#Ghost of Tsushima Knockoff

[lmaverick123]

Lucien's Mish-Mash of Random Thoughts, #17

For whatever reason, I decided to watch the ending to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King today.  I got to thinking about the scene where the hobbits come home, and they realize that too much had changed for them, and they were different people now.  It’s kind of a shame that the films didn’t include all the things in the books.  Like how Merry and Pippin would leave the Shire again for new…

[weatherman667]

Darksiders 2:  Deathinitive Edition (PS4)

Darksiders is one of my favourite game series of all time.

That is, Darksiders and Darksiders II.  The other games were made by another company, and are at best cheap knockoffs.

Darksiders I took the best elements of Devil May Cry and the Legend of Zelda, along with great elements from other games.

Darksiders II was not quite as good, but was a very different game and so still a job to play.

In Darksiders, you play as the Horseman War.  He fights in a rather straightforward way.  He was accused of starting the Endwar, a betrayal of everything he believes it.  He cuts a bloody swathe through demon hoasts trying to prove his innocents.

In Darksiders II you play as the Horseman Death.  He is wracked by guilt over being a Kinslayer, (to save Eden).  He knows he cannot prove War’s innocents, not because he’s not innocent, but because it’s an obvious setup.  So, his solution, instead is to undo War’s sin, and bring back the Kingdom of Man.  He travels across many of the realms in the crumbling cosmos as he faces the consequences of his own decisions.  Death’s is far more agile, and has to move in and out of combat.

The real downside is that they decided to go modern, and by modern I mean copy WoW.  They also added the modern non-menu menus.

When I say copy WoW, I mean have enemies randomly drop random items, colour-coded by rarity, (literally using WoW’s colouring).  This kind of works for the secondary weapons, but not for Death’s scythe(s).  Death carries a pair of scythes that both collapse, and combine together into a much bigger scythe.  This only seems to make sense if his weapon is as rare as War’s.  So, it’s rather disconcerting when you find a new pair of scythes every few minutes.

The real problem, gameplay wise, is that on the PS3 wasn’t powerful enough to manage this with the non-menu menu system.  You would often end up waiting every time you change a page.  The PS4, however, is powerful enough to dramatically reduce these wait times, making the game a LOT more playable.

The rest of the update is exactly what they did to Darksiders I:  Warmastered Edition, they increased the fidelity of the graphics without increasing the polycount.  This can look a little off, but the graphics are better than in the original.

They didn’t fix any of the minor problems from the original, but fucked up Dust. Dust is a crow who’s been following you around for Aeons.  In the original Darksiders II you can call Dust at any time, and he would fly in the direction you needed to travel.  Think the Winds in Ghost of Tsushima, but years ahead of it.  This isn’t necessary to the game in any way, but it did provide a really nice way to indicate where you should be going, without being patronizing or obtuse about it.

As for the weapon system, there is something good about.  They have Possessed equipment.  These can be fed other items, and leveled up.  Each level, you pick one of the available option, and each time it levels up, the statistics it already has all increase a well.  This is an actually fantastic item system, and almost justifies the annoying item system, but then again, they could have just had the weapons level up like they do in Darksiders, and have the level up come with the trait choice.  The game also adds truly legendary weapons that have storied histories, but are rendered nearly useless in 30 minutes, as you pick up a better weapon.

[ilikedetectives]

fem Eivor

[secret-engima]

*shoving down the urge to scream that Valhalla isn't a real AC game* Well, I would like to see your take on Eagle Vision, mostly before the open world games of AC, since it is an interesting power. Think of it as, being able to see the aura of intentions of people towards you. Red for Hostiles, Green for Allies, Blue for Neutrals, Gold for Important (also applies to objects), and Famon's other colors. A good AC fanfic writer that uses Eagle Vision creatively is Esama if you're interested.

*gently pats your head because I know, but it’s still relatively fun for us heathens who didn’t grow up with the OG games* . I’ve played enough games that have some knockoff form of Eagle Vision to get what you’re saying yeah, HZD has the Focus and Ghost of Tsushima has this thing where you “listen really hard” but really it’s just Eagle Vision without the copyright stamp.

