4.5/5 ★ – philip_acquaro's review of Ghost of Tsushima.

Started: June 3rd 2025 Beaten: June 8th 2025 (Main Game + DLC + A Chunk of Side Content) For a long time now, I’ve gotten sort of exhausted with open world games and thought I was just kinda done with the genre for a while there. And it’s not because I dislike them, it’s just that in a lot of these games, there’s just so much content across such a huge world that it often feels so overwhelming due to how big of a time commitment it is to see the experience through the end and even then, the main objective is often an incredibly small fraction of the entire experience. And on top of that, it could also be the opposite where some open world games have such absurdly big worlds with hardly much to really do in them as well as just not having a fun method of traversal, making exploring feel like a chore. However, after finally giving this game a go, all of these prior issues had gone way as it made me feel the same level of immersion, excitement, and love as I did with Breath of the Wild back in 2017 (my first of the genre). It’s really hard to put into words how much I loved this experience, I mean as I just stated it very well may be the best open world game I’ve played since BOTW which came out 8 years ago! I hurts that I put this game off all these years, it genuinely bothers me. If you’ve heard anything about this game, then you’ve most likely heard about its visuals about a hundred times at this point but it cannot be understated how beautiful it is. Every environment set in this Kamakura era Japan evokes such gorgeous and vibrant atmosphere that I just could not get enough of it. Seriously I spent so much time just slowly riding my horse and taking it all in as well as taking many pictures in photo mode while also riding to most of my objectives instead of fast traveling to just see as much of the world as I could. Every frame, whether that’s riding across a field of white flowers, an orangey autumn like forest, yellow flowered fields, or tall green grassed fields illuminated by a pink sunset, could be a framed work of art. As you ride your horse, the unique camera system allows for you to see every angle you traverse while also looking all the more cinematic. The story is also so great, I loved following Jin’s journey of embracing who he is as opposed to the way of the samurai and his family along with it. It follows a post invasion of the Mongols, and the adventure the samurai, Jin goes through with the help of supporting characters in doing whatever it takes to take Tsushima back to his people, even if it costs him his prior self and family ideals. They’re lots of really great characters that you get to love as well as many shocking and climactic moments throughout the story that’ll make your jaw drop or jump with excitement. I feel that it especially gets good throughout the latter of act 2 and all of act 3. As with all my reviews, I won’t explain the whole narrative or the big moments as I know there could always be someone who might want to experience it blindly, but just know you’re in for a real special experience not only with the narrative and visuals but also with gameplay. If you’re doing an open world game, it’s super important that your gameplay loop incentivizes players to see your game outside of just the main story to explore the world you’ve created and man did they accomplish that with flying colors. There are 4 styles of sword combat that each work against a certain enemy type adding for lots of variety and quick changes in switching between fighting enemies and evading them. You could also use a blow dart gun, bombs, or your bow and arrow either quickly during combat or in stealth which is a really good thing that it works so well since it’s a big part of the experience. I loved all of the variety you had in taking down enemies with your method of weapon or plan of attack. Yeah, the enemy AI isn’t that smart and can often miss you in their field of vision but I didn’t see it as that big of an issue. As I said previously, my open world mindset was tired prior to the experience so I wasn’t expecting to do that much exploring but as I played through I had so much fun with all of the core combat mechanics and traversing this gorgeous world that I desperately wanted to learn more about the characters within side missions during my journey as well as saving captives spread across the land which I did and had so much fun doing so! I don’t really have that much else to say other than play it in case you haven’t! Even if you may shy away from open world games for the same reasons I have, this is one of those experiences you can’t miss out on.