Yeah that was my beef with it too. I played like 30 or 40 hours and had less than half the islands visited. I never finished it (probably never will now) but I enjoyed it.
Yeah, I'll second the notion that even if you aren't really into Assassin's Creed, you should give Black Flag a try. It's 10% Assassin's Creed and 90% pirate simulator. You can collect pirate shanties for your crew to sing, fer chrissake. I'm not really an AC guy but I dug the crap out of that one.
I own Odyssey and want to play it, but after devoting what seems like 47,000 hours to just Persona 5 Royal and the latest Fire Emblem, I need something shorter.
Yeah, I'll second the notion that even if you aren't really into Assassin's Creed, you should give Black Flag a try. It's 10% Assassin's Creed and 90% pirate simulator. You can collect pirate shanties for your crew to sing, fer chrissake. I'm not really an AC guy but I dug the crap out of that one.
I own Odyssey and want to play it, but after devoting what seems like 47,000 hours to just Persona 5 Royal and the latest Fire Emblem, I need something shorter.
Rogue is a refined version of Blag Flag - lots of contained zones and naval combat.
+3
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited July 2020
Alright...I'm still enjoying Ghost, but the camera and combat can kind of fuck off. I'm mostly playing it as a ninja, so that's mostly fine. The lack of lock on is a baffling design decision. I don't always use it in games, but lock on is crucial when your camera sucks...and the Ghost camera sucks. Especially indoors. I turned my PS4 off in frustration last night at a particular part that forces me to fight multiple enemies indoors. I died multiple times to the camera getting stuck in a corner, or my attacks going off in some random direction because the camera rotated badly. Having no way to precisely direct my attacks, on top of a whack camera, is hurting my overall enjoyment of a game which otherwise scratches a lot of itches for me.
I'll probably play it eventually (Sucker Punch does good work) but as a Japanese history buff I can't help feel that it's a bit of a missed opportunity.
It was apparently made in concert with a Japanese historian and is apparently very accurate to the period. My understanding is that it's being really well received in Japan, especially for how authentic it feels and its attention to their history.
It's not at all accurate to the period and the devs have been fairly upfront about this in interviews. They wanted to evoke the feel of classic samurai movies (most of which take place 300-500 years later) and didn't want to use actual 13th century samurai armor, weapons, or culture as they would feel wrong to a modern audience which has been trained on a very different image of what a "samurai" should be like.
Which, hey, fair enough. I don't generally go to video games for historical accuracy. But, again, as a Japanese history buff, my first reaction to hearing the pitch for the game had been "Cool! We haven't seen anyone do 13th century Japan before!" And, well, we still haven't.
Yeah, I'll second the notion that even if you aren't really into Assassin's Creed, you should give Black Flag a try. It's 10% Assassin's Creed and 90% pirate simulator. You can collect pirate shanties for your crew to sing, fer chrissake. I'm not really an AC guy but I dug the crap out of that one.
I own Odyssey and want to play it, but after devoting what seems like 47,000 hours to just Persona 5 Royal and the latest Fire Emblem, I need something shorter.
Rogue is a refined version of Blag Flag - lots of contained zones and naval combat.
I'll probably play it eventually (Sucker Punch does good work) but as a Japanese history buff I can't help feel that it's a bit of a missed opportunity.
It was apparently made in concert with a Japanese historian and is apparently very accurate to the period. My understanding is that it's being really well received in Japan, especially for how authentic it feels and its attention to their history.
It's not at all accurate to the period and the devs have been fairly upfront about this in interviews. They wanted to evoke the feel of classic samurai movies (most of which take place 300-500 years later) and didn't want to use actual 13th century samurai armor, weapons, or culture as they would feel wrong to a modern audience which has been trained on a very different image of what a "samurai" should be like.
Which, hey, fair enough. I don't generally go to video games for historical accuracy. But, again, as a Japanese history buff, my first reaction to hearing the pitch for the game had been "Cool! We haven't seen anyone do 13th century Japan before!" And, well, we still haven't.
They've been upfront about the appearance and weapons of the samurai, going with the image that is what more modern players would associate with samurai and how they appeared; and that the combat styles weren't at all of the time, or even realistic in any fashion (again, going for the pop culture variant). However, they said they did try hard to otherwise make the culture and type of life that would be period correct, accurate in the bounds of gameplay being priority. So the style of construction, or the mixing of buddhism and shinto, etc.
From what I've seen it seems they managed well. I'm not sure where the idea that they made a period accurate game came from, as you say, they never claimed to do so; but they did make an effort to provide something that wasn't purely pop culture and respect the reality of the era, while making a game that would be enjoyable and taking liberties with the narrative to make it work well for a player. They intentionally made up characters inside the setting of a real historical event, so that the story itself didn't have to be bound by the specific details that are known about it.
