Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Ghost of Tsushima Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 29

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Greg, Blessing, Imran, and Kevin have SPOILER-FREE impressions of Sucker Punch's new game! (Review copy provided by PlayStation.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And we're live. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Gamescast. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside the new face of video games blessing. Yo, what's up, Greg? How much? How are you?

I'm doing pretty good, man. Okay, good. Joining us as always, or at least sometimes always. It's just been rare lately, but we have them here all the time, the former and former Imran Khan. Kenichua. Oh, hello. How are you?

Yeah. Being in theme for this episode of Gamescast. Exactly, exactly. And then making the rare, he's actually on the show, hosting the show part of the show, The Glue, Kevin Coella. Hey, guys. Hey, how you doing? Good. Very excited to talk about this show, this game.

Yeah, that's it. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night because of this game. What time did you go to bed last night playing this game? 5.30. Nobody told Paula. She doesn't know. It's 5.30 in the morning. Yeah. I'll get up. I'll get you up and ask you if you're like already. Oh, 8 a.m. I believe the cat won off.

Yeah, I'm tired. It's been a long way. I understand that. I understand that. Of course, we saw wasted all of our time, but everyone's acting like it was cool. That's a different story.

Ladies and gentlemen, the ghost of Sashima review embargo is up. This episode of the Kind of Funny Gamescast is your spoiler-free ghost of Sashima review. Again, spoiler-free, that's happening. We'll get into it here in one second. If you do want to bounce out and just hear nothing about it, that's fine. Kevin, you've got to stop drinking ice out. I think if you're going to be on Mike.

Sounds like you got to. loud. Classful of marvels over there. Everyone's mad at that. Please help it out. Ladies gentlemen, this, of course, is the kind of funny games cast

each and every week. We come together to talk about all the things we love in video games. If you love that, you can go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games. You can get the show early. You can get it ad-free.

You can watch it. Usually live as we record it. Of course, not this week because of review embargoes. You can get it with the exclusive post show we do. And oh, so much more on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games. No matter how you get the show.

Thank you for your support. Consider going to Patreon. If you can't, though, it's no big deal. You can get the show for free. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, roosterteeth.com, and podcast services around the globe. Each and every week, you will get ads. You will not get that post show. You won't be able to write in. It's a sad state of affairs.

So if you have the means, patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Worth talking to you for housekeeping. This is just the start of our Ghost of Sashima coverage. Of course, today, this is Tuesday for you probably, that this review is popular. 7 a.m. You're watching, you're listening, you're seeing around the internet. Everyone's reviews go live. this afternoon, Tuesday, we are recording PSI Love You, Exo, Exo on a special day in time. The idea there is that it will be blessing and I answering your ghost of Sashima questions. So right in with your spoiler-free questions, we will do our best to answer those.

You can get that episode of PSI Love You, XO, XO, XO Wednesday morning, YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games podcast services around the globe. And then, if that wasn't enough, we are trying this week to get our spoiler cast recorded, both with all of us talking about the store. I shouldn't say this week. We're getting it recorded as soon as we can. That's a better way to put it with all of us and Sucker Punch actually being here.

That is still TBD on the date and who will be through and all that jazz, but a spoiler cast is coming. So patreon.com slash kind of funny games with your questions about that concerns about that once you've played it, once you've been a part of it, that kind of thing. Or if you have spoiler questions ahead of time, you'd want to know. Thank you to our Patreon producers.

James Hastings, Sancho West Gaming. Julian the gluten-free gamer, Delaney Twinnying, Jeffrey P. Long, Haysoos, Barrio, aka Benton Fork. skin tight salmon, game jumper X, and Mohamed Mohamed, aka Momo. Today we're brought to you by our sponsors, Honey, Quip, and Sun, Soil. But I'll tell you about that later. For now, let us finally review Ghost of Sashima, the latest from Sucker Punch.

Blessing. Addioia. Greg, real quick. Do we have to say FTC be cool? That's a great point. Yeah, Kevin, we probably do. Because I have one right now that's going, but it says Last of Us part two. Oh, well, remember everybody.

Because of the influencer bucket PlayStation PlayStation put it in, we have to tell you that this game was provided by PlayStation. We didn't steal it off of a PlayStation truck or break into sucker punch and took it. They sent it to us for review. But we would have. We had the means. We want, though. Blessing Eddie, Oye Jr.

Yes. What do you think of Ghost of Sashima? I think this game is awesome. I really, really, really, really liked playing this game. I think as a follow-up to infamous, you know, I think this game succeeds. so well. I like this better than infamous. I like this. I think the main issue this game is going to have coming out at the gate is that it's coming out after last is part two, which I think is going to be a huge struggle for it because upon my first hour is playing this game, I did not like

it. I thought the game was going to be bad. And, you know, that came from just things like presentation and facial animations and the way the game controls and all these different things. and coming off fresh off the last part two really tainted that opening experience for me but the more and more i played the game and the further and further i got into it i absolutely started to adore it and actually fall in love with it like i think overall uh it is such it is such it is such a good game it is an excellent i think first installment into what will probably be a series oh you hope so right yeah yeah you you hit the nail in the head the way i've been describing it when i talk to you guys when i talk to jen when i talk to myself because i can't talk to anybody about

this game. The word I use is intoxicating. I started Ghost to Sushima was in a very similar place to you of. It is such a gear shift from The Last of Us part two because what I mean when I say that is not to take a shot at sucker punch or anything else. These last of us and Ghosts are out to accomplish two very different things. Whereas for everything you've heard of the discussion and the art of the last of us in the narrative and blah blah blah blah blah. That's all true right. ghost of sashima is a capital v capital g video game like it is like hit r2 to do this here are all these points do this like you're in a game we're making it very clear and there's all this shit to unlock and run around and go do and to the point it's a giant open world

RPG right so i was the same thing if i started it up and like i'm in there i'm like whoa this presentation of this conversation is different and whoa this isn't how i was oh man it's but the more i played the more i couldn't stop playing to the point that like I think we all have a very similar story right Kevin's 530 but I was up till 1230 last night because I'm so close to the platinum on this just chipping away I wanted to play more I do I want to binge this game but at the same time having gone on forever umra what do you think so it's interesting you guys say that because but when I first started playing this game I did not play the last of us too just for various reasons I was out of town like I didn't get the game

until we actually got the code for this so I started playing this for review and I was I'm not going to say blown away because I feel like this game has kind of an actually kind of slow start. But as it kept going, I started realizing, okay, so this is, they clearly were influenced by Attent's Creed 2 here. They're clearly influenced by the Witcher 3 here. Like, this is the part where they were like, oh, Breath of the Wild and Horizon are out. We need to step our game up a little bit for this stuff.

And then, like, I started realizing all this stuff is like, Ghostsumma is a combination of a lot of my favorite games. And I think it pulls off that combination extremely well. And I think as momentum starts rolling with that game, like this, it's ebbs and flows a little bit, but it just keeps getting better and better in a lot of ways. And I ended up actually like, this is, I think, in all my years of reviewing and covering games, this is the first time I've gotten all the achievements slash trophies, such whatever, of a game before it has come out.

