Sequels offer the chance to either improve on an earlier work and push the envelope, or to take what was already excellent and present it with greater concentration. Developer Sucker Punch widely favored the latter strategy in Ghost of Yotei, which led to more engrossing open-world gameplay and incredibly striking visuals throughout. It stays quite close to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima overall and doesn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel. Still, I don’t mind if that means it can add important elements and provide a more succinct encapsulation of the samurai fantasy that was initially promised.
Few games in recent memory can boast fighting as smooth and fulfilling as this one, and it’s all woven into a revenge plot that makes for a more relatable narrative. The novelty of copying director Akira Kurosawa may have faded after Tsushima, yet Ghost of Yotei’s appearance and atmosphere are still successfully influenced by the cinematic techniques of his warrior masterpieces.
I kept pressing the screenshot button and frequently bringing up photo mode (conveniently mapped to the D-pad) because of the cutscene cinematography, the standoff before a duel, or the letterboxed framing of riding a horse across the beautiful fields of Ezo (modern-day Hokkaido, home of Mount Yotei). The artistic flourishes and deliberate environmental effects elevate Ezo’s lush plains, snow-covered mountains, and vibrant forests—a sort of biodiversity Tsushima didn’t entirely have—even though Sony’s other PS4 and PS5 games in recent years have technically impressive worlds.
Yotei has its own individuality thanks to its lush flower fields and gorgeous scenery, but the new protagonist, Atsu, also adds a compelling element to the story of the itinerant samurai. The story focuses on the extent one would go to Japan to exact justice, rather than the idealized concept of the samurai. Jin, the main character of Tsushima, was a decent character for the plot, but he wasn’t a very compelling lead by himself. Yotei gets the personality it needs when it moves in with Atsu, who is bold and feisty. To create a more realistic persona, actor Erika Ishii gives Atsu their voice and likeness (if you use English audio) and adds something rougher around the edges.
I was intrigued enough to see things through because of her stubbornness and sometimes maddening inability to look past bloodlust and the ways that the people and world around her resist her. All of this is centered on a quite straightforward revenge narrative in which Atsu aims to eliminate the Yotei Six, who are led by Lord Saito, an equally vindictive villain. They are a band of rogue samurai who murdered her family when she was a child to take control of Ezo by force.
(You may have noticed that Yotei strongly resembles the story of Naoe, one of the game’s two protagonists, if you played Assassin’s Creed Shadows earlier this year.) Vengeance is sweet because they are simple to hate, even though they don’t have much screen time and aren’t really complex characters. Most of the plot predictably takes place over the course of its approximately 30-hour voyage, and it gives you the runaround more often than I’d like. Several times, the action builds to a pivotal moment, but the target conveniently flees in a cutscene before much of the plot develops or advances.
The story is much less preoccupied with the idealized notion of the samurai.
But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its moments. I was emotionally invested in unexpected ways by a few melancholy sequences throughout, as well as a few deft twists in a middle chapter that demonstrate brilliance. Oyuki, one of the most notable characters who contributes a little depth with her insight and opposing viewpoint on the revenge motif, is one of Atsu’s traveling companions. This is also true of Atsu’s mother, who adds depth to Yotei’s themes of music and family ties through flashbacks to their early years.
However, I couldn’t help but smile, watch the fight unfold, and feel the intensity of delivering a last blow when Atsu faced one of her targets. It is a powerful enough vehicle to get you through what it does well, but I wish it used more inventive storytelling techniques. Additionally, Ghost of Yotei excels at warfare; very few open-world games require me to remove optional items from the map to initiate battles.
The flow of every attack, ability, and parry is incredibly fluid, as is movement, but each weapon has a distinct weight that contributes to the satisfying impact frames and landing strikes. Encounters feel natural without a lock-on mechanism; however, this comes at the price of annoying targeting system errors. However, because you are equipped with so many gadgets, each combat is constantly thrilling because you can utilize them when needed or incorporate them into your cycle.
Atsu carries several weapon varieties of her own, while Jin used his katana in Tsushima to counter the various adversary types. Although she is proficient with the sword, she prefers to use a dual-katana, a chained sickle, and a spear in addition to a massive odachi blade for large units. Against foes, this provides a rock-paper-scissors situation where you can use the appropriate weapon to cut through them more effectively by inflicting more stagger or evading some of their defensive strategies. All of these weapons have unique control, but the kusarigama stands out since it can be used to break shields, swing around to manipulate crowds, and even kill adversaries by dragging them in your direction like Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion.
Learning the fighting cadence makes me feel (and Atsu looks) like a badass, and weapon change is quick and fluid, so it’s not as difficult as it might seem. Since Yotei is set in the early 1600s, the introduction of weapons during this time has also increased the role of projectiles. As a result, Atsu not only doesn’t care about honor, but she also has no problem letting her chopper (well, musket or flintlock gun) sing.
The flintlock pistol is useful for stunning or killing enemies at point-blank range, and while the musket takes a very long time to reload, a shot delivers a powerful punch that pierces armored opponents. Man, does that make me want Bloodborne. In addition, there are smoke bombs, metsubushi dust, and a flame attachment that temporarily ignites your blades, all of which are useful on their own. All of this means that you have a lot to manage and many choices for conquering Yotei’s obstacles, whether it’s a high-stakes one-on-one or a battalion of the entire camp.
