Game completed: Ghost of Tsushima

When this game first released I never thought I'd get to play it. I'm very bad with controllers and thus I play on console very rarely. But then it re-released on PC and I was so excited to get to play it. 

Naturally, I played it with Japanese speech and English subtitles. The subtitles were a crutch to lean on, but several times throughout the game I was just sitting there shaking my head at the translations because "that's not what s/he said". Like when Yuna tells Jin: "Shinu na", she's literally telling him not to die and the game just "Good luck!" I suppose they were going for a similar vibe with the translation, but I don't think telling someone not to die is a similar vibe to wishing someone luck on their mission. Maybe that's just me. 

The game is incredibly beautiful to the point where I just had to stop and stare several times, and the stories are so well-crafted you get emotionally invested in all the characters. Towards the end of Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3 several deaths happened that just left me feeling devastated.

The gameplay was varied enough that it never felt boring, not even towards the end when I was running around doing nothing but collecting flowers so I could unlock the last few equipment dyes was I bored. I used MapGenie as I went to make sure I missed nothing at all before moving on to the next zone and the next Act.

Ultimately I didn't want the game to end. Once the third act started I was both reluctant to continue playing because I knew I was approaching the end, but at the same time I didn't want to stop. Once I reached the end and NG+ unlocked, there was a part of me that considered going through the whole thing again. It was just that good. Instead I started poking at the Legends mode and quickly realised it wasn't for me. 

I made sure to play both versions of the ending. I would really like a redemption arc for Jin, some way that he could regain his status even after everything. Like how he redeemed his clan on Iki even after everything. I quite liked the DLC.

As usual I died more trying to climb to the shrines than I did fighting enemies lol. At that first boss fight I thought I failed the game before it even had started, but no, I was supposed to fail that fight. 

And then there's Yuna. There's so much unresolved tension between Jin and Yuna and I was hoping for a kiss between them several times throughout the main story line, but no dice. Instead I turned to fanfiction and luckily there are a lot of fans of the games who seem to think the same as me. 

I want to go again...