Intro

What is up all you bushi bros and onna-musha?? Welcome episode 19 of The World is My Burrito AKA TWIMB, a podcast where I invade ancient burritos, challenge the ingredients to a duel, then light ‘em up like an American Christmas in 1980. 

As always I am your host, Kory T. comin’ atcha from Tampa Florida on this fine June 30th, 2023.

If you listened to the previous episode you’ll know this is a deeper dive into Ghost of Tsushima’s themes, facts, creative history, personal opinions, etc. If you haven’t heard the previous episodes, start off with Epik Fails of History Episode 27 where Erik Slader and I join forces the likes of which have never been seen to discuss the history of the mongolian invasions of Japan, then hop back to TWIMB episode 18 for our reverse interview about the game. Links in the show notes. Or listen to these however you want! I’m not your sensei. Rather than have one chonky episode you get two healthy portions.

As always, this episode is gonna be a little mix-and-match. No matter how hard I try, “structure” couldn’t exist. History and trivia are both scattered throughout the episode in hopes of keeping those facts alongside other immediately relevant topics. This episode features the most headers and greater breakdowns than any prior and I didn’t want things to feel like they were getting lost. Hopefully this makes sense as you hear it. And if you don’t notice it then I succeeded.

On to kitchenkeeping

Kitchenkeeping

While you were waiting for this episode I was busy studying the blade! Not really. 100% of this episode was written before I left Florida, but I had to postpone recording for the sake of a better traveling experience. So the beginning and end have only been slightly edited. Anyways, everything involving putting these episodes out, the Laconia trip, recovering from said trip, house work, photo work, and all the usual things have really been keeping me slammed.

The episodes after this will be covering 2 vastly different topics:

1) Urasawa and Tezuka’s PLUTO manga. I’ve got another special guest coming on that episode solely because they have not stopped talking about it since first reading it. This’ll either be very late June or some time in July.

2) Will be a recap of traveling to New Hampshire by motorcycle, possibly featuring Zack. The Trip I always talk about was ten years ago and, other than photos, I never wrote or recorded anything. So if we haven’t personally spoken about it, then it’s only in my head and nowhere else. But that’s what I got for riding 14+ hrs a day.

I’m actually trying to set up a few themed episodes as some holidays approach. No spoilers for topics but some of them were very recently inspired and some have been in mind for a while. Cross those fingers.

Let’s get going with some

Personal History

I played Ghost of Tsushima in early 2021 - before it won a bunch of awards but after everyone knew it was the shit. This also means I had not played the DLC. I think it released like right after completing the main story but I was already mech-deep in Horizon Zero Dawn. 

In preparation for an NG+ play I actually replayed all of Act 1 in a new-new game to get the controls down, THEN switched over to NG+. At the beginning of 2023 I played through at least half of NG+ before experiencing Iki Island, then beat the remainder of the main story. This puts me around the 100 hour marker in total gameplay.

I have 100%’d this game with the exception of Legends mode. Moving twice in a year ate a lot of time, then PlayStation was doing the new pricing structure as we were packing, so that subscription never got renewed.

As for personal history with historical history: There ain’t much. This took place during the Kamakura period of Japan, which isn’t exactly the most popular period of time. Usually books spoke about pottery and maybe a little about types of housing. Even now, Japanese historians are still working to uncover more information on this era. It’s kinda like the early Viking days: people were too busy living and warring to sit and write out every single act. Heck, maybe they didn’t even know how to write. That is a discussion for a different podcast.

I did know general information about The Mongol invasions -however- prepping for Erik’s episode was the most I’d ever delved into that topic and boy is it a very deep topic that really opened up my eyes.

Moving on to

World History

If you didn’t heed my suggestion by going back and listening to Epik Fails episode 27 then you’re just gonna have to live in obscurity. I ain’t doin’ it again. But to establish the time period, the Kamakura period was between 1192 and 1333. Long time ago. Before words like ninja and shinobi-no-mono existed, which is why you’ll never hear those words used in this game. 

Samurai of this time were mostly known for their proficiency with the bow and were great hunters - weird how that works. The era of the sword was after this. 

A lot of history during this era was actually passed on by song, a fact I only learned from Professor Hongo Kazuto during research.

