July 17, 2020 Ghost of Tsushima, an action-adventure stealth game set during the first Mongol invasion of Japan, was released to both critical acclaim and overwhelming amount of positive reception to both Japanese and Western audiences alike.
As magnificent of a title as it is, Ghost of Tsushima has had is fair share of controversy. Though they were very small in scope and very few and far between.
Like many other eager game enthusiasts, I too glanced over them and was just really excited to get my hands on this title ever since it was revealed at Sony’s E3 presentation in 2018.
You would not be able to tell that this was the case now due to a certain Kotaku article having triggered woke twitter to the point that it made them dig up old grudges that were buried beneath the surface which then led to the creation of new reasons as to try and ruin this experience for everyone else.
All this began back during when the game was first revealed at E3 of 2018 during Sony’s presentation. Sony this year decided to break from the traditional showcase format for a more immersive presentation.
By immersive, I mean each game was shown in a themed room with a musician coming out to play music associated with the theme before revealing the game itself trying to create an “experience” like feel. Shortly after the presentation was over a woman went on twitter and claimed that the Sony committed cultural appropriation by having a non Japanese man preform on the Shakuhachi flute, for the Ghost of Tsushima reveal, while wearing traditional Japanese wardrobe for the reveal of a Japanese game.
As always these complainers don’t do there research and as a result she was quickly nuked from orbit because a Japanese person brought up that this man, Cornelius Boots, was one of a very select few who are recognized as a masters of said instrument in the world to the point that even the Japanese themselves gave him their blessing and acknowledgement of his status.
The person who made the initial claim then promptly lock down their account due to the tidal wave of backlash.
So for about the next 2 months controversy was pretty much nonexistent till around June 30, 2020 when a localizer from Sega took to twitter to bring up concerns around the game’s Japanese menu text translation which then led to many other people who claimed to be knowledgeable in Japanese translations to do the same. This however was explained away quickly by an article on Automation, a Japanese gaming news site, and other people on reddit who stated that this was just a language barrier issue with people in the West not understanding that its just translated in a different way, but still says the correct thing.
You would think by now that that would be it, most anticipated game comes out in 18 days so all that’s left is good, positive hype. Well this is 2020 so unfortunately that cannot be the case.
On July 15, 2020 Kotaku wrote an article about how this game is being very well received in Japan. In fact in all of Famitsu’s, one of Japan’s major gaming news outlets, history it has become 1 of 3 western games to receive a perfect 40/40 score which is considered even more of an accomplishment due the game being set in ancient Japan, but coming from the West.
Having been abandoned by their once fearless leader, the angry denizens on twitter came out and started screeching and crying about any little thing they could find to be offensive for no reason. One particular individual went as far as to decree himself King of all Asians and proclaimed that Japanese people and their opinions matter far less than Asian Americans.
Not only is this a uneducated take its also a very very disrespectful one at that. I doubt this person even realizes that he is not only putting down another culture, but his own heritage as well. Truly disheartening thing to see.
There really is nothing more to share about this game as of now. For the most part myself like many others were just eagerly anticipating this game coming out and distraught at the same time as it kept being postponed. Never in our wildest dreams did we think it would become this controversial despite the little instances here and there. That was all supposed to end with the TLOU2, but here we are.
Never the less, Ghost of Tsushima is a game that was beautifully crafted with a lot of tender love and care and it shows. This is reflected not only in the review scores, but in the finally product despite the few flaws it does contain. While in no way the perfect game I cannot think of a better way to end the current console generation then to go out with a bang. Now if you’ll excuse I am gonna go grab my katana and set out on my journey to become samurai master.
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