Yours portly has been giving Ponty a bit of ribbing about writing his rebuttal to my Caldecott Award-winning review of Donnie Darko (1999).  Please know, dear readers (and dear Ponty) that it’s all a spot of fun; I know Ponty is a busy man.

Indeed, he’s been busy replaying 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, a samurai action-adventure epic.  Just reading through his review, I was blown away by two things:  how realistic the trees in the game look (you’ll see what I mean below) and the love and dedication with which Ponty approaches his reviews.  Game journalism might be rigged in the mainstream publications, but not here at The Portly Politico.  With Ponty’s in-depth analysis, you’re getting the best video game reviewing and analysis of our time.

That might sound like hyperbole, but TPP is blessed to host some great writers.  Ponty’s video game and film reviews always deliver.  In this case, I’m eager to pick up and try Ghost of Tsushima myself… but I don’t have a PS4 or PS5!  Here’s hoping for a port to the Nintendo Switch or the PC.

In the meantime, I can live vicariously through Ponty’s thirteenth-century samurai escapades—and so can you!

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima:

Ghost of Tsushima (2020)

Platforms:  Playstation 4 & 5.

Genre: Action, role-player, open world.

Having come off another mammoth play of this game, I figured now might be the time to tell you about it. When it first came out in 2020, we gave it a miss. Not because it didn’t sound like the sort of game we’d like – it was exactly the sort of title we’d go for – but because we didn’t actually read much into it until a couple of years ago. When we look for games, we tend to search for survival horror, puzzle, RPGs, mystery, etc. We like the variety. We started playing Shadow of Mordor recently, described solely as an action game, and came off it pretty quick – way too much action and after 15-20 minutes, we were bored senseless. Thankfully, Ghost of Tsushima is nothing like that.

Set in the 13^th century, the story tells the tale of Jin Sakai, one of two survivors of the massacre at Komoda Beach. After moving against the invading Mongolian hordes and failing to rescue his uncle, Lord Shimura, from the clutches of the Mongol leader, Khotun Khan, Jin seeks to recruit fighters to his cause, to rescue his uncle, kill the Khan and save the island of Tsushima.

The opening scene, hundreds of Mongolian ships floating off the tiny Japanese island, 80 samurai riding down onto the beach as flaming arrows fly over their heads, is epic.

In fact, the whole game is epic, from the main missions to liberating camps and fortresses, the various duels and mythic tales – by the time you reach the end, the whole scope of your accomplishments comes into view and it’s enormous.

The game comes in three Acts: “Act 1 – Rescuing Lord Shimura”; “Act 2 – Retake Castle Shimura” and “Act 3 – Kill the Khan.” Of course, there’s the added extra of the Director’s Cut, “Liberating Iki Island,” in which you travel from Tsushima to the island where Jin’s father was killed. Though the key component is dissolving the Eagle tribe, your exploration of the island will lead Jin to memories of his father’s failed mission to pacify the rebels of Iki Island while also gaining allies who have some antipathy to the samurai name. This game isn’t just wham, bam, thank you ma’am; there’s some real depth, to the story, the narrative, the characters. The action sequences are great but they arrive from a place of real substance and that’s one of the aspects that makes this game brilliant. Honour, devotion, betrayal are the main themes of Ghost and they remain very much on the surface.

The story and characterisation are anything but basic. From start to finish, Jin’s journey doesn’t only take him to the Khan. He has changed in the interim and not even he knows whether that’s for better or worse. He is judged, rightly or wrongly, by his peers and those around him but he is grounded by his view of honour, in his words, ‘protecting people…the ones who can’t fight for themselves.’ He becomes close to the woman who saves his life, Yuna, but her influence on Jin is questioned further into the game. There are some lovely moments between the pair, especially when they get drunk together on sake before the battle of Yarikawa.