We’re about to get into the thick of it so let’s prep you with some

Game Stats

Ghost began development in 2014

It was released for PlayStation 4 on July 17, 2020 as the final exclusive title for that system. Both the Iki Island DLC and the PS5 version of the game were released in August of 2021.

Out the gate you could play the English Dub -the native language- or Japanese Dub -the non-native language for once-. 

They also offered “Kurosawa mode”, a black and white mode that threw some grain on the screen and kinda double-timed a lot of effects to give it an older feel.

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Directors: Nate Fox and Jason Connell

Producer: Brian Fleming

Programmer: Chris Zimmerman

Creative Director: Jason Connell

Writers: Ian C. Ryan, Liz Albl, Patrick Downs, and Jordan Lemos

Composers: Ilan Eshkeri and Shigeru Umebayashi

Just these names alone cover a ton of content. Brian Fleming is a co-founder of Sucker Punch. Nate has worked on every Sucker Punch game. Several of the remaining names are Sucker Punch alumni and the remainder have worked with franchise like Far Cry 4, 5, and Primal, several Star Wars: The Old Republic DLC, tons of big name licensed mobile games. It’s pretty stacked. 

The coolest person here is Shigeru Umebayashi was a rocker back in the early 80s then moved on to composing or writing music for 60 Chinese and Japanese films before working on this, his first video game. That’s a helluva list but here are the ones I’m familiar with: Onmyoji 1+2, House of Flying Daggers, and Jet Li’s Fearless.

Plenty of others were involved however these were the guys who kept showing up for or were mentioned in interviews.

This is normally the part where I would list all of the voice actors. But I only played the game in Japanese because I’m a weeb. This also means there are 2 entire sets of actors. Rather than more lists I’ll attach names to those whose faces were used for character models. There will also be a link in the description.

With the creative team comes their creative approach. Because we get tons of interviews, we get tons of neat facts. Here are a few…

Design history

Sucker Punch was tired of superhero games and wanted to make something different. They ended up in Japan because they thought the location was cool. They thought the job was cool because a samurai solves problems with wit and swagger - their words. They thought this particular period was cool because what better way to naturally get a player into the right mindset than for the oppressor to be an invader.

Sucker Punch brought in experts on fighting, landscape, religion, language, all of it. If you saw something written in Japanese or played the Japanese dub, it was as historically accurate as a modern professional knows it to be.

Between the beauty of the land, diversity of the people, and the touching missions, they wanted you to want to save Tsushima. 

Combat was the hardest mechanic to implement. It took them six years because it has to work everywhere at all times.

The only reason this game even GOT make is because of Sucker Punch’s relationship with Sony. The agreement wasn’t to “make a game”, it was to make “ghost”.

Spoiler Warning

Ladies and germs now it is time to get into spoiler territory. If you haven’t played the game OR the accompanying DLC, now’s your chance to let this burrito sail for another day. But if you want to risk it all…..

Characters

What does Ghost of Tsushima do that is so special? Well, your journey is the vehicle by which a much greater story is told. More often than not, while you seek others for help they also use you as a tool to their independent ends. It’s the classic “You murder my enemies and I’ll murder yours” scenario that we’re all familiar with. And while your character is the one to swing the final blade, it was not without others’ help. The game was meant to be an anthology of stories, and by calling missions “tales” they hoped to convey that it was everyone’s story. It’s like Ocean’s 11 if you could spend more time with each of “the gang” and if the end goal was to prevent societal collapse.

For this episode I’d like to cover who the characters are, how the war impacted their lives, and why everyone is some shade of grey.

Sakai Jin

Is You. He represents duty with question.

Jin’s role upsets the teachings of Bushido. A new threat arrives and old methods don’t work. Seeing how overpowered the samurai are and with the guidance of the thief Yuna, Jin overcomes his apprehensions and begins winning by wandering through the night and stabbing people in the back.

He is the hero of the people and the moral grey area. 

Based on Usagi Yojimbo and named after Stan Sakai. 

Jin is directly affected as 

Trivia: Daisuke Tsuji is the face and VA for Jin. He’s actually streamed the gameplay before which is dope. He was also in the Man in the High Castle TV series which I haven’t seen yet, but is equally as dope.

