Ghost Of Yōtei Review

Honouring seminal epics like Seven Samurai and Rashomon, Ghost of Tsushima offered a familiar yet potent tale of vengeance and the relentless violence that follows in its pursuit. Rightfully allowing Jin Sakai’s story to retain its impactful conclusion, developer Sucker Punch Productions has elected to continue the series by way of setting and theme. Building on and evolving the combat systems, exploration, and exceptional visual identity of Tsushima, Ghost of Yōtei does more than live up to the mantle of the Ghost; it solidifies itself as an instant modern classic.

Set in the early 1600s, some 300 years after Jin Sakai’s myth-making rampage across the island of Tsushima, a weathered and wandering mercenary returns to her home of Ezo (modern-day Hokkaido). A far cry from the disgraced samurai lord we are familiar with, protagonist Atsu is a ruthless and unrelenting hired blade who either hides all emotion or simply feels none.

Sixteen years prior, Atsu’s peaceful life was destroyed, and her childhood cut short, by the actions of a rogue band of outlaws known as the Yōtei Six. Led by Lord Saito, a man who professes to be the next and rightful Shogun, the group slaughtered her mother, father, and brother before pinning Atsu to the family’s burning Ginkgo tree, leaving her to die.

Return to Ezo may be painful for Atsu, but it’s beautiful sight for players

Having survived that night and fled to the mainland to strengthen her will and proficiency with a blade, Atsu has returned to the land underneath Mount Yōtei with a sash in hand, looking to cross off the names of her tormentors: The Snake, The Oni, The Kitsune, The Dragon, The Spider, and Lord Saito himself.

Tsushima’s Jin Sakai was an adult and an established samurai with years of life experience before the traumatic upheaval of his home and clan. Atsu was not afforded the same courtesy. Forced to endure unimaginable heartache and thrust alone into the world at a vulnerable age, unable to adequately process or manage her trauma, her story is a haunting inversion of Jin’s. By the time our involvement in her tale begins, the people of Ezo are hearing whispers of an onryō, a vengeful, hate-filled spirit whose rage and unbridled anger prevent them from moving to the afterlife. It’s a legend that Atsu is all too comfortable living up to.

This legend is born from the opening moments of the game, where we are introduced to the combat by way of Atsu finding and confronting The Snake. Combat with a katana is largely unchanged from the excellent systems found in Tsushima. Enemies’ sword swipes can be blocked and parried, with blue attacks requiring precise blocking, and red attacks needing to be dodged. Atsu can attack quickly with a press of square or throw a heavy, posture-breaking swing with triangle. The camera is still controlled entirely by the player, without any kind of lock-on, forcing you to be thoughtful with your positioning, particularly during encounters with large groups.

Things didn’t end well for any of these gentlemen

Two notable changes are detailed in these early moments as you brutally attempt to cross a name from your sash. If landed, a yellow attack from an enemy will disarm Atsu, leaving her vulnerable as she scrambles to retrieve her katana. Noticing this, nearby enemies will become far more aggressive, taking advantage of the brief opportunity. The attack can be countered with a swift, heavy strike, but the consequence of a mistimed attempt can be catastrophic. Through one of the multiple upgrade paths, Atsu can learn to disarm opponents herself, which can provide a vital advantage in the game’s more difficult later stages.

Atsu can also pick up and throw weapons dropped by enemies, or those found on weapon racks or strewn about encampments. Completely fatal when thrown at basic foes, this scrappy tactic is a great way to control the pace of encounters, and it can mop up pesky archers that will pepper you with arrows on the fringes of a battle. Both new wrinkles add a welcome depth to the baseline of combat, and make thematic sense to Atsu’s less classically trained, more anger-driven fighting style.

Barely leaving her clash with The Snake with her life, it becomes clear that greater skill and equipment will be needed to whittle down the Yōtei Six. As the story unfolds in its slightly modular fashion, Atsu will meet a range of sensei’s each specialised with a unique weapon. Meeting and training with each of these master craftsmen grants Atsu access to their armament of choice, opening a wider range of options with which to tackle opponents.

