(All right, so the title is misleading: Technically, Jin is a samurai, not a shinobi. But I thought it was clever, so I went with it. Okay, moving on…) During Fall 2020, a lot of really rotten things hit me and my family, not the least of which was an infection of COVID that narrowly avoided hitting my heart-warrior son. Due to this (and a host of other things), Gayle obliged me by letting me buy a new video game. I wanted Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Ghost of Tsushima. As the latter was on sale, I bought that. Christmas was around the corner, so Sekiro arrived on my PlayStation 4 shortly thereafter. Suddenly, I had two games set in feudal Japan that required a lot of sword swinging to get things done. Playing the games concurrently--sometimes switching from one to another in a single evening--led to a unique juxtaposition, an insight into how wildly different developers approach a similar concept.
What's the Same The setting: Both games take place during a historical moment of Japan--GoT during the Mongolian invasions of the late-13th century, S:SDT during the Sengoku period in the 15th century--and each relies on getting many details right. I'm no expert on this, but my brother (a Japanese teacher and translator) assures me that GoT has a pretty faithful adherence to historical accuracy. There are some liberties taken, of course, but on the whole, it's a faithful adaptation. Sekiro takes place in the fictional nation of Ashina, so there's a lot more room for flexibility. Still, the lightning-angled paper streamers known as shide abound in Ashina as much as Tsushima (perhaps a bit more in Sekiro), and sake features in both games fairly heavily. Pagodas dot the landscapes, miscanthus grass covers the ground, and inspiring vistas of a cloud-capped mountains and foggy valleys add depth to both worlds. Obviously, with both games set in Japan, the characters speak Japanese (though there are English tracks) and approach their duties with a strong sense of duty, honor, and loyalty. The gameplay: Smacking bad guys with swords, throwing alternative weapons to distract or kill enemies from a distance, hiding in shadows to stealth-kill thoughtless guards, and navigating what ought to be unnavigable terrain feature heavily in both games. There are ways to distract guards, manipulate the environment, and even light enemies on fire, regardless of which title you pick to play. Fast traveling, leveling up the character, and even alternative costumes are available, albeit in very different ways from each. Oh, and they're third-person action RPGs, so even genre-wise they're playing in the same sandbox. As is typical for video games, there are also a number of mini-bosses that can be defeated, which helps improve the character's stats, plus a number of larger bosses to defeat. In such high-stakes, one-on-one battles, the enemy has a stamina bar in addition to health bars. Deflecting enough damage--or meting out enough of your own--can lead to the stamina bar dropping low enough to deal major health damage to the boss. The story: In order to save his part of the world, the hero must embark on a quest to resist the influence of an evil usurper who wishes to harm someone the hero loves. By using his skills with the sword--and a trusty grappling hook--he will traverse a wild and dangerous world, filled with enemies in enclosed fortresses and vicious animals who will attack him at a moment's notice. In the end, the hero must confront the man he always considered his father, the man who trained him in the ways of the warrior. The life of the father will then be decided by the hero. This confrontation comes about because the hero has chosen to betray his family and the demands of tradition. Also, both have ghosts. What's Different The setting: Both games are stunning in their executions, albeit in different ways. There's no doubt, though, that Ghost of Tsushima has a superior graphical and visual delivery. Sucker Punch's game is jaw-droppingly beautiful, having taken massive inspiration from Akira Kurosawa's cinematic language to create engaging, powerful cut scenes. Top-notch performance capture work, along with subtle facial animations to match the nuances of the acting all combine with the eye-candy of a late-stage PlayStation 4 game. The world feels almost tangible, with wind whistling through the leaves of grass (and the controller's speaker) and stirring the cloth of the characters. A day/night cycle, as well as weather effects work together to make Tsushima variegated, engaging, and enjoyable to traverse. Not only that, but GoT is an open-world game, allowing the player to explore many nooks and crannies, rivers and streams, mountaintops and valleys. Light platforming mechanics gives Jin--the player character--a chance to clamber around, swinging from branches to boulders in well-designed side-missions. Indeed, discovering the shrines was one of my favorite parts of the game, as I've always reveled in well-made platforming sections (I think the early Prince of Persia titles were superb examples of this). The melding of strictly linear approaches in these mini-missions versus the otherwise open-ended options of the main game is a seamless and logical construction. By contrast, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an amalgamation of open-world philosophy and conscientious, deliberate "level" design. As is almost always the case with FromSoftware games, Sekiro has a progression of areas of the map that is ideal for certain levels of skill. At the beginning, Sekiro must fight through a memory at Hirata Estate. When I first played this section, it took a solid hour (or more…probably more) to learn the pathways through the streets, the best order to attack enemies, and doing my best not to engage with the soldiers in anything less than the ideal situation. As I beat my head against the final boss fight of the game, some seventy hours later, I chose to return to Hirata Estate and slew my way through without hardly even taking any damage. This is what I mean by deliberate design: Ashina has many places to explore, but they're all within the "tracks" of the main pathways. There are shortcuts--crucial to find if you want to play through without going crazy having to fight your way through the