So, for sure, the game isn't a historical period piece, but also isn't an outright Kurosawa homage either. What, from my understanding, it seems to be winning over respect in Japan with, is its respect of an important historical event, the general feel of an era, while still being an enjoyable game and taking liberties where it wants to, while still respecting the source of those liberties. Their depiction of samurai might be several centuries off the mark of when the game is supposed to take place, but it still treats the version they used (the version they believed players would expect) with dignity.
I feel like Rogue's story is more interesting sandwiched between Black Flag and Unity, because it does show a more grey area of the normally black and white "sure we kill but they're trying to control everyone so they're the worst" stories we usually get. Like, the path Shay takes is more interesting for the way his actions impact and are impacted by the alternate history of both Assassin's Creed III and Black Flag, as well as what he does and how it shapes Arno's fate as well.
Without the links, none of the individual stories feel quite as weighty as they do together, at least for me.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
0
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Yeah I gave up on Unity. Between the janky controls and the inconsistent mechanics, the frustration-to-enjoyment level was too skewed for me to continue.
I think like Wow and fetch quests before it, Read Dead Redemption 2 has really lowered my tolerance threshold for shitty controls and poor fundamental game mechanics.
What, from my understanding, it seems to be winning over respect in Japan with, is its respect of an important historical event, the general feel of an era, while still being an enjoyable game and taking liberties where it wants to, while still respecting the source of those liberties. Their depiction of samurai might be several centuries off the mark of when the game is supposed to take place, but it still treats the version they used (the version they believed players would expect) with dignity.
Yeah, Japan and the West generally have shared cultural expectations when it comes to Japanese history since so much of Western exposure to it comes from popular Japanese sources. Everyone's being more or less influenced by the same stuff, in other words. So I'm not surprised that the game seems to be as well received over there as it has been here.
I'll probably play it eventually (Sucker Punch does good work) but as a Japanese history buff I can't help feel that it's a bit of a missed opportunity.
It was apparently made in concert with a Japanese historian and is apparently very accurate to the period. My understanding is that it's being really well received in Japan, especially for how authentic it feels and its attention to their history.
It's not at all accurate to the period and the devs have been fairly upfront about this in interviews. They wanted to evoke the feel of classic samurai movies (most of which take place 300-500 years later) and didn't want to use actual 13th century samurai armor, weapons, or culture as they would feel wrong to a modern audience which has been trained on a very different image of what a "samurai" should be like.
Which, hey, fair enough. I don't generally go to video games for historical accuracy. But, again, as a Japanese history buff, my first reaction to hearing the pitch for the game had been "Cool! We haven't seen anyone do 13th century Japan before!" And, well, we still haven't.
As someone not really familiar with anything before the Sengoku era, what was 13th century Japan really like? Lots of horse archers and spearmen?
I feel like Rogue's story is more interesting sandwiched between Black Flag and Unity, because it does show a more grey area of the normally black and white "sure we kill but they're trying to control everyone so they're the worst" stories we usually get. Like, the path Shay takes is more interesting for the way his actions impact and are impacted by the alternate history of both Assassin's Creed III and Black Flag, as well as what he does and how it shapes Arno's fate as well.
Without the links, none of the individual stories feel quite as weighty as they do together, at least for me.
Rogue made me want to go back and give AC3 another chance after being really pissed off by it, and I wound up actually enjoying AC3 on a second go.
So that’s a bloody miracle.
Even without that, it’s my favorite of the post-Ezio pre-Bayek ACs, even if it is pretty much a Black Flag reskin as previously commented.
+1
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
What, from my understanding, it seems to be winning over respect in Japan with, is its respect of an important historical event, the general feel of an era, while still being an enjoyable game and taking liberties where it wants to, while still respecting the source of those liberties. Their depiction of samurai might be several centuries off the mark of when the game is supposed to take place, but it still treats the version they used (the version they believed players would expect) with dignity.
Yeah, Japan and the West generally have shared cultural expectations when it comes to Japanese history since so much of Western exposure to it comes from popular Japanese sources. Everyone's being more or less influenced by the same stuff, in other words. So I'm not surprised that the game seems to be as well received over there as it has been here.
Let's not act like people are necessarily more aware of their own history. For example, I doubt that a majority of Americans can get within 50 years of when a Western is supposed to be taking place. Hell, I doubt that a majority of Americans can even list the century in which the Civil War took place, or how that time period's technology meaningfully differs from that of the American Revolution.