Lord Shimura - Jito (地頭 “land steward) of Tsushima

Represents honor. He is stuck in tradition to the worst degree. Even after repeatedly witnessing the  overpowered and quote-unquote underhanded Mongolian army, he is totally willing to sacrifice the people he’s supposed to be protecting just so the emperor who isn’t even involved gives him a cool headstone. And maybe something about Samurai heaven.

This goes all the way to the end of the game. The final choice you make is to either kill your uncle so he stops hunting you, or let him live and be hunted to the ends of the island.

Uncle is hypocrite. Has a pirate friend but wants Jin to be pure. 

There is some hypocrisy here too. During the final conversation he helps you loose a stuck cart that’s delivering supplies to the people supporting the Ghost’s mission.

He doesn’t really care about the ghost so long as it’s some peasant. But he does care when it’s a trained samurai. If the plebes can pick themselves up by their boostraps it’s fine. But you can’t get help from your reigning lord who’s the only one equipped with an army trained to fight the enemy.

Lord Shimura’s helmet has water buffalo horns, belonging to Kuroda Nagamasu.

Sadanobu Ishikawa - archer

Represents a lot of misplaced regret leading to some mildly unchecked vengeance. He originally taught a dude how to use the bow, dude turned that skill against the clan Ishikawa worked for, dude was taken care of, then Ishikawa was made to honorably retire. After some time a young peasant girl named Tomoe appeared and showed great promise, inspiring him to once again take up the bow only for her to seemingly do the same thing.

He’s only kinda more noble than Shimura in that he is okay with Jin’s ghosty efforts and doesn’t want everyone on Tsushima to die in the name of honor, but is 100% the reason why a select few innocent people die. 

Of course that knife gets driven in further when we learn that Tomoe’s apparent betrayal was all an elaborate rouse to keep herself alive long enough to kill the Mongols AND escape the island. You actually get to converse with her in a very chill mission. And it really is set up that maybe she’s leading you on or maybe she’s being honest.

I love how this mission plays out but sorta  wish there was an opportunity to make a decision at the end. This series of missions really messes with your head and the option to make your own ending decision would only amp that up. However, Jin needs to remain the altruistic hero. An option could really mess with Jin’s entire story.

Ishikawa is the least directly affected by the invasion yet causes some of the greatest damage to the army.

Yuna

Woman of the people. She represents the people who can fight back but honestly have better things to do with their lives.

The nobles don’t care about their people and she just wants to get off the island. She only helps Jin in order to save her brother and so he can convince Uncle Shimmy to ship them off the island.

She’s only mildly inconvenienced by the mongol invasion. If her brother weren’t an accomplished blacksmith, we would never see her. She wants nothing to do with this and is totally okay with the samurai and anyone else handling the assailants. 

Her story teaches us about Japanese slavers, the Black Wolf and the Mamushi Brothers. 

She is also the one to teach Jin that it’s okay to get a little stabby stabby from behind. What is the value of honor if you can’t accomplish the righteous task at hand.

Taka - Yuna’s brother

The face of the people who want to fight back but cannot. All Taka has are his skills, but he is willing to use these skills to see Jin’s goals accomplished.

When Yuna reaches her stopping point, Taka steps in to prove that he, too, can be a fighter and direct assistant to the ghost. Like Syndrome from The Incredibles only good god does this not end the same way.

Taka’s death made me tear up a little. When Yuna comes in and starts losing her shit it felt like a display of how I was feeling inside. Taka was a good man.

He’s the purest of characters in this game. Pour one out for the homie.

Lady Masako Adachi

Oddly enough she may be the least grey area character here. As noble as she is when you first meet, her story certainly darkens as it unfolds. Masako represents unchecked selfishness. Or maybe vengeance. Or both. She is one of the few characters who thought she was doing right but had in fact been strategically creating trouble for herself throughout the years, and is basically the very thing Shimura is worried Jin will become. A cold-blooded killer with no honor.

She is directly affected by the invasion as the beach attack kills her husband and sons. Then her remaining family gets assassinated while she’s around. Then we discover that a bunch of people associated with the family were all roped together by one main conspirator who used this invasion to hatch the assassination plans.

There is no lack of depth to any character’s story but I think this is the most complex. She deals with so many people who are in moral grey area and tbh the root cause really had me asking if the perpetrator was truly in the wrong based on Masako’s lifetime of decisions.

