Recent reviews by FancyBeard

Brilliant single player action game. Combat is smooth and responsive, the story is engaging, the open world feels dynamic and lived in, and the visuals are absolutely stunning.

My only minor complaint is that much of the side content feels repetitive. But the vast arsenal of combat options lets the player navigate each encounter in unique and interesting ways. Whether you prefer testing your swordsman skills on an entire mongol outpost, or taking down enemies silently and quietly with the bow or your ghost weapon, the game makes each of these options effective and satisfying while also maintaining balance.

In my opinion this is what the new era of Assassins Creed games should have been. In terms of a stealth based game that gives the player options to keep combat fresh and engaging, Ghost of Tsushima succeeds where those other games failed.

9/10, highly recommend.

Not many games nowadays compel me to write a review. What we have here is a near perfect blend of several game genres that was totally unexpected. If you enjoy survival builder games, such as Ark or Valheim, you will enjoy this game. If you enjoy ARPGs or MMOs, you'll also enjoy this game. The blend between combat, building, and survival is one of the best if not the best I've seen attempted. Truly a special game that you can enjoy competitively (though I have not tried PvP), solo, or with friends.

Pros:
- Fantastic blend of ARPG/MMO combat and survival + building
- Balanced PvE combat, including boss fights
- Fantastic map design
- Robust and rewarding crafting system

Cons:
- Intermittent frame dips and connectivity issues: Be sure to turn off things like vsync and motion blur to help performance.
- Slight lack of verticality to building: If you're expecting to build large multi level castles with spired towers, you won't find that here.
- Fire archers: Seems like no matter how high of fire resistance you have, they'll still destroy you if you get caught in bad spot.
- The game is basically a drug: Be careful.

Summary:

Pros:

• Good graphics (though face animations could have been better. GTAV did a better job at this and it is 4 years this game's elder)
  
  
• Kind of fun, sometimes, when you're drunk
  
  
• Cool gun customization options

Cons:

• Atrocious cover system. My main dissapointment. Previous GR games excelled at this.
  
  
• FarCry style side fetch quests
  
  
• "Open word" concept doesn't really work in the context of Ghost Recon
  
  
• 2012 quality facial animations
  
  
• Kind of boring, sometimes, when you're sober...and realize what a letdown this is.

I just can't recommend this...

It's as if Ubisoft thought to themselves "Ya know? FarCry seems to be doing well, lets take the FarCry universe...Sprinkle in a little bit of The Division... and call it the new Ghost Recon game"

No... just no. I HATE when companies do this. Hmmm game franchise 1 is doing good, game franchise 2 did ok... lets see if people will like a bastardized version of both!! Next we'll see a new open-world Spliner Cell with Sam Fisher doing swan dives off tall buildings.

The concept of open world doesn't work with GR in my opinion. Ghost : the implication that the soldier is like an apparition... unseen, unheard, deadly ... but also running around doing random idiotic fetch quests in broad daylight. In full combat gear to boot!!

much stealthy
very ghost

such espionage

wow

Honestly, how does that make sense? The thing that made GR great back in the day was that it was mission based. Get in, do the thing, get out, done. This open world, FarCry-esque gameplay totally kills it....and makes no sense in a game that supposed to be about a super secret spec ops team.

With the beta available so close to the release date, I doubt Ubi will address anyone's complaints, which is a shame because this could have some potentional. So therefore...Not pre-ordering, not buying. You've ruined another once great franchise, Ubisoft.

Breakdown-

Gamplay: Almost identical to FC3s. Thought not a particularly bad thing, it feels a bit un-innovative. Karma events are a nice addition 8/10

Graphics: Gorgeous and well optimized. Even on mid-level performance PCs it can be ran on Ultra with solid framerates. 10/10

Story: Mediocre at best. Pales in comparsion to previous FC games. 5/10

Characters: Pagan Min is the most intriguing. Main protagonist & side characters are a bore. 6/10

Voice acting: Pagan Min is good. Side characters are alright. Main protagonist is abysmal. 7/10

Other: Requires f****** UPlay 0/10

Overall: 6/10

Reasoning-
If you are new to the Far Cry franchise, you will love this game. If you've played any of FC4s predecesors, you will view this as a disappiontment. I only say that because it doesn't live up to what FC2 and FC3 did best, story telling. 10 minutes into the story of FC3 and I was completely immersed. 10 minutes into FC4s story, and I was already bored. The story doesn't grip you, in any way really. The game doesn't succeed in grabbing my interest in what is happening in the story. I don't care about the Golden Path's cause, I don't relate to the main character, I don't feel compassion for the other main characters as I did in FC3...There is just nothing to grab on to here. Granted I have not played the story all the way through yet, so I hope it will get better. But the fact that I view playing the story as more of a chore than an experience is a testament to how bad it is. The most interesting character is of course Pagan Min, yet you hardly have any interaction with him after the first few hours of the game (so far, for me at least). Ajay's story is completely lacking in substance; why did he come to Kyrat? What was his life like before he traveled there? What reason does he have to help the Golden Path? The game makes no effort to explain the significance of Ajay's background, or the significance of his parents. The voice actor who plays Ajay really did a terrible job. There is no emotion delivered in the character's dialogue, so it's impossible to get a sense of how he feels in certain situations.

The gameplay is VERY similar to FC3. The are only a few new additions I've come across so far. Karma events are a welcome breath of fresh air. They have also added a neat feature where the enemy will try to re-take any outposts you've liberated. This makes the simulated civil war in the game more realistic. Auto-drive is also pretty convienent. The AI in this game seem to have super hightened senses that have no basis in reality. There have been several scenarios where I have been scouting an outpost from 100 or more yards away, take a shot with the sniper, miss, and are instanly spotted. Despite being hidden among underbrush and a wide variety of trees, the enemy immediately know the trajectory & source of an errant sniper shot. Assuming Ajay is smart enough to wear some camoflauged clothing, it'd be practically impossible to spot him through trees & underbrush from that distance. But my main issue with the gameplay is this: It's imppossible to defend against an eagle attack.

I don't have too much to say about the voice acting other than it's passable, save for Ajay, who is escpecially terrible.

Is this a bad game? No. Is this a good game? No. It's somewhere in the middle. The only way I would recommend this game is if you're getting it on sale. I would not recommend paying full price for this. The experience the game delivers isn't worth the full price. And more importantly, Ubisoft doesn't deserve it.

This game needs no introduction, it will stand on it's own as one of the greatest.
12/10