Ghost of Yotei Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Ghost of Yotei Review

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Hosts: Andy Cortez, Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Roger Picorni

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Episode Overview

This episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast delivers an in-depth review and discussion of Ghost of Yotei, the highly anticipated sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, developed by Sucker Punch. The hosts share their hands-on experiences, analysis of the game’s narrative and design, technical features, and comparisons to other genre heavyweights. They debate the game’s successes and shortcomings, drawing on varied playstyles and personal expectations while engaging with live audience questions.

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Main Theme

Ghost of Yotei is positioned as both a refinement and evolution of Ghost of Tsushima, exploring the underdog vengeance story of Atsu in early 17th century Hokkaido. The cast discusses whether it delivers a fresh samurai/ronin fantasy or retreads open-world conventions, measuring its impact against other blockbuster sequels and recent open-world releases.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Synopsis and Context Setting

• Game Setting & Story: Set in 1603, Hokkaido, starring Atsu, a mercenary-turned-Onryo spirit, on a quest for revenge against the criminal Yote 6.
• Critical Reception: The game holds strong critical acclaim—87 Metacritic, 89 OpenCritic, with notable praise from Game Rant and IGN, but also mixed reviews like Eurogamer's.

[05:00] Andy Cortez:
"Ghost of Yote centers around the theme of the Underdog Vengeance…Atsu has an impactful, powerful journey that has everything it takes to earn her place as the Legend of Ezo…"

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2. First Impressions & Review Scores

Blessing Adeoye Jr.

• Playtime: ~30 hours
• Score: 8/10 – "Great video game"
• Positives:
  • Stronger story, more invested in Atsu vs Jin (Tsushima)
  • Satisfying combat; improved tools and fluid action
  • Gorgeous open-world, cinematic direction
• Negatives:
  • Lacks structural innovation—"cookie-cutter" open world, checklist syndrome
  • Side content and activities can feel repetitive and perfunctory, detracting from immersion

[09:01] Blessing:
"I think my quick review of Ghost would be to say you already know what Ghost is…It's an 8 out of 10 video game. That would be my score. I think it is great. I had a great time playing this game...The things that I love and adored about it would be the story...I'm more invested in Atsu's tale..."

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Roger Picorni

• Playtime: ~24 hours to credits, still playing (~34 hours total)
• Score: 9.5/10 – "Amazing video game"
• Positives:
  • Pacing is exceptional; open world feels alive, with dynamic and handcrafted-feeling events and side quests
  • Story and gameplay mesh better than Tsushima; bounties and mysteries are high quality
  • Small team—impressive achievement for scale and density
• Minor Critiques: Some required tasks start to show formulaic edges late game

[12:22] Roger:
"Ghost of Yotei does what some of the best sequels of all time do. It refines, it expands and remixes Tsushima…It is one of the prettiest games I've ever played…What makes this game so special in my mind is the pacing… This is a really amazing video game and I did not expect it whatsoever."

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Greg Miller

• Playtime: ~40 hours (credits at 35)
• Score: 9/10 – "Amazing"
• Positives:
  • Major improvements over Tsushima (loadouts, UI, sense of purpose)
  • Encourages exploring everything—side content adds real value to progression and depth
  • Addictive gameplay loop; keeps coming back even after credits for “just one more thing”
  • Mini-game “Zeni Hojiki” surprisingly compelling
• Negatives:
  • Touchpad and other forced PS5 features feel dated/unwieldy
  • Can feel repetitive, especially in open-world loops

[14:28] Greg:
"I think Ghost of Yotei is incredibly special and I think it has improved on all the things we complained about with Ghost of Tsushima…They've gone through and done so much set dressing to change this up and make it feel like it matters and make it feel like it's personal....I could see myself eight-fiving this, but really, I think I have to go and give this a 9 out of 10..."

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3. Open World & Structural Comparisons

• Comparisons to Assassin’s Creed, Spider-Man, and Elden Ring:
  • Ghost of Yotei leans more toward the "frictionless," checklist-driven design of Spider-Man than the organic exploration of Elden Ring or the deep immersion of Red Dead Redemption 2.
  • The game's quest "card" system is essentially a new way to organize quest logs, not true choice-driven structure.
• Freedom: Initial freedom to choose targets, but the game becomes more linear as it progresses.
• Replay Value: High, thanks to side content, mini-games, and ongoing post-credits activities

[26:39] Blessing:
"Here I felt like I was more--the exploring the open world map for me felt like I was looking at a menu of things to do...it never felt like the natural feeling of I am really Atsu in this world."

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4. Story & Villains: Yote 6

• Yote 6 as Antagonists:
  • Well-constructed, memorable villains with dynamic narrative roles (first half receive more depth)
  • Not all can be tackled in any order; game quickly becomes more linear story-wise.
  • Some villains deliberately underbaked to focus narrative on key figures/confrontations.

[34:22] Roger:
"I was very surprised by the twists and turns that they took with the Yote Six. I thought it was gonna be pretty straightforward…you're learning how these people work and you get way deeper into the lore of each of them than I expected—or at least some of them."

[34:53] Greg & Blessing:

• You cannot tackle all Yote 6 in any order; some gating occurs to advance the plot.

