Ghost of Yotei |OT| Jin there, done that

I did play Tsushima. Twice.

Enjoyed the combat. Enjoyed the visuals (though when you're hungover, all of those leaves and particle effects do ZERO favors) didnt give a fuck about the story and the side characters were uninteresting to me along with having their side quests last way too long. The most fun I had were fighting the individual straw ronin that you had to hunt down and taking down the camps.
I agree that some of the side quests went on for far too long in GOT - probably my main bugbear with it tbh. This aspect has been massively improved in the sequel as none of the quests outstay their welcome. I could say the same for the mini games too because there are far fewer of them compared to the original.

I'd say there is more emphasis placed on bounties than any other activity, so if you were to enjoy that aspect of the game, then you'd probably prefer it.

Ultimately, I got the platinum for GOT but sometimes it felt like a slog. I haven't felt like anything has been a slog in GOY so far.
 
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Denzel Washington Movie GIF

I didn't read the finale since I haven't played it yet but this isn't surprising. I thought the finale for GOT was damn near one of the best endings in a game ever. Overall I wasn't that impressed by the story in GOT it was ok, side quest were great. That ending though between you and your uncle is hard to top though.
 
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!
 
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.
 
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The perks on some of these armor sets are ridiculous.

"Assassinating enemies has a minor chance of granting 2 quickfire ammo"

Wow thanks, that makes zero impact on gameplay whatsoever.
This also shows that the current team is not as good as the new team !!
The perks aren't that good and lots of time you have to choose between game breaking and useless.
It might be nostalgia googles but i remember the perks in tsushima being much more gameplay changing.
Simply compare the ronin armor from tsushi with the one from yotei.
 
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!
I have it turned off. It's horrid and over used. Rips through my DS Edge charge like mad too.
 
Finally reached Chapter 2 and the coast. I've only completed the intro to the area and then saved just before reaching the gunsmith.

I'm tempted to finish the game without completing everything because I've really enjoyed it and I wouldn't mind playing NG+ after a break to get the platinum.
 
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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.
I thought at first that this quote was about devs leaving before Tsushima:

And you also have had enough changes from Sly, to InFamous, to Ghost that part of those changes, when they happen, is that it means not just you're walking away from Tsushima, and not just that you're walking away from the actors in Tsushima, but you're walking away from employees who've been a part of the studio for the last decade, because they don't want to do a game set in a historical setting
But apparently there were some who left who didn't want to make Yotei? I wonder who those were and what roles they had in the development.

One part of me hopes that the Sly devs would make their own studio and make a spiritual successor to the Cooper games.
 
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.


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.

This is pretty much how I feel after having cleared 3 of the 5 major areas. The game plays its hand pretty quickly and once the novelty wears off you begin to lose faith that any of these missions will really be that exciting. I find the story to be super boring and the side characters are quite lifeless, I seem to forget about them completely about 10 mins after finishing their quest.

To me, with its fully interconnected map and fleshed out companion side quests, Tsushima genuinely feels like it was made with a larger budget and just more care all-around. This game is good but a massive letdown for me. Basically like a 9.5/10 -> 7/10.

Also, Nayoro Wilds is a complete snoozefest damn.
 
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Looking back at some of the awesome screenshots in this thread, these would have been better marketing for this game than anything Sony did prior to launch. How did they make such a great looking game look so average?
 
She burn everything to a crisp.
FR. I don't mind the cooking minigame (I also don't mind that it can be skipped, and that the game helpfully auto-does that after a point unless you turn that off in the settings), but it would be nice that the minigame could actually serve some purpose. Like, cook food properly, get $STAT_BONUS for a while. As it is, it's like "my favorite food is charcoal".
 
Looking back at some of the awesome screenshots in this thread, these would have been better marketing for this game than anything Sony did prior to launch. How did they make such a great looking game look so average?
It is really really weird. Undersold the 60 FPS RT mode on the Pro, undersold PSSR on it, undersold visuals on the base console too, etc… Just like wtf, it feels like they were trying to make the game underperform… DF's review showed the visuals far far better than any trailer Sony put out…
 
This is 7/10 at best. Storytelling is significantly worse than in Tsushima and it was not any kind of masterpiece in that game to begin with. They should cut out 80% of the filler bullshit. And for fuck sake, when you know your game looks the best in sunny weather, tweak your god damn weather patterns to have rain and cloud rare instead of predominant. Same annoying thing as in Tsushima, although there you could at least change it, eventhough the change was always shortlived.
 
There is way too much talking, cut scenes. Where the control is taken away from the player. I'm starting to bypass lots of the cutscenes if I can. I don't find her story particularly interesting anyways. Game looks great, and getting different armor sets is what's pulling me along.
 
