#kicking them mongols out of tsushima

[tobiasdrake]

Ghost of Tsushima

Ludonarrative dissonance is when a game's story tells you that you need to employ stealth and dishonor yourself as a Samurai because the enemy Mongols have thoroughly studied the Samurai ways and are prepared to counter everything the Samurai do. But then, in gameplay, marching right up to the enemies, declaring yourself a Samurai warrior, and challenging them to honorable combat is an extremely effective way to play the game.

The game literally starts by having a Samurai approach the Mongols, challenge their greatest warrior to a duel, and then be horribly murdered because the Mongols don't play by the same rules. In gameplay, this is called a Standoff; it's a very effective way to kick off a battle, bringing the enemies into close range and instant-killing 1-3 of them right off the bat - sometimes even the Mongol Leader.

With a well-developed combat system featuring four different weapon styles for combatting different types of enemies that can be easily switched between and an engaging pace to combat that's learnable while still challenging, I almost never even both with any of the game's stealth mechanics. And that's a problem in a game where the story was written with the assumption that your character is dishonoring himself as a Samurai by employing stealthy tactics.

It feels like the story is telling me that I'm not playing the game the way it's meant to be played. But if that's the case, then why is there so much content to flesh out the mechanics of the way it isn't meant to be played, and why is it so effective. Why can I do exactly the thing that the opening cinematic told me not to do, except it always works out great and is brilliantly successful whenever I do it?

If Ghost of Tsushima wants me to believe that the way of the Samurai is ineffectual against the Mongols, then it shouldn't have made facing the Mongols as an honorable Samurai into something that a) works great and b) is an awful lot more fun than the alternative.

#Ghost of Tsushima #ludonarrative dissonance

[metalgearkong]

Ghost of Tsushima - Review (PS4)

9/21/20

Developed by Sucker Punch Productions, released July 2020

Let’s not beat around the bush: Ghost of Tsushima may be my favorite game of this console generation, and one of my favorite games of all time. This is a massive samurai tale crammed with unforgettable moments, characters, and environments. After finishing this game, I felt like I had been through no less than the peak samurai experience in any entertainment medium. Never before have I stood up and given a standing ovation for a video game upon the credits rolling. While feeling complete and filled to the brim, there are small technical aspects that do have room for improvement in the potential sequel. Sucker Punch came out of nowhere and knocked the world on its ass with a fantastic stylized epic feudal Japanese journey, one I can never forget. 

Ghost of Tushima is open-world, easily comparable to The Witcher 3 or a modern Ubisoft title. What Ghost of Tsushima brings to the table is its incredibly realized medieval Japanese world, to the same extent Red Dead Redemption brought the mythic American Wild West to life. Authenticity can be found in every corner, and I set the game for Japanese voices and English subtitles to extend the immersion (something I can’t recommend enough). The Mongols have invaded Japan, and their first stop is Tsushima island. The samurai here are all that stops the massive army from reaching the mainland. The details themselves might not be perfectly accurate to 1274 Japan, but the world itself is consistent, which is what’s most important. 

The game begins with a huge battle, as we take control of our main character Jin Sakai (Daisuke Tsuji / Kazuya Tsuji) right away. An orphan raised to be a samurai by his uncle Lord Shimura (Eric Steinberg / Akio Otsuka), Jin holds guilt and shame for not being able to save his father in battle when he was young, and strives to be the best warrior possible. The explosive intro gives us a quick intro to the open combat, and leads in to a fairly typical tutorial, adding in brief lessons on stealth, and using evasive tactics & tools. I remember how panful the combat first felt, as each strike looked like something akin to a samurai film. The main villain and leader of the Mongols Khotun Khan (Patrick Gallagher / Tsutomu Isobe) establishes himself as a despicable person, and someone totally opposite to the samurai honor-bound code of combat. He wants to conquer Tushima by any means necessary, and Jin is the only one willing to adapt his fighting style to combat this new  dishonorable and overwhelming threat.

