Hello and welcome to a new episode of Stereo Geeks.
I'm Ron.
And I'm Mon.
Today, we're doing something a little bit different.
We're reviewing a video game.
We're going to be talking about Ghost of Tsushima.
For PS5.
Some background to our gaming.
I can't say that we're huge gamers, but we do like playing our games when we get a chance.
The PS5 was one of those consoles that everybody really wanted.
And we weren't very far behind in that craze.
I think the tipping point for us to actually want the PS5 was this game.
We heard so much about it.
And then there was a short period of time when you used to watch game walkthroughs.
During the pandemic, one of the ways that I could stay calm during the day was watching game walkthroughs of Ghost of Tsushima.
And the beautiful colors, the graphics, it was almost realistic and I was just blown away.
Same with me, I couldn't wait to get into this beautiful, expansive world.
That being said, it still took us a good two years of dithering before we finally took the leap and bought this console, as well as a bunch of games.
And of course, the console had to be inaugurated with Ghost of Tsushima.
In our defense, when the PS5 first came out, wow, was it expensive.
Exactly.
I remember talking to two of my colleagues who straight up told me, you're not going to get it right now.
Exactly.
There was not only a huge demand, but there was also the problem of people buying in bulk, hoarding them.
It was terrible.
It was a little bit like people could not get PS5s, and they could not get toilet paper either.
It was a funny time, the start of the pandemic.
We say through tears.
But eventually, two years later, the price went down, there was a discount, and we made the big decision to buy it.
Yeah, and also let's not forget, the prices of games are also expensive.
So that adds up, you don't just buy one game, you buy several, even if you don't go and buy them all at the same time.
So we have to be really careful when we're making these decisions.
Also shout out to the Best Buy guy who had a really long, detailed conversation with us about the merits of the PS5, especially since our last console was an Xbox 360.
Who we still love.
Who is still with us and still a good companion.
So not going to knock that guy.
No, no, he's sitting there right next to our PS5.
Exactly.
So let's get into it.
We haven't reviewed games before.
So this is a little bit new for us.
But honestly, we had so much fun.
How many hours did you say we clocked?
135 hours.
Okay, that's a lot of hours.
Obviously, we didn't clock it all in one.
It's taken us months.
Exactly.
And I have to say, maybe some people clocked far fewer hours and they might be like, oh, these guys are slow.
I don't mind that.
I don't care.
I honestly spent so much time just wandering about.
I think you got bored watching me play because I would just wander.
I would just trot along on my digital house and just check out the landscapes because it was so beautiful.
It's so stunning though.
We have a lot of nice greenery and stuff around us, but we've been having very short fall seasons.
This year, we got a bit lucky.
We had a longer fall, but just being amongst those vistas of beautiful, colorful flowers and trees, you kind of can't help wanting to stay there.
And they make it immersive.
You are supposed to wander these beautiful lands because, well, you never know what you'll come across.
It could be beautiful flowers, a Inari shrine, a Shinto shrine, Mongol cohorts.
You never know.
A bear.
Exactly.
So let's get into the story.
Ghost of Tsushima takes place during the medieval period when Tsushima is attacked by the Mongols, led by Khotun Khan.
Our protagonist is Jin Sakai, voiced by Daisuke Tsuji, who also did the mocap for the character.
Jin is pretty much the only survivor of the first Mongol invasion into Tsushima.
He is desperate to free his lands, but he also needs to free his uncle, who is initially believed to be dead, but then it's discovered that Lord Shimura is alive, and in Khotun Khan's dungeons.
So we then follow Jin as he tries to make his way to Khotun Khan's castle, commandeered castle.
Along the way, he makes some friends and allies.
He learns interesting things about his own history.
Jin is a man with a lot of baggage.
Yeah, so are everybody around him.
My goodness, that's a lot to put on one man.
There is so much going on, you never know who you're going to meet, if they're going to be a friend or foe.
Sometimes they're both.
There's such a variety of plot twists, like, okay, it's a video game.
You don't expect the stories to be completely out there, but there were times when I was just like, whoa, I did not see that coming.
It's not like they're baton switches or something like that.
They are interesting and they flow from the storyline, but definitely they're there to surprise you at every turn.