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5. Weapons, Combat, and Progression

• Weapon Variety: Mix of katanas, odachi, spear, dual blades, kusarigama—unlocked through specific quests or exploration
• Upgrades & Loadouts: Meaningful technique trees and customizable loadouts that address past critiques from Tsushima
• Combat Style: Rock-paper-scissors weapon matchups continue; choice of style supported, but often dictated by enemy type
• Resource Management: Players can craft, camp, and prepare for encounters; slowing down is rewarded

[43:14] Blessing:
"I never felt like the game really, you know, incentivize having a favorite weapon. It's similar to the stance system, right, where it is the rock, paper, scissors thing."

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6. Accessibility & Options

• Visual Modes: Performance, Quality, Ray Tracing modes available, even looks great on base PS5.
• Special Visual Modes: Kurosawa black & white return; new "Miike" (blood/mud) and “Watanabe” (lo-fi beats) modes are entertaining but not game-changing.
• Accessibility Critique: Options (e.g., HUD, difficulty tweaking) exist but not as robust or granular as recent PlayStation first-party releases (e.g., The Last of Us). Notable lack: can't directly expand parry window except via custom difficulty.
• Photo Mode: Impressive, but some hosts found it less robust/essential than Tsushima's. Still capable of beautiful shots.

[47:23] Greg:
"There are options here. I find them lacking, especially for a Sony first party game...I'm not Perry Poppy...I was frustrated with some of the things...Is there a way to increase the [parry] window? Can I just do that? And there isn't..."

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7. Critiques and Repetitive Design

• Side Activities: Can feel repetitive; not all moments make use of the world’s potential (e.g., underwhelming puzzles, “menu of things to do").
• Puzzles: Only one type, reused frequently and very simple. Some puzzles have the protagonist instantly give away the solution, lessening satisfaction.

[54:19] Roger:
"There's like one puzzle in this game and it sucks. And we continue to bring back…there is no variety in it. It is complete…bizarre, honestly."

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8. Platinum Trophy

• Trophy List: More demanding than recent PlayStation sequels (e.g., Spider-Man 2); expects players to do “everything.” Might not be a quick or easy platinum for all.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Greg Miller on RPG Immersion:
  "I was so adamant about my armor in this one...Atsu is so dead to Ezo...I was like, put the mask on, dark clothes. I'm going to be the shinobi." [24:05]

• Blessing on Open World Structure:
  "I felt like I saw the Matrix the entire time as I'm playing this game...it never felt like the natural feeling of I am really Atsu in this world." [25:49]

• Roger on Pacing:
  "As soon as I had that little inkling of maybe this is getting a little repetitive, boom. Something different happens." [12:22]

• Greg on Mini-games:
  "I've never been a Gwent or Machine Strike or any of the mini games...I fucking love Zeni Hojiki." [18:29]

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Audience Q&A Highlights

• Yote 6 design: First half great, latter half thins out (34:22)
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows vs. Ghost of Yotei: Shadows less engaging, Yotei focuses more on character roleplay and narrative immediacy (22:33)
• Comparisons to Ragnarok/Horizon/Spider-Man: Yotei is an iteration, not a reinvention; improvements add up, more like Ragnarok jump than Spider-Man 2’s iteration (36:35, 38:17)
• Platinum/Trophy Difficulty: Closer to Ghost of Tsushima; requires full completion, not a quick “checklist” platinum (52:50)
• Localization: Japanese voice performance “amazing” (53:43)

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Final Thoughts & Closing Remarks

• Roger:
  "I am devouring it in a way that as you were alluding to of like, oh, it's like 11pm...I am obsessed with this game… and I cannot wait to see what Sucker Punch does next." [57:57]
• Greg:
  "If what we've said sounds good, definitely try...I would say take your time...really get out there and enjoy it." [58:30]
• Blessing:
  "...I echo that. And also can't wait for legends." [58:42]

The group agrees: Ghost of Yotei is an excellent open-world samurai/ronin fantasy that expertly builds on its predecessor, especially in narrative and pacing, even as it leans heavily on familiar genre structures. Some activities and design decisions remain divisive, but for fans of the original and lovers of PlayStation open-world polish, it is highly recommended.

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Quick Timestamp Guide

• 05:00 — Game synopsis, reviews
• 07:33 — Hosts’ playthrough status
• 09:01 — Blessing’s Review & Score
• 12:22 — Roger’s Review & Score
• 14:28 — Greg’s Review & Score
• 19:46 — Audience Q: Assassin’s Creed comparison
• 25:49 — Blessing: Open world structure vs. immersion
• 34:22 — Audience Q: Yote 6 villain design
• 39:28 — Tsushima vs. Yotei: Iteration or innovation?
• 43:14 — Weapon preferences & combat depth
• 45:33 — Accessibility & visual modes
• 47:23 — Accessibility options critique
• 54:19 — Repetitive, underdeveloped puzzle critique
• 52:50 — Platinum trophy difficulty
• 57:57 — Final thoughts

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Tone & Language

The conversation is enthusiastic, candid, and occasionally irreverent, with personal anecdotes and friendly ribbing throughout. The panel is passionate about both meaningful critique and celebrating what the game does well, making this episode a lively must-listen for anyone considering Ghost of Yotei.

Transcript

[Andy Cortez]

Hello, gamers. Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for September 25, 2025. I am Andy Cortez and I am joined by the Kind of Funny three.

[Greg Miller]

That's us.

[Andy Cortez]

I did my best.

[Blessing]

I liked it though. I like it.

[Greg Miller]

I liked it. Yeah, it was soft spoken, underspoken.

[Roger Picorni]

I like that you did that Kind of Funny six minus three. You know what I mean?