Combat in a few recent games is as smooth and enjoyable as this one.
Although it mostly depends on fundamental concepts we’ve seen again in various action games, stealth is still a major component of the mix. We are familiar with tall grass and adversaries who have conveniently turned their backs and lack vertical vision. The Kusarigama’s range assassination deserves another mention, although I won’t deny that an aerial assassination or triple-kill chain feels fantastic in the moment.
Yotei never really pushes you in that route, and overall, it seems like there is less emphasis on stealth than we saw in Tsushima. If you are caught, you simply fight, like—oh no, I have to engage in battle, the best part of this game! How unfortunate! The most fun way to play, in my opinion, is to tee up as many stealth kills as you can before going loud, and Sucker Punch looks to have figured out how to make that strategy work.
To give you a feeling of scale, Yotei’s primary questline does include a few large-scale encounters, but there are also several duels scattered across the area, disguised as lethal boss fights in which you are reducing the stagger meter and health of the opponents. It is crucial to learn when to parry and when to dodge in this situation. Although they function very similarly, I still enjoyed making several consecutive parries (to avoid getting one-tapped myself). One of the greatest pleasures of playing games is parrying and countering, and Yotei does it brilliantly. I lock on when I see that blue glimmer.
I played nearly solely with the Bounty Master armor equipped, which somewhat extends the window for the ideal parry timing by disabling typical parries. And nothing in this series is more awesome than perfectly avoiding an attack and slashing an enemy Bushido Blade-style, so it was worth the high risk and high return. Another way Yotei (like Tsushima before it) adds a satisfying variation to battle is with the return of standoffs, which allow you to go mano-a-mano to kill an enemy (or two or three) in a timing-based Iai sword swipe before going all out on the rest of your foes.
Both entries in this series made the wise decision to abandon progression and level-based experience points in favor of focusing more on teaching us how to develop our own abilities and knowledge of our toolkit. Finding shrines, many of which are optional, is a prerequisite for advancing in Atsu’s skill trees, giving its open-world activities greater significance. The majority of sidequests involve unlocking charms for very useful advantages, obtaining new armor sets that highlight particular gameplay aspects, gathering cosmetics, and enhancing weapon efficacy; fortunately, these tasks frequently don’t feel like pointless tasks to cross off a list.
Deeper in these ability trees are some of Yotei’s most intriguing abilities and strategies. This is a bit of a double-edged sword; while I was a little annoyed by how heavily Yotei depends on optional quests for advancement, it’s ultimately a wise choice. These quests feature a few unexpected twists that lead you into difficult duels and furious conflicts, allowing you to explore more of the area than you most likely would have otherwise.
The main reason this works is that Yotei’s foundations are sound, but there are also fascinating side storylines to enjoy, such as enigmatic mystical riddles to unravel, elusive criminals to pursue, and even a superboss that required me to fight it numerous times over the course of more than an hour. With the presence of the indigenous Ainu people from what is now known as Hokkaido, a few cultural allusions demonstrate a little greater respect for the area and its past. A few of their customs are observed in a manner that logically follows Yotei’s actions in specific sections of its narrative.
Similar to Tsushima, Yotei’s map is constructed with a façade of discoverability, figuring out how to guide you in particular routes without displaying markers or checkpoints. Swiping up on the touch pad to visualize a wind gust toward your active aim is the return of the wind navigation mechanism. I also like how the songs Atsu learns on the shamisen can be played whenever you want to discover trinkets or health-boosting hot springs. It adds a little more thematic consistency to the music and gives completionists a means to get their work done.
At least an attempt has been made to make the activities feel more natural as the map grows, even though they may still feel formulaic after a while, particularly those where you’re only performing platforming and rock climbing in the Uncharted style.
I like how Yotei exhibits just enough restriction with its distinct zones while still giving the feeling of a massive area, as I’m usually burned out on open-world games that are traditionally structured.
Furthermore, since this is Atsu’s revenge strategy, which primarily operates on her terms, it doesn’t feel incompatible to let the vibe lead you from one thing to the next. Ghost of Yotei has some pleasant touches on top of its love of spectacle, including aesthetic options like the return Kurosawa mode that turns everything black and white with Japanese audio, or new modes like the Takashi Miike option that amplifies the blood and gore by 1000% and the Samurai Champloo-esque Watanabe mode that activates the lo-fi beats.
Verdict
You experience the stunning scenery and smooth, rewarding action battles of Ghost of Yotei through a plot that is predictable but well-done. You receive a stronger main character and a wider range of weapons that improve the gameplay guidelines established by Tsushima, along with a new protagonist in Atsu, who is a vigilante who disregards honor in her pursuit of vengeance. The novelty has lost some of its luster, but the Kurosawa influence is still very much present and effectively utilized. Therefore, Ghost of Yotei is a fantastic improvement on the samurai power dream, even though it might not be revolutionizing open-world games.