Jin Sakai is closer to a Geralt, rather than a blank slate avatar character of a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game; He has a specific personality, background, and motivation. Part of the overarching story is Jin learning to rely on tactics he would normally frown upon in order to stand a change against the Mongol forces. This is something his uncle highly detests and forbids Jin to do, leading to a secondary conflict in the story. This is useful for also explaining in the gameplay why the player can either face enemies out in the open, or scurry around and stabbing them in the neck. Of course, most players will do a bit of both, and whatever suits the situation of how you’re feeling in the moment. The best part is, it’s not an binary dilemma, as open combat and stealth can be used completely intermixed at any time.

Personally, one of my favorite parts about the game was unlocking and finding new apparel and color schemes for my outfits. This game (eventually) allows you to dress anywhere from humble peasant, to shinobi of the night, to fully armored samurai warrior. My only nit pick is I wish the game gave you more cosmetic options to buy or find earlier in the game, as I felt limited to just a few outfits and accessories at first. There’s nothing more awesome than manually sheathing your sword after slicing up a dozen grunts, all the while your cape and robes aggressively blowing in the wind. The game allows you to manually bow and play a flute as well, adding the immersion of every moment of the game. You travel the huge island via horseback, and can summon your horse at any instance with the push of the button. I also love how quickly you pick up items, by merely pushing R2. No needless animations or time spend slowing the momentum for the sake or grit or realism.

One of the most unique aspects of the game is using the wind as your guide. If you really wanted to, you’d never have to open your map to know how to get to your current quest. Simply swipe up on the touch pad, and the wind blows in the direction you need to go (the game doesn’t even feature an in-game minimap or radar). This kicks up leaves, twigs, sand, and other particles which add greatly to the visual appeal of the game, and help make you feel closer to the environment itself. Adding to this is how foxes and birds can lead you to hidden secrets, upgrades, or new gear. With so few HUD elements, focus on paying attention to the environment, and the gorgeous lighting and scenery, Ghost of Tsushima gave me to many moments where I felt spiritually uplifted in its world. Despite not having the budget of a super high end Naughty Dog or Rockstar game, Ghost of Tsushima remains one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, and much of that leans on the art style and environmental effects alone.

Missions are equally entertaining whether they come from a main character or minor character you happen upon. Most quests may involve (but aren’t limited to) tracking, fighting, sneaking, climbing, riding, and spying. I especially enjoyed quests with specific limitations, such as having to remain undetected and not to kill any guards. Eventually, however, due to the game’s long length, some of the missions do start to show their repetitiveness, and I don’t think it would have been horrible if the overall run time was 10-15% shorter. I also enjoyed the fact that so much effort was put into side activities that feel serene and peaceful, akin to the Buhddist and Shinto side of being a samurai. Composing haikus and bathing in hot springs to increase your total health felt very much in the spirit of a Bushido lifestyle; always a calm in between the storms of violence. The fact that not all side content is action oriented was a very neat and authentic detail.

Samurai duels were some of my favorite parts of the game. Occasionally Jin would come across an opponent or rival with legitimate swordsmanship skills, and has to face them in an arena. These locations where the duels would take place never failed to be more epic than the next. Duels act like boss fights in the game, and incorporate similar combat to the regular open world combat--only Jin can’t use secondary items such as kunai, his bow, or smoke bombs. These moments were ripe for the photo mode, something I used throughout this game constantly, as its packed with incredible environmental design and lighting effects to make almost every moment and location feel like a living painting. Samurai duels were usually never very difficult, including the ending boss fights, but they always looked awesome and felt damned satisfying.

The game does suffer from some minor technical glitches, but these small drawbacks mean next to nothing compared to how impressively the rest of the game was designed and executed. Frequently I would approach an enemy group and want to initiate a stand off (the samurai version of a high noon cowboy duel) but the game either didn’t give me the option or the option blinked on screen for only a moment and I was unable to do it. Something similar would happen for stealth kills, as sometimes instead of doing the assassination animation when prompted, Jin just did a regular slash attack instead, blowing my cover. Situations like this didn’t happen often, but were consistent enough to notice. I give Sucker Punch a huge pass on these small technical details, as they never ruined my experience of the game, remaining small frustrations on occasion.

