Although i defended it a lot and was really in love with it for a good 20 hours at least (until i arrived at oshima coast), im starting to get a bit burned out by the game.
The fact that Oshima coast is the most "ghost of tsushima" looking and playing region is not helping (i mean the worst parts of tsushima).
There are a few things this sequel does not as good as the first. I'd argue the open world, while being more beautiful, has less emblematic places (golden temple, giant buddha statues, frozen lake with the pagoda, etc.). The story while competentely written is not as good as Jin's. Characters are very changing, going from being not reasonable to being the voice of reason (Atsu and
her brother change roles like that for each other a bunch of time). As others said here, the side missions are a lot less well made than tsushima's (only the
haunted samurai estate comes to mind when tsushima had a bunch of memorable ones like the fox archer quest, the lady samurai story, etc.). Armors and sword kits also. What is the deal with all the cthuluh themed hats ?? I bet a very unfunny nerd though it was the best idea ever, and now we are stuck with ugly designs...
It seems that the people that replaced the ones who made tsushima were not as talented both in the art and game design department, and while they made a very good game using all the things more talented people conceptualized before them, the things they added were not that good hindsight. Even the diegetic way of giving missions to players, when you understand how it works (
you are in the open world, settlers/matsumae samurais come your way, you talk to them, they give you the marker for the start of the quest OR you clear a camp/ group of saito soldiers, the last one you cannot kill because you will automatically interrogate him - but then why can't you choose who you interrogate ?? - he gives you the marker for the start of the quest it is quite simplistic.
Also the fact you cannot change the weather like in tsushima is really detrimental, i want clear blue skies and im stuck with cloudy weather 3/4 of the time. That is lame.
Overall im willing to bet that with tsushima team making it the game would have been much better.
Do you know what the most impressive thing about Yotei is? The controller vibration. In this game, it's absolutely perfected.
First of all, there are hundreds of different vibration patterns — I didn't even know it could be that varied. And secondly, it's used perfectly. Completely different from other games.
Here, not only does every sound effect and almost every movement on screen have its own unique vibration, but during cutscenes, the controller rumbles in sync with the soundtrack — and each instrument is represented differently. It's incredible how much this connects you to the game.
Rumble has become so normal for us these days — we just accept it as part of gaming and expect a certain amount of feedback during specific actions without really thinking about it.
But in Yotei, it's almost an essential way of drawing you in as a player. It's crazy what can be done with controllers when someone really puts effort into it!
Try using your shamisen with your controller on the table, it will vibrate at the frequency of the notes played.
It is ugly sounding but also quite impressive.