Final Fantasy XVI producer and Final Fantasy XIV Online saviour Naoki Yoshida recently gushed about Ghost of Tsushima in an interview with Japanese publication 4Gamer (as translated by Audrey on Twitter).
When asked about what he thought was the most impressive game of 2020, Yoshida heaped praise on the PlayStation 4 exclusive. "It's overflowing with love for Akira Kurosawa's work," he said. "I learned a lot from this game. It impressed me on so many levels!"
This isn't the first time that a prominent figure in the Japanese games industry has raved about Sucker Punch's samurai epic. Following the open world title's launch last year, father of the Yakuza franchise Toshihiro Nagoshi also expressed his admiration for Ghost of Tsushima.
Given that Final Fantasy XVI is still in development, it'll be interesting to see whether the finished release takes any inspiration from Sony's open worlder. Oh, and if you're looking forward to hearing more about Final Fantasy XVI itself, don't worry. In the same interview, Yoshida reiterates that new information is heading our way this year.
[source twitter.com, via 4gamer.net]
Comments 35
Interesting that he didn’t say Final Fantasy VII Remake 😂😂
Naoki Yoshida is man of good taste, couldn't agree more
I agree. Too bad it wasn't the game of the year at the game awards.
Impressive in all aspects and vital catalyst i.e. highly consumer friendly....... Coz of legendz.....
Unlike third party publishers who release unfinished and buggy games
Ghost Of Tsushima is a monumental artistic achievement for me, one that I think will gain more widespread appreciation as time goes on. The fact that it has been so well received by Japanese people shows the level of respect and consideration Sucker Punch approached this with. There are some very, very smart people at Sucker Punch and I can’t wait to see how they expand this formula.
Sony had a great 2020!
@ShogunRok Do we have updated sales figures for Ghost of Tsushima? I know it hit 5 mil worldwide a couple months ago, but I’m curious how well it’s doing and how well it sold in Japan.
Agree but sony fanboys wouldn’t let a game from third party studio win goty.
@Cheems .........GoT is first party.
@Th3solution Nah, no updates since the previous figures, but we might hear something over the next few months, especially if it hits a new milestone.
And he's right, it's the most impressive games of 2020 recognized by the fans and other games creators
@Cheems Damn if you insult people please check your facts mate. 🤪
He's not wrong
I understand that some people loved The Last of Us: Part II. But it is not my cup of tea. For me, Ghost of Tsushima was most definitely the best game of 2020. It is also a game with huge potential for a expanded universe. See Ghost of Tsushima: Legends for example. On top of that it re-introduced feudal Japan as a theme worthy for development of commercial successful triple-A games. It is one of the games with the biggest potential for a amazing PS5 sequel, a brand new franchise made from scratch. It could be like the Iron Man movie from Marvel. I really hope they don´t abandon Jin Sakai as a character for the sequel, I believe that would be a great mistake from Sucker Punch.
@Cheems Oh buddy......
@nessisonett Yeah I was thinking that, maybe there's some real hardcore rivalry going on within SE.
A must play for sure.
Open world fans have had a fantastic year in 2020. Especially if you own a PS4
I'm playing the last of us part 2 right now, and waiting for ghosts of tsushima be selling for 20- 25 dollars
👻 of tshushima is the best game of 2020.word up son
Ok I have a question that's troubling me. In 2018, everybody was praising God of War for a story that was, really, non existent (character interaction, yes, story, no)... Last year, it was Death Stranding for a story that was nonsensical or convoluted.
But this year, all I'm hearing about Ghost of Tsushima is that the story is "meh"... but it's great!
I mean yes, it borrows heavily from other historical epics, but who says it's a bad thing. It's grandiose, it's heartwarming, it has its dark and light moments, every side character feels developed and you care for them... what more are people expecting from a game story? And why do they think these two other games offer a better story than GoT? I'm genuinely baffled. After watching and reading reviews, I was really expecting a subpar story, but I had a blast and was incredibly hooked from start to finish...
Easy choice for me too. P5R would be #1, but I feel like I've played it before... oh yeah, P5 on PS3
Hi there fellow gamers.
