Ghost of Tsushima - Review Thread

[Carol]

15 minutes ago, Han_the_Dragon said:

 

Interesting. 

 

I was wondering how that would go, since the previous "more divisive, but overall 10/10 game" wasn't able to get the Famitsu perfect score... 

 

After the backlash about the other game, maybe several reviewers decided to go with a more "normal" score on this one? 

 

Yet, Famitsu went the other way around and gave this one the perfect score.. 

 

Still, really liking the lack of drama around the review scores for this game, I kind of feared the same bs as with the other game.. 

 

I'm not trying to derail the thread, just pointing an interesting point from a somewhat outside perspective (I don't have any interest in the "other franchise", and I canceled Ghost of Tsushima pre-order yesterday due to some technical issues, but I pre-ordered it right away again because pre-order give me a better deal than buy at day 1). 

 

Edit:

I also believe that Famitsu review system is currently the best one, because it requires the input of different people, forcing into the score the "devisive" factor of several games. The fact that most scores now are just whole numbers from 1-5 or 1-10 doesn't help the other grading systems, there's not enough subdivision of the grades to make it remotely relevant, specially when Metacritic upscales them wrongly to the 1-100 scale.. 

Or maybe “the other game” deserved the 10/10 and this one doesn’t, although it should still be a good game... ?

[Abby_TheLastofUs]

Just now, Carol said:

Or maybe “the other game” deserved the 10/10 and this one doesn’t, although it should still be a good game... 

 

A metacritic score of 84 is on par with what other Sucker Punch games have gotten.

 

It's a higher score than all but the first inFAMOUS game, and Sly 1 & 2.

[Infected Elite]

5 hours ago, MidnightDragon said:

GameSpot is well known for their high quality reviews.

it reminded me of IGN for pokemon ruby i think? they said "too much water" ?

[TJ_Solo]

5 hours ago, Neef-GT5 said:

Guess who was sleeping in the back of the classroom during the math lessons? ?
 

 

I feel like the smaller more limited 3, 4, and 5 point scales don't accurately convert to the 100 point system when talking about subjective matters. 

2/4 = 50/100

3/5 = 60/100

Sure, great. But does that mean the reviewer would have given a 50/100 or 60/100 if they were using a 100 point scale? Nope.

Edited July 15, 2020 by TJ_Solo

[ziggypossum]

 

[Fr_0zt]

10/10 are usually bought and paid for, full of bias, etc. They cannot be trusted.  New rule of thumb is 7-9/10 > 10/10 most of the time.

[TJ_Solo]

5 minutes ago, Fr_0zt said:

10/10 are usually bought and paid for, full of bias, etc. They cannot be trusted.  New rule of thumb is 7-9/10 > 10/10 most of the time.

 

Generalizations. Good luck with that logic.

I'd rather read the reviews and look for useful information. 

[Abby_TheLastofUs]

9 minutes ago, Fr_0zt said:

10/10 are usually bought and paid for, full of bias, etc. They cannot be trusted.  New rule of thumb is 7-9/10 > 10/10 most of the time.

 

It goes even deeper, dude.

 

9/10, 8/10, 7/10, all those reviews are paid for. Even when you go as low as 1/10, the review is paid for.

 

You see, these video game sites, they actually pay their writers to write reviews.

 

It's called being an employee or something. Sick stuff. ?

[griffin123456789]

It's funny to me how some reviews say "stealth sections are basic" and hold that against the game considering a lot of them gave The Last of Us 2 a 10/10. Not trying to diss it, it's just that it was simple as well.

 

Gotta admit, as much as a handful of reviews think this is a dated gameplay formula, I respect the developers for making the act of picking stuff up a simple button press and it pops into your inventory. I know I'm playing a video game, just let me push the button and do the thing. No needlessly long animations for simple actions that feel self indulgent and likely were made at the cost of some poor animator losing sleep and not seeing their family for days.

Edited July 15, 2020 by griffin123456789

[EIdain]

40 minutes ago, griffin123456789 said:

It's funny to me how some reviews say "stealth sections are basic" and hold that against the game considering a lot of them gave The Last of Us 2 a 10/10. Not trying to diss it, it's just that it was simple as well.

The biggest issue with stealth that I've seen notably here in IGN's review is that when you get spotted and then try to re-enter stealth the enemy AI just kind of doesn't know what to do with itself. Obviously stealth combat is just one component of both games and they can be scored differently because of numerous other reasons.

[Valyrious]

This is so impressive for a multitude of different reasons. This isn't just one reviewer giving it a ten. It's four people agreeing that it's a ten.

The Japanese critics are praising the game. To me, that holds a lot of weight. They'd know more about this setting being authentic than any of us.

