u/Profit-Alex

Don't like the map? Ragequit. Don't like the killer? Ragequit. Got downed first? Ragequit.

Why are people so allergic to just taking breaks from this game if they're THIS miserable?

Stop putting it on people who actually like the game and want to play it.

CONTEXT: My first "playthrough" was back in October, when the game first released. I pre-ordered it and everything. In that first run, I got as far as beating the Oni, before I took a break from the game, because I wasn't enjoying it. I've started a new save file recently to replay it, and now am about to kill the Kitsune.

I'm clarifying all this because I want to be clear that I haven't experienced the full game yet. I don't know everything that happens, I don't know the full story, I don't know how much I'm actually gonna end up enjoying it in the end. But I just need to get off my chest that right now? I'm not liking it very much. At least, not in comparison to Ghost Of Tsushima.

I'm gonna split my review here up into a few sections here, so you don't have to "I ain't reading allat". You can just read the parts you want to and nothing else, if you so desire.

STORY

Tsushima's story is unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. Such a creative, interesting, and overall perfect story of a Samurai abandoning his code of honor and becoming the first Shinobi.

Yotei's is a plain revenge story that's predictable at pretty much every turn, and each and every bit is just... stupid.

CHARACTERS

Tsushima's characters, while not all insanely memorable or iconic, still leave their own lasting impressions. Yuna, Masako, Kenji, and Lord Shimura all left pretty lasting impressions on me, Khotun Khan is an incredible villain who I'll always remember as one of the most clever and creative villains I've ever seen, who fits the narrative perfectly, and Jin Sakai is one of my favourite characters in all of fiction.

I only like maybe 1/3rd of Yotei's cast, and find most of them very forgettable. I might even lower its score a bit there, too.

COMBAT & MECHANICS

The combat in Tsushima is geniusly crafted. All the controls, the many tools you have at your disposal, the different stances, the armour and charm systems, everything is great. And the way it's all structured, the way it all feels to actually play? It's Heavenly. It's so challenging, but in the best way possible. You feel like every death, every mistake, is your own fault, because you didn't apply the skills you should have down by then. I.E I was too stubborn to learn about parrying on my first playthrough, I insisted on dodging, and I paid the price for it. But now that I know how it works, and how to get the timing down, it's amazing. I always know what I'm doing, I always feel like things are under control, and it's my fault if I play badly.

Yotei's combat is just constantly inconsistent on higher difficulties. Parry timings are insanely inconsistent, dodging was nerfed way down to be really slow and clunky, enemies ZOOM towards you if you make any distance which makes positioning basically null and void as a concept in combat... I honestly just hate it.

And don't even get me started on Lethal difficulty. In Tsushima, the tradeoff of Lethal Difficulty's difficult parry timing, damage taken as Jin, etc. is that, while you die in only a couple hits, so do your enemies. You're rewarded well for playing well.

In Yotei? Every enemy is just a SPONGE. I'll have to break a regular enemy's guard THREE TIMES in some combat encounters and do nothing but slash and stab at them repeatedly, and they'll still be standing. But if I get hit once or twice, I'm just dead. How is that fun? And the boss fights are so much worse. Look, I understand an enemy like Takezo The Unrivalled being insanely powerful and difficult to kill. He's a completely optional boss fight, he's known as the Unrivalled, he's supposed to be your greatest challenge. But in addition to pretty much every combat encounter taking 10+ tries on Lethal difficulty, I actually got stuck on the Oni fight for a full DAY. One hit was almost always an instant kill, no matter what charms or armour I had, and even though I'd been to the hot springs countless times already. I could get in full heavy combos on him and still barely be closer to killing him than I was a few minutes prior. And the parrying was just absurd. At first, I thought maybe it was just the Bounty Hunter armor screwing me over, so I switched to the Spider Lily armor, but NOPE! The parry timing is just THAT crazy in Yotei's version of Lethal difficulty. It wasn't consistent in the slightest, it felt like it had to be perfect down to the last MILLISECOND for me to even SURVIVE the attack. It was horrible. I hated the entire fight, and it took me 50+ tries. Maybe I'm just bad at the game, maybe. But I don't feel like I am, because I've mastered Tsushima's combat on Lethal difficulty, to where I don't even need any crazy OP armour or charms to get through most fights, and it's almost always a very enjoyable experience to replay. But I don't think I'll want to replay Yotei on Lethal difficulty, God forbid Lethal+. I do not like a game whose sense of difficulty is just "all enemies are spongier now but you still die in one hit, also you basically just can't parry unless you're a crazy sweat".

