+1
So I finished Ghosts of Tsushima. It happened just a day or two after my last post. I'm still in a state of denial that it is over. I'm not sure which, between Ghost and CONTROL is my favorite. Both have excellent controls, animations, story, and replayability (IMO). Both have minor issues where the difficult spread is too much between generic level goons and pseudo boss fights. CONTROL may have the advantage there because at least you have access to all your skills and moves during such combat, where Ghost removes your ghost abilities---abilities that you come to rely on in the open world combat. In Ghost there are also a few siege progressions that don't move the same way as 95% of the rest of the game. It was hard to understand the objective, where to go, and how to get there for every instance of this type of encounter. That said, the cutscenes, transitions, and cinematics are movie quality so they cancel each other out I suppose. CONTROL's story is great sci-fi X-Files quality with a bit of humor thrown in if you bother reading all the collection items and documents, but the ending was not a satisfying closure at all. One might argue that Ghost has a nifty option to play in a black and white "Kurosawa Mode," complete with Japanese voicing and English subtitles. Though it's a clever novelty with a film grain texture overlaying your gameplay, the contrast is too high in my opinion and makes combat very difficult in distinguishing enemies from the environment. Also, there are combat cues that are much harder to see in black and white and one stealth feature skill you learn to "sense" nearby enemies is made near useless in this mode. So I'm note sure how much of a point that adds past a not-really-usable, novel idea.
Perhaps Ghost just barely wins out for the ending and more open world environment. I'm talking like 1/16th of a point kind of clearance here. Not by much, and I image my opinion will slide around each time I think on it. As I type this, I remember a gap in how trophies are earned. I was able to collect all trophies within CONTROL by in-game knowledge alone. In Ghost, however, I was able to earn all but three by the end of my game. Regrettably, I had to turn to Google to gain clues for the remaining trophies. One was a red herring and I believe I would have found it on a second play through re-experiencing a particular storyline. The second was an obscure real world reference that I personally feel would have been impossible to accomplish without 1) being specifically aware of this real world event, or 2) literally clicking every possible combination of the requirement until you just happened upon the correct one. I suppose that's a nice nod to a specialized fanbase, but frustrating all the same. I can't remember for sure, but I believe the third missing trophy was triggered by collecting the previous two. Probably the platinum "collect 'em all" type of trophy.
I recorded several videos of the last battles, but for anyone that owns a PS4 knows, that internal video recorder glitches and randomly skips several seconds of gameplay. I probably lost around 20 seconds of intimate combat over the course of the main fight there near the end. That REALLY sucks watching my playback and wondering how on earth I got out of that with only a fraction of life remaining only to jump 4 seconds into the future with half life returned. sigh. I may still put them on YouTube because I know these last wall-of-text posts of mine must be boring to get through without a visual reference. Just know it's 100% laziness. More 60/40 laziness/technical difficulties.
Oh well.
GREAT game. I highly recommend both and I am always tickled to death how far games have evolved over my lifetime. I started with the Atari 2600 to the Commodore 64. I've had one console or another since the Sega Master System to my first PC game of the original UnReal, followed by Tribes team play. Ghost is just insane with the environmental details and weather effects that the developers were able to cram into the PS4. Mind blowing. I waited perhaps a year for this release, broken hearted by delays and eventually resigning myself to the idea that at some point it would likely delay for a PS5 release instead. Even when it did come for the PS4, the game's load screen was so long users assumed it crashed their systems and couldn't get in for that fear and constantly rebooting. A few patch updates later and the load was till pretty slow, but at least you could see the information blocks sliding through to show some level of progress. Now it's nearly as fast a load as any other game. Excellent work and support. I cannot say that enough.
ynwtf,
Posted, not read. It's lunch time.
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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel
"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel
"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear