I'm 42 hours in and only now got to chapter 2. I've been no-lifeing this game since it came out 3 days ago. This game is fucking *huge*. Easily double of the time I spent in Tsushima and that game is one of my favourite games. I've done a metric shit ton of side content and I'm sure I still missed some. This game is absolutely fantastic and a worthy successor to the original. Atsu might not nearly reach Jin's level, but I'm still invested in her story and how it all unfolds. I was very iffy on the concept of this game during its marketing phase, but they knocked it out of the park. Jin driving back the Mongol invasion will forever be the most badass idea to me, but hunting down the murderers of your family in the lawless Ezo does work better than I thought.
Everything else is defintely a huge improvement, even the removal of the stances which I was worried about. Combat really *clicks* when you manage to pull it off and it feels crisp and badass. I also really like how they designed the world, not just from an art perspective but moreso in the fact that there's always something going on, the content comes *towards* you and it all feels organic. So much to discover, so many places to see, so many "systems" reacting to your hunt of the Yotei Six. It's not quite the checklist feeling that happens in Ubi games, mostly because a lot of content feels "hidden". That one time I hit up a random bamboo stand, some old woman came to me and warned me about a thief trying to steal my sword. Moments later I happened to stumble across that same dude and Atsu was like "hey, I heard about you". It's little things like that that make the world feel more alive to me. The quality of the content is also better. That spider lily legend was cool as shit.
I'm glad that that Sucker Punch still has it. Banger of a video game. There was a random NPC in an inn that mentioned how he would like to go to China. I'm sure this is just some random chatter, but man, the idea of a "Ghost of China"? That would be crazy.