That is. So I flattened this game just like, because I like, just enjoy playing it so much. It is a fun game to just like have on and do a thing. And those things can roll and roll and roll until you're snowballing to 530 a.m. the game. Sure. I think that's again the power of it. They give you, you know, the island of Sashima, right? And it is something that I wanted to explore in that awesome open world gameplay sense, always of. Cool. I'm going over there to do that mission. And then you'd head off that way. And it's like, well, these two question marks are along the way. You'd hit those up. Well, it got me

into this fight. Well, that person just told me an interesting story that I saved from the Mongols. Now I'm going to go and like, sure is, sure is shit, you know, three hours later, you haven't done the first quest you were trying to do for that day. Yeah. Yeah. Kevin Gwellie. What are your thoughts? Excuse me, blessing? Excuse me, I apologize. I understand.

Tim Getty's in here, wheeling and dealing, letting anybody talk when they want. I will keep this show on task or I will time you out. Kevin Coelho, what did you think of ghosts? So I think what, like maybe earlier this week,

maybe Thursday, I was like, I'm not going to be able to finish this game by the time we do this. And you're like, oh yeah, don't rush through it. And it's like, yeah,

I'm trying to just do everything because I enjoy everything about it so much. It's funny. I was talking the blessing when we had first started. Maybe it was like the third day that we had it. And he was like, yeah, I don't know if I like the

the way it's hand- Combat? Combat, yeah. And I was like, dude, just wait until you open up the other stances. Because moving around those pieces and like looking at the person that's coming to you and being like, oh, he's got a spear,

switch to this stance. You know, it feels so dynamic. It's so well, well made. And I just, I love this game. Yeah. Yeah, I think Kevin stumbles on something interesting there. You know, when they showed the presentation, their state of play for Ghosts, Shishima, and they showed the multiple stances, right?

So you have different stances you're supposed to use for different enemies, right? So you see a guy with the shields, switch the shield stands, swords, short, stort stance, spear, you get the idea, brute. I remember seeing that and kind of going, I kind of hate that kind of stuff in games. where I just want to have a cool stance and a cool thing and go do it, right? And I always go back to Odyssey, a game. You and I both really adore Kevin. And for that, I built, I got Cassandra, her daggers eventually.

I got the poison damage up on that. That's what I do. I fight everybody. I rolled their back. I stab them a bunch and I win and I keep on moving. And combat in my 130 hours of Assassins Creed Odyssey hasn't been tough outside of boss battles right in probably 90 hours. And for Ghost, when we got going with this and you got into it and it became

a sense of timing and understanding windows. And if you wait the last second to block, you open them up for a counterattack and leveling those up and using the stances. And then I was shocked by how that dynamic of gameplay kept me engaged all the way through and has kept it to even today as I'm still chipping away into platinum, just a few trophies away. By the time you see this, I should have a platinum knock on one unless there's any glitches. I am still challenged every game, every fight.

I still have to be on my toes. I still have to think it through. And granted, some people die in one hit versus some people don't. and, you know, later on a million other hits, depending on what area you're in, I found it to be so good and so engaging and so dynamic. I just can't get over it. Imran, did you have that too?

I mean, yeah, so I really liked it first that this game has, I don't want to say realistic samurai combat, because, like, that's not a thing. But, like, at first I was just like, okay, it's cool that swords are cleaning together that, like, this game is very parry-heavy, but, like, the windows are big enough that if you're not paring perfectly, it's still fine.

Yeah. But, like, the difficulty pacing of this game, game is all over the place in some way. And keep in mind, when I say all this, keep in mind, I am somebody who liked this game enough to platinum it, but I'm also a believer that if you platinum a game, you see all the flaws in it as well. So the difficulty pacing is it starts off with like,

okay, I'm getting this, then it starts out, gets started easier than way easy. Then it just gets like fucking insane in terms of difficulty. And that's where I really like, really like in the combat of, okay, I can't just rest of my laurels anymore. I can't just walk up to a place and standoff and be like, hey, what's up, bitch, fight me. It's always, I have to start actually, like, combining the ghost stuff with the samurai stuff and actually really work hard to win a combat scenario.

And that's where I think the game really shines of pushing you to that edge and making you fight back. Yeah. I think, you know, similar to Kevin, right? And I think all of us, like, the way I started playing it was very much the way I would want to play it if I was playing it at release. And it was that I'm not moved out. You know, it's three acts and they're pretty clear where

their divides are and stuff. And I was like, I'm not leaving Act 1, the first part of this island until I've done everything. So I've cleared every bandit camp till I've gotten every question mark, though I've done everything. And I did that. But to your point, Imran, by the end of it, I was just destroying people. And that's, you know, a third of the game. And I was like, oh, man, like, is this about to go the Assassin's Creed Odyssey route where I'm not going to be challenged again? And immediately in area two, you start fighting straw hat people. And they were owning me. They were just working me because it wasn't the same anymore. Like, fuck. I feel like with this, what one of these things the game does in that moment when you go from the first act to the second act and suddenly the maps gets bigger, it like fucks up all the farmsteads.

So now you have to go back to that first island. And even if you're, you fin, or, you know, the first part of the island, even if you maxed yourself out, which I had, I had done everything. And then I had left. Then I was like, all right, I'm going to go back. Now they change the dynamics where it's like, oh, suddenly you have to kill these people, but you have to be careful about it because they have a hostage and they'll kill the hostage.

That was such a cool thing for them to add. And like when I was like, I'm totally done with this first chunk of the island, I'm not going to go there. Oh, I have to go back. And it's a challenge. And it's like now it's teaching me to play in a different way where it's like, I really have to sneak around here.

I can't mess around because like these people will get killed. It's so cool. Well, I see, how I know I, cut you off earlier and I'm sorry about that. I have a problem with you. I'll find it in my heart to forgive you. Where do you chime in on all this? No, I think what you guys are saying is spot on. I think for me, combat was a thing that for the beginning of the game, I did not like, especially. This game doesn't have a lock on and I still don't understand why it doesn't have a lock on. I think that is, I think it's honestly an egregious oversight to not have a lock on in this game.

because it seems to me like it wants to have some sort of a halfway point between almost being like Batman slash Shadow of Mortar Combat but also kind of being like Jedi Fall in Order or like Bloodborn Combat in terms of

you know you are you're being methodical in terms of you know when you parry when you dodge and all this all this different stuff but at the same time you are fighting groups of enemies that are kind of attacking you at the same time and so you want to have that freedom I think the way they make it work with the different stances and all of the mechanics that they they throw into combat.

So like the different weapons, the different quick fire stuff, and then the arrows, all the different stuff they give you in your arsenal, I think makes combat really fun for the most part. But at the same time, kind of damped it a little bit as far as it not going all the way into one side or the other. Like I wish they really actually did go the blood-borne route and made it more of a, hey, like this game is really difficult because that's one thing they said leading up to the game was that this game was hard this game I don't think is that hard I think for the most part like I was able to to get by until I got to the really hard sections of the game but but like even even the tough battles weren't that hard I feel like some of the Ronan battles the duels the duels there was one I think duel of like falling leaves or something like that that I was like oh I had to do it like three times where I was like oh this is a tougher one but like That's my thing, though, is like, there were some fights I'd do three or four times, but I don't know.

I kind of would have liked them to up the ante in that bit. It made it more like a, hey, no, this is hardcore. Like, you are going to have some samurai fights where you're replaying six or seven times before you're able to figure it out. This game had different modes, right? Like different difficulties? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's different difficulties.