[Andy Cortez]

Okay, yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll restart the show. Barrett, I'm joined by blessing. Can you do it again? Actually, I missed. Hello, gamers. Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for September 25th.

[Greg Miller]

Only this company would be like, we're doing a big review.

[Andy Cortez]

All the new viewers I have joined by blessing. Adio Ye Jr. Part of the kind of funny six. Yeah.

[Blessing]

Minus three. Minus three.

[Andy Cortez]

Roger Picorni, cracking a Sapporo. Oh, the official Sapporo.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, the official Ghost of Yote Sapporo. Not sponsored, but please sponsor us.

[Andy Cortez]

Cool.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, if we can get sponsored by separate. Good Lord, we're all about that.

[Roger Picorni]

Oh, okay.

[Greg Miller]

He's doing it again.

[Andy Cortez]

And last but not least, Greg Miller.

[Greg Miller]

Hi, Andy. It does me well to see you.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, oh, thank you. Man, the facial hair does look good.

[Greg Miller]

I'm telling you. Like, you know what I mean? Hey, everybody, it's me, Greg with the Wolverine facial hair, but the normal Greg. Everything else. If you are a Kind of Funny member, I highly recommend Greg way every day. But today's a funny one because I hit it. I go, what's. Oh, right. I look like this, the camera and hit recorder. Like, oh, shit.

[Andy Cortez]

Forgot about this.

[Greg Miller]

This is my face now. I forgot about that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I'm happy to see you guys. And I'm more excited to hear about Ghost of Yote today. Remember, the code is provided by PlayStation. But first, let's get into some housekeeping, everybody. This is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube support Spotify or Apple podcasts to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show For a chance to be a part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats. As we go, get all them super chats in, ask us about, you know where. Whether we thought this is better than part one or not. Whether we thought this is better than Rise of the Ronin. Oh, probably not. For Greg. Wow. We know how much hate you guys. Love that game.

[Greg Miller]

God forbid I find fun in a seven and say that I'm having fun with this game.

[Roger Picorni]

Depressed. And Greg's the only one not. He's finding fun and everything.

[Greg Miller]

You're all going to play a lot of Ghost of Yote. All right, so. And we. We're not spoiling anything here, but when you're playing that game, ask yourself, would a wing suit make it better?

[Blessing]

I'll tell you right now, yes.

[Greg Miller]

Early on in that game, when you don't. This game, when you don't know what you're going to be upgrading or getting, there was a. A few times where I was on a mountaintop. Dan Rise of Ronin head, something. I've got the shrine now I gotta go down here.

[Andy Cortez]

We were in business. All about live talk shows. Kind of funny. Games daily was all about Forza Horizon 6.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

After this, I'm playing Hades 2 with Mike. And then Greg is playing skate with Mike.

[Greg Miller]

That's right.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Greg Miller]

I love skate. You want to come skate with us?

[Blessing]

No, I'm going somewhere. I'm going to Magicon Atlanta.

[Greg Miller]

Wow, I didn't realize you were like, leave, leaving. I'm sorry.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I'm leaving like early, you know, so I'm leaving at like 1am you can come pick.

[Roger Picorni]

Thanks, man.

[Greg Miller]

Appreciate. Wait, you're leaving at 1am sorry, 1pm I gotta go home.

[Andy Cortez]

A lot of packing I gotta do. Today's Greg way is 18 minutes of Greg's public speaking. 101 and a second Greg way that's unboxing the ghost of Yotei PS5 finally happening.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Greg Miller]

Sorry, sorry. It was in your seat during the meeting yesterday. Bless.

[Blessing]

Yeah, it's fine. It's okay.

[Greg Miller]

Threw it on the ground.

[Blessing]

I got to like hang out with the bucks.

[Andy Cortez]

And remember, everybody watching live right now, just as a reminder, get them super chats in. And also, if you have Amazon prime, you have Twitch Prime. Really offended that Roger thought harmonizing was just singing the same note.

[Roger Picorni]

It is, but in a different octave.

[Andy Cortez]

Or just the same note.

[Roger Picorni]

This is the. You have Twitch Prime.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roger Picorni]

You have Twitch Prime.

[Andy Cortez]

You're trying to follow me. You don't. I'm trying to harm.

[Roger Picorni]

No, that's harmonized.

[Andy Cortez]

It's harmony.

[Roger Picorni]

Living in harmony.

[Andy Cortez]

And then Mike. And then Mike goes, man. Yeah. I was wondering why Andy does that. I was like, damn. Does he not know what harmonizing is?

[Roger Picorni]

No.

[Andy Cortez]

