Ghost of Tsushima - New Sucker Punch IP

[Girth Certificate]

10 minutes ago, wretcherd said:

Looks like Sekiro with the edges sanded off.

 

a game about swordfighting should probably have some edges, tbf

[Stanley]

11 minutes ago, wretcherd said:

Looks like Sekiro with the edges sanded off.

Let’s be honest apart from the setting it looks nothing like Sekiro.

[Flanders]

Be interesting to see if this follows the same pattern as Days Gone, which was bad generic on the surface but turned out to be good generic with some cool systems on sustained play. This doesn’t look like it has any equivalent to the hordes at this stage. 

 

I can also imagine this having a similar life to Days Gone whereby lots of people give it a miss at launch and then come back to it in a year’s time when there’s a lengthy pause in big story-driven open world releases. Especially given that these games are going to be thin on the ground for a while from 2021 on because of the pandemic. 

 

 

[gospvg]

14 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Bit cheeky if they charge twice for it, free upgrade though that would be nice. 

 

Oh yes! Agree with that!

[Steven]

Just sick of bloated open world stuff now. Feels as much fun as a trip to supermarket.

[Kevvy Metal]

I’m totally sold on it, and I love these kinda games. 
For me, it’s the Day’s Gone question... is it undercooked at launch and should I play it after a bunch of updates?.. that I need to see.

I loved Day’s Gone but I played it a good few months after it came out and was patched up nicely. 

 

Maximilian says it all better than I can, I agree with his take - 

 

 

[wretcherd]

6 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Let’s be honest apart from the setting it looks nothing like Sekiro.

Yeah, I know. It's funny that the "freeze-frame" poses make this look more anime too.

[Flanders]

37 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

I’m totally sold on it, and I love these kinda games. 
For me, it’s the Day’s Gone question... is it undercooked at launch and should I play it after a bunch of updates?.. that I need to see.

I loved Day’s Gone but I played it a good few months after it came out and was patched up nicely. 

 

Maximilian says it all better than I can, I agree with his take - 

 

 

I would expect it to be more polished at launch than Days Gone was. Sucker Punch are more experienced than Bend at making this type of game and Infamous Second Son was very smooth when it came out. 

 

Even after the improvements Days Gone is still an odd mix of extreme polish (those touchpad menu swipes!) and out of nowhere jank (Deacon’s mad random outbursts). Adds to the charm in my view.

 

If Ghosts doesn’t turn out so well they should just patch in the electric running power from Second Son for traversal. That was the first proper next gen wow moment for me.

[Majora]

3 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

...are you going to buy it anyway? 

 

Probably not, unless the reviews/impressions indicate it's something more than just another open world game in pretty clothing. I skipped Days Gone for the exact same reason, I'd rather spend my time playing a few varied, smaller games than yet another 40 hour long open world I've already played a billion times before unless it's exceptional.

 

Also, chalk me up as another person not very impressed by the whole wind thing. I guess it's more fitting than having an incongrous GPS minimap but ultimately it's still just a GPS and your map is still dotted with question marks.

 

I really felt like the video was leading up to them revealing that exploration was going to be like Breath of the Wild. They talked the talk about navigating by landmarks and smoke and all that stuff but don't seem to have had the courage of their convictions to do away with all the usual navigational crutches, the lack of which made BOTW's world so refreshing and satisfying to explore. If you can just see points of interest on your map and then follow the wind to get there it's not really exploration is it?

[alex3d]

It certainly feels like a Fable-like disappointment. The weird in-game colors don't really paint a very Japanese picture and the gameplay is 100% Western, i.e. AC. In a way it's a double blow for me. 

[Ghosty]

1 hour ago, Flanders said:

 

If Ghosts doesn’t turn out so well they should just patch in the electric running power from Second Son for traversal. That was the first proper next gen wow moment for me.

 

When I saw purple neon in motion I was in awe of how beautiful it looked.

[teddymeow]

1 minute ago, Ghosty said:

 

When I saw purple neon in motion I was in awe of how beautiful it looked.

 

I redownloaded inFamous Second Son when I got my OLED TV the other week.

 

That game does not look 6 years old!! 

[Ghosty]

14 minutes ago, teddymeow said:

 

I redownloaded inFamous Second Son when I got my OLED TV the other week.

 

That game does not look 6 years old!! 

 

Still one of the best PS4 games to this day imo. Very rarely do I complete 100% of all the main and side missions in a game. I did with InFamous.

[Thor]

1 hour ago, teddymeow said:

 

I redownloaded inFamous Second Son when I got my OLED TV the other week.

 

That game does not look 6 years old!! 