He befriends her brother Taka and his wayward friend, the sake merchant, Kenji, the latter who we have to save from time to time as he gets himself into trouble with all sorts of unscrupulous types. Jin is tutored by a reclusive samurai, Ishikawa, who has troubles of his own and he aids the wife of a fallen samurai, Lady Massako, whose family have been wiped out and whose anger threatens even those close to her. Despite the tragedy of Massako’s story, I find her missions quite humourous at times. As Jin moves further away from the samurai lord into the Ghost, Massako reminds him of who he was rather than who he is becoming, essentially by charging into battle at every opportunity. No surveying the environment, no stealth tactics adopted. Nope. She charges straight into battle whether you’re ready for it or not. In that respect, she reminds me of Zhang Ziyi’s Moon in Hero (2002) when she’s duelling Flying Snow. Snow is quiet, delicate, graceful but brutal; Moon is all about flying in, wailing with every blow.

On Iki, Jin finds himself remembering his time with his father and is weighed down by guilt. He is constantly reminded of his own cowardice by the Eagle but as he takes more allies and liberates more Mongol encampments, he starts to come to terms with his role, his involvement in his father’s campaign. Like I said, there is substance to this tale.

As for the controls, it’s always the case – once you get the hang of it, the easier it becomes. There are an awful lot of controls and they could potentially overwhelm but once you work out your stances, how to switch and use weapons and alternate quickly in a battle, it becomes second nature. In some fights, you can find yourself switching ghost weapons and stances quite a bit but as you’re in an open world setting and have as much time as you need, you have plenty of opportunity to practice.

And now we’re onto the gameplay itself. As you know, Tina and I are 100%ers so when we play, it takes us a while. Missions and side missions aside, you get to explore each part of Tsushima and every pick up brings with it its own rewards. The hot springs will give you improved health, the bamboo strikes either increase or strengthened resolve, and trust me, when you get to the harder challenges, that small bit of health or resolve can come in handy. So can charms, which you receive either after a mission or once you’ve completed a shrine and these can be tricky too, especially those that make you question your direction. There’s an awful lot to explore across the islands which is great because you don’t want to feel like you’re in a bare knuckle fight for every second you’re playing. Despite that, when you’re running around trying to find weapons or materials, you have to be careful you don’t run into a Mongol crew or a group of Japanese bandits, especially if you’re trying to conserve health for something else. Or maybe you don’t. Tina and I quite enjoy the violent side of it and sometimes, engaging with the enemy in these off road skirmishes can be beneficial since you’ll most likely take pick ups or they’ll be holding a prisoner who gives you valuable information when you release them. That said, Tsushima Island is beautiful, Iki too, and there’s a peace about taking the time to look at it while you’re wandering from one place to the next.

One of my favourite aspects of the game are the Mythic Tales. I love the black and white animation for each story and the way the musicians tell them. There are 7 in total; some of them will give you armour or a new weapon and others will give you a new and improved fighting move. 6 of them will feature a duel and one of them, The Six Blades of Kojiro, features five duels with Kojiro’s Straw Hat Assassins before you get to fight the man himself. I do enjoy these duels, which are set in different locations across Act 2 – under a waterfall or autumn leaves, beside crashing waves or on a bed of spider lilies, even on the sodden swamps of the drowned marshes. In my humble opinion, one of the 5 assassins is harder to beat than Kojiro himself – the ronin at the Duel of Crashing Waves. The first time I played this, it took me a while to get past this guy; Kojiro was done with in a matter of minutes.

As a matter of point, it was good to find this clip. For the most part, captures on Youtube tend to show players who have accomplished the feat with relative ease which leads me to believe they’re either playing it on easy or with ‘help.’ As it is, duels on the game (if you’re playing moderate to hard) are not like that at all – they require skill, patience and occasionally, you’re going to get hit, regardless of how good you are. Disregarding what others list as the hardest bosses in the game, Tomotsugu is up there on mine but the hardest, in my opinion, is the subject of Iki’s Mythic Tale, The Legend of Black Hand Riku. I love this mission. First comes the tale of this barbaric pirate captain, then the journey through water and cave, and then the meeting with the man, the legend, himself. The exploration through the caves and the notes you pick up, from others who have toiled and died in the dark, are nerve jangling; you know that you are somewhere evil and you can feel it.