Masako wants vengeance so bad that she kills a lot of the people necessary to gain information, but is willing to kill Jin to get her way. In a roundabout way she kinda gets other people killed for her own actions, too.

Norio

Is the warrior monk who fights for righteousness. He’s also fighting to save his pacifist brother, Enjō who is also a monk. The belief here is that it’s justified because 1 they are fighting for their country and 2 he is not fighting out of hate. He is a guardian. However, his story progresses in the worst way possible. After discovering Enjō’s dismembered, beaten to a pulp body, and after Enjō’s request, Norio has to make the hard decision to kill his brother so he no longer has to suffer. 

Next up you find the camp of the mongol leader who did this and make plans to take care of business. After this is the final mission, which is one of the most unique I’ve ever played.

You awake and Norio is gone. You take the path to the enemy camp but notice shit is on fire. As you enter you are greeted with a terrifying landscape. Bodies alighted with fire are covering the ground. Mongols come running out of buildings, also on fire, dying shortly after notice. Eventually you reach Norio who has already completed the task by himself. You never kill anyone in this mission. You have to live the experience as Jin would. No movie. No quicktime events. Just walking through bodies. And that was such an amazing decision.

Trivia - Some sketches seem too fierce. The Norio we get is daunting in size but not overtly threatening in appearance. Like a big fluffy bear.

Ryuzo

Is your brother from another mother. Despite having no noble upbringing he is an extremely accomplished warrior. After losing a duel with Jin -who was a little over-aggressive in his youth- loses his chance at working for a noble house. This leads to him joining and eventually leading the Straw Hat Ronin.

At first the only effect the war had was making food more difficult to access. Jin decides to help Ryuzo with the intent that Ryuzo would repay him. And in the best twist of the game, Ryuzo joins Khotun Khan in order to keep that food flowing. He only cares about his men, who were otherwise ostracized by the noble faction on the island.

More grey area! In order for HIS people to survive, he turns against his people. Might things have been different if the ruling class had taken better care of those they ruled? Who knows. But damn if I didn’t tear up a bit during the final with with Ryuzo.

Our final ally is

Kenji

the sake salesman and basically comedic relief. He’s Mac from Always sunny, playing both sides so he comes out on top. 

But as his minor story progresses from main story to Iki Island, he begins doing what he can for the people using the ghost moniker. Still the same shenanigans though. Lots of barrels involved. 

Trivia - Book mentions a relationship with his horse, Miko, but there is no notable horse in the game. The sketch includes a donkey tho. Confusion abounds.

Khotun Khan

Khotun is spreading the love of the Blue Sky. While Ghengis was known for being ruthless, Kublai certainly killed for the sake of it seeking no gain. And Kublai was never the killer, only the instructor. Khotun is the tool who follows orders.

He comes in hot and heavy and really disses the samurai, but those first deaths were there for the sake of hopefully not having to kill anyone else. They knew the samurai would fight. Hey, let’s take the fight out of ‘em. Which was also a very Ghengis thing.

The samurai did not agree with this approach.

He is a very talky boi. He really wants to convince Shimura to give up. Which doesn’t work. Then he really wants to convince Jin to stop ghosting him. See what I did there? That also doesn’t work. Throughout the game he slowly amps up his violent efforts in an attempt to reach as peaceful a conclusion as possible. 

He was always in the wrong as the invader, but props at least he didn’t come in with genocide. He waited until later.

American Voice: Patrick Gallagher who played Attila in Night at the Museum - 40lb costume. Who looks like the damn dude. Lost 25lbs over the course of the game. Walked in a skintight suit. Motion capture is just physical. Voice is just voice. Performance capture is doing the whole thing: walking and talking. 

Yuriko - old caretaker

Lastly is one of the simplest, yet saddest stories in the entire game. She keeps phasing in and out of thinking you’re Jin and thinking you’re Kazumasa. By the end she only sees Kazumasa, allowing Jin to pry into his childhood and his father’s history. He discovers that she had an affair with Kazumasa.

She is also the first person to really give us access to Jin the child, and really humanizes him. Also his dad to be honest. 

I’ve read comments where people were upset at the affair idea and actively hoped it wasn’t true because they couldn't handle it. These are the same people who think the Earth Federation was unblemished. 

