Ghost of Yotei
This is a strange game. Overall, it’s good. It could be great but for some major design flaws. It has some fantastic aspects dragged down by very clunky others. Its story wants to be one thing, its gameplay another.
The fantastic is the aesthetics and exploration. Ezo frequently looks amazing and is great to explore. The use of the DualSense can be very clever, but it is mixed. One thing I would have liked it to keep from Tsuschima is the distance indicator, as the wind direction lacks precision. Being able to keep that displayed would have helped.
The story starts off very strong but falters as it goes on. Suffice to say I disagree massively with some of the story decisions in the endgame. There’s also times when you will be told you cannot fight them all, when that is exactly what you will have been doing.
Talking of, even to the limited degree I could access it, despite the flaws, the combat carried the game from start to end. What got in the way was a baffling decision to require manual closure of the weapon menu after selecting a weapon. That’s how a bear killed me. Also those things are overpowered.
In the end it was too clunky for me to use with any frequency so stuck to the single katana and battered my way through it all. It’s practical on Casual setting, but even there enemies hit much harder than you’d expect. Even with armour with a high defence rating.
The yellow disarm attacks don’t add much, with the timing to counter until you get the skill for them being hazy. Which also applies to special moves. I think Tsuschima had the same weakness but that was five years ago. I sometimes did a Kurisagama assassination, but due to the window being so small to hit both buttons at once, more often.
When they brought in the guns, I pretty much gave up on them as soon as they explained them, far too complicated to use in a battle. Then there’s the pickup weapons, but they seem to lack the aim assist on the bows and guns. Again, too big of a coordination requirement.
This weird combination of inconsistency and lack of accessibility extends to the DualSense. Some uses of it work very well, some do not; some can be skipped, some cannot. The only consistent part is no alternative controls.
That itself is weird, as for the last few years Sony has had a major focus on accessibility. That has really reduced here. There’d be times when a speech subtitle would be up but I could not easily see who it was coming from. GoW Ragnarok’s directional indicators on subtitles would have been a huge help.
The wolf and fox sequences are generally excellent, if you can keep track of them as they move. For ne they sometimes got lost in the graphical detail. A small adjust like a high-vis optional outline would be good.
I’m not convinced Sucker Punch care as much about stealth this time around. The spyglass is very directed and not much good outside of it. The hearing you get midway through, even on max skills, is also too limited. The stealth takedowns are limited and it plays fast and loose with assassinate or chain assassinate options.
As a sequel its probably weakest. It doesn’t build well on what Tsuschima did. In some respects it goes backwards instead of forwards, especially where accessibility is concerned. Oh and letting brutes do three-in-a-row unblockable attacks, which they quickly repeat is not progress.
The duels are a good example of Yotei’s split nature. Brilliantly presented in audio and visual terms, but weirdly stop and start due to the inflicted sword clash conversations. The result is you never get into the rhythm the fight requires.
Another weakness, one Tsuschima didn’t have, as it went more with disposable villains, is Saito. He is lacking as a game villain, with too many plot contrivances and indulgence. It attempts to give him reasons for his actions but it never works.
So, yeah, it’s good, but weird. Relative to Sony’s other, big narrative games, it’s probably the weakest. That’s still good, but too often when I was playing it, I could see too easily how it could be so much more.