Eagle Vision as a Semblance would be extremely interesting, because items don’t have an Aura, so really a Semblance using this would be granting “vision of points of interest” rather than specifically reading Aura. Though obviously reading Aura is part of it, which is how the vision would differentiate friend from foe and honestly I kinda wish I’d thought of this before making Mercury’s Semblance in Team Gremlin Airstep because this would also be really cool.

[ilikedetectives]

Are going to complain about every insignificant thing that inconveniences you regarding the AC Valhalla leaks?

Calm down I haven't even used games released in 2020 to benchmark this Skyrim knockoff yet. Are games from 2017 & 2018 too unfair lol? I suppose you're the reason they crank out a AAA AC game every year instead of giving the devs more time. Excuse me while I unbox the Collector's Edition of the greatest AC game next week, Ghost of Tsushima.

[ilikedetectives]

Why is Ghosts of Tsushima more of an Assassin's Creed game than Assassin's Creed right now LMAO. I've been begging for an AC set in feudal japan (which you'd think would've been a no-brainer, what with all the Shinobi) since 2013, and Sucker Punch really just went "Fine, we'll do it ourselves."

Ubi basically said Feudal Japan is too “boring” (sources: x, x). They also started the #womenaretoohardtoanimate in that same year, lmao. The level design alone should be perfect for an AC game because you can parkour perfectly between buildings. They hype about bringing parkour back and look at the demo, such a pity (I dgaf about parkour personally). 

Honestly I’m glad that they don’t touch Asia in general for their main game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m Asian and I’d die to play a historical, open-world RPG game set in Asia (Japan, China, Korea, Cambodia...) but seeing how Ubi functions as a game developer, I now hope they don’t ever touch Asia. I don’t want my ancestors to be rolling in their graves as Ubi puts that shitty ass yellow tint on all of their AC games. Look at England and Norway, they put that yellow tint from Ancient Egypt in, again, like ew. Not all countries have Egypt’s desert yellow ok? But Ubi’s gonna reskin this Skyrim knockoff again to make a game set in Asia now that they see how successful Ghost of Tsushima is (see how hard they try to be TW3?).

Now that I see how an ethical studio like Sucker Punch Production makes their game, I have no need for Ubi (reading up on how they treat their devs and fans make me wanna puke). 

[ilikedetectives]

I was gonna go fem Eivor, but after that leak and the voice acting I might just go with the male Eivor, plus guy from the Last Kingdom voices him and customizable beard. Ubisoft obviously doesn't care about her since it took this long to just see her and and end up disappointed anyway. Also the whole Ashraf incident.

What can a Creative Director come up for a female protagonist when he’s too busy using his dead son and influential position in the AC fandom as a manipulation tool to sleep/date with more than ten other women, while being married with two kids? As soon as these stories come to light, I lost the hope that I don’t even have the begin with, lol.

I have no desire to play as the dude. 2020 is already packed with great games like Ghost of Tsushima (which is more AC than all the recent AC games combined), CP2077, and HZD is coming to PC. Playing a GOW/Skyrim knockoff is on the very low of my list. I already pre-ordered the other 3 games mentioned. I care more about unboxing that Collector’s Edition so I can have the Sakai’s mask on my desk.

[ilikedetectives]

I mean you can't really compare an open world game that's literally all of east England, Norway and the North Sea to the a linear story driven game like the TLOU2. Of course it's going to look better. Valhalla is also held back because it's cross gen platform and not fully next gen. They have 4-5 more months for polish which is why they had people play the demo for feedback. Darby on Twitter noting feedback like adding weight to the combat like adding hit freezes from Origins.