This is 7/10 at best. Storytelling is significantly worse than in Tsushima and it was not any kind of masterpiece in that game to begin with. They should cut out 80% of the filler bullshit. And for fuck sake, when you know your game looks the best in sunny weather, tweak your god damn weather patterns to have rain and cloud rare instead of predominant. Same annoying thing as in Tsushima, although there you could at least change it, eventhough the change was always shortlived.

I'm fairly sure the weather in Tsushima was affected by the level of liberation of the area you are in. The more enemy camps there are (or if you're in an enemy camp) the weather will turn cloudy/rainy. Not sure if the same applies in Yotei.
 
This is 7/10 at best. Storytelling is significantly worse than in Tsushima and it was not any kind of masterpiece in that game to begin with. They should cut out 80% of the filler bullshit. And for fuck sake, when you know your game looks the best in sunny weather, tweak your god damn weather patterns to have rain and cloud rare instead of predominant. Same annoying thing as in Tsushima, although there you could at least change it, eventhough the change was always shortlived.
Play less stealthily?

I wade into camps and hardly use stealth, and the weather is sunny most of the time.

Weather is affected by play style basically.
 
Tying weather to playstyle is fucking idiotic, especially when one weather looks so much worse than the other, and the shitty weather is result of playstyle one prefers.
 
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I feel like some people here havent played Tsushima recently and are remembering it with rose tinted glasses

Sidequests were some of the worst I've experienced in an open world game. Horribly written and with no variety at all. Cant remember of one single sidequest from the first game that was remarkable.

The "minor sidequests" also had poor variety. You would find foxes, shrines, hot springs or haikus. Thats it. Here there's so much more variety, even with dynamic events such as helping some man's horse thats being chased by a bear while you are just traversing the world.

Story is another point that, to me, is so much better in Yotei. So much so that its crazy to hear people prefering the first game.
Tsushima felt like I was barely progressing the story most of the time. Here with the Yotei Six, you have clear goals and sense of progression by killing each one of them. Also, the presentation is so much better, with much better setpieces. And it feels much more personal and emotional than the first game. I couldnt care less about Jin or his uncle (his uncle in particular was such an annoying character)

To me this was an Assasins Creed > Assasins Creed II evolution
 
just finished the game, doesn't break new ground but it is almost everything I wanted for a sequel somehow the most enjoyable open world game I have played even though a lot of missions are kind of doing the same thing. They somehow managed to stretch it far enough and not feeling like going through a checklist. If they do make a sequel to this, hopefully choices and branching path is the main focus.
 
Finished the game, a decent 7\10 like tsushi because it feels more like a side upgrade from tsushima more than a full upgrade, some things are better, some worse.

The villains in this one were absolute, unaltered dogshit, just a bunch of pathetic sobs and their whole faction made no sense at all, terribly written all around.

We lost infamous for this.
 
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I feel like some people here havent played Tsushima recently and are remembering it with rose tinted glasses

Sidequests were some of the worst I've experienced in an open world game. Horribly written and with no variety at all. Cant remember of one single sidequest from the first game that was remarkable.

The "minor sidequests" also had poor variety. You would find foxes, shrines, hot springs or haikus. Thats it. Here there's so much more variety, even with dynamic events such as helping some man's horse thats being chased by a bear while you are just traversing the world.

Story is another point that, to me, is so much better in Yotei. So much so that its crazy to hear people prefering the first game.
Tsushima felt like I was barely progressing the story most of the time. Here with the Yotei Six, you have clear goals and sense of progression by killing each one of them. Also, the presentation is so much better, with much better setpieces. And it feels much more personal and emotional than the first game. I couldnt care less about Jin or his uncle (his uncle in particular was such an annoying character)

To me this was an Assasins Creed > Assasins Creed II evolution
You might be looking at yotei with rose tincted (by novelty instead of nostalgia) glasses.

Tell me about the side missions of yotei that were better written than tsushima.
Compare the sensei quests from tsushima to the ones in yotei. Oh wait the sensei quests in yotei are mostly liberate camps and farmstead (goddam ubi trope by the way).

Tell me about those much better set pieces. I finished yotei yesterday after doing most of the things and really there are no huge set piece like the very beginning of tsushima (which was one of the best intros ever, cinematic and play wise), or the first fight on the bridge with kotun khan. In yotei I cannot even remember playing the moment we see in the trailer with you and a few other on horses riding at night, which i suppose is one of those much better setpieces.


Better yet, tell me about five memorable moments in yotei.

All in all tsushima is a great meal made with a lot of love and good cooking skills.
yotei is made by a fast food employee who gave all his heart but lacks the skill to make something great.

People will stop talking about yotei soon, because it lacks substance. People keep talking about tsushima long after release, because it doesn't.
 