I feel like Rogue's story is more interesting sandwiched between Black Flag and Unity, because it does show a more grey area of the normally black and white "sure we kill but they're trying to control everyone so they're the worst" stories we usually get. Like, the path Shay takes is more interesting for the way his actions impact and are impacted by the alternate history of both Assassin's Creed III and Black Flag, as well as what he does and how it shapes Arno's fate as well.
Without the links, none of the individual stories feel quite as weighty as they do together, at least for me.
Rogue made me want to go back and give AC3 another chance after being really pissed off by it, and I wound up actually enjoying AC3 on a second go.
So that’s a bloody miracle.
Even without that, it’s my favorite of the post-Ezio pre-Bayek ACs, even if it is pretty much a Black Flag reskin as previously commented.
I finished AC3 recently, really enjoyed it. The main problem is it just takes so damn long to get its legs.
I enjoyed the homestead, the naval combat, and Connor in the end didn’t even bother me too much.
I'll probably play it eventually (Sucker Punch does good work) but as a Japanese history buff I can't help feel that it's a bit of a missed opportunity.
It was apparently made in concert with a Japanese historian and is apparently very accurate to the period. My understanding is that it's being really well received in Japan, especially for how authentic it feels and its attention to their history.
It's not at all accurate to the period and the devs have been fairly upfront about this in interviews. They wanted to evoke the feel of classic samurai movies (most of which take place 300-500 years later) and didn't want to use actual 13th century samurai armor, weapons, or culture as they would feel wrong to a modern audience which has been trained on a very different image of what a "samurai" should be like.
Which, hey, fair enough. I don't generally go to video games for historical accuracy. But, again, as a Japanese history buff, my first reaction to hearing the pitch for the game had been "Cool! We haven't seen anyone do 13th century Japan before!" And, well, we still haven't.
As someone not really familiar with anything before the Sengoku era, what was 13th century Japan really like? Lots of horse archers and spearmen?
In terms of warfare, yes, samurai warfare was centered around cavalry; horsemanship and archery were considered the key samurai skills. They did carry swords for close combat but they were long and not well-suited for use on foot (the katana would later develop out of these to serve that purpose). Historical accounts emphasize the role of one-on-one duels between samurai (usually with bows), but I know some historians doubt that this was actually as common as portrayed. Overall, battles were much smaller than those of the Sengoku period with little use made of of footsoldiers.
By all accounts, the samurai did not fare well when they first encountered the Mongols and found they did not follow their rules.
Obviously, this isn't a natural fit for a game like Ghost of Tsushima so I understand the changes.
Socially, the Kamakura period is kind of fascinating because while the samurai had taken over the country, their control was incomplete. The imperial government was still more or less in place and more or less functioning. One book I have on the period is entitled "Kyoto and Kamakura: Two Sovereigns" to give you an idea of the degree of this. It's a pretty overlooked era and I should really read more about it.
I feel like Rogue's story is more interesting sandwiched between Black Flag and Unity, because it does show a more grey area of the normally black and white "sure we kill but they're trying to control everyone so they're the worst" stories we usually get. Like, the path Shay takes is more interesting for the way his actions impact and are impacted by the alternate history of both Assassin's Creed III and Black Flag, as well as what he does and how it shapes Arno's fate as well.
Without the links, none of the individual stories feel quite as weighty as they do together, at least for me.
Rogue made me want to go back and give AC3 another chance after being really pissed off by it, and I wound up actually enjoying AC3 on a second go.
So that’s a bloody miracle.
Even without that, it’s my favorite of the post-Ezio pre-Bayek ACs, even if it is pretty much a Black Flag reskin as previously commented.
I finished AC3 recently, really enjoyed it. The main problem is it just takes so damn long to get its legs.
I enjoyed the homestead, the naval combat, and Connor in the end didn’t even bother me too much.
The game really did Connor no favors by making have to follow the great Haytham parts. I also thought the homestead stuff was fun which is why I was surprised when a video I was watching the other day mentioned that it was almost entirely optional and missable.
AC3 is my least favorite of the series but I think I'm going to play through it again since I got the remaster with Odyssey.
ETA: Rogue is on sale for $10 right now, so anyone who hasn't played it should definitely pick it up.
How is the homestead part "missable". Optional sure, but missable?
There is exactly one homestead mission (save the drowning lumberjack) which is mostly necessary because you need to have at least one dude standing next to you during a late-game cutscene. Apart from that you can ignore it, and the game can be completed without doing any crafting. You can also complete the game without touching the ship outside of, I think, two mandatory naval missions, though the last is a proper nightmare if you haven't upgraded the ship at all.