You don't know. You don't know. Thank you to our Patreon producers. Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm Twining Today we're brought to you by Shady Rays and Factor, but we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's start with the topic of the show. Another reminder code is provided by PlayStation. Thank you, thank you PlayStation for sending us early codes for Ghost of Yote. Let me just do a little quick little synopsis if you all don't mind. Ghost of Yote centers around the theme of the Underdog Vengeance. The story set in the environments of Mount Yotei in Ezo, modern day Hokkaido, Japan in 1603, 320 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima. The main character Atsu, voiced by Erika Ishii, is Wandering Mercy is a wandering mercenary who adopts the Persona of the Onryo, a spirit of vengeance in Japanese folklore. Right now I'll tell you what, gamers doing pretty well in them ratings right now. Ghost of Yote is an 87 on Metacritic and an 89 on Open Critic with 96% of critics recommending it. Have a quick a couple of little write ups from, you know, different outlets here and there. We have a 10 out of 10 from Dalton Cooper at Game Rant and a quick little synopsis for the review there. Says revenge is always personal and Ghost of Yote knows this all too well. You play as a woman who seeks to defeat all the criminals who ruined her life. This straightforward narrative hides secrets that are revealed in addictive gameplay. Set in one of the most beautiful and diverse maps of this generation. Atsu has an impactful, powerful journey that has everything it takes to earn her place as the Legend of Ezo that Sucker Punch has created. We have an 8 out of 10 from the homie Michael Hyam IGN, who says a predictable but well executed story takes you through Ghost of Yotei's gorgeous landscapes and satisfying, fluid action. It may not be revolutionizing open world games, but it's a great distillation of samurai fantasy. We have a 3 out of 5 from Chris Tapsel at Eurogamer who says 3 out of 5 stars. By the way, who says the stars matter?

[Blessing]

The stars matter.

[Greg Miller]

You have to know what they are.

[Andy Cortez]

It's on a curve. Sucker Punch's sequel offers more great swordplay and heartfelt storytelling, but would be better served as a linear action game. And then finally we have Right up here it says Atsu has an impactful, powerful journey to that has everything it takes to earn her place as the Legend of Ezo that Sucker Punch has created. That's an 8 out of 5 from Joao Paez from IGN Brazil.

[Roger Picorni]

That's a good reference.

[Andy Cortez]

Little smiling friends reference. That's the only coming back soon. Oh my.

[Blessing]

Very soon.

[Andy Cortez]

Very, very exciting about that. All right, gamers, you all have played Ghost of Yote to varying degrees or has everybody here beaten the game?

[Blessing]

I've beaten it.

[Roger Picorni]

I have beaten it.

[Greg Miller]

I've beaten it. Oh, whoa.

[Andy Cortez]

Three out of three here on the desk. I'm excited to get into this. I know that blessing was the first one to beat the game. So bless. Give me a quick little top level thoughts and a review score that you would give it on the kind of funny.

[Greg Miller]

And how long did you play?

[Blessing]

I played for 30 hours. I beat it at around the 30 hour mark. Once I beat it, I very much like put it down. Not because I was like g, I'm done with this thing. I'm going on to other things. Mainly because I'm like, all right, I beat this thing. Let me play this other thing. Let me play Hades 2 now. And I'm going to come back to it. Which I played a little bit more this morning because there's some post game stuff where I was like, okay, I want to get around to this just so I know the context of it as we're going into this review so we can talk about this stuff. Not that we're going to talk about post game, but I just want to be fully right.

[Andy Cortez]

No spoilers. No spoilers.

[Blessing]

Spoilers here. I think my quick review of Ghost would be to say that you already know what Ghost is. Right? Like you've played Ghost of Yote. You know what you're in for for Ghost of Yotei. I think it is an 8 out of 10 video game. That would be my score. I think it is great. I had a great time playing this game. The things that I love and adored about it would be the story. I think it's a step up this time around as far as the story they're telling here with Yotei versus what they did with with Tsushima. I'm more invested in Atsu's tale and Atsu's. The cast of characters that are around Atsu and her tale of revenge. It's fun like thinking about this story and talking about it and like processing it. Because a lot of times during my playthrough I couldn't help but to think about a little game called Last is Part two.

[Greg Miller]

I've heard of this game.

[Blessing]

Yeah. Another game that has to do with a tale of revenge and you are going after somebody who've wronged you, right? And like, you know, I think both these games have things in common as far as how they get you in that series of events and like how they allow you to process the ideas of revenge and grief and all these things. And I really, really liked how Ghost of Yotei had its own take on it and how Ghost of Yotei really allowed the, I guess like original events, right? That leads to that process of revenge. How that comes around and loops back around and gets expanded and doesn't feel as, I guess like defeating as Last of this Part two feels at some points, right? But still feel you still understand Atsu. You still understand why she has this revenge. And they still get across like, oh, damn. Yeah. No, it's on site for the Yote 6. Like, once you see the Yote 6, it's like, we gotta kill these, right? Like, I think they do a really good job of setting that stuff off. And as the tail grows, as it continues, I think the twists are great. I think the. A lot of the great story moments here resonated with me and I really, really like the story this time around. Combat continues to be great. It's more of what you love and know from Ghost of Tsushima. You have instead of stances, you have different types of weapons, similar, very similar combat system. Except you have a lot of new tools this time around. And I think that that continued to be fun as well. And then you have the overall vibe and the overall aesthetic and tone of Ghost of Yotei, which continues to deliver based off of what goes to Tsushima did it is beautiful. The I really like what they do in the open world is riding around your horse and you get the letterbox aspect ratio that really ups the cinematic vibe of the game. It's just a beautiful world to exist in. I think when I move into what I didn't love as much, and I think this is going to veer into preference of what you want out of an open world game. And also what we talk about when you're talking about sequels and stuff, right. I felt like this game was very cookie cutter in terms of what it's doing with structure. And I think that's going to work for a lot of people. I could see for various people, maybe this is not working as well for. For me, I look at this open world and for what the promise was. When we talk about the cards and we talk about, you have the Yotei 6 and you know, as Atsu, you have your choice of all right going after this guy or going after this guy and really trying to figure out the clues and the things to get you toward those. Those six objectives. It really isn't that, right? Like, as you play the game, it's like, oh, no, this is just a very much like a checklist, regular, regular open world game that you've played before. The, you know, card thing I don't think really is all that special. I think it's a neat way to contextualize, like a quest log. But beyond that, like, all right, cool. It's. This game is not as, I guess, open as I thought it was going to be structurally, like you have some choice there, but it's not. It didn't blow me away by that standard. I also think the game can feel a bit repetitive in one note at points as far as, you know, how good the game is at its combat. But then when we get outside of the combat, how uninterested I was in a lot of stuff I'm doing around the edges. This game does a lot to try and get you into the samurai or ronin fantasy of being Atsu, being the ghost. But then like, I'm doing things like I'm starting a fire or I'm doing bamboo strike or I'm doing XYZ thing where I'm like, I don't want to be doing this shit. Just get me to the next thing. Right. There's a lot more to talk about. But yeah, overall I had a great time. I think it's a great video game. 8 out of 10.