Is HZD not open world? Anon I was talking about character models only. If you want to talk about LOD pop-ins and draw distance, then I think Ghost of Tsushima is a perfect game to benchmark with this Skyrim knockoff (I can do both world building and character models actually since both are similar but the former has more assassins lol). The reason Odyssey limits your horse limit when you go into town is so that the goddamn LOD can load in time, not because they’re worry you run the civilians over. Should I bring in CP2077 to the ring so it’s more fair? Both CP2077 and GoT are also cross-gen AND open world, how’s that for a fairer comparison? LMAO

Even if I take mo-cap character models from cinematic cutscenes in an AC game, it still looks not as good as a standard cutscene in other PS exclusives mo-cap cutscene. Open world game isn’t an excuse to do a shit job on character models, while your competitions are doing way better for the same price. If it’s too much work to do an open world game in 3 yrs, then Ubi needs to rethink how they make their games. They want to replicate TW3 success but only put in AC Unity effort. And apparently this game supposed to run on AnvilNext3.0 (Unity, Syndicate, Origins, and Odyssey run on 2.0)? I’m wheezing.

Again, Ubi needs to learn to give their devs more time, but with people like you who keep excusing them, no wonder Ubi crunch their devs to crank out a AAA AC game annually (the DLCs are just as big as the full game) like it’s freaking pop-tarts.

[ilikedetectives]

60$ for 120p cats 😂 I think I'm gonna wait until I see some reviews and after I buy my cp2077 copy to buy the game since I can't resist a woman lead but your petty comments give me life

With CP2077 coming out only 2 days after, I think I’d make the most of my time with it (I can only play one game at a time). I may touch this Skyrim knockoff when I finish HZD (again but on PC on Ultra settings this time), Ghost of Tsushima, and CP2077. I already spent more than $300 for these 3 games alone so I’m gonna be conscious with my wallet. I love cats, but not paying-$60-to-pet-720p-cat love. 

Glad to hear you enjoy my personal ramblings.

[ilikedetectives]

I read you post about Kassandra the impossible woman and I loved it you explained things very well. I really hate that a game franchise that I used to love has turned into just a series of reskins of previous titles and wasted potential, they only change the setting but they recicle animations, motifs and mechanics plus they're kind of late to the viking party after God of War and Hellblade

Thank you for reading :) 

The issue with AC as a franchise after Ezio is that Ubi turns it into a cash cow. They should give their devs more time, but they don’t. I mean, why would they? Their loyal fans gladly hand their money over for a mediocre game anyway. 

We are at the 12th AAA game now (Skyrim knockoff/TW3 wannabe is included) and the story goes no where. The graphics and gameplay are not even at the industry’s standards anymore (look at all the games released and will be released this year like Ghost of Tsushima and CP2077). The way they make these AC games is first choose the historical period that is easy for them to reskin; once that’s decided, the story is then written to justify these changes. A lot of studios that make good games (like Hellblade, GOW, TLOU, and HZD) do the opposite: they prioritize the narrative and everything else comes after (combat, settings, graphics, etc.). These studios understand the importance of these gameplay components to make the narrative work. What Ubi is doing instead is forcing a workflow that works better for online FPS games in their offline, single-player, narrative-driven games. And the result shows.

The irony about this upcoming Skyrim knockoff/TW3 wannabe is that their official combat demo doesn’t even show any assassination asdasd. What happened to bringing the cult, oops, I mean, the creed back (not that I give a flying fuck about the ‘good guys’ with the ‘everything is permitted’ mantra)? AC Odyssey makes sense with the lack of “ASSassin” because the game is set BEFORE the cult, omg sorry auto-correct is particularly bad today, brotherhood. But Vikings as assassins... (to be fair, I can’t be the judge in terms of culture because I don’t have any Scandinavian blood in me). I can only comment on the hypocrisy of their loyal fans who would suck up all the fictional fantasy that Vikings are stealthy assassins without any historical evidence, but the moment someone mentions “female Viking warriors”, they go apeshit and every single one of them suddenly has a Ph.D. in Scandinavian History and Culture.

I’m going to close this with this Youtube comment on the PC gameplay demo of this Skyrim knockoff/TW3 wannabe.