Ghost of Tsushima

After picking this up yesterday to have a little go, I'm now 6 hours in and hooked so hard.

Talked a embattled old couple in a shack in the woods who mentioned something about Heavenly Strike which peaked my interest something fierce.

Dropped everything and made my way across the land just to see what it was and it was indeed some combat move. The boss fight was pretty fuckin epic too.

I've just finished up steamrolling through Azimo Bay, that got my leader count up and just unlocked wind stance. Typhoon kick is ace

I'd say play it as you like in terms of stealth vs all out attack. I found my play style varied greatly as I gained new skills or add-ons, but some locations suit one approach ahead of the other.

It's definitely worth exploring the map, but for the start I would say just go where you like. The more tales you open up, the more options you will have, with different rewards for completing different objectives - these are shown on the markers on the map.

Once I had unlocked the 2nd section of the map, I did go back and complete everything I could find in the 1st (mainly as I didn't want to rush through it all). This allowed me to upgrade considerably which may have made me slightly overpowered for some of the encounters in that 2nd section, but again made me switch my style up even more.

It's very well balanced though, and it probably doesn't matter which way you approach it.

The rule of thumb for me is: have I paid full price for a game since the PS5 launched? If the answer is "yes", it's on PS+ now.

It's more of the same TBH. The island does have a couple of different tasks/moves but it's not revolutionary.

I'm about the same with side stuff now. They seemed to cram loads of it in the first part of the island so now I'm quite OP. I might to pootle on through just doing the main stuff until I hit a wall.

Can you return to the world and do side missions after completion? That might be the way to go...

Got to about the same place tbh. Need to get back to it as I do like the combat and the setting/location but was finding all the side missions quite wearing.

Just finished it. Good ending worth seeing if you have any investment in the story.

You can seemingly keep playing post credits and finish whatever you've missed.

It's a decent video game, but a mediocre open world game. I'm quite glad they did make it open world as just travelling around gave everything context and an excellent sense of place.

The core story missions are mostly very good and well placed, but the open world boring task bloat is one of the worst I've come across.

Admittedly I'm one of those people that has that inherent urge to try and do everything, but that approach is an absolute chore here.

I more or less cleared Act 1 entirely (explored the whole map and did every quest) before moving to Act 2 and when it became clear there was even more of almost exactly the same as stuff in the expanded map, that's when the fatigue crept in.

Act2 I probably did 50% ish of what was on offer and ignored most standard side quests.

Act3 I finished the two characters quests that I vaguely cared about, did a couple of big Mongol camps just to get gold to upgrade my swords to max and then just mainlined the story missions.

With that approach I finished with all but one (I think) armour set, all weapons, and had upgraded everything all gear to max
I also had all the techniques maxed out (except guiding winds and a couple of stealth ones that I wasn't using). I even had about 6 technique points left over as was saving some in case I suddenly got a new skill unlocked that I actually wanted. I had a ludicrous amount of charms and lost interest in even swapping them around in Act3.

All of which is to say the volume of quests and collectables and mongol camps are ridiculously disproportionate. There are far more than give any sort of benefit. It's more egregious than most open world games I've played and I'm slightly annoyed at time I wasted doing tasks I wasn't even particularly enjoying for minimal rewards.

The final duels were fairly tough, took a few goes so I think a fully upgraded sword and one decent armour set is a must, but there's no need to do more than that.

Probably a 7/10 for me in the end but there are parts that were genuinely great. If it had cut the generic bloat by 2/3rds and had a bit more variety it could have been a 9.

Out on PC today, isn’t it? I already have a PSN account so no biggy. Hope it’s a good port.

I lost my save for it going from PS4 to ps5 so had to replay a lot of the game to get to the dlc. I'm not sure it's worth another buy as there is a lot of busy work in the game. If you have an existing save and haven't played the dlc get that as it's well worth it.

It's a very good game and just a lovely setting with a decent story.

I would highly recommend putting it up to hard for a first play through. It's not too tough but it adds a bit more jeapardy to it all.

Much more enjoyable than any ass creed that I've played. I find the combat more enjoyable for a start.

The have removed the wood chops, the rest is still all there 😂

Oh it was, it the same padding that all of these games get. Just find interesting shit to put in the world, Elden ring showed that you have have to put in meaningless tasks to make a world interesting. I honestly think GOT would have been better without it.