[Andy Cortez]

Roger, how long did you play? Quick Top level thoughts and what would you give it on the kind of funny score or scale rather?

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, I played it for. I finished the story at around 24 hours, which is way faster than I thought I was gonna. It was about 20 hours and I was about halfway through and I was like, oh man, I got a lot more game left. And then I just kind of mainlined it and then just accidentally finished it and then I put in another 10 hours or so afterwards. So I'm continuously playing it right now. Yeah, Go see. Ote does what some of the best sequels of all time do. It refines, it expands and remixes Tsushima. It's a pretty. It's one of the prettiest games I've ever played. It feels great to play and that story is so fun. But what makes this game so special in my mind is the pacing. It's not just in the main story, but it's in the open world the way that the open world feels alive and it comes to you. And even when I'm doing side stuff, it feels almost as important as Atsu's main journey. At a lot of points it feels handcrafted the flow and it's kind of mind blowing the way that I would just get lost and then the game would keep on. As soon as I had that little inkling of maybe this is getting a little repetitive, boom. Something different happens. Even in the middle of a random side quest that really should be cookie. Cookie cutter in comparison to what they did in Tsushima. This game elevates every single thing that Tsushima did. And talk about the different flavors of gamers and this completely worked for me in a way that I did not expect. I really enjoyed Tsushima for what it was. I played about half of it, put about like 40 hours into it because that's how much I was just in the open world loving it. But I kind of just burnt out really fast because I was like, man, I don't really want to finish this because I'm not really interested in the story. But the story pushed me forward, the gameplay pushed me forward. The open world is just so dense with high quality quest lines and in, yeah, the bounties in the random side quests that you do when you're finding people, the little mysteries that are in there. It is so high quality and this team is so small on a relative scale of AAA that it is mind blowing. I will give this game a 9.5 out of 10. This is a really amazing video game and I did not expect it whatsoever.

[Andy Cortez]

Hell yeah. Greg Miller.

[Greg Miller]

Hi, Andy.

[Andy Cortez]

What are your thoughts on Ghost of yotei?

[Greg Miller]

So I'm 40 hours into Ghost of Yotei. I beat it probably at 35 somewhere in there and I still feel like I rushed it. You know what I mean? Because it's that I think Ghost of Yotei is incredibly special and I think it has improved on all the things we complained about with Ghost of Tsushima. I went back and watched our or listened to our Gamescast review from 2020 when we did it and it's hilarious to hear us complain about there's no loadouts and then there's the loadouts here. Complain about this and then this here, the way they've gone through and done that and then put this layer on top of what is a. This is. Again, I agree with Bless. You know what this game is. You. You're. I. I think you get the idea. You understand this is going to be an open world game. That's a sequel to another open world game. I do lean with Roger though, that they've gone through and done so much set dressing to change this up and make it feel like it matters and make it feel like it's personal and do these different things to get you to somewhere incredibly special. I think, you know, my advice for people who would be playing it would be to do everything. I think that's what again, I feel like I shortchanged the game in some ways going through and just beating it. Because as you continue to play this, the whole point is you are filling out these skill trees and learning these techniques that make all of your weapons this much better, this much more special. On this journey to take down the Yote 6, which clearly, as you talk to all of us who beat it, not at 80 hours or whatever in you can do whenever you want to. You can go through and linear golden path this and not have a big problem with it, probably. But you're doing yourself a disservice and you're shortchanging yourself on an incredibly special experience. And I think that's what's so interesting about it in my head is that I sit here and I'm with bless of like the fact that Sucker Punch is still committed to. Well, PlayStation's got this touchpad. I got to be using it for some gimbals and it's like, yo, this.

[Blessing]

Don'T get me started.

[Greg Miller]