You are just not expecting this to happen.
And yeah, well, they went there.
And I like how they use these plot twists, not just to make the story exciting and keep you playing, but you learn a lot about Jin and the people around him because of the way they react to really shocking information.
Sometimes you and I were stunned.
Just to mention that while the outline of Tsushima matches the real thing, they didn't copy the actual facade.
So I'm sure the actual Tsushima looks different from this one.
And also remember this is from medieval Tsushima, not current Tsushima.
But also Tsushima is a character in the game as well, just like the human characters who we meet.
And one of the ways that Tsushima is a character is how off the land sometimes Jin has to be and these other elements that they have in the game, which brings the land to life, like the haikus, the bamboo strikes, the shrines, the fauna and the flora.
I really loved that about this game.
I think one of the first times I realized that this gaming experience was going to be different was when we accidentally came across a fox den and the fox took us to an Inari shrine.
And once we had completed the quest, we could pet the fox.
That became like the highlight for us when we were playing the game.
Just to have this feeling and connection with the culture, not saying that all of Japan or Japanese communities are doing the same things or honoring the same kind of deities, et cetera, but to have that feeling that you are in a different country which has its own systems, I really loved that.
There's so much respect given, even though it's not necessarily, maybe not 100% authentic, but I'm also fine with that.
Most of the games that we've played tend to be rather US-centric.
Yeah, I think the only different one for us growing up was Prince of Persia, which honestly, it has nothing to do with Persia, and like the Prince is, well, not very Persian, but at least it had a different vibe and flavor and look to it than all the other games.
So I have to say the cultural angle was definitely one of the highlights of this game.
The beautiful rendering of the landscapes was honestly something to behold.
We could look out our window and get this beautiful vista, and then we're looking at our TV screen and getting a different vista, and it's just the views are amazing no matter where you look.
It wasn't just the landscapes that were amazing.
The characters were really stunningly done.
It seems like they based most of the main characters on the faces of the actors who were voicing them.
Great job.
Honestly, a lot of familiar faces in there.
That's really nice to see.
And yes, they are of Japanese and Chinese heritage or origins.
That is great.
But we've got to talk about Jin's wardrobe.
Oh, yeah.
For a guy on the run and being chased and fighting Mongols, wow, he had an extensive wardrobe.
I have never seen that much headgear on anyone.
The options are staggering.
Sometimes you and I did not know which one to go with.
Exactly.
Sometimes there are options for the armor, the dye, the color.
There are options to try different helmets.
You're scrolling for so long, you actually lose track of what you're wearing, what you're looking for.
And you're like, oh, no, that looks cool.
I'll just randomly wear this really random looking thing.
We were literally going with, you know, what's matching with the color more than, you know, what abilities is it giving Jin?
No, we don't care.
Exactly.
We tried that from time to time.
Obviously, we did use some common sense when we were dressing the man, but from time to time, we just went with the look.
And some of the outfits that he got were actually earned.
So those are very interesting quests, these mythic tales.
I don't know how much of it is based on the reality of the time, but I found it really fascinating.
And we'd go into this, you know, cut scene, which is really beautifully rendered.
So we learnt a lot, and we got to be really immersed in this, the culture of the game, at least.
Yeah, I absolutely love that.
We had the director's cut version.
We did not get around to playing much of the Legends mode.
That is a multiplayer mode.
We don't do multiplayer.
But that being said, whatever I tried, our Legends mode, I was terrible at it.
I'm not a good gamer.
Maybe not the best person to try this out.
You just need some practice.
It's true.
It's true.
The director's cut did come with the downloaded EK.
Tales section, and that you're supposed to play after the entire game is finished and you've completed the main story.
I really liked that as a bonus feature.
It was like we'd finished the game and it let us have it on call.
That was good.
I do feel, and this is a, this is something I guess we should talk about because Jin is our main character.
I do feel Jin didn't really come alive till he was on Iki.
I agree.
Right?
It was like who is this man?
All this while he was just doing stuff and being told stuff and learning about his past and the people around him.
They were all very interesting, very fleshed out because it is their past that he has to contend with to save them and to protect Tsushima.
But he himself, I felt like Jin got lost in the main story.
That's a really interesting point.