According to Joanna Wang they went out of their way to look for a respectful place for Yuriko to die. And good god let me tell you that place gave me some feelings. 

During the game’s creation they used a robovoice until the dialogue was nailed down. Patrick downs stated that Yuriko’s tale was on the chopping block because of this, commenting that nobody could emotionally connect.

Peasants 

The residents and peasants have a lot of really solid stories and are obviously very directly affected by the invasion. 

The only trivia I have on them related to their outfit colors and designs representing the general areas they're in: snowflakes, rivers wetlands, you get the idea.

Mongols

Original concepts similar to assassin's creed Valhalla. They were very brutish and fantastical. Really glad they grounded it more.

Some mongols are themed after historical job types and beliefs, such as those who revered falcons, and those who revered mongol god Odqan, who’s all about fire.

Oh hey does it seem like I’m missing a few people? I might have…

Kazumasa Sakai

Father to Jin. My recommendation is to play through the entire main game, then go to Iki Island. During the main story you get this idea in your head about Jin’s dad being a standout dude before coming to the realization that he kinda ain’t, and that his death truly did need to happen to benefit all beings. It certainly solved all of Iki Island’s problems in more ways than one.

The GoT Fandom page lists Iki as “under control of several bands of raiders and pirates”. Though I’m not gonna lie, they people seemed pretty okay with that. Like the pirates and raiders may not have actually been pirating or raiding them.

As you wander Iki island it seems pretty apparent that the samurai didn’t have a huge foothold here. They really didn’t care about this place other than what they could get from the people by way of taxes. Kazumasa’s invasion was no different than Khotun Khan. They invaded a land that did not recognize them as leaders and which they did not -in fact- lead. But as a tool of his own lord, he did to the Iki people what Khotun later did to Japan.

He seems like a pretty stand-up guy in the same way that Khotun does. He’s trying hard to be a good retainer, then a good lord, then a good warrior, and at the very end of it all, a good father. But with a lot of murder mixed in between those things.

The Guiding Wind throughout the entire game is the personification of Kazumasa. Which is a bit ironic, because the wind seems so gentle and helpful while Kazumasa seems to be much more focused on battles and little else. The oncoming storm at the end of the main quest would make much more sense to me.

We learn very little about Kazumasa’s past with his late wife, Jin’s mother and Lord Shimura’s sister…

Chiyoko Sakai

Who died when Jin was 7. She was much more levelheaded and seemed to have a greater grasp on life as a whole and its fleeting moments. Kazumasa needed her during his final battles on Iki, and seemed to wish to hear her words. I wonder what this world would be like had she been alive even longer. Would things have transpired the same had she actually been alive as opposed to just alive in her head.

Chiyoko teaches Jin how to play the flute, which becomes an actual mechanic on Iki island as opposed to something so readily forgotten in the main story.

I kinda dig how the flute doesn’t have the biggest role in the main story though. Only when it matters to us, the player, during this DLC, does it truly matter in the game as more than a tool. They didn’t go crazy.

The Songbirds are the personification of her. And this makes sense, They are always guiding Jin to something helpful, or to help someone in need. Seems characteristically accurate.

Lastly we have…

Tenzo

Kazumasa’s murderer but an otherwise stand-up guy. He helps jin grow a lot in the DLC. He did what he had to do to protect his people so it’s kinda hard to fault him for that.

I’m gonna apologize for not having any info on 

Fune

She’s the leader of the raiders Tenzo fights for and her story was also really damn good and tragic. Again, I only did one playthrough of Iki and Tenzo’s impact was much more directly intertwined with Jin’s story.

The same goes for The Eagle, who is the Mongol in charge of the Iki Island invasion. But most of her reason to exist was to have Jin struggle with his past, which was executed so damn well.

That’s really all I have for characters. Let’s get moving on to

Book History

Because yes! There is a book! It’s just an art book so calm them mongolian horse tiddies. From a strictly aesthetic perspective it’s a beautiful book and definitely one of the most interesting things in my collection. The book’s binding looks like just that: pages that were bound together by rope and not so much by adhesion.

The pages are beautiful. The colors are beautiful. The art is beautiful. The teeny tiny bits of info are informative. But I honestly only recommend it if you’re a completionist. It’s cool to see where the game came from but the game itself is so much fun to boot up and explore.

