Topic: Ghost of Yōtei

@Oram77 @Werehog i'm hoping it might be a case of try it another day and it just works out for me. I had this happen with Elden Beast. I was just hitting my head against a wall unable to get past it. Then the next day it was so much easier.

That said, I left my game after moving away from the area, so I will probably go back to the story rather than try and fight him again.

I refuse to lower the difficulty, unless It is after I beat the main game as I already spent time getting good at the game on hard.

@Ravix That has happened far too many times with me, struggle against a boss for many hours and then come back the next day and beat them first time. 🤷

@Ravix @JohnnyShoulder Same happened to me recently with Sonic Superstars so yeah, I agree that's most definitely a thing!

Have you been back and tried again Rav, or did you carry on with the story?

@Werehog ah, well... I was going to go back to playing some Ghost of Yotei and focusing on the story, but then got pulled away to do other things. I will try and make sure I play some of it tonight, because other than that session vs The Unrivalled, I haven't played any more of the game 🙈

I need to finish it soon, too. Then I can move on to Clair Obscur or Death Stranding 2. Where did time go? 😬 I also wanted to finish Hogwarts Legacy this year, damn 😭

I really wanted to do something with a stamp but wasn’t happy with a lot of my efforts. Settled on this.

Here’s the original ultrawide that inspired it.

@Ravix No judgement, especially at this time of year. Hope you can get back to it soon, and that you enjoy whatever path you choose to take!

@Metonymy Holy heck, those shots are stunning!! Gorgeous work, thanks for sharing!

@Werehog Thank you kindly. I don’t want to spam the thread so I might post some more in the screenshots thread if I feel so bold.

So... it is done.

In summary this is a very good Sucker Punch game, but I would have still liked for them to either lean more into the realism and crafting, or just cut it completely so it isn't just a shallow add on for the sake of... erm... 🤷‍♂️ 'games usually have it so why not?', and they definitely could have made some of the combat a little different and less spammy, especially with a few bosses that felt impossible to parry consistently on Hard mode, where one small 'mistake' defending a spammed wave of 10 attacks required 3 perfectly timed parries to make up for it in terms of health and stagger or you were dead. Bosses were definitely super spongey too, it felt a little unfairly balanced. Maybe Lethal mode was better as it apparently balances user vs cpu better.

Either way FU Saito. I had had enough of the game by the end credits, lets say. As it was laaaaaaate and I just wanted to finish the damn thing for his final phase without it resetting back to the start of the fight 🙈

Overall the end soured me on the weapon swapping mechanics too, a little underdeveloped and a lot unrealistic in action. Like, it is a historical fiction game and we're insta-swapping between 5 melee weapons and a pistola in a duel... come on, now. You spend the game gathering all the weapons that you barely use in regular combat to their full extent, and then at the end have to balance all 5 in perfect harmony while avoiding the spam attacks. Perhaps if the game gave you full resolve for the last boss fight it would maybe be easier to handle and less annoying, but only 2 resolve for that fight on hard is not the way to start 😬 strange design choice to lock you in to the most improtant fight like that.

So yeah. Very good game. I liked Atsu, she is the epitome of a bad ass for 90% of it. And slyly funny too. It is a better game than Tsushima, objectively. But I really wish it wasn't still in this Ubi-mk2 design style. (Apart from the base clearing, I blooming love the base clearing in AC's and Ghost games, this is where you get the most out of your tools and weapon options) but argh, please... all devs you need to learn from Warhorse, who themselves learned from when Obsidian and Bethesda were firing on all cylinders. Learn from CDPR and from Larian. Hell, learn from Rockstar (not Take2) Include things for a reason, please. Make your world's make sense and the games that exist within them will be better for it.

FU again, Saito, for making me sour and focus on the things I didn't like with the game 🙈

@Ravix I'm real sorry the ending fell flat for you, but congratulations on clearing the game all the same! Especially playing on a higher difficulty. I played the whole thing on Easy so that I could focus on the story, characters and atmosphere. That isn't to say I don't have "mad gaming skillz" and yet yeah, Saito still killed me a couple times before I saw those credits roll, simply because I had a preferred playstyle and was apparently too comfortable with it. Felt like I was being told I'd played the game wrong.

Seems like a lot of this folds into the ever-present conversation about reality vs. gameplay, and how much we're prepared to suspend our disbelief about game mechanics as presentation and immersion draws closer to realism. Some of the issues you highlight are "just the way games have always been" and I wonder if they would have been so much of a problem back in the PS2 era.

Anyway, you still call it a very good game, so that's, er... very good! And yeah, a definite hurrah for Atsu, too. She's a triumph of a protagonist. I'd love to see her back in some DLC next year!

