Kurosawa Mode

July 15, 2020 2:03 PM

Ghost of Tsushima, an open-world adventure where you play a samurai during the first Mongol invasion of Japan, launched today [Eurogamer, Polygon, Guardian reviews]. One of the last major PS4 exclusives, it's been praised for its beautiful art but criticised for rote game design. Unusually, the game features Kurosawa Mode, a black-and-white filter “inspired by the movies of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa."
posted by adrianhon (21 comments total)

In Japan, the game is being praised both for being a worthy addition to the samurai game cannon and for its portrayal of archaic Japanese language and understanding of the era. The game is only the 3rd western-developed game to receive a perfect score from the long-running gaming magazine Famitsu.
posted by thecjm at 2:19 PM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

Sounds like it's going to be repetitive.

Sucked in by the marketing again. My copy is due tomorrow. What a mug.
posted by biffa at 2:29 PM on July 15, 2020

Unusually, the game features Kurosawa Mode, a black-and-white filter “inspired by the movies of legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.”

This seems kind of like an attempt to elevate your medium’s content by name dropping something better? I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve played a triple-A title, but I can’t think the plots tend to measure up…
posted by Going To Maine at 2:30 PM on July 15, 2020 [5 favorites]

The black and white filter is a neat idea but unfortunately they don't seem to have made much of an effort to make it look like period film stock. They'd have to dial the contrasty look of the game way back and from what I've seen, they didn't.
posted by selfnoise at 2:34 PM on July 15, 2020

The Kurosawa name is pretentious nonsense, but I like the idea of arty black and white. Particularly if they do a fancy shader to do something more than just desaturate the scene. Unfortunately (from the Polygon review)

Kurosawa Mode automatically turns on the game’s Japanese dialogue option, with English subtitles. However, with all the dramatic close-ups the cutscenes indulge in, it’s impossible to ignore that the characters’ lips are synced to English dialogue, not Japanese dialogue.

I wish the developers had taken that extra step and modeled the characters against the Japanese voice-over. Let people who opt for the English dialogue deal with the lip movements being out of sync; after all, it would only contribute to the feeling that you’re watching a Japanese film dubbed into English.

I'm tempted to get this game; I could really use an escapist game right now. Repetitive action is fine (AC: Origins anyone?) if the environment and story is engrossing enough.
posted by Nelson at 2:45 PM on July 15, 2020

App developers are scrambling to add Kurosawa Mode as we speak. In a few months every app on your phone will have a moody black & white interface, wipe transitions, sound effects that comment ironically on the image rather than emphasizing it, the recurrence of cycles of violence within history, and the depiction of weather extremes as both dramatic devices and symbols of human passion.
posted by oulipian at 2:49 PM on July 15, 2020 [29 favorites]

The last Kurosawa film I saw, Ran, is famous for its sumptuous use of color. Just sayin'.
posted by SPrintF at 2:53 PM on July 15, 2020 [8 favorites]

‘That’s not other the other gamers screaming lurid slurs at me in multiplayer, that’s Tarantino Mode’
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:57 PM on July 15, 2020 [8 favorites]

The "Kurosawa Mode" is nothing new - it'll be cool to try out but I'm not sure why people are getting hung up on it.

I played LA Noire entirely in B&W mode. I played Assassin's Creed II in Italian with English subtitles. Does the mode go further than this in Ghost of Tsushima?
posted by thecjm at 2:58 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I appreciate that Famitsu score, but it's time we get a scoring metric for the times:

* Happiness/Wellness of Development Staff
* Interesting to Talk About
* No Moral Gymnastics Required (i.e. no problematic themes)
* Monster Factory-friendly
* Cool Screenshots/Video
posted by curious nu at 3:12 PM on July 15, 2020 [13 favorites]

The criticism against the game has been kinda weird. It's Assassin's Creed in Japan, I'm not sure why anyone expected something deeper or inspired from the game. I'm looking forward to getting it in a couple of years for $15 to play for 10 hours before dropping it.
posted by simmering octagon at 3:13 PM on July 15, 2020 [6 favorites]

I think people were hoping that another developer taking on the Ubisoft formula would change it up a little more rather than "just" deliver a very good game following that formula.

With Sekiro and Nioh 2 filling the frantic action side of things I will appreciate a more historically accurate, slow-paced game... when I've got a spare 30-40 hours.

I'll probably buy it on sale once it's had the usual rough edges sanded off by a few updates (and maybe Japanese lip sync).
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:31 PM on July 15, 2020

My issue is that it will be only human enemies. I'd have preferred a fantasy Japan game with demons and monsters and... variety. But it does look very, very beautiful.

Read a criticism that it's basically a bunch of Orientalism... a Western-style story told in a picture-perfect idealized view—a fairytale view— of Japan. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Plenty of games take place in fairytale settings. But tacking on the Kurasawa name flies in the face of that aesthetic.

I'll be playing it soon.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:00 PM on July 15, 2020

I've read that the Kurosawa mode has moments where it will ask you to look for flowers of a certain colour.

Also I wouldn't put too much stock in what Ashcraft has to say re:

In Japan, the game is being praised both for being a worthy addition to the samurai game cannon and for its portrayal of archaic Japanese language and understanding of the era.

One of the game mechanics involves haiku which I'm given to understand weren't even a thing in the alleged time period in question. Nor, for that matter were katanas.
posted by juv3nal at 6:03 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ghosts Of Tsushima Is Being Praised By Japanese Critics (Kotaku)
"...one of the subheadings in the Famitsu review is, “There Is No Sense Of Discomfort In This Foreign-Made Japanese World.” Because foreigners often get their depiction of Japan wrong, whether that’s on the big or the small stuff, Japanese players rightly have concerns that Ghost of Tsushima would be no exception."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:41 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

I would like Kurosawa mode for Twitter.
posted by doctornemo at 6:48 PM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

with a Toshiro Mifune level, yes.
posted by clavdivs at 6:55 PM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I loved the tweets made by westerners, some of whom are actual professional translators, complaining about the Japanese in a screenshot of game’s menu, only to get multiple replies from native speakers saying “no, it’s actually perfectly fine.”
posted by zsazsa at 7:24 PM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

In a few months every app on your phone will have a moody black & white interface, wipe transitions, sound effects that comment ironically on the image rather than emphasizing it, the recurrence of cycles of violence within history, and the depiction of weather extremes as both dramatic devices and symbols of human passion.

That would be a nice switch for an actual weather app. After a while, you seen one false-color radar map, you've seen 'em all.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:18 PM on July 15, 2020

The first time I heard of this game I thought that it might be an AAA-level pre-Dreadnought naval battle game set around the Russo-Japanese war, which if nothing else would have been a really interesting thing to do in the current videogame market. Ever since then I've felt a bit disappointed.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 9:22 PM on July 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Red Dead with swords? I’m in.
posted by barrett caulk at 11:00 PM on July 15, 2020