As for some negatives, there are a number of typos throughout. Normally not a complaint but when you only have like 3 dozen sentences throughout the entire thing it seems like that’d be pretty easy to spot before production.

The aforementioned softness comes with its own problem. That is: being soft. This can readily warp and bend in any direction. It was originally supposed to accompany me on my February trip but after shoving it in a backpack the fragility really stood out. This isn’t something you can just throw in a backpack and take places. If it’s not on a shelf or flat surface, it should always be in its case.

As for the content: Changes were made which is a common topic in the book. I mentioned a few 

The original UI for the sword seemed to make something simple into something complex p174

They had an idea to let you know what day number you were on every day. Like “Mongol invasion day 9”. Thank god they didn't keep that counter. Time moves along quickly enough without something frequently stopping your gameplay to remind you that following foxes and songbirds, and gettin’ nude in public is unprofessional for a hero.

That’s enough about that!

Next up I’d like to do 

Trivia

For some reason I had audio issues for the entire second half of this episode. So now we’re recording again. LET’S GO.

Ghost of Tsushima is actually the placeholder name! But they could never come up with anything better and this really sticks in the brain.

Because this section is gonna be stacked.

Jason Connell and Fox became tourism ambassadors for the island of Tsushima in 2021

Pirates and Vikings were considered

For starters: Sly Cooper. Later on FREE DLC: God of War, Bloodborne, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Shadow of the Colossus 

Unused characters - Guardian Kaede/Lady Sanjo, Lord Adachi

Castles were the first things placed, then they built the map around it. If they built a shrine nearby they would work out the route later. 

According to historical records, nobody survived the beach invasion. But that would be a pretty boring game.

A lot of the armor in this game -honestly probably most of it- was from the Sengoku Jidai era. The mongol Hwacha from was about 75 years after these invasion. Straw hats were also from a later era.

The mongol weaponry may not all have been accurate, with their farthest traveling weapon probably being the catapult, but if the mongols ever found weaponry during conquests they always took it and made it their own. They were very eclectic in their killing and didn’t discriminate.

The Hama Yumi bow or demon banishing bow was a real object from this era. A lot of the other mythic items or tales are supposed to be real unfortunately there was no specification here.

There wasn’t a unified Japan during this era. There was just reward from the Shogun for gaining something. Despite winning against the Mongols, the samurai of Tsushima didn’t actually gain land or objects. Because of this, the Shogun never honored them with any land or rewards of any kind, causing a distrusting rift between samurai and shogun inevitably leading to the downfall of this ruling system.

On the topic of gain and loss, not much was lost other than Buddhist statues, scriptures, and 

Dislikes

Let’s do likes and dislikes. This time around I’m gonna start with dislikes. And Because I have to re-record all of this, I’m going to generalize a lot of this instead of list specific problems like I did the first time.

The first, super simple thing is: I do not like the flame swords. Reaching them is fun, but you get them so late in the game that I never used them during the first playthrough. That changed only a little during the second playthrough, but with continued use came additional confusion as to why I’m even using them.

Second, Kurosawa mode. It’s a fun mode but difficult to actually see anything. Kurosawa mode is actually how I first began playing and it was extremely demotivating during the first post-intro boss fight. I thought I’d lost all my gaming knowhow. Nope. You just can’t see enemies or their telegraphed moves at night. The light effects did not help. They had studio lighting on Kurosawa’s sets, so this could have been amended in a creative way.

The remainder are specifically related to earning trophies. I’m not gonna say these are gamebreaking, but if you’re a completionist you may experience some similar frustrations.

Songbirds! They become broken later in the game. Where you proc them changes, when you proc them changes, where they take you can change, some of them may not lead you anywhere, some of them never actually land or don’t land anywhere near the thing they’re leading you to. I understand why the devs wanted them to have collision, but quite a few of these stated problems are due to collision. I played this game twice and near the end got two very different results. Some birds never existed in one gameplay. Some birds never dropped me anywhere near the mission beginning. 

As an addition to this, the birds on Iki Island are pretty trash. Several of them never landed until after I found the thing, then they landed DURING the quick cutscene.

