We all love beautiful things, places, environments, arts, movies, and even plated food. Beauty has the tendency to draw our attention, which in turn, takes our curiosity and forces us to dive more into that particular item, person, or whatever, and learn or acquire all it has to offer. Sometimes, beauty is just a look we admire, cherish, and welcome. It can be a photograph, an amiibo, graphic novel, or art pieces with junk that has paint on it to represent politics. The visual appeal of something will always vary to that individual; and last year, Sucker Punch delivered Ghost Of Tsushima—a beautiful work for PlayStation 4 owners. This year, they re-released the game with additional content and labeled it the Definitive Edition for PS4 and PS5. The question is, Was it successful because of the visual nature of the game? What made Ghost Of Tsushima a success?
If you look at Japanese films of old and some today, color plays a big part. With the lighting, set design, and time period taken into account, the eastern feel of Ghost Of Tsushima was well thought out and executed with great attention to detail. The color of the leaves in a certain forest. The red flowers covering a long range of area as you walk, ride your horse, or even climb, are just a few examples of the luscious art you’ll see.
Even with the Kurosawa mode added for effect, the monochromatic style made the game feel like old samurai films this game was inspired by. You get that sense of feeling of a lone samurai in this open world adventure. When you watch the cut scenes, Ghost Of Tsushima feels differently because you notice that the beauty is still there. It’s such a great effect, Sucker Punch added.
What about everything else? That’s questionable. Anytime this game comes up, its always mentioned how beautiful the game is. The characters, stories, music, and other parts are debatable and aren’t memorable; they don’t leave an impression like the art and colors this game produces. Not even the fighting is discussed. If you look at a lot of photos that gamers posted from the game, it’s always the world and placement of the main character, Jin Sakai, along with his trusted horse, and his armor or outfit he’s wearing. It’s that effort that developers put in the photo mode that makes the endless possibilities.
I love Ghost Of Tsushima, and I think the beauty of the game carried it to selling very well. As discussed in this piece, the game’s visuals wowed, but nothing else outside of that. Hopefully, for the next game, if there is a sequel, Sucker Punch adds more to the game to make it stand out than just some golden leaves in the wind of a wide shot of trees in the Fall.
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Images: Ghost Of Tsushima
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