Did anyone play at like whatever higher than normal is? I bumped it up post game, I think. and it was not like it didn't seem that much more difficult but honestly like by that point I was already really good at the game so it was difficult to tell but like honestly the foundation of this game is not dissimilar from Sekiro and like in terms of parodies and blocking and like that sort of thing so that honestly if you played Sekiro and you're decent in that game you're probably going to wipe through this game pretty easily yeah yeah I think so too like for the little bit of Sekiro that I played I think that's that's kind of the connection

I was making in my mind as I started playing it to where I was like, all right, this seems like a more freeform kind of second row kind of thing where you are pairing, you are dodging, but there's way more of an open window for you to get that stuff off successfully, which is cool because it makes this feel like more of an, I guess, open world action game as opposed to like this hardcore, I guess linear action game. That said, the thing that I like about this game the most is kind of what you guys alluded to earlier to, which is the open world stuff and how I think it was in one that was actually saying this, how it's a combination of, so many good open world elements that you see from games like Rough of the Wild and Assassin's Creed and others. I think that stuff was done fantastically. I think the style of this game is where this game shines so well. Like the checkpoint system or the waypoint system where it is guided by wind, I think it's such a cool visual touch. Having birds fly being able to follow birds or follow foxes

in order to find new discoverable stuff, I think it's such a cool touch. Stuff like that is I think where this game really shines. And that was something that I think I was amazed by the end of it, right? Because again, and this is, it's interesting. I'm going to be interested to see when review embargo was up and we get to read reviews and watch the more like, we're giving you the quote unquote objective review of a game, right? If that comes up the last of us comparison or if that is, I think it'll be more regulated

to this kind of discussion we're all having, right, of like, what's happening in games in that moment on a podcast. But I found it so crazy that to start the game and be like, oof, like, this definitely isn't the last of us, right? The animation doesn't move this. His sword's clipping through the back of his cape or whatever, like, you know what I mean, kind of stuff, to get to the end and feel like this game is beautiful.

And it's not, I don't think, it's not beautiful in the way that I think, I'm going to sit there and be like, oh, my God, you know, Lady Mosico's face in this cut scene, yada, yada, yada. It's going to be the fact that this game has style throughout. Like, it's clear there was a style board put up. they're like, this is what we're going to nail. And that doesn't mean it's going to be photo realistic cloth fabric moving. And there is that for like his cape and stuff like that.

But like the fox, the fox never looks great, right? You always run out of the box. It always kind of looks like it's not floating, but it's never on the texture. It's on. But like that fucking world and riding through those fields and smoke in the different, you know, for the different acts, the different environments, biomes you're in for those things. Like to finish that game up, you know, I think a shoe tweeted something about it. It's like the most beautifulest game.

played or whatever. It was like I got to the where I am right now and I still sit there and marvel at it and photo mode it and do all the shit because it's like yeah this is the fucking style you went for. I took so many photos that that game like I honestly had probably like 2025 yeah I'm gonna put them up when the embargoes are all done

but yeah it's yeah it's crazy that the game does that and has in gets its hooks in you that way I'm sorry bless this is the most I've used photo mode in a game like it is it is absolutely stunning and not even in the way to what you're saying not in the way that it's graphically insane by any means.

But yeah, it does seem like they had a really good direction in terms of what they wanted the style of this game to be. And they really stuck to it. I feel like you guys are discounting the technical, like the HDR in that game is honestly really amazing. Like a very technically proficient HDR.

I mean, I'm playing on my base PS4 on a 1080P TV and so I'm not really experiencing yet. Bless, you're missing out. It looks beautiful. There's parts of the open world that I think look better than horizons, for sure. I agree that. I feel like the first moment, like when you start the game,

I think you do a little piece, and then at some point you ride through a field and like, yeah, a title card section. Yeah, yeah, and it's like that moment was like, oh my God, this looks gorgeous, this is so cool. Like, you know, it gave me, that's when I switched over to that black and white mode

and let that play for a minute. Oh, this is cool. Yeah, Curiselle mode. I switched back, though. I mean, my colors, you know. I mean, that's one thing. I feel like the game peaked a little early in terms of environmental biomes. Because, like, the first area, I think, looks amazing.

It has all these colors popping all the time. One of different places. And, like, after that, it's, like, swamp lands and then snow. A lot of burn stuff in Act 2. That looks great. Like, it probably makes sense for what actually Tsushima is, but it's not, like, as interesting to look at. I found myself constantly using my little, I don't know what, flute that he has. to like make it sunny so that like I could enjoy the environments more just constantly because like it'd be

randomly cloudy overcast rainy and I'd just be like and I just clear it up and like I'd like to go on peaks and kind of look around and be like all right there is like a you know the the plume of smoke that comes from hot spring yeah and like that's one of the things I wanted to do when I initially like would survey areas and stuff is like find the little hot springs go and max out my life sure in that vein I want to say the cinematography of this game which is not a thing you talk about with games all that often is great like there's these like they've clearly watched a lot of Japanese cinema and a lot of samurai stuff like low and wolf and cobs satuichi and stuff like that they've structured the game around that to make it feel like a samurai tv show where I don't know how many samurai tv shows you guys have

watch, but it's a lot of samurai goes into an area, and the village has a problem, and they solve that problem, and that's basically every side quest of this game. Yeah, totally. And they all start with this, someone tells you their problem, like, bandits have killed my family, and then it'll, like, do a, like, a focus on a broken pot or something in the corner, and then it'll flash the title of, like, bandits have killed my family,

and then you actually, like, go do the thing, and it ends with that same title, and that's, like, dead on for what they're trying to emulate. And, yeah. It's clear they had somebody with a cinematography eye for this game because it all, it works a shockingly well way. It's crazy how many times I've seen the dual animation start where one person's standing there, one person's standing there. And I'm tired of it. But it's like, it is also so cool. And like there is that moment before you flick yours where it's like, all right, let's do this.

Yeah. So obviously the combat is, you know, third person action. running around doing the stuff, fighting stuff, as we've alluded to you, have your sword. You have assassinations you can do, which is more of being the ghost versus being a samurai, which I do want to touch on here a little bit. You have abilities yada, yada, yada. But yeah, then you get into these, we mentioned earlier, you probably saw them the say to play the dual things where it is a one-on-one, the camera's different. And it's what Kevin's saying is they get set up in every fucking time they cut to gin. And he just does that little knock with his fucking thumb. I'm like,

here we fucking go. It's got this great sound to it. And then you're into this one-on-one boss fight, you know, in quotes, with their giant health bar and their giant block bar and you go through and talk to them and fight and it's so fucking cool. It never gets old. I loved that. And they have like ridiculously good music. Like there's one mission where like you're being kind of harassed by someone

who's warning you about taking a weapon. Because like it's cursed. And then it ends in this like red flower field and the guys like dressed like a tengu and you're not sure what it. Exactly he is. And honestly they don't even answer it. But like you duel with him and they play this like old classic Japanese samurai horns throughout like the the fight it's like oh that this is perfect like I said before

they they clearly spent thousands of hours watching old TV shows and movies to nail this particular feel 100% so one of the things that we haven't talked on that I want to bring up is the story itself right we're spending so much time in this game and that's a great question too I guess so for Imron myself and blessing of all rolled credits on it Imron's platinum it blessing once you're Are you trying to platinum it? You move down to other stuff? I'm still planning it.