@Werehog yeah, it is, as you say, the way games have always been, that is until some devs decided it shouldnt necessarily always be. And in that case I think i'm spoiled as some of my all time favourites have pushed the RPG and games in general to the next level.

And yeah, Yotei isn't an RPG, it is a historical fiction action game, so more in the Red Dead Redemption camp, but when games lean into being RPG's I wish they'd either commit or leave it out. And when they go for realism, it does kind of irk me when they then discard it so easily. So ideally i'd want Ghost to be the Japanese Red Dead, what Rockstar did to westerns they can do to Samurai cinema, and for the most part they have, apart from the realism being fully included in the gameplay mechanics so you do get all these Ubisoft style things leaking in to it, like sprinting around after NPC's despite it being a serious quest, or the combat going from deadly serious to cartoonish and fantasy like.

It is me being hyper critical mostly because I was tired and just trying to finish the last fight. But sucker punch make very good Ubisoft-style games that push that style further with more engaging characters and more authentic stories, and I genuinely like Ubisoft style games to start with, or certainly have done in the past as they have constantly scratched the historical itch for me, and Far Cry is kind of just fun to play. But there is always a part of me that thinks they could make them so much better, and Sucker Punch even more so if they could move away from that template they chose with Tsushima.

And yeah, I was mostly suspending my disbelief throughout, and it was a better crafted game than Tsushima, overall. But that weapon swapping broke me by the end, I think 🙈🙈🙈

It does make me seriously ponder my next game choice as I have Death Stranding 2 and Clair Obscur lined up, but now i'm thinking some comfort food gaming might be required just to reset myself before taking on another behemoth.

Enough time has passed, but I like said earlier in the thread, after doing the Spider lily armour quest, I really do think Sucker Punch, could make a really good horror game, they seem to have the eye on how make things spooky and unsettling. Obviously that would be a massive gamble shifting genres like that. BUT I do think they need to move on from the Ghost series, I love both games but I don't want it turning into some sort of AC franchise.

@Oram77 i'd love them to knock out something cinematic and less open world. I know the world is always beautiful, but, as with Insomniac, I think they should double down on pure cinematic and action based games, more linear stories, contained in levels or whatever structure feels like it works best for the kind of thing. That could be horror, or more historical fiction. They'd be in a far better position to do what Ubisoft does but in a more linear, cinematic way.

I do like a ghost stories idea, I don't play horror games really, but if it was classic ghost stories based on folklore, which they have dabbled in in both ghost games with the 'tales' quests, that would be cool to see.

The combat systems could also be repurposed for fantasy quite successfully.

At least Naughty Dog are trying something new with their Sci-Fi turn. But these studios have wealths of talent and great quality in terms of graphics and game engines and production. If anything Sony should invest more and expand their output so they can have multiple projects that follow the same principles.

SIE do seem to run their studios well when the end goal is the kinds of things they actually specialise in

That's a very wise approach, methinks. It's why I kinda keep two backlogs, one full of "main" games (which are all invariably AAA third-person cinematic action adventure experiences) and another for shorter, smaller, more varied fare. Most recently, this approach had me bouncing between Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Once Upon a Katamari and I gotta say, it really worked for me.

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@Oram77 Both of the Ghost games had moments that made me think similar! Although the same could be said of any developer who can craft an impeccable atmosphere, as it just depends on which specific atmosphere they decide to go with. So long as it's "eerily vibe spooky" and doesn't devolve into close-up gore jumpscare nonsense, I'd be interested in that, for sure.

Kinda what I hoped to capture in this screenshot, which comes from the side quest in question...

@Werehog I really liked when the ghost looks at you during the Bamboo cutting mini game (it got me a little) but yes the whole area/story was incredible, and would love to see Sucker Punch go more in this direction again.

Hi guys!
I love this game on ps5 pro, but I'm really surprised by the poor quality of some of the textures. For example, when I look at distant mountain peaks through binoculars, I see flat, blurry textures of rock and snow. Is this normal?

@Gugiamara It's definitely a "sit back and enjoy the bigger picture" game. While I only played it on a base PS5, I can confirm that some background textures were of a lower quality when viewed through the spyglass (or Photo Mode) so, if it helps, I don't think there's a problem with your console.

Hey everyone, it's been a little while since we've had chatting in this thread. Just thought I would out the question, are you looking forward to legends mode? For me personally I will give it a fair old try with it being free and all. Got to be honest I never played legends on Tsushima, if people have stories of that mode they want to share, I look forward to reading them, and maybe we could team up on new one 😀