Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Platforms: PS5 (Reviewed), PS5 Pro
Genre: Action, Adventure
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Ghost of Yōtei is a standalone game set 300 years after Ghost of Tsushima. If you’ve played Ghost of Tsushima, you’ll have a leg up when it comes to understanding the controls, settings layout, maps, and most of the game mechanics, but there are tons of new features and game mechanics for the initiated. However, if you haven’t played Ghost of Tsushima, you’ll be guided through the controls, game mechanics, and this beautiful world in Ghost of Yōtei.
Ghost of Yōtei is an open-world, RPG, and adventure game set in 1600s Japan, which was a lawless time. You play as the protagonist Atsu, and follow her harrowing story through this chaotic world full of factions, clans, and tribes fighting each other. Atsu is on a mission to find a number of outlaws who have turned her world upside down, and the narrative of the game really drives you through this unique gaming experience. This game is centred on themes of revenge and vengeance, which form the core pillars in terms of character development and the choices you’ll make throughout the story mode.
While Atsu has a horrible and harrowing backstory that you’ll become entwined with as you progress through the game, there’s a stark contrast with the beauty and cinematic quality of the Japanese landscapes, which are photo-realistic and look amazing. They’ll leave you stunned and in moments of wonderment as you gaze at the winding rivers, the impressive mountains in the background, and the changing colours of the seasons, everything from luscious greens to bright red leaves and flowers that illuminate this huge rolling landscape. It’s breathtaking, and even after hours of gameplay, you’ll still be amazed by the fine details and graphical fidelity of the landscapes, buildings, characters, and animals. This is just the daylight view; when night falls, you’ll see dark starry skies, sometimes with northern lights visible, the reflection of the moon in the rivers, the glow of torches in villages, and fireflies helping to illuminate your path at times. The game has 3 graphics modes: quality mode 4K 30 FPS HDR, performance mode targets 60 FPS with dynamic resolution, and Ray-Tracing mode has 30 FPS.
It’s all meticulously planned, and the detail helps draw you into this world along with the brilliant storyline and character acting. All of these elements work together to make this a living and breathing world where you’ll want to stay and just wander around. This wandering around is what I really loved. While the story and, in particular, the story missions have tons of twists and turns and are extremely well thought out, I was lost in the world for many hours at a time, doing side missions, exploring the various areas, and levelling up my character.
The soundtrack and music play a huge role in the ambience and emotional rollercoaster in this game. Like Death Stranding 2, certain missions and story missions use songs as a critical part of the narration of the story and heighten the feels in the game whilst you play. Atsu has a shamisen, which is a three-stringed guitar-like instrument. This plays a critical role in some missions in the game and has some unique game mechanics, too, that will help you in your playthrough. Atsu is a person of many facets, and playing an instrument is another part of her being.
Atsu has many distinct play styles, but the two main fighting styles are samurai and ninja. The samurai elements focus on your ability to handle the katana and other combat weapons you unlock throughout the game. In samurai mode, the focus is on fighting your enemies in head-on battles and using the responsive game mechanics and your sword to attack, block, parry, and dodge at the right times to inflict the most damage possible. With each weapon Atsu uncovers, there are skill trees that unlock new moves or strengthen your attacks, which help as you progress through the main missions and side missions, such as taking back villages and hunting for bounties. The ninja elements focus on stealth and using surprise to kill enemies and avoid the huge combat scenes. Again, there are skill trees that improve Atsu’s stealth skills. It’s up to the player in terms of what they want to upgrade and how they want to play. The main boss and enemy fights centre on using your samurai skills to beat them, so while you may play stealth, you’ll encounter parts of the game that will require you to engage the samurai side of Atsu. The boss fights, like those in Ghost of Tsushima, are amazing and really help give the player a sense of achievement as you progress through the game. Bosses require the player to understand the fighting mechanics, and many power-ups are at Atsu’s disposal, but your play style will be dictated by what you choose to upgrade in the various skill trees.
With this huge range of game mechanics, weapons, and gameplay styles, the game controls are intuitive and easy to pick up, and if you need assistance, the various tutorials and in-game guides will walk you through each control and power-up you’ll obtain through the skill tree. The game makes use of pretty much every button on the PS5 controller. The ability to switch weapons mid-fight is easy, and the ability to use consumables while doing all this is a huge plus and enhances your ability to use more than your primary weapon when fighting.
Ghost of Yōtei is a superbly brilliant written game with lots of depth in the story and narration. The choice of this Northern Japanese landscape goes hand in hand with the story. Cinematography and visual fidelity is something to behold, you will find yourself lost in this game throughout your playthrough, you will find the side missions, finding power-ups, weapons and yourself wandering around this open world. You will have moments of awe, shock, and surprise throughout. The storyline and, in particular, Atsu makes for an extremely relatable game, and you will find affinity with Atsu and her choices throughout. The themes of vengeance and revenge are the most prevalent, but the game is mixed with parts of humour and lightness to help it feel more rounded and engaging. Game mechanics are intuitive, and there are so many different weapons to use, from katanas, bows, longbows, and odachi, just to name a few. A comprehensive upgrade and skill tree for you to build Atsu into the character you want, a horse who acts as your companion, as well as a whole host of characters who support you along the way. It’s an amazing game and worthy of being a Ghost title, a must-buy for PS5 gamers.
Overall: 9.5/10
Enjoys more than the odd game, long time gamer, somewhat a technologist and everything else in between.
Also enjoys a good solid game of FIFA online. Currently PS4, XBOX 360 and STEAM.
