Praise be to certain retailers sending stock out too early! I've not done very much so far of this final major PS4 title but what I have played so far has been enough to give me a distinct initial impression and to be honest it's not an overly favourable one. Ghosts of Tsushima opens with an attack by and invading force during which you get your first look at the games visuals which quickly reveal themselves to be strong in art style but not that amazing at other levels. The texture work and effects are decent, action running very smoothly too but this is a fairly big step down from other PS4 Sony exclusives. The sweeping landscape style though carries it and eventually you get to a point where you get to do some fighting, it's short and followed by a tutorial and immediately gives the impression itself that the games core gameplay hook doesn't have much depth to it either.
There's even been a very scripted and dull stealth section which is set up in such a way that you immediately fail for deviating from the NPC guide's own path. This normally wouldn't be that big a deal as such heavy hand holding or 'walking simulator' moments are common place in Playstation big hitters these days but as I begin to set out into the open world the game has so far managed to lose more of my attention than it's been able to grab. Functionally everything seems solid but when I go back on it later I'm going to go in with lowered expectations for something that appears to be a very straight forward vanilla experience on first impression.
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