Tangent aside, mechanics: Mechanics, obviously Yotei has down better. It's the sequel, it should have it more figured out. But that doesn't mean Tsushima was bad in any capacity either. It just didn't have the same features they figured out how to include for Yotei, like cooking, disarming enemies, sparing and interrogating enemies, etc.. But Tsushima still has a ton of really cool and fun mechanics and features, almost all of which were ported over to Yotei. This is about the main reason Yotei is better by default. They didn't remove a whole lot.

OPEN WORLD

Open World, again, is basically just what a sequel should have by default. Once again, it carries over basically everything from Tsushima, with a few little additions, and with a much larger map overall, they had the room to include way more. I do like adventuring around a lot, because often times, you're on your way towards one thing, and you accidentally find a whole new place entirely, or stumble upon a new event. You're constantly running across side quests, or activities, or stories. All kinds of really cool stuff you probably weren't gonna seek out anytime soon, but now get to experience regardless because the world is just so big, and there's so much to find. Tsushima's was a lot like this, too, though. I had a side content section next, but that basically goes hand-in-hand with this one tbh.

MUSIC

Music-wise, I do like a good bit of Yotei's. It just doesn't have quite the same punch for me, personally. I like the Lo-Fi music quite a bit in Watanabe Mode, it's nice and chill to listen to. I just wish you could separate overworld Lo-Fi from combat Lo-Fi, because I'd much rather hear the traditional Japanese-style music during combat. But man, nothing in Yotei can beat Tsushima's soundtrack to me. Way Of The Ghost, Sacrifice Of Tradition, Jin's Theme, the main duel theme, all of it comes together and makes the whole story feel like a fricking EPIC. Yotei's just doesn't quite accomplish that, for me.

STEALTH

The stealth, I used to consider better in Yotei, mainly for the extra features, like the Kusarigama assassinations that let you assassinate enemies from a distance, or some of the stealth charms you can pick up. But playing more now, it feels so inconsistent to me that it's kind of lost a lot of the fun it had in Tsushima. Again, it feels like when you get detected in Yotei, it's often because of the game itself being inconsistent, rather than being because of a mistake you made as the player. It feels like even with stealth armour and perks, enemies from a long ways away still detect me way faster than they probably should, and the game often doesn't warn me when my assassinations will alert another enemy. In Tsushima, I'd have times where I'd go for an assassination, but the enemy would start flashing red right before, but the game would be forgiving, and I could still assassinate the enemy and move on to the next undetected. It doesn't need to do that, but it does. But Yotei? Nah, man, Yotei punishes you for its own mistakes.

TECHNICAL

Second-to-last, the technical aspect of the game, I've noticed quite a lot more in Yotei. Enemies and horses running straight into walls without stopping, features like the red flashing in stealth not working, or dual katana parrying on spears being disabled by the Bounty Hunter armour. Voice lines repeating or interrupting themselves. Stuff like that. Not all of it is as massive as game features just outright not working, but it's still enough to break my immersion sometimes, whereas I almost never notice any with Tsushima. The loading screens are also way longer, at least for me. Especially when fast travelling somewhere in the same region you're already in, or when you die in a duel??? Idk, it's weird.

GRAPHICS/ARTSTYLE

And lastly, the graphics. Again, the sequel should be up to par with the original. I have the sequel just a little below Tsushima because I personally prefer Tsushima's visuals, setting, and graphics, but I think both games look and feel absolutely beautiful and breathtaking.

SEMI-CONCLUSION

Overall, I don't think Yotei is a terrible game. I still think there's some things to like about it. But between Yotei and Tsushima? It's kind of hard to believe the two games are connected, honestly. That the same people made them both. Yotei just feels so eh in some regards, and blatantly terrible in others, at least to me. There’s plenty to like about it, of course there is. Heck, some people seem to like it more than Tsushima, which is… Fine. That’s fine. I’m fine with that, everyone can have their own opinions. But for me personally, it’s just such a disappointing entry in the series. I’m gonna keep playing it, I’m gonna finish it, I’d like to think I’m an educated hater. And if I’m going to praise Tsushima as the best game I’ve ever played, then it’s only fair I at least try and understand its sequel, and see what value it still holds. I might even update this review if I end up liking it better later on. But right now, I just have to be honest and say that I’m not very happy with what I’m getting out of this sequel.