Drip-fed to the player at a perfect pace as the story unfolds, this arsenal of weapons provides a diverse and engaging layer to an already excellent combat system

Yōtei retains the rock, paper, scissors approach to combat, replacing Jin’s katana stances with entire weapons that have their own style, weight, and personality. Foes wielding dual katanas should be matched with the spear-like Yari, shielded foes can have their defences easily broken by the relentless Kusarigama, and larger brute enemies can find their stance quickly destroyed by the enormous Odachi. While there is a clear use case for each weapon detailed to you by the masters, these weapons can be freely swapped between and used at the player’s discretion, allowing for some expanded creativity during combat.

Each of the weapons feels incredible to wield, with obvious benefits and weaknesses to account for. The Odcahi is devastating yet slow, whereas the chain on the Kusarigama awards safety in space, but requires you to close that distance to deal significant damage. Fights feel like a dangerous dance, where stepping on your partner’s toes could mean losing your leg. The weapon pool is further deepened with ranged weapons, including a light and heavy bow, black powder bombs, shuriken, and the raw fury of the Tanegashima rifle.

Whether using the bows and shuriken to pick off guards silently as you stealth through a camp or targeting a cache of gunpowder with the Tanegashima to scatter a group of ronin, your ranged arsenal is bound to get you out of a tight spot. A collection of consumables rounds out Atsu’s death-dealing tools, with blinding powder, smoke bombs, and the oni’s flame all used to gain the upper hand in a difficult situation. Drip-fed to the player at a perfect pace as the story unfolds, this arsenal of weapons provides a diverse and engaging layer to an already excellent combat system.

Duels with singular opponents are tense, difficult, and incredibly cinematic

Atsu’s list of allies, collected and tracked in a menu called the Wolf Pack, grows as she ventures across Ezo, but it’s a literal wolf who has the greatest direct impact on gameplay. Rather than a token ability or a pet-like companion, the wolf will sporadically appear to aid Atsu in combat or in other times of need. The likelihood of these encounters can be increased by helping the wolf rid the land of hunters, but the relationship between onryō and lupine remains one of mutual respect, not one lording dominion over the other. It’s a far subtler and more nuanced partnering than I expected, and it’s an approach that I admire.

As Atsu’s legend grows, so too does her bounty, drawing in a deadlier cohort of adversaries. Encounter difficulty and enemy variety grow at the exact pace of Atsu’s gear, making for a wonderfully balanced, yet increasingly difficult experience. As with Tsushima, upgrading Atsu’s abilities across various skill trees isn’t tied to XP or plot points; rather, you earn each new unlock by visiting and bowing at a shrine.

A shrine will always be at the centre of an enemy camp, adding some incentive to liberating villages and townships outside of the thrill of stealth and combat, but many more can be found within the hidden corners of Ezo. The island province is a stunningly beautiful open world begging to be explored. Overflowing with vibrant, colourful fields of flowers and trees, dotted with jagged cliff faces that overlook the ocean, and packed with open fields in which to ride your horse through, Ezo is without question the most visually impressive open world I’ve ever seen.

While moments of reflection are fleeting, they show that Atsu is capable of more than just violence

More than just a beautiful backdrop, Ezo’s open world is teeming with activities, collectables, and secrets to uncover. Hot springs that grant additional health, bamboo stacks that increase your health-restoring spirit, and vistas that invite you to sit and paint using the DualSense touchpad are but a few examples of moments you’ll encounter on your travels. These are often uncovered as you follow a golden bird who appears to lead you to them like a truffle hound, but you’ll just as likely find them simply by virtue of existing in this incredible landscape.

Wandering is a core tenet of both Ghost games, with Tsushima introducing the Guiding Wind feature that subtly directs the player in the direction of their objective. The Guiding Wind returns here, accompanied by a card-based objective system that is meant to gently hint at where you should look to progress your bounty, rumour, sensei quest, or primary objective, though this does boil down to a fairly obvious radius more than a clue in most cases.