I think once the main story was completed and he'd resolved his issues with Lord Shimura and he'd kind of understood where he was within the new Tsushima that had been created.
Ikki kind of gave him time to just be himself instead of a man on the run trying to fight all the time.
And for him to actually reflect on his own life, his own past.
Whereas in the main story, he kept reflecting on other people's lives as they coincided with his.
Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good point.
Because one of the things when we were playing the Ikki section was I really felt like I wanted to see Yuna there.
And Yuna is this character who's pretty much there from the beginning of the game.
She's Jin's right-hand person.
She's the one who kind of teaches him a lot of the stealth mode that we use throughout the game.
And that becomes the point of contention between Jin and Lord Shimura.
But even though I missed Yuna's presence in that section, it was really good to just spend time with Jin and his past.
And through the flashbacks that we keep getting, we learn a lot about why Jin became a samurai, why he became this particular kind of samurai.
I don't think the main story really gave us room to figure those things out or challenge those ideas with Jin.
Interestingly, I did read a review of the Iki Tales, and somebody was like, they didn't feel like it added anything to Jin's story or his backstory, and it didn't really help them enjoy the game anymore.
And I have no idea what this person is talking about.
The Iki Islands part of the tale was its own game setup.
I mean, it had its own rules, own sort of vibe and look to it.
For me, I felt like Jin was just a stand-in, just a catalyst for a lot of the story points before then, and he became a real person in the Iki story.
Listen, to each their own, maybe in the main story, some people connected with him more.
I connected with him.
Like, I really enjoyed the character, and this is down to, of course, Daisuke's excellent performance and the beautiful rendering of the character, etc.
But yeah, he's just, everybody else is much more interesting than him.
Jin was interesting because of the company he kept.
Oh, nice.
Whereas on Iki, Jin was interesting because he was Jin.
I like that.
But what really works for this game is that it is such a great experience to meet all these people and to learn about them.
And of course, the combat is excellent.
It's pretty hard sometimes, but it has a new layer to it when you get those different powers, learn different techniques.
All that helps the entire experience.
When we started it, we started playing on medium mode.
I forgot about that.
Which was fine.
And then I kept getting killed.
And then it actually offered me the option to go into easy mode, which I took.
So maybe had we played on a different mode, our enjoyment of the game would have been different.
But on easy mode, I had a lot of fun.
I got to kill the bad guys while also enjoying the rest of the game.
I agree with you.
And the game also has an option to turn the gore off and on.
So I really like that.
It's not very gory, but after all people are battling each other.
So there will be some blood.
Did we have it off or on?
We had it on.
Okay, it really wasn't that bad.
It really wasn't.
It wasn't.
But would you have changed anything in the game?
Was there anything that you kind of wish had been better?
So there's one thing I would have changed, but there's three elements that feed into it.
And that's the guiding path.
So we have the guiding wind, which tells us where to go.
And we also have the fireflies that indicate some particular items.
And we have the golden bird, which takes us to particular places.
All three of them are connected in the sense that they all have a vendetta against you, and they will throw Jin off a cliff.
I would have changed that part.
Yes.
Yeah, I think that's the only bit that I would have changed as well.
Because I think when we were in the very first act in Izuhara, I was really struggling with certain parts.
And by the time we got to Toyotama, which is the second act, I was a lot more comfortable with a lot of stuff.
And Toyotama kind of finished really fast.
And by the time we got to Act 3 in Kamiagata, I was just like, this is a breeze.
And like even the big battles, I guess it was because we were on easy mode.
They weren't terribly difficult.
Yeah, they were complicated.
And there were some times when I was just like, oh my God, this stealth section is so hard and I can't do it.
But it wasn't extremely difficult.
Like I was having fun.
Yeah, not to the point where you say, oh, I give up.
Yeah, I think that's why I'm glad that the game gave me the option of easy mode, because I really just wanted to enjoy it.
Like we had been waiting so long to play this game.
Why play it on hard mode?
I mean, who are we trying to prove anything to?
Exactly.
We can always play hard mode once we know how to use the techniques better, and especially some people who do not know how to do anything with the bow.
I'm talking about me.
I am terrible at archery.
The archery was really fun, though.
I really liked it.
I mean, I liked it.