Sucker Punch, when you did this in infamous Second Son, it's because you're a launch game and I, you know, we made you. I'm shaking up my, my paint can to spray to be doing that kind of stuff now in 2025, I'm like, guys, guys. And like you can go to the menu and you can not turn it off, but make it go, go away quicker. You still have to sit through a few and hold, skip and hold, skip to get through it. And sometimes they'll talk to you while you're supposed to be lighting the fire, which is like you're doing this with your touchpad or whatever. It's like, come on. But like there's that. There is the fact that like again, it is open world. So repetitive is such a knock to throw around. But this is. We are doing the same gameplay loop where you are looping the same thing. So in the general defined sense, it is repetitive on what you're doing. There's enough here where I've been when I was sitting there talking about what I want to score this and how do I want to kick off this review, I was like, I could see myself eight fiving this, but then I come back to the adjectives on screen here, where really, I think I have to go and give this a 9 out of 10 and say that this is an amazing game. And I think it's amazing in the way that I beat it. And I was like, cool, now I can move on to Go move on to skate, which I haven't actually given my time to. And I'm playing skate. I'm having fun. And like, you know, last night I played. I just got to binge skate for like three hours. And then I was like, okay, cool. I need to get my photo mode together because I want to put up my photo mode, right? And I. I was spread across three different PlayStations by my math. Before I edited down my camera rolls, I had like 125 things. And so I'm going through and editing this. And like, it was like 11:15. And I was. I had the photos the way I wanted. I'm like, I gotta play a little bit of Ghost of Yote, though, and jump back in. And it was like, cool, I'm gonna run and do a Bounty. Oh, you know what, though? Do I. Do I want to do the Bounty right now or do I want to go over here and just do the Zeni Hijiki, which is their. Their Gwent. And I've never been a Gwent or a Machine Strike or any of the mini games they put in these things. I fucking love Zeni Hojiki. And it's like, it's just this coin knocking game. It's super simple and easy and you, you gamble and you have a great. And it's like, I did that. And I was like, all right, cool. And then I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go do the Bounty no matter what. I run off and I do the bounty. And I'm like, all right, now I gotta go to fucking bed. I'm like, well, I got new maps to put on.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's like, this is a touchpad game.

[Roger Picorni]

No, this is trigger. The adaptive trigger.

[Greg Miller]

It does look like it would be a touchpad thing. But again, I'm doing this all after rolling credits. And this is going to be a game that not only lives on my PlayStation for a while. I totally see it being of, you know what? Let's go knock out a camp. Let's go do a bounty. Let's go learn a new song. Let's go after this thing. Let's go after this technique. Like, again, that's what I'm talking about when I say this is an amazing video game experience where I think, yeah, if you played Ghost, you know what you're getting here mechanically, and there's bells and whistles and, you know, things they've addressed. But Ghost of Yote is amazing and I can't wait to play more, even though I've played so much.

[Andy Cortez]

Hell, yeah. Those are very, very good marks. I'm super pumped up, especially about Roger Score. Because I never, you know Roger, he's a wild card.

[Roger Picorni]

Never know, bro.

[Andy Cortez]

I found the wild card.

[Greg Miller]

Call him the wild card here.

[Andy Cortez]

Never know where he's going to go with it. Remember to get all y' all super chats in for questions about the game. I see a lot. The. I think the main thing I've been seeing across both chats right now is Assassin's Creed. That's like the number one mention, you know. Did any of y' all play shadows? How would you all compare it to the shadows?

[Greg Miller]

I played shadows, Barrett. How long did I play with? You're my shadows? Did I play 20 or 10 or whatever it was for review?

[Andy Cortez]

Keep track of what you're.

[Greg Miller]

This is one job I played shadows and talked about in the review, and I forget how many hours I put in. I put enough into where I wasn't vibing with it and walked away from it. This is back to, I think, blessings noted criticism. And I also, just for the record, round of applause to all the games criticism that's out there about this game right now. We went through the reviews, which are great, and I love reading Middler's 9 out of 10 in this. But then, fuck, I forgot there was one that got shared that was like, very cutting of, like, not calling it slop, but it's gruel or something, but it's enjoyable. And I was like, damn. Like, I don't agree with your conclusions, but I see the evidence you're putting out there and I like this.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I think there's something about games like this, right, that I. I think inspire a really, really good conversation.

[Roger Picorni]

To the.

[Blessing]

To the slop thing, right? I was. I was thinking about this last week. I forget what the conversation was, but I was thinking about friction as a thing and how friction works. I think I was talking to you actually about, you know, behold G Spot. You know what I mean? We were talking about friction and how, like, certain games, they were talking about Hollow Knight, Silksong about how much that game has friction, but how that's additive to the experience. And I mentioned that, like, I'm playing a game that is frictionless right now, and that works for what it is. Right. I was talking about Ghost of Yotei and I think this feeds into the PlayStation first party of it. And then also, like, I think structurally what it is as an open world games and what open world games have evolved into and what they're doing in a varied way. Where you have Elden Ring, that's that is this all right, explorative. Tough as nails, doesn't hold your hand right, but it is very much like a. I'm going to uncover this world slowly at a time. You have a game like Spider man that we also view as like a checklist thing, but it's fast, rapid, and you're going through doing all these things. Ghost of yotei leans way more on the Spider man side, which, you know, I think when we think about the criticism and what people have to say about it, I think there's a conversation as far as what PlayStation does with open World, which I don't think is inherently bad. I think what it is, is, hey, how do we make a game that is a smooth time for our players.

[Greg Miller]

And to bring it to Assassin's Creed but also piggyback off of that. I think you're 100% right on that. But I think what maybe, and I'm probably using way too much hyperbole here, but maybe what Ghost of Yote does better than any other game of its ilk is give you the toolbox to say, how do you want to enjoy this game? And I think whatever direction you'd pick for your preferences, you will have that amazing time. Whether it is I just want a golden Pathet. I'm just going after the Yote six. Whether it is the I'm Greg Miller and I shiny thing. Ooh, shiny thing. Ooh, shiny thing. And I'm running to that and. Or if it is I never. Because once you've uncovered anything on your map, you can fast travel to it. So, like right there. What a nice.

[Blessing]

Love that.