Ghost of Tsushima is visually and narratively stunning, unafraid to go off key and offer up something a little suprising. The role playing elements – allowing you to upgrade your weapons and gear, as well as giving you the opportunity to change things within the game – are a lot of fun and of course, Tina and I being who we are, we like to set up our own challenges, some of which we do together but others, well, they happen to be my cup of tea and I quite like them, like the Fundoshi challenge. For the uninitiated here, the Fundoshi is a glorified nappy, which you obtain once you’ve found all of the hot springs. Dueling in a Fundoshi is a terrible idea because it offers you no protection. Tina says it’s disrepectful to Jin, as a samurai lord, to wear something so uncouth in a battle situation but I say pish tosh to that. It’s fun and it’s challenging and it’s a damn site harder to complete than you might witness on YouTube videos. Like this one:

I missed my calling here. Ten or so years ago, if I’d thought of it, I could have started my own channel showing the audience what it’s like to play games, or parts, when there’s a challenge involved. Finding clips on the channel showing a battle rather than a massacre is tricky.

After you’ve completed the game, you’re offered the opportunity to replay the game on NewGamePlus. You can alter the difficulty level and the language, if you choose, and you’ll start with all the armour, weapons, stances, everything you had in the previous game; ammunition and materials, you’ll have to pick up again. But the new game plus comes with added extras. A merchant with a slight speech problem – Baku the Voiceless – pops up offering you new things; vanity gear and new charms, some of which are great to use. Take the Canine Recruitment charm. If you come across a Mongel dog in the first game, you can either kill it, ignore it or hallucinate it. Canine Recruitment does the latter of those but you have to be quick about it; if it zeros in on you before you’ve had the chance to befriend it, you’re going to lose something.

Your fully upgraded armour, weapons, and ammunition can be upgraded once more, giving you, in some cases, colossal protection but there are no additional missions. Not that it bothers me because there’s plenty to do and at least something to play for. A new game plus can be satisfying as well as rewarding because it gives you the chance to try things you wouldn’t ordinarily do but it can be pretty tedious fighting enemies who are full levels below your own. Ghost enhances the difficulty level regardless of whether you choose the same level you went for last time; for example, medium is medium plus and so on. You need that because, as I said, even when you’ve got something to play for, you need the additional challenge otherwise you’re just going through the motions.

On your travels, sooner or later you’ll come across a crotchety old man sitting and waiting to tell you a tale. This is the Legends aspect of the game and one that I’ve never explored because it’s the online addition. For those interested, here it is explained:

Regarding the cons, well, there aren’t too many. The Woke elements can be a little grating but they are miniscule in the game. For instance, Lady Massako took a female lover many years ago and told a samurai, Lord Sakai, about it. That wouldn’t have happened, none of it. A peasant is accused of spying for the Mongols when he is secretly sneaking off at night to pray at the grave of a man he was ‘close to.’ And there are quite a few tribes in 13^th Century Japan who have female leaders. But like I said, these are snippets really, 0.5%, if that, of a story that drowns all of that crap out.

Khotun Khan at the end is a little too easy to defeat. In all the times and all the difficulty settings Tina and I have faced off against this main nemesis, we are undefeated. There are a number of duels you’ll face before coming up against the great Mongol leader, some I’ve mentioned, and they present more of a challenge than Khan. Just another small aspect; really, I’m splitting hairs here.

This is a great all rounded game and I would recommend it heartily.

This review contains a few Amazon Affiliate links.  I (Portly) receive a portion of any purchases made through these links, at no additional cost to you.  Buy a few copies of Ghost of Tsushima and I’ll send a few quid Ponty’s way. 😉  —TPP