Ponty has done real yeoman’s work this week, helping to cover some key posts for yours portly.  He delivers once again with this review of sequel.  He loved the original; as for the sequel, well… read on!

Sequels are an interesting thing in video games, something about which I’ll opine on some other time.  It’s fun going back to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), for example, back before any “knew” what a video game sequel should be.  Just look at the second installments in the Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda franchises for prime examples of how wildly different sequels can be from their originals.

Now, the expectation feels something a bit like what we see in the film industry:  take the original concept, but make it bigger.  Unfortunately, widespread wokeification over the past decade has twisted that into “take the original concept, but make it woker.”  To be fair, Ponty does not point to wokeness as the downfall of this game; rather, he offers up a very detailed and well-supported analysis as to why this sequel fails to live up to the grandeur and beauty of its predecessor.

One other note:  several of the links in this post are Amazon Affiliate links; I receive a portion of any proceeds made through those links, at no additional cost to you.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of Ghost of Yotei:

Ghost of Yotei

Platform: Playstation 5

Anticipation isn’t a good thing. It doesn’t matter if it’s something you’re looking forward to or something you’d rather put off until, well, never. It makes you fidgety, it stresses you out, sometimes the excitement can just feel too much. I tend to avoid it at all costs and mark the build up to something with good distraction. When it comes to games, I should have learned my lesson from The Last of Us 2 but in all fairness, the follow up to Little Nightmares was superb. In my opinion, marginally better than the first game. Still, for the majority of the time, anticipation will usually lead to disappointment so the question is, was the result of the anticipation of Sucker Punch’s follow up to the superb Ghost of Tsushima (2020) worthwhile? Did it fill me with the warm and fuzzies? I think the best way to answer that is to say this: if both games were made exactly as they were and Ghost of Yotei (2025) had come out first, the high chances are that we’d have missed out on a superb follow up.

Ghost of Yotei follows the story of Atsu, the daughter of a swordmaker, who witnesses the brutal death of her family by a gang named the Yotei 6. She survives and spends 16 years away from her home, harnessing her skills, before returning to Ezo, the island which houses the impressive Mount Yotei, to enact her revenge on her family’s murderers.

Inevitably, being a Sucker Punch title with the word Ghost in it, comparisons are going to be made to Tsushima, even though they are separate stories with new characters on different Japanese islands and in different centuries; Tsushima was set in the late 13^th century, Yotei in the early 17^th. If Yotei had been a stand alone game, I’m sure I’d have found similar faults to the ones I’ll iron out further in this review. There are positives, yes, but one can’t escape the many areas this game could have been better. One reviewer on Amazon gave the impression that Yotei was made by a different team to the one that made Tsushima. I can believe that even if I don’t know the specifics in the production of this game. Ghost of Yotei was lacking in the aesthetics that made Sucker Punch’s breakthrough success a 5 star triumph.

Usually, I’d highlight the positives and negatives separately but in this case, I’ll piece them together because it suits it better. Plus, I’ll give you the review that you should be reading from gaming journalists and proper gamers, not the abbreviated versions which tell you that the game is open world, that it’s set on a Japanese island or that you’re playing as a woman. You can read that on the box. Some of the 5 star ratings I’ve seen tell you nothing apart from the fact that the user who has granted that distinction is either limited, a bot or keen to sell for some other purpose that has nothing to do with experience. With me, you’ll get detail.

First off, we need to look at the important aspects of the game; gameplay, story, and characters. Tsushima did all 3 brilliantly, creating ease of paw access to a story with great depth and characters who changed with the guiding wind. Yotei, unfortunately, doesn’t live up to the mark. Its main character, Atsu, is difficult to like. You don’t get any great emotion, bar anger and indifference, until near the end of the game, by which time you don’t really care. The people she meets – bar the former Kitsune, Oyuki, her brother, Jubei, and his daughter, Kiku – you don’t get the time nor the opportunity to know them as much as say, Kenji, Masako, Yuna or the like, from the first game, so you’re missing the emotional ties that connect Atsu with the island. Even her memories don’t move you but, for me, it wasn’t helped by the fact that the woman lending her voice to young Atsu sounded older than the voice actor for adult Atsu. I also wondered why a swordsmith in 17^th century Japan would be raising his daughter as the fighter rather than the son but that’s another discussion altogether. I should say, though, in case any gaming feminists are reading this, that my analysis of Atsu isn’t to do with an issue of strong women characters. There are quite a few of those on Tsushima. I’ve played as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, Jill Valentine and Clare Redfield on Resident Evil. I have zero problems with strong female characters but I do have questions about the creation of Atsu. She wasn’t written well and it shows. The potential was there but the writing wasn’t.

The evolution of Atsu didn’t make much sense to me. Her decisions seemed to conflict with her emotions which, in many settings, you’d expect but in certain periods at different stages, they appeared too convenient within the parameters of the story, specifically its direction in terms of character(s). In plain English, the writers seemed to want her to take decisions which made no sense in the evolution of the game and her character. It could have been directed better. 

The story felt disjointed and the side missions didn’t connect to the main thread as they did in Tsushima. Coupled with the game’s soundtrack, Yotei reminded me very much of the Red Dead Redemption games, with a load of sporadic bounty missions in an environment that didn’t feel Japanese to me but more like a combination of the old West and a Tarantino-esque Kill Bill movie. Even the Yotei 6 reminded me of Kill Bill’s Deadly Vipers, though less impressive. When you come face to face with The Spider for the first time, it feels like you’ve walked onto an old Wild West film set with a travelling vaudeville theatre to boot, rather than a Japanese setting. It just doesn’t fit with the sort of vision you’re expecting to see.

