Breathtaking visuals, an enjoyable story, fun combat and chill exploration. What more can you ask from a game?

This game was more assassin's creed than any of the slop Ubisoft has put out in the since AC: Rogue. Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoyed the Syndicate, Origins and Odyssey but they weren't Assassin's Creed. They were just labeled and sold to us as AC games. This game, while not labeled as an AC game, definitely had the feel of it.

Visuals: While roaming Tsushima to get collectibles, or complete missions, I was often enchanted by the scenery and often found myself in photo mode, trying to click pictures that did justice to the island of Tsushima.
The flowers and foilage, sunrays and streams, even the moonlit scenes, all of them were mesmerizing.

Story: Minor Spoilers Ahead We follow the protagonist, Jin Sakai, a samurai who wants to rid his home from the Mongol invaders. Throughout the story, Jin has to balance his honor as a samurai against survival and defeating a numerically superior enemy. He learns the hard way that not all battles can be won by honor. Sometimes you have to resort to extreme measures. Even if they backfire. Overall, beautifully told, where even the stories of side characters were not boring.

Gameplay: Simple controls but absolutely perfect. Strike, dodge and parry your way to victory. Switch stances to tackle different kinds of enemies more effectively and learn new skills to destroy them. Find legendary armor across Tsushima to gain skills.
My favourite is the armor found on Iki Island. Increases perfect parry duration but disables normal parry. Second favourite is Sakai armor which increases standoff streak by 2 when fully upgraded. Which means you can slice through 5 enemies just at the start of combat. Another classic if you like to sneak around is an armor made by a close friend, Ghost armor which reminds me of Shay Cormac's uniform from AC Rouge.
If you ever get bored of combat and running errands, you can always explore tsushima, find inari shrines, complete platforming challenges at temples, compose haikus or even take a relaxing bath in hot springs.

Overall: 9/10, would definitely play again.
One point deducted for pacing, it is better to get to act 2 or even act 3 as quickly as possible and then do all the side missions as you unlock a lot of abilities near the end of act 2 or in act 3. Abilities that will help reduce the time taken to complete side missions.