Clearly, Naoki Yoshida and Toshihiro Nagoshi have really good taste.
They also were pretty blown away because it was a non japanese studio that made one of the most faithful and beautiful ancient traditional japanese games out there.
Even Nagoshi-san said it.
And the main reason is simple really. Japanese creations, games, manga, anime they all have one thing in common:
They all have "atractive men and women" has characters.
Not just lead characters. All characters.
It´s a thing.
That is why nagoshi-san said they(Sucker Punch) beat them to it. Because they couldn´t make a game with "normal looking" characters.
Oh well..... I´m really looking forward to Final Fantasy XVI and the next game from the Ryu Ga Gotoku team.
Cheers, stay safe and happy gaming to us all
@Olmaz I am also genuinely baffled by the general consensus that the story is “meh”. It is a true epic and successfully covers a large swathe of themes in an impactful way.
I can only think that, on the surface, the story comes across as generic and cliche, but cliche can be used in a deliberate and meaningful way to easily communicate deeper themes to the audience, which is what I believe Sucker Punch has done here.
Dig a little deeper, and a very nuanced, richly layered narrative with incredibly well realized characters is exposed.
Every character in this game undergoes a believable emotional transformation, a bonafide journey of self. I was invested enough that by the time I reached the big choice at the end, I sat on the screen for a good 5 minutes, unable to decide how to proceed. I haven’t felt that kind of emotional weight in a game in a long time.
Anyways, I’ve been babbling about this amazing game for far too long. Have a good one!!
@Mr_Persona right? it blows my mind how many people bitched about the game and yet it still got GOTY. Don't get me wrong I quite enjoyed the game and thought it was good but IMO GoT was better.
Totally right! and it even is a brand NEW IP to boot. Kudos SP.
Ghost was game of the year...sucker punch won the award..rigged awards people..easily won top spot by a lot..rigged i tell ye..conspiracy....we should march on push square towers..
Ghost of Tsushima definitely should have won, but I can see why The Last of Us Part II did legitimately.
Sigh.
Playing Ghost of Tsushima at present and really enjoying it. I do play a lot of open world games and for me (so far anyway) it's a level below the real greats like RDR2 & The Witcher 3 but comparable with a Horizon Zero Dawn or Death Stranding.
I am 'only' 27 hours in so maybe this opinion will change but that's how I see it.
It's not perfect though and some people on here are in danger of making it sound even better than it is. It's a very good game, well made, very few bugs, really quick loading times, pretty graphics, good action and a decent story. It is lacking in some areas but overall it's strengths far outweigh it's weaknesses.
Also on the lead, I don't think Jin is 'ugly' rather he isn't a stereotypical pretty boy that is usually the hero of a Japanese game. More of a man's man although definitely in good shape as we see when he visits a hot spring!
@SlySnake0407 Maybe open world games just aren't your thing. That's fine.
Soulsborne, driving games and FP shooters all do nowt for me. Maybe one day I'll play a game that sways my opinion but for now I'll stick with what I like.
I think Ghost is a very good game but to some the lack of defined direction and immediacy may be off-putting. It's up to you where you go and what you choose to do. Some gamers enjoy this freedom, others don't. If you're in the latter camp then just stick to what you like.
@Col_McCafferty I also hold RDR2 in extremely high regard and in my opinion, GOT easily stands toe to toe with it. It’s a much more romanticized vision of history than RDR2 but then, a historically accurate simulation was not it’s aim.
RDR2 and The Witcher 3 are undeniably incredible artistic achievements and if we’re comparing open world bells and whistles, historical scale and the immersive, living and breathing world aspects, GOT really can’t hold a candle to these experiences. However, I appreciated GOT’s laser focus and extremely tight gameplay systems and, taken as a whole, found it equally as impactful as the greats.
I’m curious to see how you feel about it once you’ve completed it as it’s been in the weeks and months since completion that I realized just how much I feel it accomplished. Glad you’re enjoying it. Cheers!
@Olmaz I know right? GoT story is really good for an open world game. It has a simple but well-thought 3 acts classic narrative structure.