I kind of want to platinum it, but I don't know if I'm going to make it that far. I'm starting to get at the point where I'm kind of getting disinterested in how repetitive it can get with just doing side quests. Sure. Yeah. It's all the same setup. Right.

Yeah, exactly. I'm right there on it. Kevin just started Act 3, excuse me, but has played so much that you're already to go to Sashima, which is like their leveling thing. You get different titles as you go with obviously ghosts. Shima being the last one. Kevin has that as he enters the final third of the game.

So yeah, he's been busy too. Hours wise, you know, I, God, I can't even think about how many hours I've put into this. Imrah, what is, what's your platinum guess on it, right? I want to say like, by my count, I want to say like 48, maybe 50 hours. Yeah, yeah. Because that's the thing is I feel like I've been playing it whenever I have the time since we finished the Iron Man VR review. And so I've been all in it.

And what I'm surprised about is how much Jin's story has resonated with me. So like in the beginning jumping in, it was that thing. I started it. Then I switched it in English. I switched it over to Japanese voice track. I switched it back to English. I put it into Kurosawa, that filter or whatever. I was like, hmm, I don't know.

And eventually ended up back in just default, English in color. And playing through, it's this interesting thing of, you know, Jin being, you know, his uncle is in charge. of the island. He's, you know, this nephew that lives with him, and for all intents and purposes is his son. And his journey, this giant samurai battle, Mongols are invading, right? And then all that, all the stuff happens that we won't get into. And then, you know, you're there and you have to try to get the Mongols out of your island or off your island and stuff. And you go through that. And I was really shocked, number one, by how much I like Jin, how much the story worked with

me and how the beats they seeded in there reflected my own. Because one of the things of starting it right and getting into the game uh jim pretty much from the moment you take control of him is taught like listen like the rules have changed like if you want to survive in this new world with these guys invading you have to do something like you have to you have to do basically ghost tactics assassination tactics you know strike from the shadows and he's a man who was raised by his uncle right to believe in honor and like their honor is what it's all about with the samurai we should confront them head on and she and one of the person who you know is like teaching you all this is like nah, it's really not the way it's going to work. So Jin has this conflict inside him of like,

am I a samurai or am I an assassin? Is this the right thing? And I as a player meeting him for the first time really roleplayed that without trying of like, well, I'm going to, you know, you can walk into areas and hit up on the D pad for a standoff, which is where you challenge people you've seen it probably in the state of play. They come at you, you wait for the right moment, you hit them. And then as you level it up, you can, you know, go after more people. But you start by eliminating a few if you're good. I did that for so long. And then when I was pushed back or when I did have to, you know, I'd think about assassinating or using a ghost weapon like a bomb or a blow dart or something like that. It was this thing like, ah, this doesn't feel right. And I feel like so many games

put those questions on the table, but never address them again, like giving you this like, oh, well, you could do anything. And then you just do whatever you want and nobody cares. In the game, it kept coming up. And by the time that there was like an actual decision or there was like a story moment, right where like spoilers for the title of the game he's like I'm the ghost of Sashima right like this is what people need and as soon as that happened I was like gloves are off and I didn't feel bad using assassinations anymore and it was like oh this is fucking dope and it matched my own journey in it which I thought was crazy I mean like mechanically they actually reinforced that through the story because like beginning early on you are you have more samurai tools available to you because jinn is a trained samurai of course he knows how to be a

samurai better, but also what you're doing most of the early game is fighting captains and bosses. And they, by doing that, you end up powering up stances. So those are more samurai things. So it makes sense like, oh, Jin is actually like he's for honor as a main concept. And like as you, as the story starts taking the turn that you become more of the ghost, that's when the ghost stuff starts becoming more powerful. And you are by virtue of the fact that you did all the samurai stuff before, putting more points into ghost things as the game starts closing out.

So it's a very interesting way in which they did that of They didn't leave it to you this like they left it to you to decide But they knew what you would decide because if you wanted to be more powerful early on Sure Lessing what did you think of this story I like the story for the most part I will say that I didn't necessarily love gin as a character Like a lot of time I actually found him kind of boring in vanilla Like I didn't I

I feel like there's so many other characters that just had way more personality than him Like especially like all the characters that you meet become close with in the game. Because there are there are things, there are like quest lines in the game that are almost analogous to like social links in persona,

which I thought were really cool. But like with all, with all those relationships, I found all those characters to be more interesting than Jen. Like Jen's whole thing is his struggle with being a samurai, but also having to protect

the island of Tsushima and like, you know, regain it and do all the stuff. And through that, he basically become like, you see him slowly, almost turn into Batman, which is cool. Dude, 100%. I was gonna, I knew we'd eventually get there. That, like, that, I think that's the reason the story resonates so much with me is that

this is such a Batman story of like, this is what I need to be for my people and like this, that and the other, in the pain and the struggle. And his friends, go, sorry, go. Yes. No, but like, that's the exact thing about the story I thought, about the main story that I thought was super cool. Jen, though, I feel like, I don't know. I don't know what it was, but like he didn't necessarily speak to me as a character as much

as a lot of the other characters, like, like, like, like, Lady Moscow and like so many others that you meet along the way. Yeah. She's amazing. Sensei Ishikawa, I liked a lot too. Who's the guy from Lost. Is he really?

Yeah. Yeah, he's from the Dharma initiative scientist from Lost. I guess, okay. That's awesome. And I remember I had seen that. I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. And then when Lucy started it, she came out like after a few hours. Like, the guy from Lost is in this game.

They did a good job of casting Asian actors for Asian roles. And that was the thing I was checking on as like I started seeing new characters. Like who did they have for this? And like, oh, right, they actually got a Chinese actor for the Mongols, like, for the Khan. And by the way, it's very weird seeing like kill the Khan frequently in this game. But like they did a good job of this one. It was like it was a place that could very easily have messed up. And there was a point actually early on.

I was like I was convinced Jin was Phil Lamar, but he wasn't. I said that was good. But it was one thing I want to throw there to their credit is like they did not shot. away from actually finding Asian actors these roles. Yeah, they commit and it's awesome and it's great. And I think that's the thing is to your point of the social links in Jin. Like I think, again, so much of the making a protagonist in a game where you're with them all the time and you're not getting it, I think through the lens of a uncharted, a Last of Us,

that kind of story, Spider-Man even right, is giving you that area where your own thoughts are their thoughts and how does that shake out? And I think for me personally, that worked really well in the hot springs when you'd sit down, like, what do you want to reflect on? And you'd reflect on it. And then like you, there's these haikus you write yourself right by you go to the haiku spots. You look around and, you know, these power you up, of course. But you also look around and you have three options for every one of the three lines of dialogue or, you know, for the haiku. So you build that your way too. And I was always really feel like I was making them out of what was actually happening in Jen's life and picking the things in the hot springs that were questions I already had and going that way. all that said his supporting cast is so strong in the way that like a persona game we've talked about uh lady moscow right who's out to avenge her uh family who has killed by mongles i know that actress but i i haven't googled to see who she is but she's fantastic i don't i know of her i don't know her i've seen her and stuff yeah she's great uh chakaa was great i even thought the warrior monk was awesome in his his quest line i had such a fucking powerful payoff to it like even uh kenji

who's like this like slimy tricking the Mongols out of their money always getting into shenanigans that almost get him and his friends killed like on paper that's usually the kind of character I'm like oh this guy fucking sucks and this one I was like yeah Kenji what do you need let's save the day for you let's go like they fucking crush it in a way that I just wasn't expecting on that level yeah I think for me like the the main issue I have with Jen or not even issue like the distance I have there is that I think later on the story goes to such great places in terms of Jin's relationship with the people around him and how that grows and how his personal decisions become greater and greater in a way that they reflect who is going to be later on in the story and who he eventually becomes. I think I would have liked for his personality to kind of shine more in terms of nailing down those decisions because like I understood the place he was coming from throughout the game. Like I would have made the same choices that he was given the given the situations that he was in.

