Expanded upon the original, Ghost of Yotei provides yet another memorable open-world experience set in the 1600s in Hokkaido.

A well-crafted sequel to a brilliant first game.

Ghost of Yōtei

You can continue to pet a fox!

The guiding wind returns with guidance to various open-world activities with specific songs.

Shrine climbs are beautiful, with new expansive locations – albeit jump-traversal is a bit annoying.

The mountain of Yōtei is big and picturesque.

Dynamic weather and foliage system remains one of the best in open world titles.

Combat remains entertaining, and accessible on lower difficulties. Parry, dodge and block timings will take some practice to learn.

Multiple weapon options offer more versatility than stances from Jin's two-swords arsenal. Carrying them would be hard, but Atsu's back is strong!

Duels return too, less in number however. Aura farming stays.

Story is okay, classic revenge tale, nothing too unexpected. Voice acting is excellent, in both English and Japanese versions. Kurosawa mode exists too, but I prefer the new Watanabe mode for lo-fi beats which work surprisingly well — would have liked some more variety of tracks here.

There are a few side quests tales, still nothing too great. Horizon probably remains the best sony first party title on the side quest front.

Platinum grind isn't too bad.

Doing these few checklist items will also take you to most of the map.

Nice to see Jin settled down after the Mongol invasion.

My favorite thing to do here remains taking photos in different time of day, and then combine them to form auto-changing wallpapers for my desktop based on time of day. I'd built a utility for the same, maybe I'll get around to publish it someday.

Overall, nice title. Worth getting it on day one over the long weekend.