble, as landing a blow at the perfect time will kill your foe with a single strike, but time your strike wrong and you can very quickly see your health bar almost entirely drained.



Once these standoffs are complete, the intricacy of the combat system in this game is fully revealed. While much of the core combat of Ghost of Tsushima is not revolutionary, focusing on traditional quick versus heavy attacks, parrying to stagger an opponent, and other hallmarks of modern sword combat, there is plenty under the hood that requires a great deal of practice and skill to truly master. When Jin begins the game, he only knows one stance, which is best used against sword wielding Mongols. As the player progresses throughout Jin’s journey, and Jin learns more about being the Ghost, he learns new and more deadly combat stances that are most effective against certain types of enemies. One stance is most effective against enemies with shields, while others will help Jin most when facing enemies with spears or some of the largest brute enemies in the game. While the general strategy remains the same no matter who you are fighting (dodge, stagger, land killing blows), knowing which combat stance to use on each enemy often can be the difference between life and death.

Some of the most difficult combat encounters in the game are known as duels. These function as the boss battles in Ghost of Tsushima. While some of the hardest of these duels are littered throughout mandatory tales throughout Jin’s journey, there are plenty of opportunities for optional missions that feature these challenging combat encounters. In these duels, combat generally remains the same with a focus on staggering your enemy to be able to land some of your more powerful blows. However, these enemies tend to be some of the strongest and relentless in the game. Sadly, virtually every duel I encountered during my playthrough generally felt the same, and once I was able to master the pattern it became a test of endurance and patience more than it did of mastery of the combat.



Another tool in Jin’s arsenal in his fight against the Mongols is one that is entirely intangible. As powerful as Jin’s sword is, fear can be your best weapon. The leveling system in Ghost of Tsushima is entirely based upon growing your legend. As you complete tales or liberate areas from Mongol areas, your legend grows. Even Khotun Khan admits at one point that his warriors fear Jin has become unstoppable. If you happen to successfully slaughter a significant number of Mongols, it is not uncommon for others who have seen your fighting to cower and whimper, sometimes even running away where you can choose to let them survive and run away or cut them down with an arrow in the back. The code of the samurai would never shoot a fleeing enemy, but it becomes more tolerable for you as you leave behind the code of the samurai and truly become the Ghost. This level of intelligence in the enemy AI to learn about you and your skills reminded me of the Nemesis system from the Middle Earth series, though not quite as complex. It still added a level of authenticity to truly make your journey feel one of growth as people around the island, Mongol and, friend alike, come to learn the legacy of the Ghost.


As Jin continues to fight and push back against the Mongols, he also befriends a number of allies across the island to help him push the Mongols out of Tsushima and away from the Japanese mainland. Generally accomplished by completing missions, known in this game as tales, Jin aids several important figures and warriors on the island (many of whom have faced similar tragedies at the hands of the Mongol invaders). By doing so and earning their trust, your new friends will repay the favor by joining you, particularly during the largest battles against the Mongols at the end of each of the three acts of the game. Some of these NPC allies you encounter during your journey have more interesting tales than others. As a result, I found myself much more eager to complete the optional side tales, which further elaborate on their individual quests, for just a few of Jin’s most trusted allies well after the credits rolled at the end of the game.



Ironically, as engaging as Jin’s story of revenge and resistance was, the main tales were some of the most frustrating aspects of the game. While the combat in these tales generally were fine, it was the lack of variety in structure that began to wear on these missions the longer into the game the player gets. An inordinate amount of missions follow the same pattern. Many missions will require you to tail a Mongol leader back to his base camp where you then fight many more Mongols. Other tales have you identify difficult to see footprints in the ground and follow those footprints until you reach their source. While I always enjoyed the combat encounters that came with these missions, there is only so much tracking of footprints and investigating abandoned carts that the player can endure before these tales begin to feel uninspired and recycled. By the time I reached the end later stages of the game, many of the tales felt more like chores and barriers to experiencing the richness of the environment and seeing the end of Jin’s journey.

