“Ghost of Tsushima” is coming up and it looks totally badass, if only they wouldn’t keep pushing it back, which has a lot of people worried.
It captured the gaming media’s attention for a brief time, as a samurai assassin game where you walk up to someone, yell “fight me” and cut someone down like you’re mowing the lawn.
Over the last couple of years, Sucker Punch has always been consistently bankable but they never had a breakout game like this.
In fact, that’s the general theme this generation, as Sony owned Studios has had consistent work until they released a mega-hit like “Guerrilla Games” or “Bend Studios.”
Over the past two console generations, Sucker Punch focused on the “inFamous” series. It’s basically X-Men but with a key difference: parkour, which has been improved or changed over the three main installments.
All the games had fault, the first one was ugly, being an early Playstation 3 title, repetitive and its story made absolutely no sense.
While “Infamous 2” was tightly designed with little extra fluff, save for something that affects every game. The last game, “Infamous Second Son,” had the best gameplay, from fighting to navigation, which is smooth and brilliantly animated. But its setting, story, and even its enemies are all very generic, modern settings.
Not to mention, the large problem that’s been floating over the series since the start, is the worlds themselves.
The NPCs, vehicles, and weather are simple, robotic or nonfunctional. Get thrown into traffic?
The cars will just stop, nevermind they were moving at full speed, no breaking animation it just stops. When the combat starts and the eclectic bolts start flying, the NPCs will sometimes run towards you which is like running headfirst into an exposed power line.
“Infamous,” because it is an anti-hero game, has modern settings, like New York or Seattle. These settings, while good looking, don’t have much to offer, with the contrast of super cool superpowers in boring old New York seems like a lost opportunity.
A game world is a character in themselves, whether by the looks, design or the way you interact with it. All “Infamous” games have a territory mechanic, for every mission you do, you gain territory in which the city reflects the main characters’ karma. Be a good guy, the claimed territory is cleaner, happier, or be a bad guy, that same territory is full of very sad people along with a constant grey sky.
The territory mechanic seemed a bit stupid seeming that there’s no faction behind you, especially in “Second Son.” You were fighting the government, so yeah, you got the territory until they sent in the tanks… It’s a good mechanic but it didn’t really fit in the last game.
The territory mechanic in “Second Son” was especially bad, because it took the worst parts of Ubisoft sandboxes, the grinding missions. It basically copy-pasted a couple dozens of times. It’s disinteresting and adds little incentive to explore.
Many of these problems seem to be amongst the fixed for “Ghost of Tsushima.”
During the “Ghost” gameplay demonstration, very little was shown about the world and its NPCs, the weak points of Sucker Punch. Which is a cause for concern, alongside the repeating delays.
“Ghost of Tsushima” has a lot of potential, and seemingly they have only shown the surface, but beware. Sucker Punch games have had faults before that held them back. There is a reason they haven’t had a smash hit yet, but hey, this might be the one. It’s certainly made a good first impression.