Praises for Ghost of Tsushima by Yakuza Director

Sega’s executive director of the Yakuza games, Toshihiro Nagoshi, was asked about his opninions about Ghost of Tsushima’s success. He answered some questions in an interview:

“To be honest, we [Japan] were beaten,” he said with a chuckle. “Yeah, of course, we’re losing. Honestly, I think that’s a game that should be made in Japan.” he added.

Nagoashi found the game fascinating: “The Kurosawa Mode doesn’t simply change the color [to black and white], but has more of a technical approach by properly changing the number of frames to that in old movies.”

“Foreigners who tickle the fancy of Japanese people more than Japanese people are…rather amazing, no?” he added, “There’s like a notion that Westerners don’t understand things (about Japan), but that hypothesis itself is mistaken.”

Other elements about the game, the directional wind, and how the game provides players the ability to discover in a natural way and “It’s so great,” he said.

“I don’t know the actors who did the motion capture, but the care given to their expressions is impressive” Nagoshi said. He added that he liked the looks of the characters they give during cutscenes and then said that, at Sega, this was something aimed by his team, adding that those kinds of details consume time.

“The protagonist [Jin] isn’t a particularly handsome lead, don’t you think? At your typical [Japanese] company, if you showed concept art for a character like him, I don’t think it would be approved.” said Nagoshi. “All this money and development time is being spent on this middle-aged dude.”

“There are numerous things I bow my head to, like aiming at setting a game in that time period…I could go on and on,” Nagoshi said. “I feel an earnest sense of a job well done.”