Despite some of the monotonous and repetitive gameplay within the tales themselves, general exploration of the side activities in Tsushima were a true delight. It becomes easy during the playthrough to get sidetracked from the main storyline for hours at a time as you stumble upon foxes and birds that will lead you to some of the countless secrets in the island. Some of these secrets can be simple altars that earn you additional charm slots that enhance your armor, while others can be at relaxing rest areas where Jin can reflect on his journey or compose haikus. All of this discovery felt organic by removing traditional waypoints. Thankfully, even without these waypoints players are not left entirely on their own, as simply swiping up on the touchpad creates a gust of wind that helps lead you to your target. There is a ton of variety in this vast open world and all of these secrets felt fresh and unique. I never felt quite like I was doing the same thing twice. It is a shame that this same variety did not exist in the structure of the missions throughout the game.



As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the charms and other items that can be earned through your exploration is just one piece of a fairly deep customization system within the game. Armor and weapons can be collected by completing certain missions. This equipment alters different stats (such as health or damage) in unique ways, and artisans throughout Tsushima will strengthen armor and weapons brought to them to make them even stronger when given the right materials. Abilities too are customizable, as Jin earns technique points after most combat encounters and tales. These ability points can enhance virtually every aspect of Jin’s experience, either by providing skills that are unique to different combat stances or even skills that aid in your exploration by allowing your guiding wind to lead you to some of the secrets, rather than needing to rely on some of the animals. All of this customization truly allows the character to control Jin’s journey and take him in whatever direction is desired. You can develop Jin to become the Ghost and be most deadly when you are unseen in the shadows, or you can become a truly deadly samurai that is most skilled in open combat. Both methods are entirely possible based on how you allocate these technique points.

One aspect that can not be overlooked in discussing how Jin’s adventure is brought to life is the brilliant score. Composed by two different composers, llan Eshkeri and Shigeru “Ume” Umebayashi, Ghost of Tsushima features one of the most unique and fantastic music of any game this year. The music features traditional Japanese instrumentals as well as traditional and authentic chant music from Buddhist monks. This score is just one of the many examples of the amount of love poured into this project from developers who did not want to just simply make a game about Samurai, but one that honors the legacy of these films in an authentic way. This is also seen in the game’s Kurosawa mode. As the name indicates, by turning on Kurosawa mode the game is immediately transported back in time to the black and white films that Kurosawa is most well known for. Thankfully, a lot more thought has gone into this mode than simply taking away color. Certain aspects of the game, such as the guiding wind, also are enhanced in Kurosawa mode to be more noticeable, and the audio also changes to sound more authentically like a 1950’s era samurai film. While this is a fantastic and unique feature to include in the game, I still found myself playing virtually the entire journey in color, as there is so much incredible attention to detail that I did not want to lose by going to the black and white Kurosawa mode. Still, when I eventually return for a second playthrough I plan to spend plenty of time experiencing the game more in this postwar Kurosawa style.



A final issue that I had multiple occurrences of were a few bugs. Early on in the game, I began one of the first tales, only for the trigger in the next scene not to occur. I tried restarting from checkpoints and even closed out of the game. Alas, I was left with no choice but to begin the game from the beginning. It was not a huge issue, as I was only about half an hour into the game, but this easily could have been a game breaking issue with a later tale. Smaller bugs and issues occurred throughout the game, some dealing with issues in triggers on some of the tales, but I was able to fix those by restarting from the last checkpoint. None of them were overly game breaking other than the first one, and did not hugely detract from the experience.

Despite some annoyances with mission variety, Ghost of Tsushima is still one of the best games of the year, and one of the best reasons to own a Playstation 4. Jin’s tale of rebirth, as he leaves behind the code of the samurai he knows to defend his homeland as the Ghost, is powerful, and the island of Tsushima is full of endless secrets to discover. The beautiful and traditional Japanese score, lush environments of the island, and challenging gameplay all tie together for a fantastic experience that shows the best of the samurai genre.

**Sony provided us a code for Ghost of Tsushima for review purposes.