Sony has had their fair share of open-world titles, to varying success. More often than not, they fall under traditional open world cliches most prominently set in stone by the likes of Far Cry 3; where some open world games like Dark Souls or Wind Waker prioritize exploration, other open world games like inFamous Second Son or Marvel's Spider-Man are more about finding collectables and liberating enemy camps - both of which to clear the map and add towards a 100% completion goal. Ghost of Tsushima, at first glance, tries to have it both ways.

One thing I initially liked a lot about this game is that there is no clear way to clear the map or where the collectables are - you must let the wind guide you. At first, it’s awesome just being led around this gorgeous world and finding its hidden secrets naturally. It feels like a real place with lots of hidden depth that I, Jin Sakai, am really exploring. Quickly, though, this pretty facade falls apart.

There's little in the way of actual exploration in this game. More often than not, the most efficient way of finding something is choosing from a menu what you want to find and then spamming the windpoint in the direction of level-ups. Rarely will something surprise you in this game without you directly asking to see it.

It really is a shame, too, BECAUSE the game looks so good. this game has been praised to no end about its environmental visuals, and it truly is something to praise, even for its mechanical purpose. Trees and grass swaying in the direction of the guiding wind looked and felt incredible, and in some story missions that didn’t have clear guidance there was usually a nearby fire blowing in the direction of progress.

And those visuals hold up in the combat and enemy animations, typically with very obvious telegraphs that were consistent but varied enough to sometimes catch me off-guard. Combat as a whole generally felt very good, minus some moments where I couldn’t parry out of a combo-ender. The only real problem is its variety.

Taking this game as just its linear missions and campaign, it’s quite short. Only about 24 missions in all, most with a very strong focus on combat. Problem is, new enemy types only appear per Act (of which there are three) and even then, there are only really about 5 to speak of. That may seem like plenty for a short game, but any variation they get is typically just more health or at worst, forcing certain strategies like dodging instead of letting the player parry (which seems like a decent mix-up, but functionally it’s an identical system, both even have the same upgrade that lets you get extra damage off if you do it at the last second.)

That wouldn’t be a problem if the player had a wide variety of options to handle opponents with, but you don’t. Parry, dodge and guard break is your lot as far as base samurai combat goes. There are also ghost weapons that usually function more as wide, enemy-clearing bombs or one-shot insta-kills like the kunai or bow, but more often than not I would just use them to eliminate the more annoying enemy types like brutes so that parrying the other guys would be more enjoyable. I guess this could be construed as a good thing, but as it stands they feel like more and more ways to make your character overpowered than making combat more interesting to engage with.

Duels are awesome though.

I have a lot of nits to pick with this game, but I do want to stress that it is a very enjoyable experience. Combat is viscerally satisfying, but lacking in the kind of mechanical depth that'll keep me coming back to it. Exploration is gorgeous, but still sometimes feels more like chasing waypoints than truly partaking in a world. I didn’t touch on it, but the story can occasionally be powerful and well-written, though often doesn’t dedicate enough to its themes of honor and tradition to make anything truly special, perhaps barring the ending.

A lot of this game is good, sometimes even great, but it's not confident enough in itself to really thrive.

I didn't think Doom could get any better than 2016 but this proves otherwise. At first I didn't really like the more limited ammo but as I got more weapons and realized the chainsaw slowly reloads, I ended up really enjoying the strategy of it all.

Also I know a lot of people don't care for the 'story' in these kind of games but I welcome the cutscenes, set pieces, and other narrative additions. It really makes you feel like an unstoppable force.

But yeah with more enemies, locations, and weapons you can't go wrong with Doom: Eternal (except the Marauders, screw those guys)

this is gonna be one people debate endlessly about

is it better than 2016, is it the right direction for doom, is that really the ending they went with, all these questions that may never get answered except for that last one

as im sure you know by now, this is very different from 2016 which is the absolute best thing for it. going from a game about being the autarch of destruction to a first person shooter with immense depth in its mechanics is a uncharacteristically subtle change that makes a world of difference, which is exactly what a sequel needs

doom eternal is hard as shit but its tacticality in how you "rip" and "tear" as one might say makes every shootout engaging as hell. some fights are a bit reliant on having enemies with too much health or just spawning a bunch of them, but despite that minority of lame fights the combat itself is inherently extremely engaging.

theres a lot more to this game that i could get into, but the core loop itself is so great that you have to play this game simply for that.

Good:
+It's Animal Crossing. It's hard to explain exactly what makes Animal Crossing fun in words because it sounds boring on paper. But it's fun, okay?
+The new home editor mode makes customising your house so much easier and more fluid.
+The ability to fully customise your island really helps bring out your creative side.
+There's some really neat visuals, like the wardrobe screen when changing clothes.
+The museum looks beautiful now
+Villagers seem more alive and have more random actions they do around the island

Cons:
-There are some massive quality of life improvements that this game lacks.
-For some reason you have to donate bugs/fish/fossils 1 by 1 during start of game until the museum opens up.
-Can’t craft multiple items at once.
-Breakable tools. Seriously this isn't just the lack of a quality of life thing, it's something they specifically made worse in this entry compared to older ones.
-I've never been a fan of AC's turnip system. Feels like a broken mechanic that just allows you to get insane profit with no effort due to the fact you can buy and sell from ANY island. Due to timezones (or even just time skipping) if you find a player who has a high turnip selling price, while your island has them to purchase, you can literally just make back and forth trips for infinite money.
-For some reason the little indication of what items are customisable is only present at certain times, like in the crafting menu. It isn't present in the inventory or your house storage, so I had to make multiple trips and pocket changes switching items in and out just to find out what I could customise. The fact that a little icon DOES exist in some places just makes it more noticeable that it's missing from other places.
-Trying to set up to travel anywhere, be it a friends island or nook miles island, takes way too long. Supposedly it's just a fancy loading screen, but in that case my complaint is the loading times in this game are atrocious.
-The shop closes at 10pm and they have a little box outside that let's you sell for 80% of their original price...and you only get the money the next day. Why would I ever sell things for less price if I could just keep them in my storage and sell them for full price the next day? If you got the money straight away the 80% would make sense, but there's no logical reason to use it as it is now.
-Can’t build and demolish bridges/inclines at the same time. For example I wanted to destroy the wooden bridge you essentially make as a tutorial and replace it with a better one, but it turns out demolishing an item not only takes a day, but you can't even build a new thing at the same time, so it took 3 days for me to finally get a single bridge (1 day for the bridge to be removed, 1 day to set up the new bridge location and 1 day for it to actually be built)
-The house editing mode is unavailable outside, meaning you still have to place items the old fashion way which can be very imprecise and finicky.

Notes:
•Despite that huge list of cons I still rated it fairly highly... Like I said, Animal Crossing is a hard game to really sell to someone.