Where do I even begin. This review is coming from the heart and soul. I will be listening EVERY single issue I have with this game and by extension, this company of Sony Entertainment.
Starting with the game. The gameplay is just awful. Press X to light attack, press Y to heavy attack, press B to dodge. That's all the game boils down to. Now for the people who will cope and say "well you can use items to interact with the enemy like a bow or bombs", all those items do is kill or damage the enemy at range. Game then offers 4 bland unlockable "stances" that fall under the same 3 button gameplay. The whole purpose of the "stances" is for you to kill the only 4 different enemy types (one per stance) in the ENTIRE game. You will play this game for 2 hours and be introduced to all the different enemy types for the WHOLE game. I'm going to say that again. THE GAME ONLY HAS 4 DIFFERENT ENEMY TYPES THE WHOLE GAME. That is embarrassingly bad and boring.
On top of this repetitive enemy "variety", this game suffers HEAVILY on the generic Ubisoft open world formula of checkboxes in order to upgrade your character. In fact the majority of the open world is just a check list of things like: clear this base and do these mini checklists PER BASE, go cut these bamboo sticks across the map, go sit in these hot springs across the map, and etc. There is no sense of exploration or discovery as it is all formulaic in execution. You won't stumble on a cool thing you saw or find something interesting in the distance that causes you to go off the beaten path. All you will find in the open world are these littered checkboxes of tasks in order to upgrade your character or get a new outfit. Furthermore, the open world itself is just areas of different colored trees and different colored flowers on a field. It might look nice at first but after 5 hours of the same navigation of riding your horse from one area to the next, it gets boring FAST.
Now if you are thinking that you will just "play the main story and skip the optional fluff" do I have bad news for you. The story, BY FAR, is the most generic and predictable "samurai" story I have ever seen. Without spoilers (then again, I should spoil to save you the trouble of playing and experiencing this god awful narrative) the plot is the most predictable and toddler-esque "cinematic" experience I have ever played (think of something akin to a modern Marvel movie). It boils down to: bad guy comes and attacks, bad guy wins at start of game, good guy loses but lives, good guy is weakened but gets friends, good guy rebels with friends throughout the game, something happens to friend(s), good guy gets upset, good guy finds and fights bad guy again at the end of the game and wins. The game has legit ONLY ONE good mission AT THE END OF THE GAME that just isn't worth the hype after playing the majority of the game with a below subpar plot.
The main character is just awful too. Again without spoilers, throughout the story, the main character seemed to be a passive spectator of HIS OWN STORY. Things like his reasonings for his decisions and his characterizations were things labelled onto him by those around him and the game writers rather than the main character himself. Like it is ridiculously bad. Side stories make this worse as the main character does things for his friends just because he is asked to and has no agency or self expression during these side quests besides parroting what his allies say and think. The antagonists, ESPECIALLY the main antagonist, is also so bare-bones and generic it could be pulled straight out of a Disney movie. Like I'm talking "I am a bad guy because the story needs me to be a bad guy, I am a big bad brute but I'm also "cunning" because I tried to get people to betray you". It's so surface level that it is something that would appeal to a middle schooler in depth.
In summary about the game itself, I wouldn't recommend this one even on sale. From the bad gameplay that doesn't evolve at all from start to finish; to the boring, predictable, and just sleeper story and characters; to the lack of enjoyable game features like an immersive world and atmosphere. The game itself is nothing more than trash. I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from purchasing this game. I only finished it because I spent the money buying it in the first place. Actual garbage!
_
Now onto Sony itself and the state of Sony/Playstation games. After recently playing Spider-Man 2 and now this title of Ghost of Tsushima; as well as seeing their new titles on the way like Wolverine, I can confidently say that current Sony is a joke of a company. The way these games are designed in gameplay, story, and game design aspects are so corporatized, soulless, and "safe" for the average Sony consumer (honestly gaming tourists who play only a few Sony single player exclusives and mostly the yearly "gun and ball" multiplayers - more on them in a bit) that I am just over the company as a whole. I am glad the games I enjoy that were once locked in association with this awful company decided to cut ties with Sony and their exclusivity deal, allowing me to now enjoy these game series/franchises on PC (with no more ties to Sony or Playstation). Now add on Playstation's decision to end physical games and only make digital games moving forward, there is legit NO reason not to just migrate to PC as a result. The only game that I enjoyed from Sony and am a tad upset as it won't be coming to PC is the God Of War series but that is in thanks to the work of Santa Monica and NOT Playstation Studios (and Kratos's story is concluded for the most part so I wouldn't even really call it as me missing out/being upset on much moving forward - at least not enough to pay for an overpriced, unperforming piece of junk like a PS5 LOL!)
All the people who say otherwise (the Playstation fanbase/playerbase) are 100% coping and saying this as a result of being unable to leave themselves; whether it's because they are too poor to afford a PC, their own gaming library is stuck on Playstation, or they legitimately like to consume the NPC product that Sony has been making through their games over the past years. I could rant even more but I don't think it's worth it as those who know and can see how bad Sony and honestly most triple A game studios nowadays (especially western ones) have become will move on while those who choose to ignore or deny it will cope and whine without end regardless of what I or others may say. But hey, they/y'all have GTA 6 coming out soon (the greatest game of all time since Elden Ring for these shills so I guess they/y'all win LOL!) and that negates everything I have said about the Playstation platform and their awful games like Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man 2, and the upcoming Wolverine. Playstation truly belongs to and is for those who love nothing more than:
Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! And then some more...
Garbage!