but at no point was I like yeah Jen you're the guy to make these choices like I'm here with you like I understand where you're at for who you are like at no point did I feel like I really understood who he was necessarily if that makes sense sure sure one thing I'll go ahead no no please I'm going to no one thing I'll know and this is something that people are going to probably roll their eyes at a little bit but and I'm sure a lot of very good Asian miners who are better than me are going to talk about like this upcoming week but the game is very nationalistic like in a way that obviously taking after Japanese cinema

which is in its own way extremely nationalistic but this is a game about Japanese honorable samurai forcing out foreign invaders who are mostly savages and honestly pure evil in almost every way and barely considered human

and it is a thing that as we got further in the game I got increasingly uncomfortable with it like you can kind of lose yourself in it like, even with, like, say, uncharted or whatever, they're all, they all treat the enemy force as like monolithic entities that are just bad and that's it. It just was weird this time because it's an actual historical event of a thing that happened and the Mongols are just sort of, obviously history has never been like they've not been

a renaissance of intelligent thinkers necessarily, but history was written by the winners. In this case, this game kind of reinforced that idea of this is what, how a Japanese cinema take on the Mongol invasion would be, and that's not always true in terms of what Japanese war has been like. Gotcha. Interesting. Okay. Yeah,

I had it. You're right. I mean, you totally lay out a case that I hadn't even thought about playing it, right? But like, yeah, there is no redeeming factor. There is no, well,

no, they were just doing it. Or, you know, here's some people that weren't complete fucking monsters. Like, no, they are all.

They were really smart about the way they did it, though. Right? Yeah, like the con is shown as a strategist, but the rest of them are all, like just kind of evil like kill machines essentially like they're out here to drink and kill some of his generals are like hey man we learn the language we want to help you guys we want to get rid of

this shogun and we want to bring you into you know our society right right but then like you're kind of as jinn you're like no i just want to fucking kill them all yeah it's like yeah that's kind of weird yeah i mean i think in defense of the game the game does seem to be coming from the perspective of japanese cinema and wanting to really emulate that to the fullest and so i think With that, you also bring in that factor. Because that was something I noticed where I was like, I was kind of waiting to meet the good Mongol and you kind of never do. And like, you know, I get, they're the villains.

And so sure, like, I understood it from that aspect. But that was something that did like kind of come out to me or something that brought that I kind of thought of as I was playing. I mean, I like an analogy would be if a Japanese developer made a game about America fighting terrorists and you were just mowing them all down, like that would feel very weird to all of us here. but this one just because it's like a little bit foreign we kind of accept it i mean don't call duty games do that don't like uh what what's the yeah we try to have it both ways on the on call

duty games but yeah i guess what you mean sure Kevin story wise you were in did you believe in gin uh yeah no i really like the story i mean all right well i guess that's being a little generous i thought this story is what like it was whatever like it was one of those things where it's like we need to get from point a to point b and they got to get us there somehow for me it's like the mechanics of the gameplay that means so much but that being said I just had a story moment happen like I did not expect to totally destroy me the way it did I know exactly I know exactly what you're talking about everyone knows exactly what I mean do we want to talk about no no no no no no no but Jen came out and started talking to me about like

just normal life stuff and I had to stop her and be like this just happened oh my god are you Okay. I was more broke up about it than I thought it would be. I was like, okay, that happened. And then I was like continuing on the game. Like, this fucking sucks. Yeah, totally. And they do such a great job of playing with that and like not just having that be something that happened and then you move on.

Like, I don't know how many hours I put into the game. But like 30 minutes ago, you're like, hey, could something happen that would really like emotionally affect you? I'd be like, no way. No way. Not possible. Well, I was wrong. But so, yeah. I mean, but I still like.

going forward like I don't really care what the ending is I don't like you know it's I still feel like the story is a smaller element and it's very much like a cookie cutter like

oh there's the bad guy he's real bad go kill him you know yeah for sure for sure on that front I thought it was I think it's more the con is yeah you're just stereotypical I'm the bad guy come after me

I'm the giant boss right obviously and everything he's always like one step ahead of you kind of thing but for me it was the ripples that happen around him that shake the relationships you're establishing and building or maybe that already existed that I thought were like oh fuck this is an interesting dilemma and where will this go and like I think the you know for me as somebody who I always say like I'm a story horror right that's what attracts me to video games I love being invested in those kind of worlds right it was you know I don't

even know midway through the review or whatever where Jen and I were on the beach and we were walking and she was like literally talking about her entire day and she was just like so anyways what's up with you and I'm like oh I'm playing the game what's happening and I just like went off on where we were in the thing and what it meant. And I was talking the way I would talk about a TV show or movie or whatever that I just watched. It's like, no, this crazy thing just happened. And it's actually raising interesting dilemmas in the relationship. And where would you go and what would you do? And I was like, that's fucking really cool. And I think getting lost in those moments and to, you know, Imran's point earlier of having these things feel episodic helps out so much of going in and

doing it and busting out and be done in the same way blessings talking about here at the end, where I'm, you know, now down to my final five missions I need to do, period. Last night, just running them over and over and over and over. You know, it did become on some of these side quests. I'm like, looking at my phone. Like, why are we met? All right, cool. Back at my phone.

You know what I mean? Like, I got what was happening. I think I was doing my, I'm doing myself a detriment there. But I didn't want to make sure I'd beaten it. So I had prioritized finishing the story. And then it was just clean up and stuff like that. I messed up a lot of hikus. Because like, so one of these things this game has is nothing to skipable.

Like no dialogue, no scenes or whatever. So after you've seen like the 15th like dual opening. Kevin mentioned earlier. Like, okay, yeah, this is cool, but I get it. So with haikus, you always sit down and, like, it starts a thing and it very slowly rolls out. It's just, like, reflect on blank, reflect on tragedy, reflect on nature, whatever. I always messed up so many fucking haikus because I didn't see what the reflect on was. So I was like, I was looking at Twitter by that point, because I was waiting for the scene start to end.

And, yeah, that was. Wait, is there a right way to do the haikus? Because I always just, I just kind of did whatever. And I always felt like, I, I, like, I always felt like, I, Like I was being super creative with mine because like you basically the way it goes is like you create three different lines. And I guess that is how you do haikus in general. But like they're pretty main line. You need five in the first and last line.