Ghost of Tsushima is a greatest hits of iconic feudal Japanese visuals, sounds, tropes, settings, and themes. Countless details build upon this heightened version of Japanese history, making this game an all in one interactive Kurosawa film. Everything from the sword duel boss fights, to the multiple fighting stances, to the stealth, to the nature surrounding you, everything has been executed with extreme skill and thoughtfulness. It can have its small moments showing a lack of polish either in the visuals or mechanics, but Sucker Punch more than accomplished what they set out to do. Ghost of Tsushima is the best PlayStation 4 exclusive, and by far one of my favorite games of all time. If you have any interest in the open world genre, and love the Japanese culture and art style, Ghost of Tsushima likely won’t let you down. An amazing adventure wreathed in katanas, honor, blood, wind, and cute foxes. 

9.5/10

#ghost of tsushima #ghostoftsushima #jin sakai #PS4 #exclusive #sony #Playstation #Playstation 4 #playstation4 #review #playstation exclusive #open world #feudal japan #samurai #ninja #shinobi #honor #betrayal

[aion-rsa]

Ghost of Tsushima Review: A Beautiful Homage to Akira Kurosawa

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Ghost of Tsushima is a daring departure for Sucker Punch, who since 2009 has worked solely on the Playstation-exclusive Infamous series. While those games were steeped in modernity, offering sprawling cityscapes players could explore from top to bottom via superpowered “conduits” Cole MacGrath and Delsin Rowe, Ghost of Tsushima’s open world is set in feudal Japan. It’s here that we meet young samurai Jin Sakai, who must defend his homeland, the titular island of Tsushima, from an invading Mongol army.

Right off the bat, the shift in time period and milieu to 13th century Japan is notable because Sucker Punch handles it so brilliantly, especially for the team’s first foray into the samurai genre. Japanese history and culture are woven into every single facet of the game so elegantly and organically that you’d think the team had been developing games set in feudal Japan for the past decade, not sci-fi superhero romps. More than anything, Ghost of Tsushima is a moving homage to Japan, its history, and its people.

The story opens with a massacre. A massive Mongol army, led by the cunning Khotun Khan, storms the beaches of Tsushima and is met by the island’s woefully outnumbered samurai contingent. When the leader of the samurai challenges Khotun to a one-on-one, fair fight, the Khan renounces the honorable gesture in gruesome fashion, literally setting the courageous samurai on fire in front of both armies. The rest of the samurai are obliterated on the beach, while Jin’s uncle, Lord Shimura, is taken prisoner by the Khan. Jin is also fatally wounded but is miraculously nursed back to health by a new ally, a thief named Yuna who needs his help in return.

These opening moments set the tone for the rest of the game. The philosophical conflict between honor and deception is the beating heart of the story and permeates the gameplay in riveting ways. As you fight to take back Tsushima from the Mongols, you can approach enemy encounters in two ways. You can choose to fight honorably, like a true samurai, and challenge enemies to a “standoff,” a quick-reflex mini-game of sorts in which you and one of the baddies face off one-on-one and see who flinches first before one of you slashes his blade through the other. You’ll then have to take on the rest of the enemies all at once, which is no easy task.

The other option is to fight like a “Ghost,” sneaking into enemy camps, killing the bad guys in their sleep, poisoning them, using intimidation tactics to scare them into fleeing battle. It’s an effective way of evening the odds between you and your foes, but it rails against everything the samurai stand for.

Countless games offer the player the option to approach combat either stealthily or head-on. This is far from a novel concept, and in this respect, the combat in Ghost of Tsushima offers little innovation. But what is innovative here is how Sucker Punch has taken the classic device of stealth vs. frontal assault and given it new life by expertly integrating it with the themes of the story.

Jin meets a handful of allies on his journey, each with their own multi-chapter story arcs that delve into their respective backstories. There’s sensei Ishikawa, a master archer whose protege has gone rogue and joined the Mongols. Lady Masako is a warrior and grandmother whose entire family was murdered by the Mongols, though she suspects they may have died after someone close to the family conspired with the enemy.

Each of the characters explores the honor vs. dishonor theme in unique and surprising ways. The dichotomy is most starkly represented in the clash of ideals between Lord Shimura, who is unshakably honorable and would rather die than gain an unfair advantage in battle, and Yuna, who understands that, to beat an enemy who fights dirty, you may have to put honor to the side for the sake of saving your people. Of course, Jin is caught in the middle and struggles to decide what kind of man he wants to be.

