5/5 ★ – TinySweatyDwarf's review of Ghost of Tsushima.

A beautiful game with a wonderful story. The combat mechanics were fun like a game of rock-paper-scissors once all of the abilities were unlocked. This is the way open world should be done (not AC Valhalla). Will be coming back to finish all of the open world activities and the DLC Iki island. Jin is an easy to connect to character. The side characters may not have the most personality when you first meet them but as you play there Tales you begin to really enjoy them. My personal favorite side arc was Norio the warrior monk. It was touching to help him go through his struggles of losing his brother and taking back what the mongols we’re doing to the temples of Tsushima. The open world activities are plentiful but not overwhelming. The fox dens are amusing chasing the little fox to the Inari shrines. The bamboo strikes can be more challenging than the seem. The hot springs can provide deep insight to the story or an amusing one line joke. Shrines provide a fun little parkour puzzle. The enemy bases were fun to do as they varied in size. One mechanic that I was not a fan of was having to rescue peasants from a few of the bases as it added an annoying extra task inside of a base clearing. The main story is filled with huge moments and high intensity duels against very important characters. I also appreciated when the game warned of a particularly long tale so I could chose if I wanted to wait until I had more time or dive in. Overall I would recommend this game to anyone who likes 3rd person action games that don’t strictly rely on a gun play mechanic.