Feel like I'm in the minority here, but I really enjoyed the story and think the game deserves Game of the Year. I know it's not when you have everyone jerking off to TLOU2 and soon with Cyberpunk 2077.

If they did one thing right, it's that they decided to write a laser focused main story that dealt with surviving trauma and lost without having to rely on subverting the audience's expectations or beating your head over with a message.

I enjoy that not only does Jin go through his own arc, but the side characters you interact with go on their own with Jin. They're deep enough too that they feel like people seeing the horrors of war and end up having a different perspective than when they started their journey. They don't always agree with Jin either, aside from the fact that the Mongols are bad and the Samurai aren't winning the war. Also there is some dark shit in this game that I wasn't expecting. The implications of dead family members and children. Nario's quest goes through such a dark path that I was pretty happy to see Sensei Ishikawa's didn't end in tragedy. All the stories hint and lead to Jin abandoning the Samurai way and it just makes sparing your uncle so much more impactful. "I may have no honor, but I will not kill my family." *chef kiss*

I'll admit, the world itself is deader than most. The side missions aside from the character ones and the mythic ones were extremely boring. The other side content that lasts through all 3 acts gets very repetitive (Haikus, Fox Dens, clearing camps and Onsens). At times, this game feels like a concept in development and the real product (AKA the Sequel with mainland Japan) is still being made.

What you do have is a satisfying Samurai/Ninja game that is gorgeous to look at with a solid story and cast. For whatever reason, this has been so hard to do within the last 20 years and they somehow did that. I hope the sequel becomes the full realization of this concept.

I cleared the eye boogers from my third eye and I can foresee that this game will have far more grace in its story telling and gameplay than Cyberpunk 2077 will have with any aspect of it. Sucker Punch knows exactly how much they can bite and chew while staying classy with its open world game design. Most other games in the genre feel like an overwhelming and disgusting buffet line full of pigs.

Now that I've fully finished it...

Edit: Oh, before I get into this whole rant below - I spared my uncle, because Jin's entire arc seemed built towards that choice, and the narrative never really gave Jin a reason to hate Shimura. Or, if it did, Jin would immediately reject those notions and insist his uncle was only doing what Samurai code dictated honorable. Honestly, I think the inclusion of this "choice" emphasizes why the lack of choice in The Last of Us 2 (not to mention its, er, prequel?) was more powerful and impactful on the player - the only reason I can see anyone choosing to kill Shimura would be their own bloodlust, a trait Jin only shows when the Khan is involved. If Sucker Punch had followed their genetic code and included a binary morality system (which, at times, it feels clear they'd considered and workshopped before scrapping) it'd make at least a modicum of sense, but in a story full of clichés giving the player one pseudo-meaningful option at the very end is the most "we spent all decade trying to summarize this decade" decision in a game built on "we spent all decade trying to summarize this decade" decisions.

Though I suppose killing Shimura does set up the dark middle chapter on the mainland against Kublai/Genghis more specifically? *Kanye Shrug*

I sure hope the Assassin's Creed 1 to 2 progression hopes are accurate because this franchise has a lot of potential. While I did need to turn Lethal off for the primary final boss, I otherwise found it a really unique gameplay experience in an era where everything seems to boil down to loot tables and RNG, And in some ways it was nice to kick the game down to Medium one last time, just to remember how much of a power fantasy this game was before they release Lethal and I decided to go for broke.

Tsushima has all the foundations of a killer video game franchise. The gameplay is decidedly its own thing despite taking inspiration from every influential game that came before it and that the world is unique in today's AAA space goes without saying, but I still think Sucker Punch deserves more credit than they got for how detailed the Kurosawa mode ultimately was (they should've just called it "Samurai Cinema" or something, but otherwise...) and including the full Japanese VO.

The game just needs to shore up a lot of rough edges, something it shares with inFamous but extrapolates greatly with a doubled, perhaps tripled total runtime. Trim the fat on the side quests (or increase the variety), enhance the focus on the duel combat which was vital to putting this thing over for me, and smooth out all the weird little design quirks like assigning perks to a sword that never changes while implying the player should be switching armor sets often, not having subtitles for random NPC barks when in a foreign language, developing a specialized aesthetic setting and emphasizing its existence but then neglecting to adjust the game design for its unique needs, and most importantly find a plot concerned with something other than how honorable the rich + ruling class is even if that is the perspective Jin is operating from.

The seeds are sown for a truly awesome sequel and it's cool to see Sucker Punch develop from such a gameplay, world building and tech focused studio to one that can also, potentially, tell interesting stories within their interesting gameplay and worlds.

If TLoU2 maintains its hold on my GotY, there's a good chance Tsushima is the game I look back on most fondly from this year, just a nice time that introduced some unique and highly enjoyable things to me in a year that was mostly dreary and repetitive, much like Control last year. Big recommend from me!