There's three intentional one like the three intentional hyku they want you to do, I think. And you want to try and match like personally in my mind you want to try and match us up. It doesn't make a difference gameplay wise. But it was always like, okay, I want to know what I'm reflecting on. Am I reflecting on whether I'm affecting on like peace? And I just I wish there was. With the hikus, I would just be like, click, click, click. As quick as possible.

I was in and out. I was being the most creative. I was putting, I was putting together some real poetry. I was really expressing myself in the case. I'm never going to wear a headband. Maybe the death headband because that was. You didn't wear the headband? Oh, I love the headbands.

No, man. I've got the big old headpiece. Oh, I never wear the headpiece. Of course, we're talking about gear. In Ghosts-Sishima, you have gear slots. So you have the headband, you have a face mask or whatever. and then you have, well, I guess there's more than that. You have your body armor, or whatever outfit you want to wear.

Then there's color combinations for the body armor. Then on top of that, you have your sword kits that have a whole bunch of flare. And that's your swords too. God. Oh, God. They did such a good job with the customization, like the actual physical appearance, cosmetic customization in this game. Like, I absolutely love the different options available.

So I wish they had loadouts because, like me too. Oh, yeah. That would make the game. things at yeah they have gameplay like changes and i wanted to be like okay i'm going to be stealth so i want to put on the ronin outfit i want to be a sniper right now yeah you have to like go through and like change all those things individually it's like oh this is kind of a pain i don't want to look dumb so i don't like have a samurai helmet on and a ronan outfit i know it sounds crazy but if they and i don't know what kind of post release like quality life patch stuff they have planned but that would be at the top

of my list that i would want for people to have going forward is that i think since you can change your stance so easily on how you're going to fight. Just the same thing. Hold a button to bring up a quad wheel that I can pick what it is. Because yeah, I'm the same way of like once I got the traveler's outfit that helped clear fog of war faster, by the way, too, the resources you're collecting in the world,

you are then using to upgrade these things to make their effects better. Like when I got that, I was like, oh, well, fuck yeah. So every time I finished, anytime I was on the horse, I'm in that. Then eventually you get an armor that,

you know, helps you with the standoff. You can go further and kill more people in standoff. So then it'd be like, oh i'm going to challenge your standoff pause switch to that all right out of that then and i kept going this way oh now i mean now they've seen me now i'm in a thing i want the samurai armor that gives me more health and whatever and so yeah the fact that you couldn't just quick assign those was annoying until when i eventually i knew what happened eventually but i was like i fine now

i'm just wearing disarmour the rest of the way like there's so many cool armors that i just i never really used because it was such a pain to just go and change it like this armor just for an arrow build and i would love to use that it just I would have to know ahead of time I'm going to be in an arrow fight. But it would be so cool to be able to like I wouldn't go as far as like needing to do it on my screen on the fly.

I'm fine with pausing, but then having the ability to with one click of a button or you know like clicking one load out that has like your weapon like your charms changed. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Everything tied together where it's like I want it to be exactly this where it's like yeah, I want it to be an arrow. guy, right? So it'll have the arrow close and charms that it'll increase by X amount, whatever. So if I can time out right here, so charms

are things you're unlocking through missions and just story stuff that you then can equip that give you, yeah, you know, your errors are doing more damage. This, you know, when you get when you do take damage, you get more resolved, which are those yellow orbs that give you the special abilities that you are allowed to use the special abilities you've already done.

They're like ruins and like God of War. Exactly. And so like, I built that out super early. I was doing everything. So I, you know, I got it to where I had leveled it all the way up. And so, yeah, it was pretty much locked until for me, the final fight where it was like, oh, like, things are different here and I need to have a different build to get through this because the way I built this isn't even for how I'm playing right now. Yeah. So much. So much of this is why, like, I said that this game is such a good first installment to a series because there are, there are so many little things that I can pick apart about this game. But overall, like, I think

what they have here is so special and so good. good. I overall really enjoyed my experience, but yeah, things like the switching the armor on the fly would have helped so much or like things like little tweaks that they could have added to combat specifically lock on which I would absolutely, I

legit that like brought down the combat from being absolutely excellent to like just good for me was like the lack of a lot. I didn't miss the auto I didn't miss lock on I would say for 99% of the time. The only time I would is like when you go you go into your ghost weapon some of them are throwable and I would throw like the

sticky bomb and I'm like clearly I want that guy and Jin would throw it across the field and I'm like motherfucker all right well this is now a new way to do it it bothered me when rescuing hostages because like it says which enemy is going after the hostage I would like rush up to them and he would like attack a guy to the side it's like well get that hostage

nigh because jane's a fucking idiot redo the whole goddamn mission now because of that yeah I hear you I hear you and yeah I'll say like the games like controls are a little wacky especially at first because they use every damn button on that controller and to the point where like they're Even at the end of the game, at the end of that 50 hours,

I was still hitting the touch pad to open the map, even though it's pause, even those options. So I would still be like, all right, I'm going to check out and I need to go. It was like crouch. Like, wait, no, not what I meant to do. Oh, see, I feel like. You'd bow at nobody.

I've got the muscle memory down where, like, switching through stuff. The problem I'm having is that I keep, when you have the standoff, when I go to press up, it always, I think it might be my controller, presses right too, so it'll start the standoff and then go into photo mode.

And it's like, all right, I didn't do that. It's weird too, because like, I don't know what the criteria is to make that show up. Yep. How many times did I ride into battle and I'm like, fucking standoff? And then they start filling in their meters that they see me. I'm like, no, no, I'm like, yeah, stuff like that. So, like, as far as the controls go, I'm with Emron that. I think they're, they use every single button and almost to like,

Almost too much where I'm not sure if I really need a bow button and a button to play my flute. When like we're like when I press R2, R2 and L2 that brings up two different wheels for like things that can change on the fly. Like there's way too much going on. One slows down time and the other one doesn't. And the other one doesn't. Oh, it's so frustrating. And I get where they're going with it. And I think for the most part it works.

But even now where I'm 35 hours into playing or whatever, I'm still like, all right, I want to change my quick fire weapon. I think that's R2. Okay, yes, that is R2. Now I want to change from my arrow to something else. All right, what button is? Okay, that's L2 to aim and then I have to, I guess, use my D pad or see the button. There's way too much going on. And then on top of it, you use the square or triangle to switch between the explosive, you know?

Because you can change your bow and then you can change the type of aim on that goes into your bow, which is the type of depth that I love. But it's so confusing. It's crazy they were able to get all these, like, that is so much custom. that you're doing on the fly and I was I found myself constantly switching what I was shooting what I was throwing like just constantly being in those menus moving around and the fact that like I was able to maneuver that made me feel so so cool like I was the ghost you know dude no like those that's the thing of like again to this moment and for me personally and again maybe it's story maybe it's you know your own feet or the mind kind of thing but like to have gone

gone on this journey with Jane and B where I am now where literally it's just like seven dudes and I'm like I'm not going to hit any of you with normal things like you know what I mean I'm going to go through and just take you all out before any in like some people they get terrified by what you do so they run away they fall down you can kill like to go in there just fucking be the ghost the way people are talking that people think of you is so great do you chase those people down sometimes sometimes it depends what I'm trying to do but it have there is I didn't realize it was a trophy the first time I got it though where like you go in every terrified one dude runs away and I'm like you in particular. You got him back with an arrow and it's like, ding! I'm like, oh, fuck, awesome.