Aside from the ties to the story, the gameplay is fun and engaging. The swordplay combines parries and dodging with a more strategic approach to melee, as you try to find ways to build up your enemy’s stagger gauge. You can also use “ghost weapons” to give you an edge in battle, like kunai (throwing knives), smoke bombs, arrows, and more. There are also four stances to master, with each being effective against a different enemy type. Switching between stances is integral to combat and becomes second nature over time. There’s also an insanely cool fifth stance that I won’t spoil here, but it’s spectacularly badass.

Stealthing is strikingly similar to what you’d see in an Assassin’s Creed title (this is a compliment), and the game gives you myriad ways to kill enemies without raising alarms, like throwable wind chimes and firecrackers that allow you to manipulate their positioning or hallucinogenic darts that turn them against each other. Again, this is all stuff we’ve seen before, but it’s pulled off well here.

Release Date: July 17, 2020 Platform: PS4 Developer: Sucker Punch Productions Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Genre: Action-adventure

Unfortunately, there are little gameplay flaws that needled at me, especially in the later hours of my playthrough (it took me around 45 hours to finish the game). The swordplay requires quick reflexes, and mastering parries and dodging is absolutely pivotal to your survival. The problem with the swordplay is subtle, and a little difficult to explain, but I’ll say it like this: in most games that are particularly challenging, when I die, I feel like it was my fault because I made a mistake, I just wasn’t fast enough, I hadn’t mastered certain skills. But on many occasions in Ghost of Tsushima, I felt like I died because the game didn’t give me a fair shot, like it was the game’s fault that I failed, not mine. It’s possible that I just wasn’t very good at the game, but it felt at times like I wasn’t given a choice in the matter. Your mileage will vary with the game’s difficulty level.

There are other things that bugged me, too, like the unreliable climbing mechanics (I swear, sometimes hopping onto a rope or branch that’s literally right in front of you is way, WAY too difficult). But overall, I had a great time playing the game and felt super powerful by the time I’d filled out my skill trees, which is no surprise considering the game was made by the same folks who made Infamous.

On a nuts and bolts gameplay level, Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t feel all that unique — there is some very familiar open-world stuff here. But on a presentation and storytelling level, the game is out-of-this-world amazing. Visually, the game looks stunning. The late-stage PlayStation 4 graphics really deliver, and coupled with the strength of the art design, Ghost of Tsushima is a true head-turner. The character models look fantastic and can emote on a level that supports the drama of the story. And while the different suits of armor that Jin acquires offer unique gameplay perks, I honestly just collected and upgraded them almost exclusively as an aesthetic indulgence. They look so freaking cool.

But the real stars of the show are the environments, which look picturesque from every conceivable angle. The wind-swept, verdant hills of Tsushima are intoxicatingly pretty, to the point where I’d get caught up ogling for minutes on end at the smallest of details, like the way the moonlight bounces off blades of grass or the way Jin kicks up crimson-red leaves that have blanketed the ground over time. I could go on forever about the dynamic day/night cycle, the beautiful rendering of different fabrics and materials, the horse animations. But instead, I’ll just say that this is the most breathtaking game, visually, that I’ve seen in recent memory.

A lot of love also went into infusing the game with Japanese cultural references, particularly in how the developers pay homage to the samurai genre. Each mission, for example, is bookended by cinematic intertitles that evoke old samurai cinema, Japanese characters, and all. But without a doubt, the most obvious/most amazing homage is “Kurosawa Mode,” which presents the game in black and white, with one of the best film grain filters I’ve ever seen in a game, resulting in an experience that looks almost exactly like a film from the iconic Japanese auteur’s oeuvre, right next to Sanjuro and Seven Samurai. If you’re a long-time fan of Kurosawa, turning the mode on may even elicit an “I’m not crying…you’re crying!” response — it’s that pretty.

I initially intended on playing the entire game in Kurosawa mode but quickly realized that it would be problematic to do so for a few reasons. Some missions require you to “follow the (insert color) flowers,” which is obviously impossible in black and white. And in combat, blockable enemy heavy attacks are signaled by a blue glint, while unblockable ones have a red glint. Combat is tough enough as it is, so…yeah. I only turned the mode on when I was riding on my horse through the countryside and I felt like treating myself to some eye candy.