same areas three dozen times--and secrets, but the design is recursive, bringing you back to earlier areas. This creates a really cohesive but small world, one that is finely tuned for its purpose. There are hints to a broader world beyond the conflict in Ashina, but that's all they are: Hints. Yet, I also mean that it's "open-world" because you don't have to play through the game in any specific, set way. There are some required early-game areas, of course--as is the case with Ghost and most every game--where options are highly limited. However, once you reach a certain point, progress can be done in any way you wish. I got stuck on mini-bosses a number of times, so I would go elsewhere and shinobi-stab some fools for a while. It would help me level up, get me better at the game, and sometimes lead to other boss/mini-boss fights that I could challenge myself with. The freedom to choose how to explore the world is contracted compared to GoT, but it still gives the impression of being in control of when and where I fought. Graphically, I have to say that it was always a bit jarring to switch from GoT to S:SDT. The former was always rich with color, its HDR10 color palate expansive and crisp. By comparison, the latter always felt a bit dingy, with washed out colors and a grimy feeling. (This may be a PlayStation 4 issue: I've seen some breathtaking footage of Sekrio on YouTube, which I assume was captured with a high-end PC.) The game is still pretty--mostly in the way that video games are now, with the sharp details that look as good close up as they do at a distance--but not the gasp-inducing beauty that GoT pulled off. The gameplay: Of the two, I vastly prefer playing as Sekiro. That isn't to say that Jin wasn't fun; on the contrary, I had a great time playing as the Ghost of Tsushima--especially when I played the online mode with my brother. It was always satisfying to get a fifty-meter headshot with my longbow (Sekrio doesn't use any bows at all) and watch the enemy rag-doll to the ground. And the way that I could easily flow from one fighting style to another was a brilliant bit of design on Sucker Punch's part. Part of this is because FromSoftware's sense of how to use the controller is so good. It doesn't sound like there'd be a lot of variability in this--there are limited number of buttons, after all, so how could one game's use of the controller matter so much? Yet there is. In the case of Sekiro, the shoulder buttons being the attack buttons means that running and jumping can be done without having to reset my thumb to switch to an attack if necessary. This game moves quickly (not in terms of story…that's a different thing altogether), so the slightest advantage I can have, I want. By way of (yet another) comparison, I recently started playing Marvel's Avengers. I remapped the controls as much as I could to be like a FromSoftware game. I use my right fingers to attack, leaving my thumb open for dodging and jumping. But because the game isn't designed for that level of finesse, it doesn't have the same feeling. Like, at all. In fact, I'm planning on switching back to the defaults, because it simply isn't satisfying. It's sort of like trying to run an HDR10 game on a TV that only outputs 1080i: The higher quality stuff isn't really doing anything for the experience. Sekiro moves like a shadow, practically gliding over the earth, stealth-killing and slashing his way through Ashina. Because of the sound-design, animation sequences, and controller interaction are so well welded, kills feel substantial and satisfying. Flying out of the air to land on an unsuspecting monster's neck is a frequent thrill. And, with the ability to stealth-kill or deathblow an enemy being the same button as my basic attack, I almost never flubbed one. I can't say the same for Ghost of Tsushima. It was always clear when I played Sekiro before Ghost: In the latter game, the R1 button throws a kunai at the bad guys. I can't tell you how many times I thought I was about to chop my opponents down, only to find myself throwing some small knives at them, staggering them backwards. The muscle-memory took rewiring each time. More than any of these specific components, the reality is that nobody can touch FromSoftware when it comes to boss fights. (The closest would be Hideo Kojima during his prime years on Metal Gear Solid, and maybe a couple of times in Bayonetta and Devil May Cry.) The common refrain on FromSoftware games is that they're punishingly hard. That is true, but it isn't about being hard that makes the game worth playing; it's how satisfying it is when you finally make that last deathblow and defeat the enemy that has sent you back to the checkpoint countless times. There's a thrill not unlike going on a rollercoaster when you're squaring off against the Blazing Bull for the fifth or sixth time and you've finally got him on the ropes. Finally putting down a boss (or, as happened so much more often with me, a mini-boss) after so many attempts feels so good. It's honestly addicting, and part of the reason that, after beating Bloodborne a few months ago, I've been flirting with the idea of replaying it. (I have a couple of other games to knock out before I do that, however.) And while I was always satisfied when I defeated a difficult boss in Ghost of Tsushima, they didn't provide the same level of satisfaction as when I defeated someone who had given me grief for a solid hour in Sekiro. All that being said, both gameplay styles are good. Not just good, but really top notch. The designers brought their A-game (I honestly don't know what that phrase is supposed to mean) to the products, and it shows. I thoroughly enjoyed both offerings and had fun while I was there. The story: Despite my earlier, glib way of pointing out plot similarities, the two games are drastically different. And while both have "ghosts", the supernatural is pretty muted in Ghost of Tsushima, while it's crucial to the story of Sekiro. Ghost of Tsushima is a story about revenge and fury, about repelling invaders and unifying a fighting force to stop a great wrong from happening. Its scope is large, yet it remains tightly focused on Jin. He is an interesting character, one who struggles with what he has to do in order to save his island home, an