One gripe that I had with the game that I think would be excited. I'm excited to see how they kind of expand on it in the future is I think they do such a good job of having that breath of the wild feel where you're you're into the world. You are like you're using the wind, you're using the fox to like follow all this cool stuff. And it feels very dynamic in terms of how you explore and how you really take in Tsushima. At a certain point, the game kind of does boil down to icons and boil down to, all right, there's a bunch of stuff on the map. And right now, as I've beaten the game and now I'm clearing through the different parts of the map, I'm like going from bottom and top. And it really is just like, all right, there's a bunch of question marks. There's a bunch of like settlements that I can free

and a bunch of different stuff. And I am just like waypointing them one at a time and just going through them and I'm going through the motions of the exact same activities over and over again. I think like, and it's a lot of work. And so I understand why most games don't do it this way, but I would have liked that breath of wild feel of not knowing what's around the corner or like not knowing, like seeing that there's a thing going on here, but going to it and it not just being another Foxton or it not just being another settlement or it not just being another thing, like another haiku. I would have liked more variance in terms of like the cool things you can discover, Or like things that are just, like things that are one time unique discoverable things.

You nailed that. Like the amount. There's like 40 some fox dens. Yes. And it's like, there's so many. All right. I mean, we got to cut this.

You know what I mean? Even if we didn't add another category, I was like so fed up of following the fucking foxes by the time I finished part of it off. Yeah. At one point, does it change what like they give you? Yeah.

Oh, so it powers them up. It doesn't like, it's still charms, but it will power up your existing charms instead of like giving you new slots. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Which suck. But like, yeah, slots are great.

Yeah. I wanted to be having other stuff. And I was like, now she's making it more powerful. Like, all right. All right. So like, speaking of breath of wild, I think like one of the things they tried to do with this game was they tried to open the structure up so you can do like, let's say character quests. Like they will pop up like three from the same person occasionally. But why would you ever do them out of order?

And that was one of the things of confusing. It's like, okay, I'm not going to skip this one because obviously there's a linear story here. Now, I ended up this weird thing where I was not doing one character's quest. and I ended up like being near his like, like I didn't do six, but there were seven and eight somewhere else. So I ended up being near seven and eight without realizing it.

Like when I was there, he was being attacked by Mongols. And I saved him. And we start talking in a cut scene after I saved him. And he starts referring to a character that I was supposed to find in six as dead. And I'm like, wait,

what? I, why did you allow this? At some point, somebody should have been like, no, we can't have these, these missions pop until this one is dead.

done. I think that was like that they they allowed too much freedom there at the expense of the linear story they're trying to create which makes they feel they those weren't made in concert together. Well like there's a big story moment or not even a big story moment but there's like a point in the main story where I encountered Kenji and I don't remember I didn't remember meeting Kenji before that and like I know he like had like one of the the social ink quests that like we're talking about and it was one of those things where I was like all right is this a continuity Like, am I supposed to know, like, am I supposed to know Kenji on this steep level yet? So I found that stuff to be interesting and kind of weird

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You liked it more than infamous? Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And I think that, you know, I'm a huge infamous fan, obviously. I'm a huge superhero fan, obviously. And I really do feel that, like, as somebody who's never really given samurai stuff, a try. Like this felt like that to me, where it felt like a hero's origin story, obviously it's not superpowered, but super power, you know, video game stuff, slowing down time, shooting bows and arrows, you know what's going on. Like, it resonated so much with me.

I think it's what I wanted to see out of infamous second son and didn't, or I thought infamous second son obviously looked gorgeous and, you know, looked like a current gen game, it looked like a PlayStation 4 game, but the way they intermixed, you know, it's similar thing the sucker punch is making video games like come here for photo mode go here for this thing like i thought that broke the world they made there where it didn't it felt like rather than stepping into the next generation they were still making a game that was more inclined for a ps3 ps2 era in terms of hud in terms of a gameplay loop whereas this one i do feel a sucker punch really graduating to that no we're here and we're making this fucking epic sweeping game that we're we're committed to on

every level right where imron talked about cinematography we've been talking about gameplay. I'm talking about story, voice acting, all the different things they have in their music. The layers and layers and layers they add to this game to truly make it feel unique and something special. Yeah. Like second son, I really love infamous one and two and second son, like you said, graphically

quite amazing, but lots of that game felt incomplete. And like the I don't think that main campaign was actually like, I don't think it was the game they wanted to make in their hearts of hearts. But this Gocema does feel like that. It feels like they went, they went to 11 on every one of their talents.

I think it as different as it is from Sly Cooper and Infamous Like it doesn't have the sticky platforming still has the same rope climbing or rope Walking animation as Infamous and Sly Cooper which I think is intentional but it is actually it does be like the full ass game that they wanted to make with This license or not license but like this world sure Yeah I think this might end up as a hot take for me because I don't think most people are going to feel this way But I actually like this game more than Horizon even like I think I agree.

I think what I agree when I had that realization playing I was like holy fuck that's saying it's okay yeah that's actually shocking me because I know how much people love Horizon and people put up there as one of the best PlayStation PS4 exclusives you know I think this game as an open world game the ways in which it makes navigating

the open world easier I think it should be commended like the fact that you can fast travel to pretty much any of like pretty much anything on the map that you already discovered like you can be fast travel to any point Really? It's really good.

No load times when you fast track. It's so fast. I'm going to say no. There's like compared to Horizon, which could be like 45 seconds plus when you fast travel, this is like not even enough time for me to take over my phone and like look at Twitter because it'll just be like done right that. And like no low times at death. Which they actually mask in a really clever ways I want to point out is that when you die,

enemies kicked you around for a bit and then stab you. It's them reloading the area while you while you're being kicked around. It's like, oh, that's really smart. That's so smart. Wow. I didn't realize that. That's actually really cool. Yeah.

I hate when that happens. It always hurts my feelings. Totally right. I think of like for the longest time in the skill tree I had passed upgrading the thing where if you have two pieces of resolve, you can get yourself back up. I was like, oh, I didn't even need it. I think I was saying that a lot in Act 1.

And then when Act 2 came around, I was just kind of like, motherfucker. Why didn't I spend the goddamn points? The other day I was talking Blessing and he was like, oh, yeah, it just sucks that when you're in the like the superhearing mode. Oh yeah, you can't see that far. I was like, just upgrade it. And he's like, oh, I have seven upgrades that I could use. And he upgrade it.