[Greg Miller]

Right? But if you are the. No, this game is gorgeous and I want to slow down and take my time with it and ride everywhere.

[Andy Cortez]

I want to be distracted by something.

[Greg Miller]

You can ride it and enjoy it and find those like just encampments that'll pop up or people passing through and da, da da, da, da, da. But yeah, let me kind of just get to the Assassin's Creed thing. So then to Assassin's Creed Shadows like yotei succeeds. I think again of this is not a role playing game, but giving you the tools in my eyes to role play as the character of Atsu and really get into it. When I was talking about Assassin's Creed Shadows and I just. I like now a. But I didn't connect with her. What's the other guy's name? I forgot Yosuke. Like. Like, it was a good setup, but then they didn't do enough with it early on to get me going. Like, all these different things. This game, as we've already said, starts, and you start. You are in it. This is not Ghost of Tsushima, where it was like, cool, let's get Jin as a guy who's on the beach. No, it's like you are thrust into Atsu's story and you go right from the traumatic events of her past to, here we are. I'm gonna fucking kill the Yote six. And I think that is such a great boom, jump, let's go. You're into the action. And then it is that idea of, okay, cool. Erika Ishii, the English performer here, who of course we know, we did an interview with and I've known for years, right? Fucking kills this role. Like, she is so fucking good in this game. And I think it was funny to listen to our Ghost of Tsushima review where Blessing in particular was like, I just don't connect with Jin. Like, he's just not my guy. And we kept talking about the people who surround Jin. And I think when I think of Tsushima years later, that's what I think of as well. Of like, yeah, Jin and his battle with his uncle, and is he a ninja or is he a samurai? What are we doing with kind of thing and, you know, honor and disgrace. But it was Lady Mosca. It was all these different people that were surrounding him and making him really bolstering that story where I think Atsu is so good and so well performed and so likable and easy for me to connect with at least. It then becomes this idea of, all right, I'm in this world. I love the character. And then to Blessing's point, they're giving you the cards that are like your quest log, but it feels tactile, it feels personal as I cycle through and what do I want to do right now? As I joked earlier, like, you're finding people will tell you, oh, yeah, there's a bathhouse over there. Or you'll buy a map from somebody. That's then a. When you go to your map, you have to hit square. You get the little piece of map. They Drew. And you have to try to figure out in your map where it is. So you're building out your map. You're doing all these different things in a way that not only then it becomes, well, do I want to go after the fox dinner? I want to go to this thing. It becomes, I've earned this and I've made this. And I got, like, for me, I was so adamant about my armor in this one. Not like in Tsushima. That's a big part, obviously, from a visual standpoint, from a narrative standpoint, where for me, it was okay, like, I'm going through and you have the loadouts. And so this is better for dueling and this is better for that. But for me, it was like, Atsu. Atsu is so dead to Ezo. When she starts, right, she's already a ghost. Her family has been killed. She is just out for revenge. Her first, like, monologue is like, once they're dead, I can die. So I was like, put the mask on, dark clothes. I'm going to be the shinobi. I'm going to be the ninja. I'm going to attack it that way, right? And then. But I always wore the hat I started with. I was like, this hat, like, been with me the journey. But so then when it was like, something happened narratively, or I was like, oh, I can open up a bit and do this and put the oh, then they close off and going back. Like, I was doing that level of RPG with it. That doesn't work for everybody, I'm sure.

[Blessing]

I wish I had that level. I think that was what. That's one of my knocks with it, is that this. This game felt so much like a video game. Like, I felt like I saw. I saw the Matrix the entire time as I'm playing this game. And it feels like, you know, in the way that I was comparing Spider man and Elden Ring, all the stuff, right? One of the things, one of the games I was thinking about as I was playing this was Red Dead Redemption 2. A game that's, like, not my favorite game necessarily, but a game that I really appreciate for how much it leans in or it's. It is art. You are a cowboy. This is the cowboy fantasy, right? You're riding on your horse, you're brushing. You're brushing your horse or hanging out with your camp of people, you're doing cowboy shit. And, like, you know, it is. It is the cowboy fantasy, sometimes to a gameplay detriment, but it really does immerse you in all the aspects of Being in that world.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

Here I felt like I was more the exploring the open world map for me felt like I was looking at a menu of things to do.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing]

It felt like, okay, I know I got a wolf thing over here. All right, cool. I'm going to do the hot springs over here. All right, let me check off a camp over here. Like, it never felt like the natural feeling of I am really at suit in this world.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. And I think that's the different type of gamer conversation that we're getting into.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Roger Picorni]

Where for me it felt the same way, right. Like, I'm definitely looking at the hot spring. I'm definitely looking at the wolfdom, definitely looking at the bamboo shrike. But it was me never understanding or never knowing rather where this story or this moment was gonna take me. Right. It's the little things where I go to the hot spring and then one time I randomly go to hot spring and oh, there's a bunch of naked guys running away and they're scared and they're like, oh, shit.

[Greg Miller]

Why?

[Roger Picorni]

Why are you here? It's one time where. Yeah, it's at one time where I travel to a shrine. I'm ambushed. There's a tutorial for a brand new feature. There's an interrogation about the Yote 6 and then a branching choice of which member to pursue. It's like all these things happen with just me pursuing a random event that I thought was just a side quest. And this happens constantly, even with the bamboo stuff, right? Where it's like you go to a bamboo thing, you slice it. Sometimes that slice goes up in the air and that's kind of randomized. Or sometimes I went, well, last night, I think it was. I went to a bamboo strike. I sliced it. I'm like, hell yeah, I did. It turned around. A quest just got given to me randomly and it's like you never know what you're going to expect.