Visually that game was way a-fucking-head of its time. I was thinking about putting it on again actually, especially as I haven't tried it with me LG C9.

[teddymeow]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

Visually that game was way a-fucking-head of its time. I was thinking about putting it on again actually, especially as I haven't tried it with me LG C9.

 

Doooo eeeeet!! You'll be amazed!!! The HDR patch makes it look brand new!

[Superunknown]

2 hours ago, Majora said:

 

Probably not, unless the reviews/impressions indicate it's something more than just another open world game in pretty clothing. I skipped Days Gone for the exact same reason, I'd rather spend my time playing a few varied, smaller games than yet another 40 hour long open world I've already played a billion times before unless it's exceptional.

 

Also, chalk me up as another person not very impressed by the whole wind thing. I guess it's more fitting than having an incongrous GPS minimap but ultimately it's still just a GPS and your map is still dotted with question marks.

 

I really felt like the video was leading up to them revealing that exploration was going to be like Breath of the Wild. They talked the talk about navigating by landmarks and smoke and all that stuff but don't seem to have had the courage of their convictions to do away with all the usual navigational crutches, the lack of which made BOTW's world so refreshing and satisfying to explore. If you can just see points of interest on your map and then follow the wind to get there it's not really exploration is it?

 

I don't think you have to use the wind. So while it performs the function of a GPS in the sense that it can tell you in which direction to travel to get *somewhere* it's not like a permanent HUD marker screaming "this way". It seems like it could be a happy medium between allowing people to find places by following the other cues (smoke on the horizon, landmarks) and helping people to get there if they get disoriented or don't care to bother, without having to resort to a hard-toggle in the menu.

 

I'd prefer it if places don't automatically show up on the map as question marks, hopefully not, I don't think it was clear either way from the demo.

[Down by Law]

I think the wind effect's really cool. An elegant solution to help immersion. It's the thought of these kind of little details that make me excited for this project much more so than the typical ubisoft style open world me-do.

[Vemsie]

Yeah, I got the impression the wind works a bit like the line marker in Dead Space. You can use it to be nudged in the right direction without an immersion breaking mini-map on the screen. Using natural elements like weirdly shaped trees, foxes and birds to guide you is a pretty clever idea imo. People will compare every open world with that of Breath of the Wild, but BotW works because it's designed around complete freedom. There's very little story in there and what is there is non-linear. In a game like this with a huge emphasis on story, you do need a bit of guidance. Open world games like this are essentially linear games in which you move from A to B to C. The freedom comes from the stuff you do in between story missions.

My guess is that From's Elden Ring will opt for a similar approach as BotW in that you can tackle things in any order, though it will probably have a smaller world with more unique elements in them, because let's face it, hundreds of very similar shrines isn't exactly quality over quantity either (there's definitely a topic in there how both BotW and Odyssey have pretty bloated design elements). 

As for combat, I would have loved it to be more like Sekiro or perhaps For Honor (arguably the best western melee combat system ever), but that was never going to happen. This is basically the Assassin's Creed Japan so many people wanted, with more of the traditional style of assassinations that AC had before they went all RPG. It doesn''t look amazing in that regard, but open world combat very rarely is. TW3's combat is severely lacking, BotW offers freedom but is pretty basic overall and AC doesn't exactly set the world on fire either. Dragon's Dogma remains the gold standard by far, though I have high hopes Elden Ring will give that a run for its money.

[Cheyenne]

What I really liked in that demo, something that I was wanting to see from the day the game was revealed, was the focus on lethality in the combat. While I love me some Nioh, I have been jonesing for a samurai game that properly conveys the idea that a single misstep can equal death, so to see enemies go down in a single strike is exactly what I was wishing for. One decisive cut from a blade should be enough to kill a foe if done correctly, and for me it lended plenty of immersion to that demo.

 

[Petrousgyre]

56 minutes ago, Vemsie said:

In a game like this with a huge emphasis on story

 

Is there though? I only ask as I'm not familiar with what's been shown and there didn't seem to be much on show with the reveal last night. 

[Dirty Harry Potter]

it looks beautiful - but very, very generic. 

 

*much like infamous 

[Strafe]

Just now, Dirty Harry Potter said:

it looks beautiful - but very, very generic. 

 

*much like infamous 

talk me through your username 

[Vemsie]

29 minutes ago, petrolgirls said:

 

Is there though? I only ask as I'm not familiar with what's been shown and there didn't seem to be much on show with the reveal last night. 

 

Yeah, there will be. I think they wanted to show more gameplay this time because they've shown little of that since E3 2018.