I also didn’t like the Sakai reference in the Nine Tails story thread. It felt unnecessary to me and it also gave us a story reference to a possible sequel to Tsushima which didn’t read right when you consider the events of the first game. Not to me anyway. Yotei didn’t need to have that inclusion because now, many Tsushima fans will know what a potential sequel might entail and it ruined my own fan fiction. Most likely theirs too.

Regarding the gameplay, I was disappointed to learn that Atsu can’t level up in the same way that Jin does so the journey becomes a process and it takes the fun out of the game. The weapon and armour upgrades seem to make little difference; hitting a higher rated enemy with a fully upgraded weapon appears to take as much damage off them as it would before you started to improve it and getting hit by an opponent seems to take great chunks off you even if you’ve hardened your armour and added the essential charms. It’s as if the gamemakers forgot to add the few lines of code needed to make the changes and it tells.

The combat for Yotei is different, which I liked. For gamers who’d played Tsushima, it kept us on our toes but I admit, I was surprised by the fighting style which I expected to be more fluid, playing as a woman. Her over the shoulder heavy attacks were slower, more awkward and in the fight scenes, I never felt the organised chaos playing as Jin in the first game. Two moves in particular seemed harder to get in Yotei; dodge counter and perfect parry attacks. In Tsushima, you had to tap with pinpoint precision to pull these moves off. In Yotei, you needed Godlike precision to get those moves, which made duelling and warring more irritating. I’m not complaining here about the difficulty. I do like a challenge but not having those weapons at my disposal made for some fussy and longer battles. As did having only 6 resolve points for the whole of the game. Drinking sake to lift it by 2 partway through a duel wasn’t my idea of fun. I preferred the plenty of Tsushima, not because it made it easier but because it made sense.

I like the throwable melee weapons you get in fight scenes – someone loses their sword and you can pick it up and throw it – and I enjoyed the disarm addition where you or your opponent can take away primary weapons during a fight. But, and I’m sure some Yotei fans might disagree with me here, you get too many weapons. In Tsushima, you have the katana and tanto, both nicely tucked on Jin’s waistband. You have the shortbow, the longbow, and various ghost weapons – kunai, smoke, sticky and black powder bombs. You have distraction tools like wind chimes and firecrackers. I wouldn’t have minded the addition of the spear, which you get in Yotei, but then it comes with a load of other weapons – a pistol, a musket, dual katana, odachi (a big fricking sword which could have been wielded by Pyramid Head in Silent Hill), kusarigama, a spiked metal ball on the end of a chain. Plus, all the ghost type weapons you get on the first game. It’s just too much. And not content with adding this extra arsenal to Atsu, the gamemakers thought it’d be fun to introduce these elements to duelling so now, partway through a one on one, your opponent can pull a gun out of his armour and fire. It’s just not cricket. You get to the final battle against Lord Saito and you’d think he might have just a little honour, just enough to duel melee so when he whips out his pistol at odd moments, it makes you grit your teeth and try that little bit harder to win. Whether you see that as a positive or a negative is your prerogative but I don’t like it, not in major battles.

The shrines in Yotei are more interesting. It’s easier to get lost on them and there are surprises as you make your way to the top and I like how this game came with puzzles, one of the few aspects I’d have enjoyed if they’d been included in the first game. Granted, they weren’t difficult to work out but they were there all the same and were a welcome addition. Exploration, however, was a mystery. Yotei is a full 20+GB larger than Tsushima but you’d never know. It didn’t appear spacier and the areas in which you can explore were separated and bordered which made what should have been a great open journey feel claustrophobic.

And this is small but it’s worth a mention. You’d expect anyone who was born, grew up and currently living on an island to know how to swim. Jin, with all his armour and weapons, could swim decent distances. He’d sprint but after a short time, get tired and slow to a canter. Atsu, with all of Jin’s weapons and more, drowns if she swims further than a frog pond. But, and here’s the kicker, she can sprint indefinitely. In any weather, any incline and no matter how much she is carrying. Like I said, small, but worth mentioning.

Yotei, or Ezo, is beautiful but it just lacks the grandeur of Tsushima. Whether it’s the exploration side or the great battle missions, Tsushima has the edge. The colours, the lighting, the setting, the direction, the majesty of Tsushima just isn’t reflected in its follow up. Gamers who’ve played both titles will know that. On Tsushima, you’d see the sunlight glistening through the trees like golden water bouncing off the bamboo stalks. The soft mist that hovers above the lakes. The early morning sun shadowed by the morning dew, the stars watching a land standing tall against the conflict raging across it. Yotei has the Aurora Borealis, which the first game doesn’t, and the dark beauty of the Spider Lily General mission is lovely but for the most part, Yotei misses the soft, subtle beauty that lit up Tsushima. Still, the Spider Lily mission has some lovely touches.

Some of the less obvious aspects of the game, like abandoning a mission to get better prepared for it, skipping a cut scene first time out and the bamboo strikes, which now feature a mechanism of mid air chopping and doing it while you’re wasted on sake, are cool but they’re not enough to elevate what could have been a truly fantastic adventure.

My advice to those who have never played either game is to visit Tsushima and see what Yotei could have been. Despite the differing stories, Yotei should have been poignant. It should have wrought the sort of emotion we felt in the first game. We should have been allowed the opportunity to fight for Atsu in a worthwhile setting against interesting and dangerous opponents. What we got was a game that didn’t feel finished, in all aspects. Though there was adequate reason to complete the game, I felt like I was short changed. I don’t anticipate returning at any time soon.

Rating: 2/5