Written by Adlai Rosh

Jin Sakai draws his blade and issues a challenge. He approaches a camp full of invading Mongols, who have come to the island of Tsushima as their first step towards conquering Japan. He stands before four men, who yell at him in their language, cursing him as he waits with his blade at the ready. They stare each other down, the only movement the grass blowing in the wind. Then, one man strikes - Jin moves. With a flick of his wrist, he cuts him down. Two of his companions attempt to exploit this opening. They die just as easily. The fourth stumbles back, screaming in terror as Jin wipes the blood from his blade and bows at the still-warm corpses, paying his respects to the dead.

What would’ve been a cutscene in any lesser game was but a fraction of gameplay. Ghost of Tsushima quite openly draws inspiration from Samurai fiction, and it shows. Should the player wish, Jin could fight as an honorable Samurai does - challenging his foes head-on, never backing down until all have fallen, looking them in the eyes as he cuts them down without hesitation. It’s a game that wears its Kurosawa influences on its sleeve and isn’t afraid to admit it. There’s even a “Kurosawa” mode in the game that allows you to play through the experience with a black and white film grain filter and Japanese audio. One of the key gameplay features, the stand-off, even stimulates the tension of a samurai duel by giving you the opportunity to thin the ranks at the beginning of a fight if you challenge a group of foes directly.

Direct combat isn’t the only way to play the game, though. Ghost of Tsushima has two distinct playstyles; the honor-bound Samurai, and the cunning Ghost. Stealth and trickery is the name of the game. While the Samurai is content to strike his foes down head-on, with sword and bow, the Ghost follows no such code. Willing to do whatever it takes, the Ghost employs tactics that tilt the odds in his favor. From Kunai that open foes up to attack to smoke bombs that allow for a quick escape, indirect combat and ingenuity are the Ghost’s bread and butter. Head-on fights might be a challenge, but the Ghost’s tools allow him to even the odds. 

While I expected the game to have an arbitrary Karma system like in Sucker Punch’s previous work, inFamous, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could choose to play however I wanted, whenever I wanted. Different armor sets for Jin not only look spectacular, but are geared toward facilitating a certain playstyle. While there are the usual, expected bonuses like gaining extra health or dealing more damage, there are more creative bonuses that nudge you towards specific tactics. An armor set that lets you kill more opponents in a single stand-off clearly benefits a Samurai more than a Ghost, whereas a different armor set that makes it harder for enemies to spot you has no use if you never go into hiding. 

While Ghost of Tsushima excels at its presentation in many aspects, there are just as many ways that it fumbles. Tsushima Island is a massive, beautiful island for the most part, but like many open world games much of it is vast emptiness broken up by the occasional random encounter. In spite of being a game all about Japanese aesthetics and proudly drawing inspiration from Akira Kurosawa’s works, its cinematography is still very western. While it shouldn’t be an issue for most people, the difference can be quite jarring when the game goes from a curated, well-considered framing within a cutscene to the generic action-adventure dialogue camera angle seen in games such as Mass Effect or The Witcher 3. Not to mention the usual round of Open World Game busywork, with shrines to pray to, hot springs to rest at, bamboo to cut, and charms to collect. At least the crafting and upgrade system is subdued enough to not require dozens of different materials harvested from different enemies. 

where the presentation works, though, it works. The music is phenomenal, it’s cinematic score elevating the scene in ways I haven’t experienced in a game like this. The game truly shines in the duels that Jin can partake in, each fight opening with a view of the two warriors readying their blades, the music timed impeccably to Jin drawing his sword. I found myself invested in Jin’s tale and his determination to liberate Tsushima. In the end, I think Ghost of Tsushima is a fine send-off for the PS4, being the last Sony-published exclusive on the platform. It’s not the best PS4 exclusive, but I feel it’s an essential game to have in your library.