The homestead system is WEIRD. I am going to copy and paste something I wrote earlier and stick it in spoilers because it is long and dull.
This is the WEIRDEST damn game I have ever played.
Let me give you an example.
In other Assassin's Creed games up to this point, you'd mostly purchased upgrades (bigger pouches, etc) from shops, so the acquisition process was (a) stab mans until you had money (b) exchange money for goods and services.
In Assassin's Creed III, to upgrade one of your pouches:
You need a pelt and some sewing thread.
The pelt is easy. Find animal, stab animal, skin animal. Be sure that you don’t shoot it because using a firearm instantly ruins the pelt of anything you shoot. Alternately, if you have recruited a hunter for your homestead, you can buy the pelt from them.
To get the thread, you need to recruit a farmer and do farming missions to level them up so you can get wool.
Then you need to find the recipe for sewing thread, in a specific chest in New York, which is inaccessible until late in the game.
Then you need to recruit a tailor, who can make thread, and do tailoring missions to get them to the level where they can combine the thread and the pelt for you.
OK, so that’s a convoluted way to upgrade your gear, but then it goes completely off the rails into should-I-have-a-spreadsheet?-land.
Your homestead can product a huge range of various products, and you can ship these off to different markets and different shopkeepers and choose where you will sell them, and the different markets and shopkeepers all have different risk levels and tax rates assigned to them. If you wanted, you could sit around for hours doing nothing but selling belts and buttons and plows and stomachache cures to Boston, or New York, or the Bahamas, depending on where they were in the most demand. I did a little of this between missions and finished the game staggeringly rich.
There are also a bunch of British military forts scattered around the map, and Naval missions that you can run, and taking over these forts and doing these side missions gives you no direct reward, but lowers the taxes you will pay on your shipment and reduces the risk of your shipment being intercepted. Because you may be a mass murderer but you are VERY concerned about taxes.
At this point, you might be forgiven for checking the front of the box to make sure that it says “Assassin’s Creed III” and that you didn’t bring the wrong thing home from the store.
It's been years since I played the game myself, but the way the video presented it was that (because homestead missions are in chains) progressing through the game without doing them meant that later missions wouldn't appear. Yes, you could go back and do the earlier missions but a casual player would be unaware that they were missing anything.
Because you may be a mass murderer but you are VERY concerned about taxes.
I just want to say this: Very period accurate for american history.
+1
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Of the nine Assassin's Creed games I've played (including Unity, which I'm still playing), I'd have to say Liberation ranks lowest simply in terms of it being very much a handheld game hampered by handheld game limitations. I think Unity would be next from the bottom because there's just a lot of decisions (Skill points tied directly to story missions, various quality on map missions, strange ability to get very strong gear but still not be advancing otherwise, multiplayer bullshit) that just doesn't really interest me. Then up from that would be the original, then Brotherhood.
Top 5 (from top to bottom this time) Would be Black Flag, Revelations, Two, Three, and Rogue.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Anyone have experience using a capture card? Thinking that would be prettier than streaming on the LAN, want to game when the TV is in use. No biggie, Switch is an option until I can afford a gaming monitor and a place to put it. But, them PS4 and PC games need some lovin' too...
Because you may be a mass murderer but you are VERY concerned about taxes.
I just want to say this: Very period accurate for american history.
I liked that 3 didn’t really sugar coat the revolution. Conner really buys into the “FREEDOM” kool-aid at first, but by the end really gets that the slaves are still slaves, the Mohawk are still screwed, and the new boss is the same as the old boss.
Edit: though at the same time Conner had some personal victories so it wasn’t a Farcry 5 “You are fucked no matter what and everything you did was a waste of time” ending.
Jealous Deva on
+1
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
My main gripe with Ghost of Tsushima is the Japanese VO.
The game has this incredible setting, and it really does feel historically accurate, until you hear the Japanese VO and realize they're speaking modern Japanese. I'm not fluent in the language, but even I noticed that. The voice acting is also a bit over the top, and it feels more like an anime.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited July 2020
The english VO is very good. I've been impressed so far, especially so because they went out of their way to use Asian voice actors for Asian characters...so big thumbs up there. As for the Japanese VO...I think they can be forgiven for not going out and finding writers and VO's who can write and speak an ancient dialect of Japanese. Everyone has their thing I guess, but that seems like a somewhat unreasonable ask to me personally.
I got past that part I was super frustrated with last night. Back in to the flow of the game and having a great time again. I still think the combat is the weakest part of the game, which is kind of strange for a game about Samurai. I think it's the imprecise nature of combat. I can see what they were going for but the shaky camera and no way to be precise about attacks just makes it feel janky. I don't feel myself getting much better at it, even as new stances and stuff open...I've taken to relying on kunai quite a bit to get around some of the weaknesses in the combat system.