I am ~35 hours and only killed Oni so far.
Going after Kitsune and i see some dialogues recognizing Oni is dead which makes me believe they have different dialogues to support the possible order people kill Yotei Six.
Can somebody kill Spider and Dragon before the others though? I have not found any clues for those 2.

On a different topic, i noticed a couple of things that show Sucker Punch still needs a bit of work to reach the standards of the rest of Sony's first party studios.
During cutscenes, aninations are pretty poor and camera angles and cuts are as simple they can be.
Then, at some point during gameplay i am attacked by 4 samurai saito riders. Game switches quickly to a short cutscene.
They approach me from the front, with the same distance between them, same horse animations and same speed.
Then they get off at exactly the same time with identical animations.
They start walking towards me again like robots, in perfect formation and identical speed and animations.

For a first party studio, this is a PS3 throwback. I don't remember seeing anything like that in games like GoW, TLoU or even Days Gone. Even the NPCs in Spiderman show some kind of natural movement.

After 180 hours of Death Stranding 2 and 50 hours of MGSΔ, these kind of robotic / hardcoded animations are a bit annoying.
 
I am ~35 hours and only killed Oni so far.
Going after Kitsune and i see some dialogues recognizing Oni is dead which makes me believe they have different dialogues to support the possible order people kill Yotei Six.
Can somebody kill Spider and Dragon before the others though? I have not found any clues for those 2.

On a different topic, i noticed a couple of things that show Sucker Punch still needs a bit of work to reach the standards of the rest of Sony's first party studios.
During cutscenes, aninations are pretty poor and camera angles and cuts are as simple they can be.
Then, at some point during gameplay i am attacked by 4 samurai saito riders. Game switches quickly to a short cutscene.
They approach me from the front, with the same distance between them, same horse animations and same speed.
Then they get off at exactly the same time with identical animations.
They start walking towards me again like robots, in perfect formation and identical speed and animations.

For a first party studio, this is a PS3 throwback. I don't remember seeing anything like that in games like GoW, TLoU or even Days Gone. Even the NPCs in Spiderman show some kind of natural movement.

After 180 hours of Death Stranding 2 and 50 hours of MGSΔ, these kind of robotic / hardcoded animations are a bit annoying.

I noticed the game "auto-defaults" to the Oni questline to nudge you into that direction when you don't have active quests, but you can do the Kitsune first (it's what I did).

Pretty sure the Dragon and the Spider are "out of town" until after killing the Kitsune and the Oni.

Agreed that the direction of the cutscenes is extremely linear with super basic camera shots and barely any camera movement. I don't know if this is a stylistic choice but I feel a lot of the cutscenes would be way more interesting and exciting with a little more dynamism in the way they are presented.
 
I am ~35 hours and only killed Oni so far.
Going after Kitsune and i see some dialogues recognizing Oni is dead which makes me believe they have different dialogues to support the possible order people kill Yotei Six.
Can somebody kill Spider and Dragon before the others though? I have not found any clues for those 2.

On a different topic, i noticed a couple of things that show Sucker Punch still needs a bit of work to reach the standards of the rest of Sony's first party studios.
During cutscenes, aninations are pretty poor and camera angles and cuts are as simple they can be.
Then, at some point during gameplay i am attacked by 4 samurai saito riders. Game switches quickly to a short cutscene.
They approach me from the front, with the same distance between them, same horse animations and same speed.
Then they get off at exactly the same time with identical animations.
They start walking towards me again like robots, in perfect formation and identical speed and animations.

For a first party studio, this is a PS3 throwback. I don't remember seeing anything like that in games like GoW, TLoU or even Days Gone. Even the NPCs in Spiderman show some kind of natural movement.

After 180 hours of Death Stranding 2 and 50 hours of MGSΔ, these kind of robotic / hardcoded animations are a bit annoying.
I agree with everything you said about the technical quality of the animations and cutscenes, but this is a $60 million budget game, while TLOU2, Horizon 2, GOW Ragnarok, and Spider-Man 2 all had budgets of over $200 million.

I can accept Sucker Punch's flaws because I can clearly see their focus on combat animations, art style, and world-building. Yotei's open world is better than any other Sony has developed.
 
I agree with everything you said about the technical quality of the animations and cutscenes, but this is a $60 million budget game, while TLOU2, Horizon 2, GOW Ragnarok, and Spider-Man 2 all had budgets of over $200 million.

