Spoilers follow for Ghost of Tsushima.
Plenty has been said about Ghost of Tsushima since its release on July 17th. Lots of praise has come in for its combat and gorgeous open world, while others have found issue with its format, it supposedly not doing too much to separate itself from the likes of Assassin’s Creed. One of the most puzzling criticisms, for me at least, is that the story doesn’t land, it supposedly offering very little to engage with. After playing through Yuriko’s quests in Ghost of Tsushima, I’m not sure those people are paying enough attention.
In Act II, which is when the narrative really starts to kick into gear, you are tasked with claiming your father’s armour as your own in Omi Village at your family estate. Upon arriving, you encounter Yuriko, Jin’s guardian and servant who’s been by his side since he was a boy.
The long overdue reunion is a quietly lovely moment, Yuriko clearly wanting to embrace Jin but not feeling able to. Perhaps it’s down to the difference in class or her sensing something different within Jin, but there’s an unspoken love between the two that is clear to see. Within less than a minute, you are already drawn into this dynamic without knowing the extent of the pair’s relationship and what they’ve been through together.
She can also see a change in Jin, a darker path that worries her. It’s a change that Jin himself notices but cannot turn away from, or at least is so laser-focused on his mission that he damns the consequences. While she still sees Jin as a happy young boy, that’s not who he is anymore and someone he keeps drifting away from the more he abandons his code. Despite this, the pair reminisce and bond like no time has passed.
But there’s something off with Yuriko.
After finding the armour and cutting your way through some Straw Hats, Yuriko shows Jin how to make poison darts. When you arrive back from a bit more stabbing, Yuriko is in tears and it’s here that her condition becomes clear. She is suffering from dementia, unable to recollect properly or focus on the current. Her mind is a whirlwind of tragedies and regrets, which the game delves into with her two subsequent, even more heartbreaking side quests.
You can start these side-quests immediately after completing Ghosts From the Past by talking to Yuriko, and that’s what I did. This wise and experienced lady clearly had more tales to tell, so I followed her as she helped me to concoct a new kind of poison dart, it, somewhat morbidly, making people forget who they are and attack their allies. In the midst of all this, the pair reminisce about Jin’s father, Jin admitting that he cannot remember his laugh. It turns out that Jin didn’t really understand his father at all — the Sakai leader was far more complex and compassionate than Jin ever gave him credit for. Yuriko speaks in reverent tones about a man who time had made a stranger to Jin.
The game continues to hint that Yuriko is unwell in more ways than one, which leads on to The Art of Seeing: the most affecting quest I’ve played since Bloody Baron.
Yuriko is erratic and confused, forgetting to eat and confusing Jin for his father. She wants to go for a ride and show Jin somewhere special, which turns out to be an Onsen that she visited with Jin’s father. It’s never explicitly said what kind of relationship the two shared, but it’s implied that they had a forbidden love, either due to the class system or because Kazumasa didn’t want to upset Jin.
Jin searches for food and finds that Yuriko has walked off in the time since. He tracks her down to the woods, where she explains in her disorientation that she was following her long-dead mother. Clearly deeply unwell, she implores Jin to follow her as she has done for him so many times, leading the pair to a cemetry where her mother’s body resides. The pair gaze out on the horizon, Yuriko’s dementia now fully rooted as she talks to Jin as if he is Kazumasa, Jin going along with it to give her comfort, it clearly bringing him anguish to do so and to see her in such a way.
Yuriko quietly passes away after telling Jin that a day she shared with his father was the best day of her life.
This questline utterly, utterly broke me. As someone who was close to their grandmother, whose memories also faded as the years passed, Yuriko’s tale hit home really hard; I saw a lot of that same confusion and deep sadness that my grandmother felt after my grandfather passed away, like something whole cut in half.
The real tragedy here, though, is that Yuriko never felt able to freely love Kazumasa, that it had to be kept a secret. She is as haunted by ghosts as the Mongols are the Ghost of Tsushima himself.
The tragedy of Yuriko shows a nuance to Ghost of Tsushima’s storytelling that I didn’t know it had. I’m only 20 hours or so into the game and am taking my sweet time to make progress, but if I see anything half as touching as Yuriko’s story in the rest of the game — or any other game this year, in fact — I will be surprised.
Ghost of Tsushima is out now exclusively for the PlayStation 4.
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