Just like a haiku, it takes great skills to be able to be concise narratively while being powerfully immersive and evocative.
My hypothesis is that most current "professionnal" critics do not like narrative simplicity because they think it means bad writing. They prefer things with convoluted narrative that "subvert expectations".
@Jimmer-jammer To add to your thoughts. The whole "trope" thing is getting ridiculous. A cliché exists because it's something that worked well previously. It's just a narrative tool. The problem is not in using them but to rely only on and overusing them.
I mean, with that postmodern ***** attitude, every story ever are some Gilgamesh and/or Beowulf ripoffs.
@Turbodream thank you! You’ve hit the nail on the head (hehe) of the point I was trying to make, better than I did. Cliche is a narrative tool, one that Sucker Punch uses very wisely in GOT.
Coming off of the heels of The Last of Us Part II, it was frankly refreshing for me to be immediately presented with a villain. An unarguable, bona fide baddie. Cliche creates an instantly recognizable framework to then explore deeper themes, which GOT does brilliantly.
I remember reading articles when it came out about how it’s questionable depiction of the samurai and the shogun were offensively supportive of nationalistic ideologies yada yada...it’s like they completely missed the nuances of Jin’s journey.
His entire plight could arguably be boiled down to: is the shogunate and their blind adherence to tradition and power actually in the best interest for the people of Tsushima or is the island in need of a radical ideology to liberate them? Not from the mongols, but from themselves?
This story has so much depth that I think went over a lot of the press’s heads and it’s a shame. I am glad to see it has resonated with some. Have a good one!
@Jimmer-jammer @Turbodream I would add that when evaluating the narrative of a game, we should also add the impact it has on the gameplay itself.
In GoT, I went full samurai. Every time I had to use stealth or "dishonorable" tactics, I felt genuinely bad. The flashbacks when you first use these stealth skills, or the end of act 2, made it extremely visceral for me that I was chosing a path of no return, that I was sacrificing my old life to save this island.
This feeling was there in Death Stranding too, but not thanks to the story, but thanks to the world itself, and how I interacted with it. With GoW, nowhere did I feel in control of what the character was doing. I was following the adventures of Daddy Kratos and His Obnoxious Son. And while I enjoy these very linear games, I think we should hold game narrative to a higher standard than those we use to evaluate movies. The gameplay element is part of the narrative, or at least should be for the games what we consider to be the "best of the year".
And as a note, RDR2 is peak narrative/gameplay osmosis. But I may be biased : to me, RDR2 is not only the game of the generation, it is in a league of its own. And I speak as someone who wasn't that much into the first one, and who has never managed to finish any GTA game...
@Olmaz “The gameplay element is part of the narrative“ This is so important and where GOT excels so well for me and ultimately rises above something like The Last of Us Part II. GOT presents a simple narrative framework, injects deep, relatable themes then allows the player agency to explore these themes through gameplay activities that carry real emotion weight.
It’s one thing to beat your audience over the head with your points, it’s another to allow your audience to discover and explore these points organically through interactivity, and allow how you feel about your actions to determine your own thoughts and conclusions, not the developers.
Your experience with choosing between the ‘ghost’ way or the ‘honourable’ way is spot on and permeates every facet of the design of this game. You’re meant to feel torn in everything you do.
Should I rest in a hot spring and feel some form of normalcy or should I be out restlessly fighting for my people? Should I go behind the back of my uncle (father) and rally my allies at all costs for the greater good of the island or be a slave to honour and watch my friends suffer from the sidelines? Should I be a man of principle, or a man of survival? Which way is the ‘right’ way?
It all culminates in a choice at the end of the game that blew my mind. The decision wasn’t difficult because I was concerned about what would happen narratively, but because I was concerned about principle. I was invested enough from everything that came before, that I truly felt Jin’s internal struggle. I couldn’t decide who’s ideology to indulge. There was no ‘right’ answer, only principles and consequences. A true coming of age moment. A truly monumental artistic achievement, for me. Cheers!
Tap here to load 35 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...