My main gripe with Ghost of Tsushima is the Japanese VO.
The game has this incredible setting, and it really does feel historically accurate, until you hear the Japanese VO and realize they're speaking modern Japanese. I'm not fluent in the language, but even I noticed that. The voice acting is also a bit over the top, and it feels more like an anime.
Could you expand on this a bit? Were you hoping for them to speak in Middle Japanese?
Of the nine Assassin's Creed games I've played (including Unity, which I'm still playing), I'd have to say Liberation ranks lowest simply in terms of it being very much a handheld game hampered by handheld game limitations. I think Unity would be next from the bottom because there's just a lot of decisions (Skill points tied directly to story missions, various quality on map missions, strange ability to get very strong gear but still not be advancing otherwise, multiplayer bullshit) that just doesn't really interest me. Then up from that would be the original, then Brotherhood.
Top 5 (from top to bottom this time) Would be Black Flag, Revelations, Two, Three, and Rogue.
What are the limitations of Liberation? I own it, because I have Assassins creed 3 hd and it came with it, but have only played it about 5 minutes.
The premise always seemed very interesting to me, but everyone always says it was meh.
0
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
Of the nine Assassin's Creed games I've played (including Unity, which I'm still playing), I'd have to say Liberation ranks lowest simply in terms of it being very much a handheld game hampered by handheld game limitations. I think Unity would be next from the bottom because there's just a lot of decisions (Skill points tied directly to story missions, various quality on map missions, strange ability to get very strong gear but still not be advancing otherwise, multiplayer bullshit) that just doesn't really interest me. Then up from that would be the original, then Brotherhood.
Top 5 (from top to bottom this time) Would be Black Flag, Revelations, Two, Three, and Rogue.
What are the limitations of Liberation? I own it, because I have Assassins creed 3 hd and it came with it, but have only played it about 5 minutes.
The premise always seemed very interesting to me, but everyone always says it was meh.
So, first the bad: the game has a swamp area and it feels like they were aiming for the frontier feeling of ACIII, but it's fairly cramped, as the city of New Orleans. The only other area is a very small area that you can easily get all the collectibles on your first visit there. Basically, the collectibles are very few, and the game is fairly small, because the game had to be to fit on the original format.
Now, the good: Because of the size, the game is short. Like, getting all the stuffs it only took me as long as the original Assassin's Creed to play, 29 hours. And the "change clothes, change abilities" mechanic is cool especially in the context of the main game missions where it can be used (though once you get the umbrella for the fancy lady outfit that shoots darts, it's basically just better to hide behind a thing and shoot guards, which makes the game immeasurably super easy because they don't even suspect you). Also the game has a female main character, and one of African descent as well; representation matters!
In closing, if you like AC games, and you enjoyed ACIII even a little bit, the mechanics are much the same, I'd say play it. If you aren't a "play all the games in this series" fan of Assassin's Creed, there's not really a huge reason to play the game. It was still fun, it just came out feeling very stunted to me by the limitations of the original hardware.
Kalnaur on
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Of the nine Assassin's Creed games I've played (including Unity, which I'm still playing), I'd have to say Liberation ranks lowest simply in terms of it being very much a handheld game hampered by handheld game limitations. I think Unity would be next from the bottom because there's just a lot of decisions (Skill points tied directly to story missions, various quality on map missions, strange ability to get very strong gear but still not be advancing otherwise, multiplayer bullshit) that just doesn't really interest me. Then up from that would be the original, then Brotherhood.
Top 5 (from top to bottom this time) Would be Black Flag, Revelations, Two, Three, and Rogue.
What are the limitations of Liberation? I own it, because I have Assassins creed 3 hd and it came with it, but have only played it about 5 minutes.
The premise always seemed very interesting to me, but everyone always says it was meh.
So, first the bad: the game has a swamp area and it feels like they were aiming for the frontier feeling of ACIII, but it's fairly cramped, as the city of New Orleans. The only other area is a very small area that you can easily get all the collectibles on your first visit there. Basically, the collectibles are very few, and the game is fairly small, because the game had to be to fit on the original format.
Now, the good: Because of the size, the game is short. Like, getting all the stuffs it only took me as long as the original Assassin's Creed to play, 29 hours. And the "change clothes, change abilities" mechanic is cool especially in the context of the main game missions where it can be used (though once you get the umbrella for the fancy lady outfit that shoots darts, it's basically just better to hide behind a thing and shoot guards, which makes the game immeasurably super easy because they don't even suspect you). Also the game has a female main character, and one of African descent as well; representation matters!
