I have a profound love and admiration for the samurai. Their code of bushido, with its emphasis on honor, courage, and loyalty, resonates deeply with me. The samurai's unwavering dedication to their craft, their fearlessness in the face of adversity, and their commitment to justice inspire me daily. Their stories of valor and sacrifice serve as a constant reminder of the power of resilience and integrity. In them, I find not just warriors, but exemplars of virtue and strength, whose legacy continues to shape my own values and aspirations.

Ghost of Tsushima is a fictional tale told with fictional characters, but it’s based on the very real invasion of Japan by the Mongol Empire in 1274 that began on the Island of Tsushima. You take control of Jin Sakai, capably acted by The Man in the High Castle’s Daisuke Tsuji, who starts off as a samurai before a disastrous battle against the invaders quickly teaches him that perhaps the honorable but restrictive ways of the samurai code might not be enough to deal with this new and existential threat.

Ghost of Tsushima revolves around this inner conflict as Jin’s formative teachings push up against his need to save his homeland at any cost, and though it takes a little while to really get going, it’s a compelling struggle. Even if Jin himself isn’t the most charismatic of protagonists, his foil, Khotun Khan, played by Glee’s Patrick Gallagher, has charisma in spades. He’s one of the most memorable game villains of recent memory thanks to his soft intensity that is oddly calming despite his terrifying intentions. He’s extremely cunning, always one step ahead, and his presence as the “Big Bad” is a large part of why Jin’s 40 to 50-hour quest for vengeance works so well.

What isn’t ever a bummer is the music. The dynamic score seamlessly shifts from quiet and ambient shakuhachi flutes during stealthy moments to thunderous taiko drums once blades start clashing; tense encounters are made even more palpable thanks to increasingly speedy strums of biwas and shamisens. Overall, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing – the music always fits and serves to enhance whatever emotion the gameplay and the cinematics are trying to evoke.


Ghost of Tsushima’s combat is like a witches’ brew made with bits of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and the entire library of Kurosawa films. And, as witches’ brews tend to be, the result is magical. Like all great combat systems, it’s simple to understand on a surface level: there are light attacks to quickly deal damage and beat out slower strikes, heavy attacks that deal more damage and can break through enemy guards, a block button to guard against certain attacks, and a dodge button to avoid the attacks that can’t be guarded.

That probably all sounds familiar, but the glue that holds this combat system together and allows it to remain interesting the whole way through is the addition of the stances you can shift between at the push of a button. As Jin completes certain tasks, he’ll unlock new sword stances that each come with their own movesets, and, more importantly, their own strengths versus a particular type of weapon. The starting Stone Stance is ideal for dealing with swordsmen, as one charged-up stab attack can sneak through their guard and either kill them outright or deal massive damage. Later on you’ll learn the Water Stance, which uses slower but more powerful strikes that can break through the defenses of shield-wielding enemies.

There are four stances total, and once you have access to them all combat will challenge you to not only identify the greatest threat at any given moment but also to swap to the stance that is best suited to deal with them, all while balancing the very real need to play defensively. When it’s at its best, combat in Ghost of Tsushima is fast, chaotic, tactical, and is true to the fantasy of being a lone hyper-skilled but outnumbered samurai.

The little touches go a long way toward combat’s exquisite feel, in addition to bringing a bit of visual spectacle. The on-screen HUD is minimalist and the camera always stays really tight so you can get an up-close view of the action; enemies have clear audio tells so that even if you can’t see them you know when to dodge or block; fatal attacks often end with Jin spinning around to face the camera while your enemy stumbles around with blood spurting out before finally keeling over. Even smaller still, defeated enemies will sometimes crawl helplessly on the ground desperately trying to escape you, you can wipe the blood off your sword, you can bow to pay respect to your opponent, and the list goes on and on.

The best part, though, is that there’s no traditional level-based stat progression. When you get stronger in Ghost of Tsushima, it’s not because invisible numbers went up and now you deal more damage and take less when you’re hit; it’s because your techniques got better and now you have new, better ways of dealing with tougher enemies. It’s so incredibly satisfying. When you level up you might spend a point to unlock the ability to block a previously unblockable attack from spear-wielding enemies, or you could choose the ability to block arrows so you can better deal with situations where you’re surrounded by archers. Or maybe you’ll unlock the ability to make enemies flee in terror when you execute a perfectly timed Sekiro-esque parry.

It’s fantastic because it means that you’ll never run into an area in Ghost of Tsushima where, all of the sudden, you’re getting one-hit killed by archers who you’d previously brushed off, or having to spend a week chopping away at the sword equivalent of a bullet sponge just because they’re arbitrarily several levels higher than you. Crucially, this removes the problem of being forced to grind sidequests in order to reach a certain level minimum in order to progress in the story, which is something that certain other games are notorious for.

Impressively, Ghosts of Tsushima’s difficulty always managed to be appropriate no matter what point of the campaign I was at. Enemies do get tougher, and you do need to improve your gear by upgrading your sword, armor, and charms to meet the difficulty curve, but the stat improvements from gear always felt secondary to the skills that you’d accumulate, but and the challenge always felt fair. Even when I bumped the difficulty up to hard mode, which makes enemies more aggressive, it never took away from the lethality of my sword.

On top of all of this, there are also the various tools and gadgets that you earn over the course of your adventure. As Jin gets more and more comfortable with bending his samurai code and using tools outside of his normal repertoire, his combat abilities also expand dramatically. He can use kunai much like Batman uses his batarangs to quickly interrupt or eliminate weakened enemies; he can throw sticky bombs to disorient a large crowd; or he can take out his trusty bow and land a headshot to bring down a heavily armored foe in one hitpotentially end the fight before it even begins. The sheer variety of ways to approach combat in Ghost of Tsushima is incredible.


Ghost of Tsushima is an enormous and densely packed samurai adventure that often left me completely awestruck with both its visual spectacle and excellent combat. By steadily introducing new abilities instead of stat upgrades, its swordplay manages to stay challenging, rewarding, and fun throughout the entire 40 to 50 hours that it took me to beat the campaign.