Taking time to smell the cherry blossoms and have a respite from the game’s many missions and side missions is crucial because Ghost of Tsushima is a long, long game. The missions aren’t overly repetitive — most of them feel really special actually, like when you climb a mountain in freezing cold weather and must race from campfire to campfire on your ascent, or one armor quest comprised of several one-on-one duels with straw hat swordsmen scattered about the map, each with a distinct personality. But 40-plus hours is 40-plus hours, and while the main tasks of infiltrating enemy camps, liberating farms, and searching for special gear can lead to questing fatigue at the tail end of the game, the nice thing is is that you can always slow things down and just enjoy the scenery to break things up. There’s even a nifty photo mode to play with, and if any game warrants a photo mode, it’s this one.

Jin’s story isn’t just a means to an end, or a lazy excuse to drag the player from gameplay scenario to gameplay scenario. The story is incredibly well written and profound in its messaging and imagery, so much so that I believe it’s one of the best modern entries in the samurai genre, regardless of medium. All of the characters you meet and the little tales that unfold across Tsushima are filtered through Jin’s inner struggle with what honor really means and whether or not it’s worth dying for, which gives the story an incredibly strong narrative backbone. Despite the game’s epic scope, Jin’s journey actually feels quite intimate and personal. The same could be said of Kurosawa’s best work, and that’s just about the highest compliment I can give.

The post Ghost of Tsushima Review: A Beautiful Homage to Akira Kurosawa appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[daikini-san]

E3 2018 in a nutshell {Featuring Sephiroth}

I managed to watch most of the E3 2018 conferences/showcases in their entirety, except Devolver Digital and the PC Gaming Show.  I have a lot to say about this...E3.  I’m going in the order of the E3 2018 schedule.  Let us begin.

EA

What a sour start to the show.  It was so boring I couldn’t even stay awake! There’s only one word to describe this conference:  Disastrous.

MICROSOFT

I personally believe Microsoft should have kick started E3 this year.  Microsoft?!  No way!  They’re usually not that great.  However this year, they did good work.  Though, I’m a bit more on the neutral side as I don’t play XBox.  Kingdom Hearts 3 announced for XBox was a shock to me since that series has always been on Sony systems.  I gotta ask though: What’s with 80% of their new games coming out in 2019? 

BETHESDA

This wasn’t a bad conference, but I’m more so neutral here as I don’t normally play any of those sorts of games.  Though, the presentation was intriguing and Fallout 76 peaked my interest.  Not to mention, Starfield has got me asking questions.  All and all, pretty solid performance.

SQUARE ENIX

Oh boy...>>  This is harsh but, necessary.  I’m not upset that there’s no FF7:R news.  I theorized that because KH3 is coming out next year, Square didn’t want to overshadow the KH hype with anything FF7 Remake related.  I’m trying to give them the shout of the doubt, but omg that conference was just like...what?  To be honest, Square didn’t need their own conference.  Microsoft announced most of their games previously.  There’s a FFXIV x Monster Hunter cross over which is interesting I suppose.  The KH3 trailer is the same trailer that was presented at Microsoft but with a few seconds of additions.  They only announced two new games: Babylon’s Fall and The Quiet Man.  The rest of the shit was rehashed!  That’s what pisses me off.  It may have been a good thing that Square Enix’s conference was the shortest in this year’s E3.

UBISOFT

Initial reaction when the conference started:  What on Earth is going on here?!  Then I saw Just Dance 2019.  Okay.  The conference goes on and there’s so much talking and live music.  I’m like is any of this necessary?  To be honest, none of their games had me jumping out of my seat.  Transference left me scratching my head.  To be honest, the majority of Ubisoft’s conference had me confused.  I’m not sure what to think here.

SONY

Okay can I just say Sony went in right off the bat?  They got my attention right away with the Last of Us 2.  Though, the momentum was interrupted when they had to go into intermission not even a half an hour into the conference.  ...What?  That aside, they continued moving forward.  Crowd reactions from Resident Evil 2 trailer announcement was nice.  Another KH3 trailer for the win, but at least this time it’s different.  (What’s with the lack of sound effects?  All three of those KH3 trailers are suffering in the sound effects department).  The game that really got my attention is Ghost of Tsushima.  It is visually stunning and the storyline has potential as it’s set in feudal Japan during the Mongol Invasion in the late 1200s.  Sadly, no release date yet.  :(  Either way, Sony’s conference was pretty good!