1 hour ago, Fr_0zt said:

10/10 are usually bought and paid for, full of bias, etc. They cannot be trusted.  New rule of thumb is 7-9/10 > 10/10 most of the time.

Here we go again with another shit take that cannot be proven. You do realize the ramifications for both the developer/publisher, and the critic/company? 

No, you're right. Everything that gets a perfect score is clearly due to money being exchanged. 

[sillyrobo75]

1 hour ago, Fr_0zt said:

10/10 are usually bought and paid for, full of bias, etc. They cannot be trusted.  New rule of thumb is 7-9/10 > 10/10 most of the time.

 

As it has been mentioned even by former employees at such sites, at least noteworthy sites, monetary exchange for high scores is not really ever the case nowadays, it's got more to do with pressure from publishers, like being black listed and so on. Selling a lot of copies is not enough for this AAA publishers, the metacritic score also matters to them a lot.

 

Then again, when it comes to the more obscure sites...who knows, I see 87 reviews for Ghost of Tsushima, that to me seems like a huge number, and I am sure that are games with even more reviews.

[Valyrious]

1 minute ago, sillyrobo75 said:

 

As it has been mentioned even by former employees at such sites, at least noteworthy sites, monetary exchange for high scores is not really ever the case nowadays, it's got more to do with pressure from publishers, like being black listed and so on. Selling a lot of copies is not enough for this AAA publishers, the metacritic score also matters to them a lot.

 

Then again, when it comes to the more obscure sites...who knows, I see 87 reviews for Ghost of Tsushima, that to me seems like a huge number, and I am sure that are games with even more reviews.

This is more accurate. Though, that doesn't mean they are pressured into giving higher scores than what they actually think it is. It's probably more of a safe net to prevent them from saying overly negative things about their game. I could see that not going over too well, if the game in question does something really poorly, and they fear critics will focus on that over everything else the game does right.

I mean, the critics do get the game free - and early to boot! That's equivalent to money being exchanged, right? Heh.

4 hours ago, Carol said:

Or maybe “the other game” deserved the 10/10 and this one doesn’t, although it should still be a good game... 

We live in a weird time when a universal 84 (or 85 on Opencritic) is considered a subpar score. (There are people complaining and constantly bringing up TLOU2's review scores.)

Do our games need to be universal 10/10 to be able to enjoy? I guess we'll find out.

Ghost is the second of my big three games for this year. I'm just as excited as I was for The Last of Us Part 2.

[EIdain]

54 minutes ago, Valyrious said:

This is more accurate. Though, that doesn't mean they are pressured into giving higher scores than what they actually think it is. It's probably more of a safe net to prevent them from saying overly negative things about their game. I could see that not going over too well, if the game in question does something really poorly, and they fear critics will focus on that over everything else the game does right.

Alanah Pearce ex-IGN said in this video (probably worthy of it's own thread tbh), she was more worried about backlash from fans and the internet, than anything a game dev or publisher would say when critiquing a game. When you look at some of the vitriol around The Last of Us Pt 2, it's not difficult to see why.

Edited July 15, 2020 by EIdain

[Han_the_Dragon]

7 hours ago, Carol said:

Or maybe “the other game” deserved the 10/10 and this one doesn’t, although it should still be a good game... 

Maybe, but as I mentioned I don't want to fight that war, since I don't have interest in the franchise (essentially not into Zombie things, nor really into survival). 

 

I was mainly pointing out that Famitsu gave a 39 (10/10/10/9) to the other game while gave a perfect score for Ghost of Tsushima (and it's exceptionally rare for the review board on that magazine to give perfect scores). While a lot of places that gave a perfect score to the other game are giving 9/10 quite often to this game too, but less perfect scores, and a lot of "wrongly converted" scores (I'm sure that's the same for the other game, but a 5/5 wrongly turned into a 100/100 influences the rating up, while a 3/5 turned into a 60/100 influences the rating way down. 

 

6 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

I feel like the smaller more limited 3, 4, and 5 point scales don't accurately convert to the 100 point system when talking about subjective matters. 

2/4 = 50/100

3/5 = 60/100

Sure, great. But does that mean the reviewer would have given a 50/100 or 60/100 if they were using a 100 point scale? Nope.

Ya, that's the big issue with Metacritic way of aggregating scores if you compare a grading "requirement" or rules of a place that uses the 1-5 grading, usually the requirements for a 3 (out of 5) is equal to a 7-8 (out of 10), and a 4 is the same as an 8-9 (out of 10), the only place that they are somewhat equal is at the perfect score point. 