[Treble]

19 hours ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Gorgeous graphics, but it looked extremely generic. Uncharted Creed: Japan. Bit disappointing, I was hoping for something less.... obvious, I guess. But realistically, this is probably what will appeal to the biggest audience. Given the apparently very high budget, it's maybe naive to expect anything more. Again, it looks gorgeous and it will probably play very well - it's just at first glance so extremely predictable.

 

I keep meaning to ask you, have you played Aragami? It's a spiritual successor to the Tenchu series, and plays wonderfully - steals ideas liberally from Dishonored. 

 

Anyone who hasn't played it, grab it. It's fantastic. I think it was bug ridden on release, but they've been squashed since release (3 or 4 years ago now). 

 

 

 

[Mr. Gerbik]

21 minutes ago, Treble said:

I keep meaning to ask you, have you played Aragami? It's a spiritual successor to the Tenchu series, and plays wonderfully - steals ideas liberally from Dishonored. 

Oh yes, in fact I played the prototype that they made as a study project, before they formed a studio even! It's a wonderful and atmospheric indie stealth game. Imo it doesn't quite live up to the Tenchu comparisons due to the sometimes overly rigid mission design. The developers themselves cited Tenchu as a major inspiration many times, but in that particular regard it reminded me more of the first Splinter Cell. Regardless, I really liked it and finished it on PC back when it came out. I think I may have written a review even, but that has long been lost if so - and it was in Dutch anyway. 

 

 

[Dirty Harry Potter]

4 hours ago, Strafe said:

talk me through your username 

 

talk me through your point

[Strafe]

18 minutes ago, Dirty Harry Potter said:

 

talk me through your point

It’s not a point, it’s a question. 

[Superunknown]

The creative director has given a new interview which has been translated and posted on resetera. There's a lot of additional information in there, some highlights being:

 

Quote

 

Combat:

"Even though we saw someone slicing through enemies in the State of Play, I assumed that this player was very skilled, and that the eventual gameplay will be way harder on us. Nate completely agreed with me. “We are trying to make a grounded game in that sense, so a couple blows from the enemy will kill you. The game is very challenging. We have three words to describe the combat: Mud, blood and steel. We absolutely honor the lethality of the sword. We watched samurai movies and people go down with one or two strikes, and that is embedded inside of the combat. Beating the Mongols in battle will be hard, but it’s that challenge that makes it feel alive and the victory rewarding. You can’t just run into a camp and fight 5 people at the same time, you will get overwhelmed and die.”

 

Duels:

"Engaging combat and succeeding won't be easy, and you probably have to use everything you got to win a fight, and most importantly play smart. Sucker Punch wants to honor this trait from old samurai movies, by introducing one-on-one stand-offs against other swordsman, that will prove to be very challenging. “One thing we didn’t show at State of Play which I wish we had, was that the game features duels against other expert swordsman. This is classic samurai stuff. Those fights are incredibly difficult and they’re driven from personality and get solved in the most cinematic way possible, which is also true to fantasy. You need to study your opponent and understand how they attack in order to win.”

 

Map:

“The map we showed during the State of Play was VERY zoomed in", Fox explains. "That was just a little portion of the starting area, the actual map is huge." Fox goes on to say that It’s the biggest thing they have ever done at Sucker Punch, and it’s also a lot more diverse. "Tsushima Island covers the biomes you can find on main land Japan, from snowy mountains to bamboo forests, to waterfalls and rolling grasslands, it’s all there." Even though the map is very big, Sucker Punch made sure it won't feel empty. "We want to give enough stuff to keep it electrifying for the player. We didn’t want to make a huge map and have nothing on it. So it’s packed with people, items and stories to explore.”

 

 

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ghost-of-tsushima-info-difficult-combat-multiple-weapons-and-gadgets-huge-map-packed-with-people-items-and-stories-to-explore.208302/#post-34411194

[Escape]

It's now possible to make enclosed games with maps as large as PS2-era openworlds, but that gap hasn't been filled as openworlds keep growing in size.

 

It's very similar to the resolution race, in that mapsize keeps overruling the increased detail we've long desired.

[Hitcher]

Quote

Is there a difficulty slider for those of us that want more challenging experiences? If so, are enemies more aggressive at higher difficulty levels or do they simply have larger health bars?

Nate: The game does feature three levels of difficulty — Easy, Normal, and Hard. On HARD, the game is fair, but very challenging. Mongols are more aggressive, and players must be precise to pull off extraordinary moves. By comparison, EASY is for players who want to explore the island, enjoy the story and still be occasionally tested by a worthy opponent.

Thank goodness for that. I was worried this would be another Sekiro.