The long-awaited standalone sequel to Ghost of Tshumia is here. Ghost of Tshumia was an innovative, creative, and beautiful game released in 2020 that shook the market. Now, Ghost of Yõtei is here to cause an earthquake. It takes place in 1603 and follows the protagonist Atsu, and her quest for revenge and reform.
It opens with a tragic flashback. It shows the main protagonist Atsu, who is pinned to a burning tree in their childhood home. This was a very scenic flashback and was well animated. You can tell they put a lot of work into it from the details on the face and the emotions of young Atsu. This foreshadows the main antagonist, Lord Saito, and his clan of five others. When the flashback ends, we meet with the current Atsu. The game introduces the use of the D-pad function to sketch the names of the “Yõtei Six.” They are the Snake, the Dragon and the Spider, and when she is done, it shows her looming over a village being raided by one of the Yõtei Six called The Snake.
The opening is eventful and is a great start to the game. She walks through a burned village where there is a house that is. The Snake is drinking in. She is stopped by the village raiders and fights. The feeling of being feared by those standing in front of you and getting to swiftly cut them down one by one was a great representation of her pure hatred and vengeance. When she is done, she finally gets to The Snake and challenges him to a duel. However, his move set is questionable. He constantly swings and loses his balance, so the duel took me a couple tries, especially on lethal difficulty which is the hardest, but, eventually, I took him down. This is where people start to fear the protagonist. She gets pinned down by The Snake as she gets pinned to the floor by a katana, but she finds a smaller blade and after many attacks gets the job done. She is then seen rising back up after being knocked unconscious and riding away as the locals call her a “Onryō.”
The feeling of progress after crossing off a name was thrilling and kept me playing, despite there being five more names to cross off. The next person I went after was The Oni. To get to where he is in the Ishikari Plain, you must carve your way through the mountain pass where Oni raiders are controlling it. Atsu carves her way through and finds a camp of samurai called Clan Matsumae. This is where she finds her brother who she has not seen since the night of the burning tree. However, it did seem like he was just there to have something at the end of the story.
Later in the Ishikari plain after trying to sneak in and kill The Oni, you go through the mines and release some samurai and finally get to The Oni. The fight is dark and starts inside of his trophy room. It took me around three tries to get the first phase done, but he was predictable after a while. After the first phase, The Oni uses his overwhelming brute strength to throw Atsu right through the front door. The second phase took longer for me. He lights his Odachi on fire and starts to throw fire at you somehow which threw me off for sure and made it take way longer than usual. But the fight was very scenic, and I like how they contrasted the red armor of the Oni and the fire he uses on his Odachi with the dark and rainy scene of the outside weather.
The next member I went for was The Kitsune. The Kitsune is hiding in the northern mountains. Atsu gets to the northern part of Ezo by agreeing to be their bodyguard, but on the way, she gets ambushed by The Kitsune. She gets poisoned by them and starts hallucinating and freezing. She is about to die and blacks out rescued by a woman named Oyuki and wakes up in a village next to a warm fire, making it obvious that there is a plot twist coming. She helps her pick up clues following The Kitsune’s trail until they get to his hiding place inside of a bamboo forest and launch an ambush with Clan Matsumae. Atsu runs through the battle and catches up with The Kitsune before he escapes, and during the duel, he talks about how there have been multiple Kitsunes before him. This was the main turning point for Atsu because after The Kitsune escapes and he meets back up with Oyuki at her home, Atsu tries to fight her to get revenge. She ends up not fighting her because she was the one helping her as a child, and she realizes revenge isn’t the only path she has. Together again, they find Kitsune’s hideout inside a cave this time and Oyuki confronts The Kitsune’s forces while Atsu fights The Kitsune. It was an easy fight for me especially because I had a spear to easily deal with The Kitsune’s kusarigama. The second phase was a nice surprise as Oyuki helps you finally finish off The Kitsune.
After the fight there are only two more members to deal with before getting to Lord Saito: The Spider and The Dragon. These are Saito’s sons and are responsible for coastal shipping out of Ezo and handle most of the muskets and firearms. Atsu and Oyuki do a stealth mission to infiltrate into the play they are making as musicians. When Atsu gets to where the play is being held, she waltzes right through the front door and confronts him.
This part was fun for me because this is where she gets the Ghost stance, letting the player swiftly cut down three enemies in terrifying fashion. This was showcased in its predecessor Ghost of Tshumia, and personally, I think this game did it better. You really feel the rage she has for the Yotei Six and how unrelenting she is and they did a great job of making the user feel unstoppable.
You wound The Spider, and take him prisoner and decide to stage his execution on the beach near Clan Matsumae’s castle, but his father and brother arrive on the beach and attack. They aim for the castle where Atsu’s niece is hiding, and Atsu decides instead not to go to help her; she stands on her quest for revenge and stays to fight The Dragon and The Spider. This fight was the most annoying by far because I had to dodge The Spider and The Dragon’s muskets. Then midway through the fight The Spider grabs a cannon and starts firing it at you which got me a little angry. This one probably took me the longest because of how adaptable you must be. But after defeating them, Atsu heads toward the castle to find her niece but isn’t there. Then you find that instead of being at a temple that was a fallback point, you head back to Atsu’s childhood home and find Lord Saito holding her hostage.
The last duel consists of two stages, like everyone else’s. One stage is Lord Saito testing Atsu’s strength by refusing to use his katana, but once he finds her worthy, he unsheathes his katana and starts the final duel. Jubei steps in to help after Atsu gets injured but gets dealt with a lethal blow to the abdomen and crumbles. This fight was definitely the hardest by far, and I honestly got tired of it and turned the difficulty all the way down just so I could be done with it.
The ending was underwhelming, Atsu burns her sash of names and pins Lord Saito to the same tree she was pinned to, but then just leaves him while he’s still alive to check on Jubei. Jubei ends up dying anyway and then it cuts to a flash-forward six months later where Atsu gave up on her quest for revenge to take care of her niece. But then Atsu is talking to her niece about her life before they met, and it flashes back six months earlier before Atsu fought Lord Saito where the player can continue exploring the open world. This felt confusing to me and felt kind of unnecessary.
Overall, it was an incredible game. There was so much to do besides just the story like the bounties, altars of reflection, and the wolf dens, but I think the writers just lost the plot in the end. I think the original monologue where Atsu says she will avenge her family and then join them in death was way better than starting a new family. She didn’t have any family before and thought they were all dead, so I don’t really understand why she became so attached suddenly.
Despite these faults, it was an outstanding game. Half of the time I was hooked on completing bounties and all the other open world activities the game had to offer. Ghost of Yotei definitely lives up to its predecessor and it’s worth a play.