In closing, if you like AC games, and you enjoyed ACIII even a little bit, the mechanics are much the same, I'd say play it. If you aren't a "play all the games in this series" fan of Assassin's Creed, there's not really a huge reason to play the game. It was still fun, it just came out feeling very stunted to me by the limitations of the original hardware.
Ah, so its sort of like a smaller dlc area for ac3, like the dlc areas for origins, but with a new protagonist?
That sounds pretty good, I might run through it then.
Of the nine Assassin's Creed games I've played (including Unity, which I'm still playing), I'd have to say Liberation ranks lowest simply in terms of it being very much a handheld game hampered by handheld game limitations. I think Unity would be next from the bottom because there's just a lot of decisions (Skill points tied directly to story missions, various quality on map missions, strange ability to get very strong gear but still not be advancing otherwise, multiplayer bullshit) that just doesn't really interest me. Then up from that would be the original, then Brotherhood.
Top 5 (from top to bottom this time) Would be Black Flag, Revelations, Two, Three, and Rogue.
What are the limitations of Liberation? I own it, because I have Assassins creed 3 hd and it came with it, but have only played it about 5 minutes.
The premise always seemed very interesting to me, but everyone always says it was meh.
I liked liberation, but it is an upport of a vita game, so there its technical aspects don't measure up against 3.
+1
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
My main gripe with Ghost of Tsushima is the Japanese VO.
The game has this incredible setting, and it really does feel historically accurate, until you hear the Japanese VO and realize they're speaking modern Japanese. I'm not fluent in the language, but even I noticed that. The voice acting is also a bit over the top, and it feels more like an anime.
Could you expand on this a bit? Were you hoping for them to speak in Middle Japanese?
Not necessarily, but the greatest examples of media with "old Japanese" for me would be something like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.
The funny thing about Ghost is all the detective work you do. I’m Samurai Batman. The Samurai That Detects.
Aoshima of Tsushima, Detective Samuraiman. If only there were a green parka coat to wear over your armor.
"Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." - Bertolt Brecht
+1
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited July 2020
I'm starting to come to better grips with the combat in Ghost. Coming to this from playing a lot of Sekiro and Bloodborne lately I was being far too aggressive in the combat. Also stances matter a lot which is something I find tacitly annoying. It's just another thing I have to manage during combat when I'd rather be focused on fighting. I had this same issue in Nioh, where I fundamentally pushed towards builds that didn't require me to stance swap much, if at all. In Ghost the stances are far too important for that. That said, kunais remain the best way to just cheese any fight. I maxed out my kunai pouch as soon as I could. With max chain assassinate + smoke bombs, max chain stand off and kunais, there are almost no fights that aren't easily smashed provided you aren't out of resources.
The rest of the game remains 100% up my alley. It is strikingly gorgeous on a 4K HDR display. I regularly note in my head how pretty a vista is as I'm galloping across the landscape.
Posts
I own Odyssey and want to play it, but after devoting what seems like 47,000 hours to just Persona 5 Royal and the latest Fire Emblem, I need something shorter.
Rogue is a refined version of Blag Flag - lots of contained zones and naval combat.
It's not at all accurate to the period and the devs have been fairly upfront about this in interviews. They wanted to evoke the feel of classic samurai movies (most of which take place 300-500 years later) and didn't want to use actual 13th century samurai armor, weapons, or culture as they would feel wrong to a modern audience which has been trained on a very different image of what a "samurai" should be like.
Which, hey, fair enough. I don't generally go to video games for historical accuracy. But, again, as a Japanese history buff, my first reaction to hearing the pitch for the game had been "Cool! We haven't seen anyone do 13th century Japan before!" And, well, we still haven't.
It's not refined, it's a budget reskin.
They've been upfront about the appearance and weapons of the samurai, going with the image that is what more modern players would associate with samurai and how they appeared; and that the combat styles weren't at all of the time, or even realistic in any fashion (again, going for the pop culture variant). However, they said they did try hard to otherwise make the culture and type of life that would be period correct, accurate in the bounds of gameplay being priority. So the style of construction, or the mixing of buddhism and shinto, etc.
From what I've seen it seems they managed well. I'm not sure where the idea that they made a period accurate game came from, as you say, they never claimed to do so; but they did make an effort to provide something that wasn't purely pop culture and respect the reality of the era, while making a game that would be enjoyable and taking liberties with the narrative to make it work well for a player. They intentionally made up characters inside the setting of a real historical event, so that the story itself didn't have to be bound by the specific details that are known about it.
