I’ve reached a new avenue.
And the avenue is one where I’m writing a lot. I don’t know about you, but finding a voice for different locations is quite the interesting feat. You have to be you, but the you that you are for that area. And I think this was something I struggled with in my Death Stranding 2 review. I brought a lot of chaos to it. Mostly because there was no doubt some kind of separation between my ‘ha’ and ‘ka’ from the sheer pleasure of playing the game versus having to find two voices for it. And now I’m having to find three voices for the Ghost of Yōtei.
I’ve completed my review for Yeah Nah Gaming. And I’d just finished my second for The Empire. Mind you I could have left it to other collaborators, but I don’t know. I just took the lead. I think that’s most likely due to being lucky enough to interview the Creative Directors for the game, Nate Fox and Jason Connell. Like a guiding wind, this event pointed me toward this workload. So here I am, completing it in the final few hours before the embargo is lifted.
It’s been 300 years since a Ghost saved the island of Tsushima. Their kamikaze sweeping over the lands to topple Khotun Khan during the Mongol Invasion in the Kamakura era of Feudal Japan. In the canon ending, the Shogunate tosses Jin aside for dishonoring the code of the Samurai, and the cost of this is their Uncle, and adopted father, Lord Shimura’s life through their own blade.
The myth of the Ghost crosses centuries, where we will meet Atsu. Portrayed and voiced in English by Erika Ishii, with the Japanese voice played by Fairouz Ai (Power in Chainsaw Man / Delta in The Eminence In Shadow), she returns to the land of Ezo. Or what we now know as Hokkaido. Here, she has only one focus after living through the wars of the south.
The death of the Yōtei 6.
Set on revenge for past events, Atsu heads out on a journey which may seem similar to Jin Sakai. But it is filled with more blood. More explosions. And more acceptance that maybe what will bring you closure, is something different to what you thought you desired.
One of the aspects from Ghost of Tsushima that we wanted to not only carry forward but just do an even better job of, was that sense of curiosity and freedom of exploration that the game delivers upon”
Jason Connell, Co-Creative Director (Source: Game Informer)
Roaming Ezo, players have free rein over the direction they want to go. While the 6 are the target, there’s no path for how you should take them down. Which is why it took me 40 hours for the game to tell me I’d completed the first chapter. I was simply playing the way I wanted to play. While narratively they’ve got the classic three act structure of a start, a middle and an end, the start and middle will largely make up the majority of your game.
While you play, the game introduces you to the many activities in Yōtei. Bounties to hunt down for mon. Vendors to improve your gear. Charms to improve your character and skills. Musicians to improve your shamisen, and similarly Sensei to improve your use of different weapons. And golden birds who will sing at you for different vanity items and improvements to player constitution. All while the ‘kamikaze’ guides you to them.
Traversal works much the same for Atsu as it does for Jin Sakai, since she can leap and creep around to get the job done. However, unlike Jin, she does not follow any code. If you quietly take down your enemies, that’s fine. And if you rush in, standing them down in classic cinematic flair, that’s fine too. She is a sellsword, and this means she doesn’t see the line between honor and dishonor. She simply sees what needs to be done, by any means necessary.
This all comes together under the incredible SPACKLE engine. Ghost of Tsushima was gorgeous. Yet Yōtei springs to life with even better visuals. Staggering colors explode across the screen, as heartfelt emotion crushes you when they crawl across the face of our hero. The different modes present the viscera of Atsu’s battle in different ways, with the new Watanabe mode bringing a whole new aesthetic to the game through its lo-fi hip hop. It’s no wonder that I’ve found the 80+ hours I’ve spent in the game so easy. Especially when their optimization of the SSD sees the game load instantly when you resume play.
It also helps when the rain also affects the map in your touchscreen menu.
I almost scoffed at the detail. Such a minute thing, but they put it in the game. It also falls off any of the hats or helm you wear in the game. And it’s these small details that really make up the immersion of the game. If you bow at people in the game, they’ll bow back in respect. There’s a whole area which leads to interactions with in-game animals that is absolutely spectacular. And the reverence for the Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, really makes you feel the history of this game. The love that Sucker Punch have for Japan.
I personally find it hard to think of Yōtei as a sequel to Tsushima. There’s a shared pedigree. If you’ve played Tsushima, you can pick up Yōtei and figure out the nooks and crannies. But it does so much different, both in big and small ways, that it stands apart from Jin Sakai’s journey as the Ghost of Tsushima. It almost makes me wonder if it should have been named the Onryō of Yōtei. She’s not a ghost like Jin. He became a myth to save his island. But Atsu doesn’t want to save Ezo. She is the Onryō because she wants revenge. And this makes them vastly different stories right down to how they conclude.
We wanted to make sure in this game that we honored players’ curiosity, that we would reward exploration. And to me that’s the magic of Yotei. It’s those spaces in between missions when players just find themselves propelled by the smallest little puff of curiosity and it takes them on an adventure they hadn’t anticipated doing”
Nate Fox, Co-Creative Director (Source: Yahoo! Tech)
As I’ve completed each review, all I’ve wanted is to be running around Yōtei once again. While I only have one trophy left, there’s not much else in the game for me to find. But I want to experience the world again. See those small changes in the way I play the story. The first time around, I was spending a lot of time running between two of the major areas. But now I’m running between more and seeing things through a whole different lens. And I think it’s this that sets it apart from Ghost of Tsushima. For Jin, we were simply saving an island.
But for Atsu? We’re trying to save her soul.
The Ghost is dead. Long live the Onryō. While I'm trying not to be salty about the one trophy stopping me from the Platinum, it's only because I loved every minute in my time with the game. So much so, I'm still in it. I roam Yōtei one again. For I am the hunter, and this hunt isn't over just yet.