Mechanics! Killing a dude by shoulder-checking him off the cliff was weirdly difficult. Never accomplished it in my first playthrough and lucked out on my second. As is tradition, the usual result is that -after shoulder charging- the enemy goes into the yeet animation while staying in the same spot. The OTHER result is that if you luck out and knock them off a cliff, they might teleport to the tiny ledge or ground 50’ below and take no damage. This same fall would kill you so damn fast. It just felt like you gotta hit the right guy at the right time at the right place to earn this trophy.

Here’s a weird thing: during my NG+ gameplay enemies spawned during one of those cutscenes where you’re only supposed to chat with Yuki. That was kinda funny. They seemed just as surprised as I was.

Legends was too broke for me. I wasted a lot of time losing matches because an enemy got hung up on an object outside the map and therefore couldn’t be killed. That got old after the second time it happened on the same day.

Lastly, and most importantly, nothing earned transfers beyond that individual playthrough. For example, the trophy “Body, Mind, and Spirit” requires the player to “Complete all Hot Springs, Haiku, Inari Shrines, and Bamboo Strikes”. The moment you start NG+, every task you did and mission you completed is gone. The items and skills transfer, but not the checkmark. You must complete all of these tasks again in that one playthrough. I get it for a new-new game, but this is a slap in the face for NG+. You spend 80 hours on this puzzle only for the entire puzzle to get thrown out.

Let me reassure you that this game is fucking amazing. I look forward to a third playthrough on PS5 whenever we eventually get one. 

Likes

Hey I forgot this in the script last time so let’s make it a priority this time: I absolutely love how they scale when you unlock weapons and earn new abilities. During both playthroughs it always felt like I earned a new weapon or COULD level up a stance or weapon around the time I finally got comfortable with the previous setup. It particularly helps that enemy diversity and difficulty scale with you, so those newly earned things arrive just in the knick of time. This extends to the Iki Island experience.

Ryūzo facial expressions while burning japanese is sad. The twitching was so precise.

Yuriko’s death. Telling her the objects you see on a burning plain and she relates it to good memories. 

Shrines themselves were intentionally made to pull you away from what you were doing and they nailed that. It does feel like a tiny break.

Accolades 

This might be the one time I don’t list accolades. And it ain’t because it didn’t win any. It’s because it won enough to be a whole mini-sode. 

But something worth mentioning is that this is the first game to take place during the Kamakura period. Not even the Japanese have delved into this. Heck, they haven’t even made movies about the Mongol invasion!

Resources

Never heard of MobyGames.com before but they came in clutch with a lot of names. They don’t have the most in-depth of biographical information concerning everyone, but damn if their names and job titles throughout the years aren’t on lock.

Never heard of PSNProfile either but that really gave me a much more user-focused view of the game.

News

More of the kaiju in the upcoming Gamera Netflix anime have been released. I’m hype. 

Ultraman Blazar releases on July 8th! You can bet your ass I’m tuning into that.

Skull Island, the Kong cartoon series, released on Netflix! In the time it took to edit and re-record this I binged it. It is holy shit amazing. Particularly if you loved Godzilla: The Animated Series. 

The other thing that happened in the time it took to release this: Pluto TV has a Godzilla specific channel! 24/7! The real interesting thing it will feature are ALL of the Heisei era films, ALL of the Return of Mothra films, the 90s Godzilla: The Series, and more! It’s free! Go install Pluto right now and leave it on in the background. That’s what I did all weekend.

Shameless Plugs

The Indiana Jones season on Podcasters Assemble.  Particularly the brand new “Drunk in an RV” episode where Zack and I review Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull while knees-deep in empty beer cans.

Hey if you wanna see me in person, InfinityCon is taking place in Tallahassee at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center on July 8th & 9th. I’ll be covering the event and hopefully doing a couple of small interviews.

Nacho Business

Brenda and I recently finished all 112 episodes of Yu Yu Hakusho. Let me tell ya, what a ride. I love that show and really recommend it. The ending is a bit rushed but I think all things are handled pretty darn well.

Hey I might do some streaming soon. Maybe. I do have a TWIMB twitch channel and have already streamed some Blender tutorials, but games will also be a thing.

Outro

GUYS! Holy shit this was a lot. Especially the second time. Hopefully this makes up for all the time just talking about its inevitable release.