Ghosts and Devils: Jin Sakai, my great grandfather and me.

Ghost of Tsushima, the new IP by Sucker Punch, is finally out and now everyone can enjoy the story of Jin Sakai and his journey to save his home from the invaders. I had the pleasure to review the last big exclusive of Sony for this generation and one of the great things I experienced during the process is the many common points that this fictional adventure has with a real historical episode of my homeland. It put me in a unique position 'cause I found myself emotionally overwhelmed by a game that I approached with no expectations in this respect. This game brought back family memories shared by most of the sons of my land, some of those memories still hurt my people, others shaped a legendary legacy.

When your reality is outlined by sea boundaries your perception of the world changes, especially if you live on a small island. The life of an islander is more slow-paced, his horizons smaller and, because of that, the meaning of home is different. Clear geographical borders somehow lead to develop a special attachment to your land. If you live on a small island, home is what you see. That's why everything that arrives from the outside is welcomed with magnified reactions. So it happens when the war comes. The island of Tsushima, which lies between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese mainland, acts as a bridge for the Mongols invasion of Japan in 1274. The people of Tsushima have never seen an enemy like that, but even though, they stood against the Kublai Khan army. Outnumbered and poorly prepared, they fought to protect their home. A similar thing happened during the first World War to my great grandfather Emanuele and other 100.000 men, the entire male population of Sardinia at that time.  They were recruited to fight against an enemy that they never saw, the Austrians, for a country they have never felt part of. While the rest of the Italian army shouted "For the Savoias and for Italy" during the attacks, Sardinians' motto was "Forza paris, pro sa Sardigna", "Together for Sardinia". They always fought thinking of their loved ones and their little home, everything else was secondary. The way how Jin Sakai stands as the last hope for his people and how he sacrifices everything for them reminds me of the same kind of devotion to duty. It's more than heroism because your actions could go unnoticed and at the same time, it's not martyrdom because you don't want to die even if you are ready to pay the higher price. More than 13.000 young men of Sardinia sacrificed their lives to protect their home, most of them rest on the battlefield with no grave.

Most of the Sardinians recruits were farmers, miners and shepherds, simple persons like the people of Tsushima. A huge part of them were illiterates, but they grown-up learning a moral code made of loyalty, courage and honor: the Balentia, a term that I can just translate as a mix of Valor and Boldness. Those values made the difference on the battlefield, 'cause like the eighty samurai of Lord Shimura guided by the principles of the Bushido, Sardinians faced the enemy without fear because of Balentia. They never surrendered, they never went back. Instead to fall on the sand of Komada beach, they fiercely fell surrounded by trenches on the mountain landscapes of the Alps.

In Ghost of Tsushima, Jin Sakai bends his creed to find a way to stop a new enemy, becoming a kind of primordial shinobi. His stealth methods and the unorthodox tactics using fear as a weapon against Mongols gave birth to the legend of the Ghost, an invisible warrior that brings death among the enemy lines. My great grandfather and the rest of Sardinians were called by Austrians Rote Teufel, red devils, for the ferocity with which they attacked and their uniforms stained by the mud of the Karst. So they started to call themselves Dimonios. They were clever, like the Japanese in the ancient past who made weapons out of ordinary tools: while hoes and sickles became deadly Kuwa and Kama, Sardinian soldiers used the same think-different attitude in battle. As the Austrians spoke Italian fluently, they used the dialects to spot the spies. Miners from south Sardinia were skilled saboteurs and kept their cigars with the burning tip inside the mouth to infiltrate enemy settlements without being noticed. Shepherds hardened by the harsh condition of the rural life quickly learned the paths of the forest of north Italy, ambushing the enemy preferring knives to bullets. All is fair in war. Jin Sakai learns the same lesson between smoke bombs and poison darts and gives us an epic story of resistance, fictional of course but enough realistic to bring back to my mind the name of a man I owe my days.

The last of Dimonios is dead in 2007 at the age of 109. Every time I cross the story of these incredible men I question my values. Home. What does this word mean to me? Home is just my family or should I include the people of my homeland? Is Home the whole nation or only the land where I live? How much I am willing to sacrifice to protect these things?
A game set in feudal Japan gave me an answer and is surprisingly similar to the answer of my great grandfather Emanuele.
I like it.

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