Is it weird that since the PS4, most of their big 1st party narrative-heavy exclusives launch with universal acclaim, then they make a sequel and they are ALWAYS overshadowed by controversy? The big example is The Last of US/TLoU2, but it has happened to Spiderman, God of War, Horizon, and now to Ghosts of Tsushima. Haven't played any of these myself, so I've only read about those enough to avoid spoilers, but the pattern is clear.

Very excited for this

-Snip-

(The rest of this post should be moved to its appropriate section instead of derailing the thread.)
~Hiku

Kind of agree with that, Sucker Punch has a good track record, but so did Bioware.

You can follow the controversy back to one or two stupid decisions, like have Joel beaten to death with a baseball bat. TLOU2 was still a great game despite the controversy (the completion rate proves that). The games continue to be at least solid despite their controversies although I feel they are getting wesker but it is weird, peach fuzz was weird, the downgraded Aloy less so that this trend went from people being justifiably mad at the Joel situation to oh no, a women Mo capped by a (slight bitch from what I've seen) LGBT person as if that'll have any effect on the game. It's apparently so bad they won't buy but I have to wonder were they gonna buy anyway. 

It's really shit that DEI has become the automatic uproar and hate cause it takes away from the valid criticisms of devs who go too far with it and now just feels like, look at the incels, ah they're at it again all mad and shit, they'll calm down in a couple of days while the backlash can be easily brushed off by the people drunk on DEI and actually tarnishing games with it. 

I haven't played the DLC yet (I think I own it though), but I honestly thought Jin Sakai was not one of the highlights of the game. The visual design of his character was. Especially when he gets his final Ghost armor. But the personality of the character barely felt like it made any impact on the story, aside from his dilemma wavering between honor or victory at any cost, which was mainly settled very early on.

After that he almost felt like a bit more than a silent protagonist to me, as the supporting cast around him felt a lot more colorful and impactful. As if they are building upon his character through exposition.

So I don't have any issues leaving Jin behind. And it's not like they can't ever go back and make another game about him in the future.
But that also makes me wonder if the new main character will have a similar role. I'd rather the main character be more similar to how some of the supporting cast were developed.

Though I'm curious how she will end up deciding to don the mask of the Ghost.
Perhaps she starts off by performing acts to save the people of the land without a disguise. And as rumors of her actions spread, people remark how the actions are similar to the legend of the Ghost. So she decides to dress up to keep people's spirits and hope up.

Or perhaps Jin trained future generations of potential Ghosts, who passed that knowledge down to the next generation, and so on.

Since this is set several hundred years later I'm also very interested in seeing how technology and society advanced since the first game.
And how that will impact exploration.

And yeah, people being weirdos about the character because she's female or her voice actor is expected of that particular group of people, but it's not something I'm ever concerned about. On the contrary, I tend to prefer playing as female characters.

Well we don't know the state of mind of the character in any given moment without context. She's not wearing the Ghost mask here, so this could be before a pivotal point in the story that motivates her to take up the mantle.
There were moments where Jin had a neutral expression as well, even after he became the Ghost.

Although in the original GoT reveal trailer, we only saw him fiercly standing in flames.
But we also have to consider the first game was meant to be presented with no prior context as it was a new I.P., while this one has the luxury of following up on the setting of the first, letting our imaginations fill in some of the blanks as we await further details.

^Totally agreed. I felt for Jin and over the course of the story I felt as if I was his comrade routing for him but never did I feel any real love for him or did he feel like a really cool character but that's cause your forced to dishonour jin on the path and if you dabble in stealth at all it really hurts his character. It's the writing around Jin that makes him great for the story rather than Jins writing itself and his VA was pretty good. I won't quote cause I have little else to add.

Go make a new thread about that in the Politics section instead of derailing this one.
I copied your post and sent it to you via DM.

You guys used to be big proponents of "Keep politics out of my entertainment" yet when it comes to the community, you bring politics into these disussions more than any other group ever has, combined.

Especially when there's a question of whether your topic is even justified, make a separate thread in the appropriate section for the conspiracy theories, and let people here enjoy discussing the game without being dragged into it.

When I think about his dilemma between honour and stealth, I find that I think about his uncle more than him. Because most of it was about how his uncle felt about it.
And maybe I've forgotten, but I don't remember Jin adding much to any conversation beyond what's expected.
But I didn't mind while playing because the characters around him provided more of what I was looking for.
Secrets, surprises, character development, etc.

Although one area where I think Jin's character provided as much as any of the supporting cast was his relation to his family, and also

which was a very sad moment for me.

Yep. I felt more for that spoiler than I did at any point of the game and surely, it's the supporting cast that makes the game and I suppose it is the spector of how Jins Uncle will feel when you dishonour yourself. 

God of War you might have had some people going nuts with Agraboda's reveal but overall I saw massive acclaim for that.  Horizon has a bigger controversy now with the damn remaster of a 2017 game instead of having nixxes get some PS3 games running natively lol

There's degrees to it but the TLOU2 and Spidey 2 examples are pretty much just the core writing of the game taking a nosedive even if there was 1 or 2 points that drew the most ire