Game: Ghost of Tsushima

[Buffalobiian]

So.
There's this game called Ghost of Tsushima.
I'm playing it.
And so should you.

Think earlier types of Assassin's Creed but Japan, and being somewhat closer to Sekiro in combat.

[shinta|hikari]

Finished it and all relevant sidequests with max upgrades. One of the best games I've played. Do yourself a favor and play with English subtitles and Japanese VA. The English VA does not do Jin justice.

I tried 3 different play styles:
1. Stagger style - Easy as fuck. You just stagger and slash everything to death by changing stances to match targeted enemy.
2. Counter style - The most fun style. You wait for enemies to attack you and counter. Stances mean nothing if you focus on this.
3. Ghost style - The most OP style. One fire bomb will kill an entire mob if specced right. Boring but hilarious.

"Stealth" in this game doesn't really exist (and I love it for that since I hate forced stealth). The detection rate and range are very low, and enemy areas and groups are sectioned off, so you don't have to be careful at all. Just don't openly attack enemies and you're good.

Visually one of the best things you will ever play on the PS4.

I thoroughly enjoyed just riding around Tsushima and killing mongols for no reason.

Best part is quality of life. It is basically RDR2 without all the annoying aspects. Loot can be picked up with no animation and huge range. Quick travel is unlocked from the get go. Mission rewards are transparent so you can choose what side quests to take. Best of all, the horse teleports to your location when called, so you can jump down a cliff and then call it, and ride off into the sunset. And you can't kill yourself by riding into a tree.

The only thing I could ask for is that the way you play should affect the story and ending. Being an honor-less ghost should result in a different ending than if you played as a (mostly) honor-bound samurai. That would've made this game legendary.

[Buffalobiian]

The only thing I could ask for is that the way you play should affect the story and ending. Being an honor-less ghost should result in a different ending than if you played as a (mostly) honor-bound samurai. That would've made this game legendary.

I agree with this. For the early part of the game I played with zero stealth and challenged everyone to a duel. Turns out the game pretty much forces you to at least compromise your morals once, and some characters reprimand you for your actions regardless.. so now I just do whatever seems fun and applicable at the time. All your actions do is trigger cutscenes reminding you of your past lessons in morality.

I'm still in Act 2 so I have a fair way to go.

Style-wise, I'm essentially avoiding Ghost style for now since I enjoy straight up fights. The new Lethal mode is interesting. It's essentially "hardcore" mode where everyone has increased damage. Depending on what you're fighting, it could make life easier or harder. Also since the damage is increased, running strike is now a 1 hit kill like it should be. Arrow damage is much higher but that's okay.

Mob fights are easier. After you parry an enemy, slash them twice and they're dead. That turns group fights into a series of 1v1v1v1v1. That's much easier than doing chip damage against 5 guys and parrying them all for 2 minutes.

I actually rarely fight mobs now anyway, because after I perform a stand-off against them, they're either dead or running away in fear.

I found some duels easier if they're essentially normal mobs with higher health bars, but some duels (Kojiro I'm looking at you) harder if they're tough. Mistakes are punished much more severely. With that guy, I ended up just spamming Heavenly Strike and Dance of Wrath against him until his head was much lower, then tried to go the rest of the way without stuffing up.

Overall I like Lethal Mode, it changes the game. It's supposed to improve enemy detection to make stealth harder, but since I rarely use stealth it doesn't matter.

[shinta|hikari]

Did you already get the Charm that makes parry, perfect parry, and perfect dodge easier? That makes the counter build viable and extremely fun.

I murdered Kojiro with ease because of that charm. That and my ridiculously high damage when we fought.

[Buffalobiian]

I've only just acquired the charm, but decided not to equip it.

I've basically got:
-Moderate healing on killing enemy (swab out to healing while out of combat when I'm out of combat).
-Increase Stagger Damage.
-Moderate Melee Damage.
-Moderate Melee Damage.
-Moderate Health and Melee Damage
-25% Resolve Gains.

This was my fight with Kojiro that I replayed. Winning fight was at final minute or so. My first win against him was essentially the same except my Skill Spam happened at the beginning rather than at the end.

[shinta|hikari]

What armor do you usually wear?

You should totally wear that charm if you block or parry. It is one of the best available.

Stagger charm is only meaningful if you wear Gosaku's armor. That combination will allow you to stagger everything in one or two strikes.

[shinta|hikari]

If you are using Kensei armor, fuck all other charms. Use the ghost damage enhancing charms and throw a bomb and kunais and watch everything wilt. It is absolutely useless in duels though, which is fine because you can change armor mid-fight anyway.

If you find all foxes, the 2 best minor charms become available to you.

[Buffalobiian]

Interesting re: fox thing, I'll look out for it.

Kensei armour did seem heavily biased towards Ghost stuff, which I thought was funny given Kojiro was supposed to be a duelist. I used Kunai as a get-out-of-jail-free card when I get stuck, but otherwise just parried/melee-ed with him. Ronin armour was better for fights, but the damage was similar to Sakai armour. I mainly changed to those two armours because it felt more apt after

SPOILER: " being stripped of your samurai status and also Kensei Armour's pelt felt appropriate in the snowy regions. Ronin was slightly less appropriate for the climate. END SPOILER.

Role playing and Fashion Souls matter.

[shinta|hikari]

Fashion souls always matters. I finished Bloodborne wearing a dress and a crown.

Finishing the foxes gives you 2 charms with improved capabilities. One is essential, massive increase in health AND damage. The other is more for stealth, but also great in any other build. It gives 15% slower detection AND massive increase in resolve generation.

The latter one basically gives you infinite resolve.

Ghost build is ridiculously OP. Do a double Kunai throw and kill a mob. Throw a bomb and kill a mob. Use smoke screen and do a mutli-assassination to kill a mob. You are basically untouchable.

[Buffalobiian]

Yeah, I used the attack/health one. I didn't end up using the Resolve one because I just stacked damage into the others.

Did you kill Shimura? I decided for 2 seconds or so and went with Let Him Live, but I'm sitting here wondering if I would have been kinder to kill him. I watched both ending sequences online, and killing certain felt more tragic.

[shinta|hikari]

I let him live because I wanted him to suffer the dishonor of being defeated by the ghost he wanted to exorcise.