After finally getting some well-deserved rest,
combat and the new arsenal rock. All new weapons are amazing and have their place, maybe with the Yari being somewhat on the meh side, but I don't even have a favorite. Calling them another take on rock-paper-scissors is so fucking reductive. Some of the animation work in combat is just chef's kiss, feels heavy and brutal and all it's missing is more dismemberment. Throwing katanas to impale enemies feels great, especially if it's one you made them drop. Just like in GoT, upgrading armors changes their look, and they're gorgeous. S-tier in-game fashion, especially those ninja and onrio kits.
I played on "hard" and used stealth sparingly, but when I did, I enjoyed it immensely, especially with the kit that lets you chain-assassinate five enemies from a smoke bomb in the middle of a fight. So good! The wolf is a great addition, especially when you can freely summon it with the shamisen. Both in open combat and stealth - but sadly, it has little narrative significance and no origin story. It's just there.
Other than that, the main plot is simple, mostly predictable yet effective, and just very solid overall - perhaps not at the heights of GoT's finale, but it definitely works.
There's something about the look of the game that tops AC: Shadows for me, and it's not just about fidelity. Vistas are the kind you want to showcase an OLED on. In exploration, it's mostly a minor evolution over GoT, and that's okay. I love how it adds depth and little bits of story to some fox dens or cutting bamboo. Same goes for bounties - your core side activity. They usually have their own story rather than the expected go-to-place-kill-a-dude and blend perfectly into the main quest. Good stuff.
It's hard for me to grade the game, as this feels like a small appetizer before Yotei Legends. Some camps felt like perfect survival arenas, and I can't wait to see how it cranks things up to 11, making use of all the new weapon mechanics and going on raids against demonic versions of the Yotei Six.
At this stage, though, it's the best open-world game SIE has ever released, one of the best games I played this year, and I really feel like it's just the beginning.
9/10