No, instead it has an auto-kill perfect parry mechanic. The combat in newer AC games is better if only because there are more options in any given encounter because of weapon variety. The combat in Tsushima boils down to "pick the stance and stagger them but also if you don't pick the stance it's fine they aren't that difficult oh also use your lightning stab ability if you're feeling particularly spicy." And yeah, I'm playing on hard too and I've died more times because the game doesn't communicate which jumps are actually survivable with the thief roll than I have to enemies.
The window on perfect parries is a 10x tighter in ghost than the couter kills in something like black flag, which gives you the ability to counter kill anything instantly, and being in the right stance doesn't guarantee anything when you're surrounded by multiple enemy types, or even when you're against the same type. If I fuck up my positioning or time my attack string badly, the stagger combo isn't auto killing anything. Now the new-ish combat style of origins and oddessy has the arcade double speed dark souls which ditches the counter kill crap but also makes enemies like wonky damage sponge terminators. It's not fluid.
Even if I pick the wind stance against 4 spear enemies, I can still be turned into swiss cheese if I pick my attack approach wrong, despite all of my combat abilites, something can always go wrong. It also incorporates the principles of Sen, Go No Sen, and sen no sen (albiet lightly) by giving you options to deal with attacks outside of parries, like disrupting their own 'wind up' with a well placed attack of your own.
The combat in ghost isn't perfectly rewarding but combat in anything but a pirate ship in AC has never been rewarding (and even then it wears bloody thin, real quick).
Skill tree is debateable. I've not really found myself caring when I get an unlock now that I've got max chain assassinations, stealth hearing, and all the deflection abilities I care about. Customization is pretty barebones. Yeah it's cool that my armor is dyed white but functionally I'm spending 90 percent of the game in the traveler's attire because of its map clearing and collectible pinging. The headbands are cosmetic as are the face masks and the charms don't really alter anything to make them anything more than 'equip and forget'. At least in AC you can wear legendary gear but then make it look like whatever gear you've collected which is the kind of customization I generally prefer.
Story is un-convoluted but also uninteresting. On the contrary I haven't met a memorable character and the game falls super hard into the open world trope of "Hey I'd like to help you but solve my problems first". The side missions don't really feel like they add anything other than EXP points because changing your legend doesn't make people respond to you any differently, it's just a way to unlock a ghost weapon. Am I asking too much? Probably. But if we're going to keep the AC comparisons then at least the side activities in Odyssey contributed to the ongoing war and you could influence which side was favored. Clearing Mongol posts doesn't appear to have less Mongols over the place so it feels less like I'm liberating the island and more like I'm checking off a list.
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Well, there are more problems with the game but if I go on it'll start sounding like I hate the game when I don't.
The skill tree has the advantage of having skills I actually end up using and want to use instead of just bells and whistles which technically make me more of a badass but feel hollow or impractical. I'm with you on the charms, but I ditched the traveller's attire as soon as possible. I'm unlocking the map fast enough by just chasing foxes and birds in my armor and I'm in no rush to do any of that faster. The customization works on an aesthetic level, It looks nice enough for me to want ride over to a flower out of my way so I can get my scabbard to match my headband. It's just the right amount of incentive for a cosmetic upgrade.
I'm not going to sit here and defend the story, it's a pretty stand stoic revenge/liberation tale. What I like about it is that it doesn't break my immersion of being a wandering ronin. Jin's character is just flat enough for me to be able to project my own goals of becoming more powerful without me getting bored or pissed off when he opens his mouth, when compared to a lot of other open world games including AC, this is a godsend.
I really like how everyone in the game is pretty no-nonsense but still manage to feel distinct from each other, the game wont win any TLOU2 type awards for the acting. But I never feel the urge to skip a cutscene, when Lady Masako told me about the slaughter of her family after seeing the bloodstained tatami and broken naginatas in her estate, I gave a shit. Which is something an AC game has probably made me do twice over the span of a dozen games. And I never feel like there should be less mongols after clearing outsposts because this isn't far cry. It's literally the
mongol empire they are the in-universe example of the endless horde. If anything I'm surprised there aren't more of them crawling about, they probably have a metric fuck ton of ships posted in every sea surrounding the island.
Oddessey's story might make you feel more in tune with greater conflict but when you get to know the people in your island are ubisoft-usubtle wink-and-nod swingers who want to have pansexual orgies with you, it's hard for me to take my role in the fight for these people very seriously. Seeing Jin's bare ass when he gets into the hot springs is about all the fanservice I need for a game like this.
So yeah the game is on the better end, of open word stuff. It's somewhere between Breath of the Wild and Mad Max in terms of quality. enjoyable, but I'm not going to defend it with my life as if Abby was in it or something..
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