exploration of what happens when one gives up morality for Machiavellian advantage. More than that, the story really resonates because of the aforementioned performances. By being able to see the characters' faces, their emotional responses to the different subjects they discuss, and even seeing the changes in the costumes to match the new moments in the story, I was pulled into Jin's journey much more fully. Video games are unique in their interactivity, but their ability to use cinematic language can't be overlooked. I felt a gentle give-and-pull of being in control of a character but willing to let him go when the story intervened. Sekiro, on the other hand, has very few cutscenes, and though there are lots of conversations, they feel like puppets delivering dialogue. There isn't any emotion in the body language, as the interlocutors remain stiff as they run through their lines. The camera remains free, allowing me to spin around and try to see Sekiro's face to try to gauge his emotional reaction. Unfortunately, this tends to distract me, making it hard for me to pay attention to what's being said, as well as failing in the point of drawing me more into their world. Sekiro takes all information in with the same stoic resolve as he would if someone pointed out that he has a nose. I know why game designers do this (they're trying to get the players to more fully invest themselves into the avatar, and don't want the character's personality to interfere with it), but I really wish they'd stop trying. It doesn't make sense. It didn't work for Solid Snake, it doesn't work for the Hunter in Bloodborne, and it won't work for Sekiro. Blank-canvas characters aren't interesting (I'm looking at you, Bella Swan), no matter the medium. Of course, one thing that video games can do in ways that no other medium can, is tell a non-linear story based on the amount that the audience wants to hear. Sekiro's story is told through small "remnants" of memories that you find as you explore, as well as item descriptions, notes found in the world, conversations over sake with other NPCs, details in the environment, and--occasionally--a cutscene. It's a fantastic way to tell a story, because a player gets as much as she puts into it. For me, this is the great strength of interactive storytelling: Giving the player choice and control, not over narrative trees, but over quantity and detail of the story. That's the other ingredient to FromSoftware's secret sauce, and it's used to perfection in this game. Except for one thing: Sekiro is an actual character, not solely an avatar. Neither of these games allows for character creation--all people who play Ghost will play as Jin; there is only one Sekiro in Sekiro--and that means that the story can be focused on the character qua character, rather than inciting incident for the events of the world. In other FromSoftware games, you can create what your avatar looks like--skin color, gender, height, and more--and pilot that avatar throughout the dark world. And it is that world wherein the story happens. Bloodborne, for example, is about a Hunter who seeks the paleblood. However, it isn't about the Hunter. That is, the player may interact with the world, but that character is in something much bigger than herself. The characters with names, motivations, and backstory are those who create the tapestry and world that the player explores. It's highly enjoyable, but it mostly works because it isn't about the way the player character changes through the course of the journey. Sekiro tries to blend the two, and I don't think it fully succeeds. It tells Sekiro's story competently enough, inasmuch as the plot points are clear (-ish) and give strong motivation for what your objectives are. However, there isn't a lot of emotional grounding. When it comes time to decide whom to betray, there isn't any sort of background to rely on for an emotional feeling. I could pick one of four options in how I got to the end of the story (and then watch the others on YouTube) without having any sort of character-based reason for choosing the way I thought Sekiro might. Since he's such a stoic character, I wasn't able to "read" him in any significant way. This is, perhaps, the biggest flaw of this game. Ghost is replete with emotional moments. There's genuine pathos when a friend dies horribly, and I really wanted to help Yuna whenever her missions popped up, as I viewed her as a great ally. Jin grows and learns as a person through the course of the story, and with the superior cinematography and editing of the frequent cutscenes, I felt much more connected to him. Sitting and composing haikus in the forest, giving time over to watch his naked self contemplate important thoughts while in a hot spring, listening to him discuss ideas and stratagems with his friends--these are the components of a strong connection with a character. There's an emotional vulnerability to Jin that Sekiro simply doesn't have. There's nothing wrong with a stoic, resolute character--but they certainly aren't one that I would want to watch a movie about. I like Sekiro because I can play as Sekiro; I like Jin because I feel for him and see parts of myself in his struggles. Final Thoughts It shouldn't surprise you to know that I don't recommend one game over another. They're both incredible, and they both do their jobs with stunning aplomb. Neither is perfect, and I think both should be played by anyone interested. Perhaps the supernatural dive into Japanese mythology (complete with an eventual slaying of a dragon by the end) is more interesting to you: In which case, Sekiro is the better choice. But maybe historical fiction with a bit of ancestor-help-as-gameplay-mechanic intrigues you more: Take Ghost of Tsushima, then. Either way, you'll have an enjoyable experience. Despite how many times I died because I hit the wrong button thanks to the control scheme of the other game, I'm really glad that I played them this way. Where one lacks, the other shines, and vice versa--though I must emphasize again they are both superb games--and I think anyone interested in spending some more time in the Land of the Rising Sun could do worse than playing one of them. Or why not both? Comments are closed.
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