Ghost Of Tsushima is a beautiful game, it’s just a shame the writing is mind-numbingly stupid. Feels like a language-learner’s abridged version of an epic tale. Most open world games are a series of stringing-you along side missions, but almost every quest here is “Ok, I will help you, but first, my cousin is in trouble”, delivered without shame, wit or imagination, hundreds of times. Tonally, it is constantly hitting the same notes, with a wooden sort of expression, over and over again. I know war never changes or whatever but maybe it could change just a little bit? The Mongols are a dehumanised racist caricature, little more than the orcs in Lord Of The Rings. It’s trying to be like The Witcher, using Japanese folk stories as references, but it’s like all personality and weighty ideas have been rubbed out and simplified into the same old US shit soup: Us vs Them, Good Guy With A Gun, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, Family said with a deep voice, and lots and lots of vengance. Just an absolute braindead snorefest. Aesthetics aside, there are virtually no plot lines that feel specific to the location or the culture it is borrowing from. They could just as easily be in Game of Thrones, or any other HBO show.
As an aside, this game is just calling out to be more violent, wild and explicit. Not having dismemberment and pools of blood is a mistake. Not having magic is a huge mistake. You’ll just hear a tale about some Kappa and go in a bog and find… a man, a common thief, who was just pretending. Better stab him. Somewhere else, people are going mad because of a curse… wait no, they were just drugged, by a man, an evil guy, who you have to kill now, just like the other one… and on and on.
It’s a shame, because the combat (on hard difficulty) is quite satisfying, and a lot of the open world design very elegantly improves upon the formula (wind trails as GPS, follow the fox or the bird for upgrades). The set-pieces, ambiance, the homages to Japanese cinema are accomplished well. It’s just really rubbing me the wrong way that so much care was clearly put into the visual side, and almost none in understanding the culture and ideas of the place it is depicting. It feels like Japan as set dressing for an open world action game, rather than a game set in Japan. In general, I think cultural appropriation is fine, actually. It’s only a problem when it’s done badly; and by god, it is done badly here.