So, for sure, the game isn't a historical period piece, but also isn't an outright Kurosawa homage either. What, from my understanding, it seems to be winning over respect in Japan with, is its respect of an important historical event, the general feel of an era, while still being an enjoyable game and taking liberties where it wants to, while still respecting the source of those liberties. Their depiction of samurai might be several centuries off the mark of when the game is supposed to take place, but it still treats the version they used (the version they believed players would expect) with dignity.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I feel like Rogue's story is more interesting sandwiched between Black Flag and Unity, because it does show a more grey area of the normally black and white "sure we kill but they're trying to control everyone so they're the worst" stories we usually get. Like, the path Shay takes is more interesting for the way his actions impact and are impacted by the alternate history of both Assassin's Creed III and Black Flag, as well as what he does and how it shapes Arno's fate as well.
Without the links, none of the individual stories feel quite as weighty as they do together, at least for me.
I think like Wow and fetch quests before it, Read Dead Redemption 2 has really lowered my tolerance threshold for shitty controls and poor fundamental game mechanics.
Yeah, Japan and the West generally have shared cultural expectations when it comes to Japanese history since so much of Western exposure to it comes from popular Japanese sources. Everyone's being more or less influenced by the same stuff, in other words. So I'm not surprised that the game seems to be as well received over there as it has been here.
As someone not really familiar with anything before the Sengoku era, what was 13th century Japan really like? Lots of horse archers and spearmen?
Rogue made me want to go back and give AC3 another chance after being really pissed off by it, and I wound up actually enjoying AC3 on a second go.
So that’s a bloody miracle.
Even without that, it’s my favorite of the post-Ezio pre-Bayek ACs, even if it is pretty much a Black Flag reskin as previously commented.
Let's not act like people are necessarily more aware of their own history. For example, I doubt that a majority of Americans can get within 50 years of when a Western is supposed to be taking place. Hell, I doubt that a majority of Americans can even list the century in which the Civil War took place, or how that time period's technology meaningfully differs from that of the American Revolution.
I finished AC3 recently, really enjoyed it. The main problem is it just takes so damn long to get its legs.
I enjoyed the homestead, the naval combat, and Connor in the end didn’t even bother me too much.
In terms of warfare, yes, samurai warfare was centered around cavalry; horsemanship and archery were considered the key samurai skills. They did carry swords for close combat but they were long and not well-suited for use on foot (the katana would later develop out of these to serve that purpose). Historical accounts emphasize the role of one-on-one duels between samurai (usually with bows), but I know some historians doubt that this was actually as common as portrayed. Overall, battles were much smaller than those of the Sengoku period with little use made of of footsoldiers.
By all accounts, the samurai did not fare well when they first encountered the Mongols and found they did not follow their rules.
Obviously, this isn't a natural fit for a game like Ghost of Tsushima so I understand the changes.
Socially, the Kamakura period is kind of fascinating because while the samurai had taken over the country, their control was incomplete. The imperial government was still more or less in place and more or less functioning. One book I have on the period is entitled "Kyoto and Kamakura: Two Sovereigns" to give you an idea of the degree of this. It's a pretty overlooked era and I should really read more about it.
The game really did Connor no favors by making have to follow the great Haytham parts. I also thought the homestead stuff was fun which is why I was surprised when a video I was watching the other day mentioned that it was almost entirely optional and missable.
AC3 is my least favorite of the series but I think I'm going to play through it again since I got the remaster with Odyssey.
ETA: Rogue is on sale for $10 right now, so anyone who hasn't played it should definitely pick it up.
There is exactly one homestead mission (save the drowning lumberjack) which is mostly necessary because you need to have at least one dude standing next to you during a late-game cutscene. Apart from that you can ignore it, and the game can be completed without doing any crafting. You can also complete the game without touching the ship outside of, I think, two mandatory naval missions, though the last is a proper nightmare if you haven't upgraded the ship at all.
The homestead system is WEIRD. I am going to copy and paste something I wrote earlier and stick it in spoilers because it is long and dull.
Let me give you an example.
In other Assassin's Creed games up to this point, you'd mostly purchased upgrades (bigger pouches, etc) from shops, so the acquisition process was (a) stab mans until you had money (b) exchange money for goods and services.
In Assassin's Creed III, to upgrade one of your pouches:
You need a pelt and some sewing thread.
The pelt is easy. Find animal, stab animal, skin animal. Be sure that you don’t shoot it because using a firearm instantly ruins the pelt of anything you shoot. Alternately, if you have recruited a hunter for your homestead, you can buy the pelt from them.
To get the thread, you need to recruit a farmer and do farming missions to level them up so you can get wool.
Then you need to find the recipe for sewing thread, in a specific chest in New York, which is inaccessible until late in the game.