I can accept Sucker Punch's flaws because I can clearly see their focus on combat animations, art style, and world-building. Yotei's open world is better than any other Sony has developed.
I agree.
It falls on Sony to trust them and provide them the required budget / tools / know how access to improve.
Next time i visit a hot springs i'll the select the third, imaginary option of "concord budget used in yotei".
 
for the people who have completed the game. how does it stack up vs the first. I found the middle of the first game to be quite slow and a touch of a slog to complete. Overall I enjoyed the game and I was glad I played it but i'd like to know the pacing and rinse repeat content is better in Yotei.

What do you guys think?
 
I will again point out that this game would have been infinitely better if it were linear, rather than open world.

I don't understand what makes you say this, moving through the splendor of the open world is this game's strongest feature by a mile.

Or do you mean the narrative? Because in that case I would agree.
 
I agree.
It falls on Sony to trust them and provide them the required budget / tools / know how access to improve.
Next time i visit a hot springs i'll the select the third, imaginary option of "concord budget used in yotei".
I think a bit differently. I agree and accept that studios like Naughty Dog and Santa Monica will develop some of the most technically impressive games in the industry, with extremely high production values. But I don't mind if Sony has a few studios like Sucker Punch to work on smaller-budget games that are still highly polished and engaging, like Ghost of Yotei.

With the development cost of a game like Horizon Forbidden West, we could have four games like Ghost of Yotei. I'd definitely take that deal.
 
You might be looking at yotei with rose tincted (by novelty instead of nostalgia) glasses.

Tell me about the side missions of yotei that were better written than tsushima.
Compare the sensei quests from tsushima to the ones in yotei. Oh wait the sensei quests in yotei are mostly liberate camps and farmstead (goddam ubi trope by the way).
The senseis sidequests were better in Tsushima, I agree (I only remember the old lady and bow old man tho). They arent as elaborate in Yotei with multiple quests, but they are enjoyable enough and each one of them teaching you a new weapon is good design, imo.

Every other sidequest is better tho (maybe the reason why you've only mentioned the senseis). The immortal samurai, the dude who has a bear as pet and so on. Even bounties have unique cutscenes and storytelling. I cant remember of one memorable Tsushima sidequest.

Tell me about those much better set pieces. I finished yotei yesterday after doing most of the things and really there are no huge set piece like the very beginning of tsushima (which was one of the best intros ever, cinematic and play wise), or the first fight on the bridge with kotun khan. In yotei I cannot even remember playing the moment we see in the trailer with you and a few other on horses riding at night, which i suppose is one of those much better setpieces.


Better yet, tell me about five memorable moments in yotei.


The beginning alone of Yotei has better production values than Tsushima and its not even close

Watching your family getting killed, writting the names of the Yotei Six and fighting Snake (with flashbacks during fight) was so much better paced and directed than fighting few mongols on a beach (and losing forcibly) than having some boring forced stealth section right after.

The fight with Khan you've mentioned lasted 2 minutes and you're forced to lose.
In Yotei you have an identical fight while the camp is being attacked and its just as cinematic, if not more.

Escaping Oni's camp, defending the bridge and reaching Kitsune's region were already more memorable than 90% of Tsushima, and Im not even finished with it.
 
I noticed the game "auto-defaults" to the Oni questline to nudge you into that direction when you don't have active quests, but you can do the Kitsune first (it's what I did).

Pretty sure the Dragon and the Spider are "out of town" until after killing the Kitsune and the Oni.

Agreed that the direction of the cutscenes is extremely linear with super basic camera shots and barely any camera movement. I don't know if this is a stylistic choice but I feel a lot of the cutscenes would be way more interesting and exciting with a little more dynamism in the way they are presented.

This is my main problem with the game. Some cutscenes look great, others look so bad with robotic animations and characters moving like mannequins. It hurts a lot the immersion
 
Almost done with the Kitsune questline.

This game is a very very minor step-up from Tsushima. I would have given Tsushima a 7 so this is like a 7.5 or an 8. Super super boring most of the time.
Lol the game is super boring most of the time, but it's a 7... I will never understand why people will play a game they think is boring, let alone give it a good score.
 
for the people who have completed the game. how does it stack up vs the first. I found the middle of the first game to be quite slow and a touch of a slog to complete. Overall I enjoyed the game and I was glad I played it but i'd like to know the pacing and rinse repeat content is better in Yotei.

What do you guys think?
In my opinion, Yotei is much better than Ghost of Tsushima since the exploration can feel a lot more organic rather than just dropping points on your map. You either have to find them yourself or buy maps from the cartographer and place them yourself which is actually a fun mini game for me personally.

The revenge story against 6 massive wankers is way more my thing than Tsushima.

There's still quite a lot of side quest stuff to play, but the story missions themselves do not feel like a slog and I imagine I'm about 1/3 through Act 2.

Lots of bounties to go and collect, hot springs, puzzles, paintings etc. it's a good time, but only engage with the content you want to go through.
 
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