And it really is mainly just the story and the characters upsetting me so much. I could put everything else aside for the most part if the story was at least good, but it’s just so… Generic. It’s just a plain revenge story you’ve heard a million times. The main character wants revenge, hunts down the people they want it against, forgives some of them for contrived reasons, but doesn’t stop their hunt until they learn “wait, but I don’t need revenge!” and then they just forget about it and move on. And no, I haven’t seen that in the story yet, but I’m gonna wager sixty smackaroos that that’s where the story is going from here. Atsu’s making a bunch of friends, >!and her brother is still alive and all!< , so she’s gonna be like “wait, I don’t need to get my revenge and then commit suicide! I can live happily with my new family of forgettable characters I have very little chemistry with!” I’m calling it right now, that’s exactly how the story goes from here.

Anyways, that's basically all I have to say about Ghost Of Yotei for now. I don't hate it, not by a longshot. I see what people like about it. But for me, personally, it's just such a step down from what we had with Tsushima.

I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.

OVERALL SCORES

***GHOST OF TSUSHIMA VS GHOST OF YOTEI***

***STORY***

- Tsushima: 10

- Yotei: 2

***CHARACTERS***

- Tsushima: 9

- Yotei: 5

***COMBAT***

- Tsushima: 10

- Yotei: 3

***MECHANICS***

- Tsushima: 8

- Yotei: 9

***OPEN WORLD***

- Tsushima: 8

- Yotei: 10

***SIDE CONTENT***

- Tsushima: 8

- Yotei: 10

***MUSIC:***

- Tsushima: 9

- Yotei: 6

***STEALTH***

- Tsushima: 8

- Yotei: 6

***GRAPHICS/ARTSTYLE***

- Tsushima: 9

- Yotei: 8

***TECHNICAL***

- Tsushima: 10

- Yotei: 3

***TOTAL SCORE***

- Tsushima: 89

- Yotei: 62

I didn't have a single good match all day today. I tried my best to stick through and keep playing, because the Bloodhunt ends tomorrow. I still have so much grinding to do. But I just.. Don't have it in me.

I played nothing but survivor today, because playing killer is so miserable, and even then, today were all the worst survivor matches I think I've ever had. With the most useless, caustic teammates I've ever seen. Killers tunnelling me at 5 gens every match (not that I don't get it because of how this mode is, but it's ALWAYS me, even when my teammates are genuinely worse at chase and even outright give up and stand at hooks over NOTHING). Bubba, Myers, or Legion players (which, again, understandable, just exhausting), often running VPNs.

My own teammates ganging up on me in EGC, telling me to seek mental help, and that I'm just bad and everything is my own fault, and that I should quit, all because I said "hey, maybe stop trying to do flashlight saves on the killer with Forever Entwined".

I don't believe I've ever felt more miserable playing survivor. How do the killers keep getting better, but my teammates keep getting worse? How is it that when I've finally had enough and put on Decisive Strike, suddenly it never even comes up? How is it that the role I always play to be chill and enjoy the game, listen to music or videos while I play, and calm down from the way more stressful killer matches, is suddenly just as stressful and frustrating, if not moreso?

I think I just hate Dead By Daylight right now. I hate this event. I hate everything it's cultivated. I hate BHVR's stinginess around the cakes forcing me to work my ass off just to meet even half of my goals. I hate toxic, useless, entitled survivors who can't take responsibility and bully me just for daring to call them out on anything. I hate not even getting the chance to play and seeing my offerings go to waste just because I happened to get found first and tunnelled out at 5 gens.

I'm just tired.

...Oh, you thought this was gonna be a Killer Shame post? No, HELL no, I'm mad at BHVR for this. I'm pissed that they outright acknowledged how miserable this event has been for killers, but just said proudly that they're NOT changing it for this iteration whatsoever, and killer players just have to deal with it. I've had a Trickster's' progress in the match get completely wiped away while chasing me, when 3 survivors got instahealed and pallets became unbreakable in the middle of a chase, as the second gen popped and he had no hooks.

I've had a Plague reach 4 generators completed with only two hooks in the entire match.

Even I've teetered on the edge when I play Killer. I only don't do it because killers can very rarely ragequit without a penalty, unlike survivors. But God, man.

Screw this whole event.