And yeah, sure enough, you could see like everything in that camp. It's legit one of those things where you look at your upgrade tree and you're like, certainly I'm not going to need this thing over here. Like, this sounds like I'm wasting a point. So I'm just going to keep these points. And yeah, once I upgraded my hearing to be all the way up, that changed the game for me where one of my big complaints when I was going through settlements was like, I cannot find where the other enemies are. because there'll be different camps of enemies within a big settlement because the settlements are so big and so legit I get lost

and be looking around forever and ever and I upgraded the thing and it's like oh I can see them now which totally changed how I experienced it those do get a little too big at some point like some of those like last those act three camps are just like they're fucking huge and it takes forever to go like

and they're like yeah totally way far apart from each other yeah when did you guys at like assassination was that early for you guys added or level up or no like turn on or do the mission that unlocked that

ability I feel like it was early I feel like yeah it was like that's not like yeah it was but I didn't I didn't do it until I finished the like all the like basically cleared out the

the first map so like when you were asking earlier like did you choose to play like a samurai or like the ghost it's like for the first area i only did samurai stuff yeah that's funny yeah and it's just it's funny how many things like that changed the game for me i think you guys probably had a pretty different experience where like i did zero sneaking around in the beginning um one of the things i found interesting about it to your point earlier blessing right of like well surely i'm not i don't need this i'm not going to upgrade that part of the skill tree right i always think

to Odyssey, where I'd gone through, you know, by the end and obviously invested points in everything and had it all unlocked because what else I'm going to do with these points. But so much of it I never used. Whereas I thought in this game, it seems like there's a lot. And I think there is a fair share of stuff. But you go through and as you invest in it, I actually started using it all. Where I can't think of an item on my repertoire that I didn't use. And maybe part of that's because, you know, later on when you, or not even later on, when you start going into take down encampments, it will be like optional bonus objectives. like use the firecracker and kill somebody while they're looking at it or whatever.

Like maybe I wasn't using firecracker before then, but I started then and I didn't start using it using it. I use the bell so much. Do you use the wind chime? Oh, you did. Yeah. All the time. I'm chiming it up over here. I need to use it more. I use it like maybe once. Well, that was the thing. All right. Cool. I'm the assassin. I'm the ghost. Like that was like, all right. Cool. I'm the ghost. Like, that was like, all right. It is weird how much it oscillated for me during the game of like, oh, just being a samurai is faster and it's easier. I'll just do that to, oh, I just need to just, I'm going to kill a couple people's ghost to, I'm just going to take out this entire camp stealthily because that's faster. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had the same thing. But I love going in there as a summer I still. You know? Yeah, totally. Like, let's start a fight. Teach me. Yeah, yeah. Anything I didn't say? Closing thoughts? What do you guys got for me? This game's amazing.

It's so, like, the mechanics on it are so good. I can't stop playing it. I, uh, I, I'm not promising anything, but like, if I get first platinum, this would have to be in. I wouldn't be shocked when you finish the game if you've had most of the platinum stuff done. Yeah, you'll be so close to it if you're the way you're playing.

Blessing? Yeah. I mean, I think I meant to say toward the beginning of this too that I forgot. I feel like this game for me has been such a meditative game where like leading up to this game in Last This Part 2, I think I was vocalizing a lot that I wish this game would have came out before Last This Part 2 because I needed this type of game. This type of game that is It's open. You play your own pace and everything in it is just so chill. I think that's a big thing for me in terms of how much I enjoyed this game.

It is such a laid back. Like, hey, just ride your horse and let the wind blow and let the soundtrack play and like hang out and like see the beautiful colors of the leaves. See all the particles that are flowing by, the fireflies, the like all the, basically the whole game feels like such a meditative. Let's chill and hang out. And I really, really appreciate you about that about this game. I was going to say yesterday, there was a point where I was, I was clearing out the second area. And I had my iPad out and I was going to watch some random video on YouTube or something. And then something happened where there was a cutscene and I paused it.

And then I realized three hours later that I was like, oh, I never went back to the video. That's all. Yeah. Like to The Last of Us Two thing, I kind of feel like this game is going to be this year's Spider-Man in a way. Like, it's different thing because obviously Spider-Man was a known IP and sold a lot better. But like in Game of the Year discussions, it was ignored because God of War was the big PS4 game that year.

So I feel like don't skip out just because you like Last of Us too. This is a very good game. I just, like I said, it's a combination of like Witcher and Assassin's Creed 2 and Breath of the Wild and Horizon, not Horizon, because the larger point is I don't like this game as much as I like those because I think those are some of the best games I've ever played. but I think this game is still really a very good combination of those things. I would, I definitely think if you're looking for just a very,

a AAA podcast game, this is absolutely that. And if you like that aesthetic, it takes up another couple of points. Yeah. I love this game. I think it's something really, really special.

You know, somebody who's played sucker punch and covered sucker punch for so long, like I think it's really next level for them. I'm glad they were able to, like we were saying, have a vision for it and execute on every front where I think this is something special. And I do wonder what that is going to shape up like what we're talking about here in terms of, yeah, like Last of Us cast such a shadow in terms of PlayStation 4 and exclusives and all this stuff.

But it'll be interesting to see where it falls in that Spider-Man god of war argument in terms of, you know, this is a video game in so many ways. And it nails that. It nails what it's trying to achieve. What it sets out to do, it does. And I think it's a truly, truly special. I'm excited for everybody to play. I did talk to someone earlier who doesn't play the games that often, but they were like,

I told them that I was liking Ghost Sashima. And they told me, oh, they already announced a sequel to that, right? And I was very confused until I figured out they thought Ghost Wire Tokyo was a sequel to Ghostsoshima. Sure. So whatever they go next, they need to really be like, is it still on Tsushima? Is it still about the ghost? What is the branding of a sequel for this game? That's interesting.

I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Part of me wish is to the game of the year discussion thing. Like I kind of wish this game would have came out last year because I think this game would have had a shot last year in terms of the game of the year discussion. Like I mean, you know, one of my games of the year or one of my top games of the year last year would have been Star Wars Jedi Fall in Order.

And I like this game more than Jedi Fall in Order. And so like, you know, in terms of where that would have netted out, I think that I think this game would have had a big shot last year. But this year is like so competitive that I don't. I don't know where it's going to land. best game has come out so far. That's a fact. Come on.

Come on. Guys, everyone's silent. I mean, one of these gentlemen, game provided by PlayStation. FTC don't come at us. They sent it to us for a review. So we did that.

Ladies and gentlemen, like I said, this is just the start of your ghost of Sashima coverage here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Remember right now you should be writing your spoiler-free questions

for Ghost of Sashima. Things we didn't cover in this review, things you'd like to be more in-depth answers on. Send them, of course, over on Patreon. on.com slash kind of funny games. So PS I love you. Exo, Xo, Blessing and I are recording that this afternoon. That's right, Tuesday afternoon. You don't have a huge window. So you get those in. We can

get them answer. We can put that up on Wednesday, YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, podcast services around the globe. And remember, a spoiler cast is incoming. So get your spoiler questions, ready, thoughts and opinions. I wouldn't be surprised if we do something similar where you put in your questions and spoilery stuff for the devs about making the game and all that jazz. We'll do that as a games cast. And then something like we did last of us, where we do your reviews and like that spoiler cast with you kind of conversation on p s i love you but i'm getting ahead of myself we'll figure it all on as we go remember this is the kind of funny games cast you can get it early patreon dot com slash kind of funny games you can get it ad free you can get it with the post show we're

about to do alex wrote in for the post show asking some questions about comparing this to assassin's creeds we're going to tackle that over on patreon dot com slash kind of funny games if you have no um bucks to toss our way no big deal youtube dot com slash kind of funny games uh roosterteat com podcast services around the globe each and every week for a brand new episode of The Kind of Funny Gamescast. For now, I think we all say you should play, Goses Sashima, correct? Mm-hmm. Yes.

Until next time now, it's been our pleasure to serve you.