Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Yotei excels in design that speaks through experience rather than spectacle, with its flashback system seamlessly connecting story and exploration as it shifts between past and present. The field prioritizes density over sheer size, making even detours feel like an integral part of the world. The narrative, while framed as a single tale of revenge, gains depth from the presence of factions such as the Matsumae clan, the Ainu and the Six of Yotei, giving the stage more weight than the previous installment. While combat is still centered on the sword, Yotei introduces a wider variety of weapons, with mastery sequences that heighten its polish. Rather than finding flaws, one is overwhelmed by its craftsmanship and overall quality.

On top of its gripping narrative, expanded weapon variety, and redefined approach to open-world game design, Ghost of Yōtei is a must-play and instant classic on PlayStation 5.

While fans of the original may initially find it more iterative than evolutionary, Atsu's quest for vengeance is an incredible new tale from Sucker Punch that expands on Tsushima in all the best ways.

Ghost of Yotei is a visually stunning game, with exciting and addictive gameplay, varied and challenging missions — improving on basically everything that was already pretty good in Ghost of Tsushima. To be perfect, though, I wish that Atsu was ruthless until the end of her journey instead of looking for some kind of redemption.

While I don't think Ghost of Yotei quite reaches the heights of its predecessor, it is another worthwhile trip to a lawless Japan. It sports a tonally distinct and cinematic story, a visually diverse open world chock full of activities, and is another fantastic showcase for the power of the PlayStation 5.

We already knew it from the announcement trailer, and playing it for forty hours only confirmed our first impressions: Ghost of Yotei is exactly what everyone expected from a sequel of this scale, backed by a Sony that needs to strongly focus on some of the trademark elements of its biggest works. Sucker Punch doesn’t try to overdo it, doesn’t attempt the path of innovation, and has no intention of straying from those defining aspects that made *Tsushima* a success far beyond the rosiest expectations. Yotei refines the mechanics, increases variety, enhances attention to detail, and better defines certain narrative dynamics. The result is simply a game that works well and does exactly what it’s supposed to: entertain all those players looking for a new open-world, free-roaming action adventure in which to invest a few dozen hours. Clearly, this isn’t the place to look for a new benchmark or that extra something that boldly sets it apart from any other title in the genre, but five years later, anyone who wants to relive the Tsushima experience will feel right at home here, before the crackling of a warm and reassuring fire.

If you’ve seen one Japanese orphan avenging their parent’s death, have you seen them all? That’s the question that I can’t seem to shake after spending the last few weeks sinking all of my spare time into Ghost of Yotei.

It's a super wonderful game because it the story is fantastic it's a really the perfect game in my opinion

You deserve this for those who have always supported you with physical games.

Not a bad story, but a very generic revenge to peace story arc, which we have seen a 100 times, combat and mechanics great but very similar to Tsushima. Insanely pretty world and graphics. Cinematogrophy was great. Way too many gadgets and weapons. i just end up using the same ones.

It's hard to know where exactly to rate this game, but thinking about it overall it's hard to describe it as anything other than a huge disappointment when you look at it's predecessor. Overall where this game lets you down is the main story, the main character and the constant in your face messaging from the game. Just to give you an overall view comparing this game to what came before GoT starts with you riding into a huge battle with your fellow Samurai and GoY starts with you struggling to kill a drunk old man. Pros: Basically everything this game borrows from Ghost of Tsushima. I thought at first maybe the game deserves a higher score because of the production quality and what it borrows from the game it's built on, but GoT does almost everything better and honestly you're better off just playing that game. The game does look amazing though and the combat is as fun as the previous game generally. The new weapons don't add a lot they are kind of cool, but the way the game locks you to using them for certain situations isn't great. GoT did something similar with stances, but I though that worked better than ridiculously switching weapons based on what your opponents have. The game adds bounties and wolf dens which are kind of fun side quests. Some bounties are interesting add a bit to the game. The main missions also have some "wow" moments though still another thing the previous game did better. Cons: The costume designs are unfortunately much worse than the previous game. The legends multiplayer mode is also nowhere near as good in this game with weaker rewards. The story is a mediocre revenge plot. Some of the characters you go after are interesting have their own quirks. Atsu is very annoying. She constantly thinks she's smarter than everyone even when she's wrong and rarely learns from her mistakes. The way the game has to remind you women are capable and men are bad over and over just knocks you out of the game. There are so many eye rolling moments in the game and it makes you feel like you're playing something more interested in social engineering than entertaining. The game also becomes predictable, because if a character is female they will be good and if they're male they will be bad or at least shown to be less capable. The game is open about it's misandry. As usual to when you point out this obvious fact people will claim you hate women, but I've played plenty of games with female characters and they didn't need to bash you over the head with messaging to be good characters. In the end the game had some good moments and it's built on a very strong foundation, but the direction they decided to go with the characters and story which is such a large part of the game it's hard not to feel completely let down by this game.

I was general excited to play this after Tsushima but quickly that excitement faded. The graphics are absolutely stunning, each major cut scene is honestly breathtaking, and I enjoyed that aspect of the development. The story however, started out with some promise but as you progress, the story gets generic and feels likes I have to complete several menial tasks to get to an enjoyable mission. The additional weapons are more of a distraction and I feel, take away from the game. And the rifles and pistols were not necessary, and the aiming mechanics were clunky. I did enjoy the open world and there is a lot of good things in the game, but when I got to the ending, the story just fell apart. It just felt like the goal was to make a multi-generational "girls' team" by the way they ended it. And I would be fine with that if it was written better. It felt like they forgot there was a main male protagonist left and had to kill him quick. I believe the term "hat on a Hat" was a reoccurring theme in the game. And I can forgive all those issues and chalk them to up to creative decisions by the team, but I can't forgive the decisions made on Saito and Takezo. Before I give my take, understand where I'm coming from, I work 10-12 hours a day and play usually from 10-midnight after my kids have gone to bed. And if I play a game, I like to 100% it, I get a great sense of accomplishment in those small victories. With that being said, I'm not sure who in the development team was like, "hey, you know how we have like difficulty setting? yeah, let's ignore that and make the last 2 opponents so overpowered that the players get so frustrated they quit playing. How funny would that be to have them use 2-3 unblockable attacks in a row" Seriously bro, what are we doing, how is that fun having to restart a fight 20 times or having to drop the difficulty setting to get through. For me the game is an escape, a place where I can relax and not think. The ending destroyed this game for me.