NINTENDO

It seemed Nintendo was trying something new with their conference this year.  The amount of games coming to the Switch is incredible!  Especially DBZ Fighters.  It was nice seeing Reggie explaining the two Pokemon games and Mario Party.  Fire Emblem looked good too.  But of course the highlight is Smash Bros Ultimate, which has all the characters from all the previous Smash Bros games, including a couple newcomers.  Sephiroth for Smash!  This game is appealing and I would get a Switch for that alone.  However, they spent nearly a half an hour talking about the game as they went into detail about stages, character balancing, and more.  I have no problem with that but, the direct should be renamed Super Smash Bros Nintendo Direct.  Most of the time was dedicated to Smash Bros.  Oh well, it’s not as bad as EA or Square Enix.

There’s my opinion on this year’s E3.  Overall, it was meh.  There just wasn’t anything to scream with joy about.  The Square Enix conference was a blow beneath the belt.  Sony was solid.  Though, I was foolishly hoped to see something Sephiroth related sprinkled around between Square and Sony.  Ah well. “If not now, then next time.”

#e3 #e3 2018 #ea #microsoft #sony #besthesda #ubisoft #square enix #nintendo #sephiroth #kingdom hearts #dissidia nt #mobius final fantasy #ff7 #crisis core

[entergamingxp]

Ghost of Tsushima Lead Environment Artist Details How They Crafted the World

July 12, 2020 8:00 AM EST

The lead environmental artist for Ghost of Tsushima, Joanna Wang, details how they crafted the world and environments for the title.

Joanna Wang, the lead environmental artist for Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima, recently wrote up a detailed PlayStation Blog post on the process behind creating the beautiful environments that can be found in the game

As it turns out Tsushima is a real place, a Japanese island located between the Japanese mainland and the Korean Peninsula:

However the game’s setting isn’t a 100 percent recreation of the island. Instead the developers took essential elements of the island, mixed with some inspirations from mainland Japan, and built up a more unique world. During the research trips, birds and nature sounds were recorded and photo-scanned Tsushima island, and used them in the actual game.

As the devs continued to work on the game’s environments, they made a decision to make the natural spaces more memorable and unique. Tons of methods were used to limit the variety of foliage, pushing color values, increasing translucency levels, and reducing noise on textures. In the end, this bold use of color in nature became a theme for the game. By limiting the types of foliage in biomes, they were better able to bring a sense of freshness to each area and create a much more memorable world:

Below are some video clips showcasing the full range of gorgeous environments, as well as the wind effects that are vital to navigation:

Recently a brand new Japanese gameplay trailer was released, which shows off some of the techniques detailed above:

As the launch of the game approached, it would be prudent of players to free up some space on their PS4’s hard drive. Ghost of Tsushima will require players to have a minimum of 50GB available space to start playing. There’s also the fact that it could need even more space on launch day if there’s a day one patch. You can start preloading the game now ahead of its launch.

In an interview with IGN, Game Director Nate Fox talked about the game’s difficulty and stated that “We are trying to make a grounded game in that sense, so a couple blows from the enemy will kill you,” Fox said. “We watched samurai movies and people go down with one or two strikes, and that is embedded inside of the combat. Beating the Mongols in battle will be hard, but it’s that challenge that makes it feel alive and the victory rewarding. You can’t just run into a camp and fight 5 people at the same time, you will get overwhelmed and die.” Although later, we also found out that you can change these settings to suit your own playstyle better so if you don’t enjoy getting your ass kicked hard, you can do something about it.

You can also check out Chris Hawtin who has put together an incredible Ghost of Tsushima motion poster that director Akira Kurosawa would be proud of, as well as this incredible Ghost of Tsushima inspired PlayStation 4 by XboxPope. Famed Japanese artist Takashi Okazaki, the creator of the Afro Samurai manga, recently collaborated with Ghost of Tsushima to produce some gorgeous manga-style posters.

