Immediate post-yotei thoughts (SPOILERS)

I’m writing this as I watch the credits roll on ghost of yotei. The game made me realise that the duology really should be considered the best of modern PlayStation. Such a masterfully crafted work of art.

It goes without saying that Tsushima is the better game though. It’s almost indisputable. Unless you really like the combat changes or something I can’t see how one could consider yotei objectively superior. However, that’s not to say yotei is a wasted sequel. It just missed the mark in a few key ways:

It felt kind of short? You kill the dragon, spider, and Saito within a few missions. That absolutely should not have been the case. And whilst the opening was good, I would have also enjoyed if the Spider was his own chapter of the game. The rushed ending also made the way atsu abandoned her revenge quest less impactful. I was still all in on killing the Spider and Saito even when Atsu wasn’t. Because the game spent 85% of it showing me that revenge is awesome and the last 15% saying “ooooo but family”. Eh, nah, I wanted to finish the revenge quest they spent the entire game setting up!

It also became disappointingly simple in its message. Simple revenge story where Atsu makes a new family. Something I feel like I’ve seen hundreds of times before. I really wish they gave the player more agency in choosing which route to go down. Jin became the ghost, but in choosing whether or not to kill his uncle at the end of the game, it gives the player a final choice of how much samurai was still left in Jin. That same choice should have been given to Atsu.

Jubei did not need to die, and it actually really blotches the ending they were going for me imo. Atsu rediscovering her long lost brother was the most important thing she gained on her adventure. Losing that feels like it undermines her efforts to make a new family. Like, Atsu makes a change to not be fuelled by revenge (which SP is telling us that this is the “good” choice) and she immediately gets punished for it. Idk I just didn’t want Jubei to die. It was a simple revenge story and I wanted a simple happy ending to make it all fit nicely.

It was an absolute blunder not to give the player a key choice at the end of the game. The Lord Shimura choice is like one of if not *the* most memorable part of Tsushima. Not giving the player any choice at the end was such a miss. As I said before, more player agency should have been given to allow the player to choose the extent to which Atsu abandons her revenge quest.

Yotei also never got close to the ghost stance moment in Tsushima. Not even close. The slaughter at the theatre was okay, but it was around the same time that they started to make the revenge quest seem like a bad thing so it didn’t land half as effectively. Almost every new ghost weapon in Tsushima was memorable. Barely any of them were memorable in Yotei. They really should have made the moment atsu gets a gun feel like a bigger moment. That was the weapon I (and I’m sure most people) was most looking forward to unlocking.

(Also Kiku was way too mature for her age. Made me really struggle to believe in her character. Should have made her 17 or something. Also no mention of her mother anywhere?? Atsu never thought to ask that???)

**phew**, now that I’ve got that out my system. All the issues I had with the game are really just contained to the final chapter. I really liked Jubei, Oyuki was cool, and the idea of a wolf pack was also cool. Atsu’s perspective on Japan is a really interesting one to take when compared to Jin’s. You really feel the difference in status and I enjoyed that. I liked how strong the Oni and Kitsune quests were. That’s simple revenge story done right.

The gameplay additions were fine. I’m glad they exist. Tsushima’s excellent core gameplay loop was still intact so anything extra is welcome to me. That point is really important. I think that the ghost of gameplay loop is so good that this game is still outstanding. I still think they should have made a bigger deal about the guns though.

Should there be a Ghost of Meiji? Eh… idk how much further they can take this idea without making some pretty substantial changes. Maybe a RDR style honour system would be an idea worth playing around with. Of course, Japan was a very very different place by the time of the restoration. So it would also have to adopt a very different aesthetic. Not the “free spirit adventurer” vibe the first two games have.

That’s all. I’ll probably keep messing about in the file and take out the remaining Saito outposts. Thank you for reading.