Then you need to recruit a tailor, who can make thread, and do tailoring missions to get them to the level where they can combine the thread and the pelt for you.
OK, so that’s a convoluted way to upgrade your gear, but then it goes completely off the rails into should-I-have-a-spreadsheet?-land.
Your homestead can product a huge range of various products, and you can ship these off to different markets and different shopkeepers and choose where you will sell them, and the different markets and shopkeepers all have different risk levels and tax rates assigned to them. If you wanted, you could sit around for hours doing nothing but selling belts and buttons and plows and stomachache cures to Boston, or New York, or the Bahamas, depending on where they were in the most demand. I did a little of this between missions and finished the game staggeringly rich.
There are also a bunch of British military forts scattered around the map, and Naval missions that you can run, and taking over these forts and doing these side missions gives you no direct reward, but lowers the taxes you will pay on your shipment and reduces the risk of your shipment being intercepted. Because you may be a mass murderer but you are VERY concerned about taxes.
At this point, you might be forgiven for checking the front of the box to make sure that it says “Assassin’s Creed III” and that you didn’t bring the wrong thing home from the store.
I liked all the little stories though, and seeing the toen get more buildings and people.
Not my favorite AC but it was fun and I don’t regret playing it.
I just want to say this:
Very period accurate for american history.
Top 5 (from top to bottom this time) Would be Black Flag, Revelations, Two, Three, and Rogue.
I liked that 3 didn’t really sugar coat the revolution. Conner really buys into the “FREEDOM” kool-aid at first, but by the end really gets that the slaves are still slaves, the Mohawk are still screwed, and the new boss is the same as the old boss.
Edit: though at the same time Conner had some personal victories so it wasn’t a Farcry 5 “You are fucked no matter what and everything you did was a waste of time” ending.
13 Sentinels NA launch pushed back from 9/8 to 9/22. English dub patch will be live day 1, though.
The game has this incredible setting, and it really does feel historically accurate, until you hear the Japanese VO and realize they're speaking modern Japanese. I'm not fluent in the language, but even I noticed that. The voice acting is also a bit over the top, and it feels more like an anime.
I got past that part I was super frustrated with last night. Back in to the flow of the game and having a great time again. I still think the combat is the weakest part of the game, which is kind of strange for a game about Samurai. I think it's the imprecise nature of combat. I can see what they were going for but the shaky camera and no way to be precise about attacks just makes it feel janky. I don't feel myself getting much better at it, even as new stances and stuff open...I've taken to relying on kunai quite a bit to get around some of the weaknesses in the combat system.
Could you expand on this a bit? Were you hoping for them to speak in Middle Japanese?
What are the limitations of Liberation? I own it, because I have Assassins creed 3 hd and it came with it, but have only played it about 5 minutes.
The premise always seemed very interesting to me, but everyone always says it was meh.
So, first the bad: the game has a swamp area and it feels like they were aiming for the frontier feeling of ACIII, but it's fairly cramped, as the city of New Orleans. The only other area is a very small area that you can easily get all the collectibles on your first visit there. Basically, the collectibles are very few, and the game is fairly small, because the game had to be to fit on the original format.
Now, the good: Because of the size, the game is short. Like, getting all the stuffs it only took me as long as the original Assassin's Creed to play, 29 hours. And the "change clothes, change abilities" mechanic is cool especially in the context of the main game missions where it can be used (though once you get the umbrella for the fancy lady outfit that shoots darts, it's basically just better to hide behind a thing and shoot guards, which makes the game immeasurably super easy because they don't even suspect you). Also the game has a female main character, and one of African descent as well; representation matters!
In closing, if you like AC games, and you enjoyed ACIII even a little bit, the mechanics are much the same, I'd say play it. If you aren't a "play all the games in this series" fan of Assassin's Creed, there's not really a huge reason to play the game. It was still fun, it just came out feeling very stunted to me by the limitations of the original hardware.
Ah, so its sort of like a smaller dlc area for ac3, like the dlc areas for origins, but with a new protagonist?
That sounds pretty good, I might run through it then.
I liked liberation, but it is an upport of a vita game, so there its technical aspects don't measure up against 3.
It would not be unfair to call it a side story DLC akin to Freedom Cry for Black Flag.
Not necessarily, but the greatest examples of media with "old Japanese" for me would be something like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.
Aoshima of Tsushima, Detective Samuraiman. If only there were a green parka coat to wear over your armor.
The rest of the game remains 100% up my alley. It is strikingly gorgeous on a 4K HDR display. I regularly note in my head how pretty a vista is as I'm galloping across the landscape.