Rows of white flowers join the diegetic system list, with your horse, whom I name Homura (meaning fire), gaining a boost in speed when you gallop through them. While I was never in much of a hurry to get anywhere, thanks to the gorgeous scenery, it was always nice to get an extra burst of speed just as the aspect ratio automatically narrowed as I darted through an open field, following the wind.

Vantage points allow you to scope out your next move, and relax with a song from Atsu’s shamisen 

Whether taking part in a tense standoff or challenging a deadly swordsman at a duelling tree, Yōtei always presents itself with high levels of cinematic quality. From the direction of cutscenes to the draining of all colour as you activate Ghost Stance and cleave through terrified swordsman, almost every second feels like it could be stitched together and played in a theatre. It’s a minor shame, then, that some of the open-world animations can act as an immersion-breaking barrier during key, emotional moments. I never encountered anything as egregious as a t-posing model, but watching a character shuffle awkwardly because they are tethered to your movement was a bit of a shame.

Where Yōtei more than makes up for those slight mishaps is in its technical performance. Fidelity mode cranks the visuals to 4K while meeting a steady 30fps, whereas performance mode lowers fidelity somewhat to achieve a buttery-smooth 60fps. I played through the entire game in performance mode, based on my personal preference and didn’t encounter a single dropped frame. Fast travel also makes blindingly fast use of the PS5’s SSD, letting you boot up your console and get back to your save within less than 30 seconds.

All of the PS5’s features are leveraged here, and not just for the nuts-and-bolts side of things. The touchpad is used to play the notes on Atsu’s shamisen, while the music from the stringed instrument is imitated by the DualSense haptics. Not the speaker, the haptics. In true Sucker Punch tradition, there are interactable moments such as forging a sword and lighting a campfire that require motion controls and delicate use of the triggers, but they can be ignored by those unfazed by such novelties. Don’t skip on the coin-flicking minigame, Zeni Hajiki, however, it holds top spot on my best games within games list.

Saito and the Yōtei Six are deplorable, but they’re also complex and deeply damaged individuals in their own right

The last use of the PS5’s grunt deserves its own shoutout. While visiting her home and various other locations across Ezo, Atsu can replay memories from her childhood. Rather than a static cutscene or a cutaway to a playable section to hide loading, you can freely move between the present day and the past by holding the touchpad. Immediately jumping between instances was impressive every time, and it gave an immediacy to core moments that would’ve been overwise sullied.

Hunting down the Yōtei and avenging the death of her loved ones fundamentally changes Atsu, and her story takes more than a few unexpected and genuinely affecting turns. While Jin felt like a good man, burdened with a dreadful duty, Atsu feels like a vengeful spirit that’s tied to the physical world by a singular purpose. A true, living onryō. Watching as this fundamentally broken woman attempts to rediscover a humanity that was lost in her youth is harrowing. This is heightened by an excellent cast of supporting characters that challenge her beliefs and force her to rethink the path she has chosen. Erika Ishii’s vocal performance for Atsu is exceptional. They bring an emotional depth to the character that could have easily been lost, and it’s a truly commendable effort.

Final Thoughts

On the surface, Ghost of Yōtei may appear to return to an established tale of revenge. However, its all too relatable depiction of life-altering trauma and introspection acts as a natural counterpoint to its predecessor, not a facsimile. Atsu’s deeply distressing story of stolen innocence and the anger put in its place is the perfect continuation for the series, matching and complementing the more tangible advancements. The evolution of Tushima’s X-trumps-Y combat is more than skin-deep; it’s a reinvention that offers a varied, engaging, and ever-unfolding suite of options for the player to choose from, with not a single bad option among them. All this, set within an interactive, beautiful open world, makes Ghost of Yōtei one of the most complete action-adventure games I’ve ever played.