Ghost of Tsushima is slated to launch on July 17th, 2020, and will be a PS4 exclusive. If you want to pre-order the game through Amazon, you can do so here. You can also prepare for the launch by checking out this editorial on the five Samurai movies to watch before it releases.

This post contains affiliate links where DualShockers gets a small commission on sales. Any and all support helps keep DualShockers as a standalone, independent platform for less-mainstream opinions and news coverage.

July 12, 2020 8:00 AM EST

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[aion-rsa]

How Ghost of Tsushima’s Music Combines Japanese Tradition with the Cinematic

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Ilan Eshkeri is something of a musical adventurer. He’s an award-winning composer who has scored a wide variety of films including Layer Cake, Stardust, Kick-Ass, Shaun the Sheep Movie, has composed a modern ballet based on Echo & Narcissus, has conducted an orchestra at the Louvre, and has even worked with the European Space Agency (who sent him on a zero-G, parabolic flight). As an artist, he’s always looking to be challenged and inspired in new ways. And his latest project is unlike anything he’s ever done before.

“I’ve been saying, ‘Let me do a video game’ for like fifteen years,” Eshkeri tells Den of Geek over a Zoom call, explaining why he chose Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima as the next evolution in his career. He’d composed music for just one other game, The Sims 4 back in 2014, and when Sucker Punch approached him to compose music for the studio’s upcoming samurai epic, he felt it would be the perfect opportunity to jump back into the video game fold.

“When I pick projects, what I’m looking for is a good, emotional story that I can emotionally connect with. That, and do I connect with the other creative people on the project? If those two things work, then I want to do it,” explains Eshkeri of his decision to work with Sucker Punch. “The music team said, ‘We love this score that you did for this movie Coriolanus,’ which is an arthouse Shakespeare film that Ralph Fiennes directed. And I was like, ‘Okay, so you’re making this blockbuster video game, and you’re interested in this arthouse bit of work that I did.'”

Eshkeri worked closely with Sucker Punch on the score, which also features five suites by Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi, who is best known for his work with famed Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai and his scores for wuxia films such as House of Flying Daggers.

“We sat down in a boardroom and they gave me this big talk through,” Eshkeri said. “It’s like this 45-minute long talk through visual bits of art and little bits of motion capture of some of the bits of the game that were in play. They told me the whole story [of Ghost of Tsushima] from beginning to end, and I was blown away. I was like, ‘This is better than most movies that I have read in a long time.’”

While Eshkeri had little experience composing for video games, he was quite comfortable telling emotional stories with his music, which is exactly what Sucker Punch needed him to do. Protagonist Jin Sakai’s journey centers on his inner struggle with the samurai’s idea of honor, which he was raised to uphold, and the deceptive “Ghost” war tactics he knows are necessary to protect his people from the invading Mongols. Eshkeri found ample inspiration in Jin’s story and found it artistically freeing.

“What really got me is that Jin is in crisis the whole time. He’s emotional. He’s having to go against everything he’s been taught, everything in his whole moral code, in order to save the people that he loves. That is a very intense and rich place to come into to explore any kind of emotion at all whatsoever. I thought, ‘I can write something really powerful from that place.’”

To prepare himself for the project, Eshkeri immersed himself in Japanese music, instruments, and culture, though he made sure to avoid one point of reference that might surprise those who have played through Ghost of Tsushima. The game features an optional “Kurosawa Mode,” which presents the visuals in black and white with added film grain effects as an homage to the incomparable Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa. But Eshkeri’s musical contributions actually bear little resemblance to the music that accompanied Kurosawa’s films.

“I deliberately did not go down that road,” Eshkeri says of his approach to Ghost of Tsushima’s soundtrack. “I don’t really like film music references because what happens with these references is that you end up pastiching the sound of it because they’re so appropriate and they work so well. So I’d rather…if somebody says, ‘Well, I like the work of this person,’ I go, ‘Okay. Who was that person inspired by?’ That’s where I like to go. And so typically, if I’m writing a big Hollywood symphonic score, I’m looking up at [Gustav] Holst or at [Richard] Wagner, the great classical composers — the later ones — who started developing the sort of language and the sort of harmony that we hone film scores. I try to go back to that source.”

