Being a new console and all, the PS5 still has a manageable library if you skip the backwards compat games. Bugsnax in November was great, but it took me about 2 weeks to fire up December's free Worms Rumble. If you've never played Worms before, it's a turn based game where you position your worm and fire your weapon, utilizing angles and whatnot to whittle the other team down before yours bites the bullet (hurr-hurr). Worms Rumble makes that all live action, in bite-sized 10 minute matches with up to 32 players.
Trophy gripe: Worms Rumble's all a ton of fun with the only problem being that the PS5 version's trophies don't work correctly. I don't know if Team17 will ever patch these to working, as the community is dwinding down already and it might not be worth it. The PS+ version lets you select both the PS4 and PS5 versions, and the PS4 trophies apparently don't have any problems. However, cross-compat games have separate identical PS4 and PS5 lists. So, the working trophy with 100 kills that I already got on PS5 will trigger on the PS4 version when I get my first kill. Mortal Kombat 11 was like this, and I think that's what to expect for cross-compat games. The only problem is that there is one involving leveling your profile to 50, and how would you re-trigger it on the other list if you max out at 50? No idea how this is handled under the hood, but it would do developers well to treat trophy earning with respect, as some of their community may not play their games with faulty ones.
Onto January's free PS5 title: Maneater, a friggin shark RPG! In a jarringly-violent intro, some southern shark-hunter spears a mother shark and cuts her babies out of her stomach and baby you flops out onto the deck and off the boat. You start the game off eating little fish and occasionally fighting aggressive ones. There's a documentary-like narrator that blends jokes about Floridians and sea life with the occasional marine fact. The gameplay flow has you going to a new area and using sonar to do a few missions before pissing off a miniboss enough to come out and hunt you. Some missions have you flopping on land to eat tourists and golfers, while others have you eating schools of overpopulated fish who are damaging the environment. And that's the thing about this game; it leans heavily on the environmental justice, showing how bad humans are, but perpetuates the idea that sharks are violent human-killers. I personally will always choose humans over animals, but I can see why shark fans would get pissed off at this game.
The other thing that would piss off a potential player is the controls. When you are underwater, the controls are fine except your sprint, or 'lunge', works in bursts and trying to time your triggers to move smoothly is a pain. Then, like every game ever created, there's a poor camera system. The controls turn to worse when you get near the surface, which is quite often. your shark 'sticks' to the surface and goes at a cruising speed which is great for exploring, but terrible for combat, as you have to press a button to submerge (when you normally just tilt the sticks underwater). Combine that with the fact that the beginning areas have enemies that are meant for you to come back to later in the game means you're fighting the controls and camera when trying to run away.
If you're a fool like me and read that the game is only 15 hours, you'll stick with it and the controls actually get better, as a larger shark has more mobility and can really take out those harpooning hunters like they deserve. However, be prepared for bad controls for the first few hours if you go for this one. The RPG part comes from gaining levels based on what you eat, and geting equppable jaws, teeth, fins and other abilities that you can upgrade individually. It's a one-of-a-kind game, for sure, and I think 15 hours is about as long as it needs to be.
Mono no aware
Now finally we get to a contender for one of the greatest games I've ever played: Ghost of Tsushima. Back in November, I had a sudden desire to play a badass ninja game. The Messenger in December scratched that itch. Little did I know that Ghost of Tsushima was basically a samurai version of The Witcher, and any remaining itching was severely scratched, ointment was applied, the dermitologist was visited, and this game was played! The worldbuilding is exceptional, the voice acting is on point, and I played in the only logical choice: Kurosawa mode (black and white with film grain, Japanese dialogue and English subtitles.) This game was on many Game of 2020 lists and all the reasons are there. All of the cinematics look like they belong in black and white, and so many of the shots are plucked right out of Akira Kurosawa's film profile. One particular action trope where two still warriors cross and you don't know which one succeeded and failed until after a dramatic pause was oddly missing for hours upon hours and it faded to the back of my mind...However, it's there, at the very end of the game (I won't spoil who it involves), but Sucker Punch wasn't going to go out like that.
The setting is that Tsushima was the first Japanese island that the Mongols invaded in the 1200s before heading to Honshuu, the main island of Japan. Your character, Jin Sakai, loses his father to these invaders and you gotta avenge him and drive them out. You start with (one of) Ghengis Khan's grandson(s) abducting your uncle, the most powerful general of Tsushima. Along the way, you make friends with Yuna, a thief who saves your life, Masako, the last of her clan, Norio, a traumatized monk and Kenji, a sake salesman. These friends and allies influence Jin as you band together to remove the Mongols, fort by fort, to work your way up to the big cheese.
The 'Ghost' part is that Jin grows in legend as he employs some less-than-samurai methods of taking out the baddies. The game establishes that your uncle is a traditional bushido and follows the direct, head-on way of sword skill and facing your enemies while looking in their eyes. Jin learns to use tools, poison, stealth and his enviroment because it's the only way to win against such overwhelming odds. Between warring and exploring, there are hotsprings that increase your life as you ruminate on the game's events, foxes that lead you to shrines to pray and receive charms that add abilities, and scenic areas to compose haiku. Sucker Punch absolutely did their homework when creating this game.
However, Sucker Punch, in Bellevue, WA is the above photo and certain tone-deaf SJWs have a problem with a non-Japanese studio making a very Japanese game. I say they're tone-deaf because this game treats Japanese culture and people with respect, in addition to receiving positive reviews from Japanese gaming magazines. Additionally, I've lived in Japan and visited many times, and Japanese people themselves are happy to dress me in yukata and enjoy hosting my sampling of their culture. To me, the concept of cultural appropriation is much more rare than strangers on the internet like to bring up. I would say that I felt bad for how Mongols are portrayed, but even then, bushido would respect their fearlessness, and it's demonstrated that the invaders know what kind of places and people to strike critically. It's also a period piece, because lord knows the Japanese army a few centuries later showed heinous and regretful behavior when invading China and South Korea. Their shit stinks too, and that's where a non-Asian studio making a game about those events might cross a line. However, GoT is locked to the 1200s and blends fantasy with some well-researched Japanese culture depiction and it's great.
Back to gameplay, the handful of armors all have different bonuses and purposes, though you can mix and match masks and helmets for aesthetics if you want. At first, I liked the full armor with the kabuto and horns, and then I unlocked my first straw hat. When I was a kid, I thought straw hats were ridiculous. Sometime later, I realized a warrior in a robe and a straw hat is confident enough that s/he doesn't need armor and just wants some protection from the elements. Couple that with some very deliberate movements and you've got yourself a genuine badass. Yeah, Ghost of Tsushima has all of that.
About 15 hours in, I was on a quest involving colored flowers that was just too hard to complete in Kurosawa mode, so I flipped back on color and was stunned by how gorgeous the game is. Additionally, that mode also removes some of the feedback so combat and exploration are also easier in color. Granted, this is running on the resolution mode on PS5, so there's some help there. In addition to not liking high framerates, I think that playing in a designated film mode also necessitates a lower framerate. Regardless, I had reasons to play in both black and white and color, and there are rewarding features of both.
Sucker Punch absolutely killed it with Ghost of Tsushima, and being able to compare it to the Witcher makes me wonder if there are other cultures to highlight with this type of game. An open-world 1960s Blaxploitation RPG? Modern day Seoul?
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