[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I started playing Ghost of Tsushima over the weekend. Pros... Really great combat system with the stances (I haven't got the last one yet), very pretty in 4k60fps (makes you want to book a trip), acting and sound are both solid if not spectacular. Gear upgrade systems and loot are rewarding so far. Obviously there are some sidequests like finding fox dens that are a bit mechanical but most of the sidequests for actual people are solid, which I appreciate. Standoffs are cool though we'll have to see if they wear out their welcome by the end of the game.

Stealth... I'm a bit torn. It seems okay, but I don't know if I like it as much as the very similar system in Horizon, and there do seem to be a few frustrating issues where you don't feel very stealthy when Jin does things you don't actually want him to do leading to detection, or when you get seen in situations when you shouldn't according to what the rules are supposed to be. But it's not bad, I just think it could be better.

Cons, first, the enemies so far are a bit too same-samey - I get that the combat system is rock-paper-scissors-esque with the stances but that doesn't mean you can't have some enemy types that don't fit clearly into a category. It's just some variety of sword-guy, shield-guy, spear-guy, big-guy and I'd like them to feel more like people and less like mannequins. Second, some of the quest design is frustratingly bad - "search this area"... okay... for what? I've been running around this forest for 15 minutes looking for "spirits", when what I'm really looking for is a text prompt to move the quest forward. It's happened two or three times and it really damages the immersion. Third, and this is more minor, it's fine if there's only one main weapon type, but I would have thought there would be more armors - you can see how many there are right off the bat and it's pretty limited which is surprising. Maybe some people care more about the vanity stuff than I do, I don't know. But between that and the limited enemy type issue I would have thought that the "directors cut" would have provided a bit more variety, even in the base game, just so that things stay interesting to motivate the player to do all the open world stuff like investigating all the question marks.