Platform: PlayStation 5
Genre: Action adventure, open world, feudal Japan, samurai

We gave Ghost of Tsushima our highest score back in 2020 for being a better version of an open-world feudal action-adventure game, hitting all the high notes in gameplay and aesthetics. Basically, it perfected the action-adventure formula born out of Western game development sensibilities.

Truly there’s no way to make the formula and beats any better, or even innovate further, right? Right?

Fast forward to now, and we have Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up from developer Sucker Punch. Now with a new character, era, and setting still in past Japan (now loaded with guns), you’re going to get & do more of the same. No, really; apart from a different plot and lovely scenery change, the structure and pacing is more or less the same as the 2020 title.

That may be acceptable a year or 2 later after Ghost of Tsushima’s debut. But by this point of time -5 years spanning for those not counting- open world gaming fatigue does set in, especially when you’re sharing space with Ubisoft’s flagship action adventure game (finally in Japan) out this year.

To answer that previous question on whether open-world gaming of this scale can be further improved and upgraded?No, you can’t. Still, I do wish Ghost of Yotei at least tried harder instead of just resting on its PlayStation 5-rendered laurels.

Samurai Vengeance

First: the good parts. Fighting and combat in Ghost of Yotei is quite an upgrade from the first title. You have four weapons and more to play around with, though each different enemy type requires you to switch that one weapon to weaken them and then kill them. Still, you can max out your favourite or two and then just maul open-world enemies just fine. I went for the dual katanas and chain-and-sickle kusarigama; the former is fast and slashier than the regular katana, and the latter has an area-of-effect swipe that can also break shields and guard.

The game does pack in the attrition based difficulty later on, particularly forcing you to just fight with the katanas because even your maxed-out weapons aren’t that effective and adhere to the game’s “weapon weakness system”. I’m all for rock-paper-scissors mechanics, but not in an open-world action title where you eventually get better with whichever weapon or skillset you commit to. At the very least its competitor Assassin’s Creed: Shadows gets that part right.

Still, it’s rather satisfying to mostly kick ass in Ghost of Yotei as main character Atsu. Not many titles let you pick up dropped enemy weapons and then one-hit kill them with a single perfect throw. I do wish that when the game throws in tougher enemies that feel like they have near-infinite health that these throwables don’t go conveniently missing. I’ve been in that predicament way too many times that I suspect this is intentional just to get more melee attacks thrown at me.

However, is combat enough to elevate the entire open-world sandbox experience? Well…

Rockin’ Ronin

Moving around on horseback and exploring in Ghost of Yotei is pretty much the same as in Ghost of Yotei: your HUD is uncluttered, you can go wherever and whenever, loads of secrets can be uncovered if you let the winds guide and if you choose to follow a bird/fox/wolf that you spot, and you can get a lot of upgrades to power up Atsu. From health upgrades from visiting springs (and seeing some Atsu ass in the process if you’re into that), to cutting bamboo lines for spirit increase (for your health regen and special moves), there’s a lot to uncover that you have seen and done before in the past game.

Is it still intuitive and fun? Yeah, but the thing is that it hasn’t changed at all. You can equip major and minor charms to bolster your playstyle and get more perks out of combat and exploration triggers, but these changes aren’t too drastic to stand out. Most of the time I’m winning fights because I just switched to the weapon the game wanted me to use in its triangle(?) system, and just dodging and parrying right.

The big elephant in the room is the narrative: it’s not exactly the most inventive and engrossing. The gist is Atsu is the fabled Onryo, on the hunt for the Yotei Six who killed her family. Of course, a ton of revelations pop up in her venge-filled journey, with a few “surprises” that somewhat try to make this simple revenge plot a little more “complex” and with “shades of grey”.

We’re at this point in pop culture and media where a simple revenge plot ala Kill Bill isn’t enough: loads of writers want to tack on layers into the antagonists so that they manipulate its audience to question whether revenge is truly a dish best served, or whether they should let the killers live. The Last of Us Part 2 kinda botched the revenge plot, and now Ghost of Yotei follows the “symphatize with the villains” trope that just feels hackneyed and forced to the point where I feel it’s a Sony corporate mandate than a Sucker Punch one. Lady Snowblood this ain’t.

I should also stress that the narrative’s issues are not due to the main actress/VO Erika Ishii, who does a great job as Atsu and working with the material she’s given. Compare Ghost of Yotei’s plot with Ghost of Tsushima that had better dilemmas and steeped in its historical and cultural relevance, and you can see that the latter just feels more genuine less likely to have its backdrop interchangeable. I have played enough Sucker Punch games to gauge that Ghost of Yotei’s story is their weakest so far, and I know that they can do much better.

Faded Ghost

I truly want to like Ghost of Yotei. I respect Sucker Punch’s vision in making a beautiful follow-up to their past games. But just like their weakest link Infamous: Second Son, Ghost of Yotei just stays close to its formula and adds just enough improvements to “feel” fresh.

But really, you’re just playing a fancier version of the 2020 game I gave a full score to. When I’m paying a lot for a triple-A budget title, I expect to be wowed and thrilled from start to finish within my 30+ hour playtime. Yes, the first third did impress me, but I felt obligated to go through all the quests and side stuff I’ve seen dozens of times in other open-world titles. Plus the revenge story isn’t exactly that stellar and transcendent.

Maybe if the game was a lot shorter and more focused instead of relying on its open world design, there would be truly something here in Ghost of Yotei. As it stands, you have to go through a lot of bloat just for the sub-standard stuff.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Ghost of Yotei failed in cleansing all my negative thoughts of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and instead slightly amplified it. On how the structure of a big title lacks in all forms of innovation and just opt for making the same thing but with slightly different filters & colours.

Ghost of Yotei is basically Ghost of Tsushima all over again, but with better graphics, an arguably worse story we’ve seen before, and just a few improvements that do not mean much after the second half of the game. Whether you want that is up to you, but I surely expect better from the house that gave us the Sly Cooper and InFamous series, and even its publisher who used to make more than 5 exclusives for their past consoles a decade or less ago.

If these kinds of open-world games and its asking price are the future of this brand, I won’t be shocked if some big Chinese company made a free-to-play version of this game (but with anime girls) and it somehow outsell Ghost of Yotei in its prime. It’s an eventuality.

Ghost of Yotei is a fun game, but you have played this before in 2020. Just prettier and a tad more hollow, as the series’ historical tie-ins to the story isn’t as organic as the first title. Though to be fair, you can at least turn on Watanabe mode and just have lo-fi music take over your violent samurai journey. If this is your first samurai action-adventure game and you never played Ghost of Tsushima, go ahead and add an extra 30 points to the score and go buy it.

Long story short: PlayStation, your template needs an upgrade and stat.

Final Score: 60/100