I just can't shoot a straight shot.
But here's the thing.
The reason why I'm complaining about the guiding wind, the golden bird and the firefly, is because we ended up getting lost or doing the same thing over and over because we did not know where we were going.
That's one thing that I would say, again, like Red Dead Redemption.
It's sort of, it's like Waze.
It sort of reworked its path according to where you were and what you were doing.
If you're on a horse, you're going to take a different route to when, you know, you're on foot.
So I really would have preferred them to fix that, because sometimes I was like, where is this bird taking me?
Yeah, and sometimes it was really down a cliff.
Exactly.
Otherwise, despite all that, you know, we got to explore a lot, and sometimes we'd end up rescuing a poor person because we were following the fireflies.
So it was still fun in its own way.
Yeah, that's true.
I think maybe the only other one that I may have tweaked would have been the boss battles.
While everybody has a different technique, I felt like we can win the boss battles in just a singular way.
I'm not going to reveal what, you need to play the game.
But I just feel like if they had switched that around a little bit, would have kept things more interesting.
Well, I think with the progressing boss battles, you did get different things that you did have to complete.
But it wasn't so significantly different that it was too hard.
So yeah, maybe they could have changed it up a little bit.
Like Prince of Persia, they do have very set techniques for different kinds of bad guys.
But then Prince of Persia is also very mythical.
That's true.
It depends really.
Different games require different techniques.
But still, I would have liked a little bit more variety when it came to the fights and battles.
So here's a question.
Would you play this game again?
Yes, but I'd give it some space.
Mostly because I enjoyed a lot of it, and I don't want to get bored.
That being said, we did not know what we were doing for most of the first act.
So this would be interesting for sure.
Yeah, I think we need some time away from the game.
We've been very immersed in it.
We've been playing it off and on for months.
And this is the only game we've been playing.
It's not like we switch games or switch consoles.
This has been the only one.
We need a break from it.
We need to try out other games in the PS5 console.
I'm interested to see how they use the same controls for different games.
And also the experience and visuals.
I'm almost concerned that we've ruined the PS5 experience because we got the best looking game and played it first.
And not just the best looking game.
Ghost of Tsushima was very highly rated just on gameplay and story.
Yeah.
And some of our other games, I have not read the best things.
Exactly.
Sometimes you buy a game because you want to buy a game.
It may not be the best, but I'm really hoping that it's still fun and enjoyable and immersive.
And we don't keep comparing everything to how much we enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima.
Well, I'm trying to think about our Xbox 360 experiences.
We played a few Batman games on that.
We played Prince of Persia and they were very different.
The Prince of Persia game was much simpler than the Batman games, which were quite complex in terms of, you know, fight combinations and quests.
But we've played all of those a couple of times, and we've enjoyed them a lot every single time we've played them.
So I'm going to give PS5 games a chance.
Before we wrap up, I don't think we can ignore the fact that there are a lot of similarities between this game and Red Dead Redemption.
I don't know if those similarities exist only for us, because we were literally just playing Red Dead Redemption before this game.
Maybe, but I have to say it really did feel like we were experiencing a much more beautiful, better rendered, gorgeous version of Red Dead Redemption.
There were a lot of similar gameplay aspects to it.
I think that's probably what made it easier to get into Ghost of Tsushima, because it already had the Red Dead experience, and we did end up enjoying Red Dead Redemption.
Like initially, we struggled a lot, but we took a long break from that as well, remember?
And then we came back and suddenly we were magically better at it.
I credit you for that.
I am no good at gaming.
I just...
Hey, you won that horse and cart race, which was extremely hard.
Yes, thank you.
But Ghost of Tsushima is a beast of its own.
It was just magical, fun, immersive, beautiful gaming experience.
We had a really great time.
It was worth the wait, I would say.
Yes, I absolutely agree with you.
I am, however, concerned about the film adaptation.
Oh, yes.
How do you take something which is so expansive and layered and beautiful and turn it into a two hour movie?
It needs to be a trilogy.
Nothing short of a trilogy will do.
Yes, I like that idea.
But I don't know if they're going to do that.
But here's hoping we get something really good out of this.
If you have 135 hours to play with, this is the game for you.
Totally.
See you next time.
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