So, Eshkeri went way back, beyond Kurosawa, to find Japanese musical influence. Sucker Punch was looking for authenticity in the game’s music, and he was willing to go all the way, digging up the most authentic sounds and instruments he could find, no matter how obscure. He was unsure the team would be onboard with this level of “nerdiness,” as he calls it, despite their request for true authenticity.

“Sometimes people say that and then you get into it and they go, ‘No. No. Actually, we just want the thing that we were expecting, that everyone was expecting’” explains Eshkeri of his typical collaboration process. “But these guys, whatever crazy idea I threw at them, they were like, ‘That’s great. Let’s explore that. Let’s go down that road.’ And they were right there with me on the journey. So it was creatively very, very satisfying.”

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Eshkeri was given license to go as deep as he wanted in his research, and indeed, he dove just about as deep as one could dive, looking into Japanese Shomyo Buddhist music, whose roots can be traced back as far back as 752AD.

“I got in touch with this professor of Japanese music, Professor David Hughes, who’s a great master of all of this stuff. He guided me towards great musicians. He guided me to what books to read. We talked at length so that I really developed an understanding of the pentatonic scales that are used in Japanese music or how they use them and why.”

Eshkeri continues, almost apologetically, “So this is incredibly nerdy. But just to give you one example. The pentatonic scale has got five notes in it, but [the monks] embellished the notes. So you get on the shakuhachi [type of Japanese flute] and you can go from just beneath the note or just above the note, depending on how you wrote it. So you have those variants. On the koto [Japanese string instrument], you can only bend upwards. So you could go just above the note, but you can never go below the notes, right? And so I started to learn all this stuff. And now I know just enough, the tip of the iceberg, just to know that I don’t know very much at all.”

This level of research and immersion paid off. Ghost of Tsushima’s soundtrack is ravishing, replete with arrangements of ancient instruments that sound true to the time period but move and undulate in a way that’s dynamic and distinctly modern. Shomyo music is restrictive in certain respects, mostly due to the fact that the instruments traditionally used to play it are limited to one key, so Eshkeri wasn’t able to use evocative key changes and swells in his compositions as frequently as he would in, say, a traditional movie score. “That was a challenge in itself,” Eshkeri explains. “Because key changes, that’s what we often use as this sort of ear candy, right?” But when the game calls for it, Eshkeri’s score does occasionally transcend the traditional Shomyo sound.

“In places, of course, I broke the rules,” Eshkeri says. “I needed to write harmonies, right? And there isn’t really much harmony in Shomyo music. It’s more just [melody] lines. And so I created chords out of the notes scale, and I created a whole sort of way of writing music for the game that was completely based on the main two or three Japanese pentatonic scales, using the instruments, learning to write appropriately for the instruments as much as possible…and then I broke the rules. I researched and then  I just created my own world.”

For Eshkeri, the most difficult piece of music to write for the game accompanies [spoiler alert] the final duel between Jin and his uncle, Lord Shimura. “I needed to write something that has all the action beats to it,” Eshkeri explains. “But at the same time, I want the player to have tears in their eyes while having this fight. How do you do those two things at the same time? That was the hardest piece to write. There is a huge key change at one particular moment that hopefully has great effect. I haven’t played that bit in the game myself, so I have to play to see. But I think it’s about finding your own path and becoming the kind of person that you need to be.”

The generational conflict between Jin and Lord Shimura — between progress and tradition – -is timeless and rings true even in today’s sociopolitical climate. Eshkeri composed the game’s music to reflect the generational theme throughout.

“That’s why I was trying to be so traditional in my approach to the music and then break the rules where I could,” Eshkeri explains. “I think it’s a timeless thing. It’s Shakespearean in the way that it connects to your heart because what’s great about Shakespeare and the great writers that we keep going back to is that they’re always relevant. Whatever’s happening in the world, there’s something relevant and something the way the story informs things in ways that they couldn’t have imagined when they were writing it, but it’s because we’re just repeating stuff. And every generation has their own revolution, right? And I guess that’s what this game is looking at. Yeah, that’s just powerful stuff really. For me, it’s sort of about the future and the past.”

Ghost of Tsushima is out now for the PlayStation 4.

The post How Ghost of Tsushima’s Music Combines Japanese Tradition with the Cinematic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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