 

This easily shifts with great bias the overall grade of a game unless it is getting consistent 0's or 10's.

 

They don't translate linearly at all. 

 

[griffin123456789]

7 hours ago, EIdain said:

The biggest issue with stealth that I've seen notably here in IGN's review is that when you get spotted and then try to re-enter stealth the enemy AI just kind of doesn't know what to do with itself. Obviously stealth combat is just one component of both games and they can be scored differently because of numerous other reasons.

For sure, I'm aware they are scored differently for numerous reasons. It's just a lot of those reviews for Last of Us overlooked the simple stealth and combat for the most part, where as here they called it out.

[EIdain]

3 minutes ago, griffin123456789 said:

For sure, I'm aware they are scored differently for numerous reasons. It's just a lot of those reviews for Last of Us overlooked the simple stealth and combat for the most part, where as here they called it out.

I really enjoyed the combat in TLOU2, felt ND made great strides in that respect. But maybe if you didn't like it I get where you're coming from.

[Conor]

*sigh* Until I see some receipts, I will never believe that review scores are bought. Seems to be all the rage across social media (which I have thankfully abandoned completely, frigging cesspits of the uneducated) to mindlessly accuse companies of bribery (a very, very, very serious accusation that would seriously damage all parties and tie them up in some serious litigation) with absolutely no evidence beyond "I didn't like the game therefore critics are paid off and everyone who agrees with them are sheep and shills!". 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Lan Stee

[hash_braun]

Man, suggesting reviews are bought is gross. A lot of us don't even get paid for the work, let alone any kind bonus for a positive review. This is coming from someone who reviewed Ghost of Tsushima. 

[The Alchemist]

Why is half the thread about TLOU2? lol people need to move on...

 

The argument that reviews are bought and paid for is stupid. If a game gets a 10, the reviewer is paid off and is a shill. If a game gets a below average score the reviewer is biased and is giving a bad score just because they don't like the dev, or some other stupid reason. You can't win no matter what. This kind of shit happens in every industry. Now in saying that, i'm not naive enough to believe it has never happened in any industry on occasion in the past, and i'm sure some examples could be dug up, but I highly doubt it happens nowadays, especially in gaming. If it did happen and news got out it would be goodnight for all involved. Careers destroyed, extremely negative press all round. I doubt there'd be any coming back from it.

 

My counter to such accusations is that If reviews were able to be paid for so easily then why the hell don't EA and Ubisoft ever take advantage of this? 2 of the most derided devs in the industry who happen to have money to burn so they more than anyone would be in a position to pay for reviews if possible, yet for example, neither have had a game rated at 90+ on Metacritic since 2013. EA in particular are always in the bad books for one thing or another. I'm sure a host of highly positive review scores across the board could help them out a lot and earn them a little distraction from all the negative press. A lot more devs would be paying for reviews if it was an actual thing that happened, and thus we'd see a lot more positive scores for games all round. The fact is the majority of game reviewers - the smaller independent reviewers, the YouTube guys, or the more well known reviewers are there to do a job, and i'm sure they have the integrity to not be bought off and the very suggestion that they can be is i'm sure, insulting and abhorrent to them, and quite upsetting too.

 

Simply put, if you make the accusation that a review was paid for, either back it up with hard evidence or else you're just full of shit, and frankly not even worth listening to.

[ziggypossum]

 

[Ac3dUd3-]

played a couple of hours of it, first thoughts are excellent, I think i will enjoy this game very much

[Abby_TheLastofUs]

Ghost of Tsushima creative director reacts to reviews: "I love criticism, it's just gonna make us better"

https://www.gamesradar.com/au/ghost-of-tsushima-creative-director-reacts-to-reviews-i-love-criticism-its-just-gonna-make-us-better/

 

Quote

Connell tells me that the team is embracing the feedback, both the good and the bad – it is, after all, valuable information as the team looks to evolve the types of games it is building. "There are criticisms about our game. I love criticism, it's just gonna make us better, you know? We're gonna look at it, tear it apart, and digest it – we've been talking about it."

 

"I think it's a healthy part of it. We put it out there and the world can judge it. But we are proudly owning it; we think Ghost of Tsushima is the best game we've ever made." 

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Abby_TheLastofUs

[majob]

At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure Sony is going to be more concerned with sales than critic scores

[MarcusPunisher]

Great video reviews so far like YongYea and SkillUp. Still waiting on Angry Joe once he is done with the game.

 

His review on The Last of Us 2 was one of the best I've seen in a long time so I'm looking forward to his take on Ghost of Tsushima. 

 

For me, so far it's great and if it keeps up this momentum, it will be out there as a game of the year along with Final Fantasy 7 Remake.