Honestly, so far I am pretty disappointed. It just feels like Sucker Punch has sacrificed their focus on fun gameplay to chase the "immersion" and graphics as their focus. I'm still very early in the game, so I could change my mind for sure.
I don't like the wind navigation at all. The world is really not designed in a way that you can navigate organically. Most of it so far is flat, with trees blocking some view, and a lack of distinct landmarks. This means that to find anything at all, you basically have to mark it on your map, and then spam the wind button over and over to figure out which way to go while a distance meter on the top left tells you the number of meters you are from the objective. It's not immersive to me, and honestly takes me even further out of the game than a compass or quest marker, because I'm constantly having to spam the wind button over and over to make sure I'm not just riding into the wrong direction with no clue.
Items are so blended into the environment that you can barely even see them highlighted enough to collect them. I literally searched a whole room and barely saw one of the main collectibles. Supply bags and bamboo eventually become recognizable, but it's still not ideal.
The camera is extremely tight and up close to the main character. Following footprints is even less fun than in The Witcher because they're not even visible most of the time. You're not able to see your surrounds and the skyline easily, or enemies surrounding you become obscured with the camera pulled in so close. The only reason to do that is to focus on graphics and "immersion," but it just makes it so I can't hardly see what's going on.
Combat is not great either. Hammer enemies spam unblockable attacks 3-5x in a row. Animations look fragmented and juttery. Controls are not responsive 100% of the time when doing hold moves. There are very little graphical indications that you're low on health, forcing you to always look at the extremely small bar on the bottom left (immersion!). The guard break system for enemies is not very fun, amounting to basically just spamming the heavy attack button on each enemy. Shooting the bow does not feel good, especially after Days Gone with it's subtle gyro. Enemies at a distance are so visually indistinct that you often have to squint to even see them in the archery quest. The controls for archery are extremely unresponsive as well. If you're holding L2 to aim and get shot, you don't return to your aim stance. You have to let go of L2 and start over. Your ammo number is also not that visible (immersion) and you may run out of ammo and not even know it immediately because it's the same as when the controls don't respond. I don't find the archers that fun to fight either if you focus on melee.
The whole game feels janky in terms of character movement. The horse is not smooth when accelerating and turning. Mounted combat sucks as well.
Stealth is not great, with zero ability to mark enemies making this feel very primitive compared to newer stealth focused games. The focused hearing is more x-ray vision, which is the lowest form of correction for bad game design. Enemy placement and level design is not great for stealth, so fix it with x-ray vision instead of crafting it intelligently. And you have to spam it on and off a lot, which is tedious and annoying, and the color washed out look is not great when using it. You can't even move bodies, which sucks. Even Tenchu Z feels like it has 100x the stealth options this game does. Obviously more is coming, so we'll see.
I'm so into samurai and ninja stuff that I'll still enjoy the game, and probably try to platinum it. But I'm honestly not even having that much fun so far. The story is not that great either. Having the game throw stupid guilt trip memories at you after you decide to pursue the ghost path is dumb. They missed the chance to have him train as a ninja as well, and he instead just kind of picks it up immediately and it feels extremely rushed. The story in inFamous SS felt better so far. Cutscenes are also often stiff and lifeless, unless they're main story ones which are all pretty awesome.
Right now I'm leaning towards a 7 out of 10, which emphasis on good graphics. Navigating in this world is a chore, and feels worse than almost all other open world games. I don't enjoy spamming the wind button and just awkwardly riding into the void, completely blind, in a game that doesn't have strong enough level design to promote organic exploration.
Nioh 2 is 20x as good as this game, has tons of weapons with way more depth than this, way more enemies, way more bosses, better level design, online co-op, better cutscenes, better everything. I agree with Edge's review. This game is not going to be remembered as top tier after the dust settles. I'm honestly shocked that their visual and art design decisions are so bad for supporting clear gameplay. Everything destructible or interactive in that game looked clearly designated with yellow highlights and still looked stunning artistically, while promoting extremely clear gameplay options. This is an excessively "realistic" looking game that's tough to actually play correctly and would be better off as a movie.
it's true camera can be sometimes annoying and no lock on enemies but combat feels good. I'm playing on hard.