[Greg Miller]

Just before the show, I was fucking around and I ran into one where it was like, before you do it, you have to do this. And I was like, oh, then change it up. And then there's other one too of like something was happening at the bamboo strike. Every time I try to do it, I'm like, oh, what is going on with that? Like, yeah, it's. They've taken all the stuff that again, you know, from the last game, but I think put enough tweaks on it for me personally where it was. And again, back to what I was talking about earlier of like the detriment of beating it in 40 hours or whatever, right? Is like, as you go through and you learn these new techniques and you're putting them into stuff. Like I build out my katana right away. I'm. This is very. If you listened like I just did to the Ghost of Tsushima review, you'll hear it in the same way here of like, I was upset to a degree in the first game with stances announcement where I'm like, I just want to use my sword and be cool. Can I just use that? And then I was like, in that game, I was like, oh. But then the D. How dynamic the stances are worked for me here, of course, you have your katana, you have a big pole, you know, spear, you got the thing with the hook you throw around. I can never remember its name. Etc, you have all these main weapons that.

[Andy Cortez]

There you go.

[Greg Miller]

As you get into it, right? Then these things and your dual blades, they all come down to what enemy you're fighting and how you have to do that, right? And I was like, okay, fine. And you can plow through with the katana for the most part, which I tried to do. And then I would do it to break shields or whatever I need to then go back when I would get to boss fights. That's when the combat would challenge me and it would challenge me, I feel, because I hadn't invested in the techniques that would help me, like, oh, well, now you can do three combo hits with the poles or whatever, blah, blah, blah. And so now as I'm playing through and unlocking more of those, it really is of like, oh, I should have been doing all of this. Not just. And I wasn't either in when I was playing. But the thought shouldn't be, I'm doing this for the checklist game of it. I should be doing this because Atsu's one mission in life is to kill the Yote 6. And so I should be able to walk in and clown these motherfuckers out because this is all I've ever wanted. And it makes it interesting and again, I think makes it personal where, you know, with Jin in the first game, I didn't always feel powerful, but I felt in control of the situation. And one of the conversations we had with that first game was honor dishonor. Even though I love being the shinobi, I love being the ninja and hiding in the grass and assassinating people, Jin always carried guilt for doing that. So I tried to play that game. Not doing that. Whereas with Atsu, she is a shinobi, she is a ninja. This is. She's just here to kill people. And I think, you know, we play into a lot of stuff. And I've seen there's the negative takes on this in the Internet stick with me of, well, how could a woman be able to go do all this? Blah, blah, blah, right? There's a narrative at least for how I play this game and what I'm doing, where every trick I have at my disposal, I use. And I don't feel guilty for it. I feel like literally what I feel like, even though she's way more athletic than me, I would be in the situation of, like, I just got to kill these fucking guys. So here's I'm throwing sand in your face and I'm throwing a blade at you. I'm shooting a blade. I don't care about. You're only using your katana. Fuck you just die. Right? I feel like there's that, like, rabid I just have to fucking kill you thing that Otsu has that works so well. Then for the bevy of tools and gizmos you're given here, from bombs to stabbies to whatever the hell.

[Andy Cortez]

I love that. And I can't wait to hop deeper into gameplay and hear what Roger and Blessing think about gameplay and the weapons and all that fun stuff. I do want to quickly thank joker J for 74 months of prime subscription. Thank you for your subscription.

[Roger Picorni]

That's beautiful. Harmonization on your harmonization. I'm glad you got that.

[Andy Cortez]

That is the word chat.

[Greg Miller]

While you watch these ads that are coming up, let me know. Andy asked this question on his stream last night. Who do you think's more athletic? Greg Miller or Roger?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, let us know that as well. And there's also the answer. I also have a super chat that I will. I am vetoing. But thank you for the super chat. Gondor's Condor. Who says, how much does Yotei reference Sushi Mera? We will not be talking about any of that, but thank you for the super chat and we will get to more Super Chats after a word from our sponsors.

[Greg Miller]

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[Andy Cortez]

Let's get to some super chats everybody get in your super chats. Write in all of your questions, comments and concerns. I have a super chat here from Norman with a five dollar super chat. Thank you for the support. Says no spoilers, but how are the bad guys? The setup for the story makes it seem like the Yote 6 are a varied and charismatic cast of villains.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, absolutely. I was very surprised by the twists and turns that they took with the Yote Six. I thought it was gonna be pretty straightforward until potentially the last one. And no, there's just constantly you're learning the different dynamics, you're learning how these people work and you get way deeper into like the lore of each of them than I expected. Or at least some of them.

[Greg Miller]

I think the first half are really well done, the next two under bake Comparatively. And then the final one's great.

[Andy Cortez]

Can you not do them in whatever order you want?

[Roger Picorni]

No, that's the, that's the conversation to have. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

That was one of the issues I had with it is that it felt like you could like I think the card system. I don't know what happened like in development of like if this is a conversation as far as doing whatever you want, but it felt like that was presented as a thing. Gotcha. But no, you cannot do them anymore.

[Greg Miller]

There's some freedom in the beginning where in the beginning you have a couple choices, but then at least one of them dead ends until you advance the plot.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. So like me and Bless did one or two of the boss bosses in different orders. But then after that it kind of just funnels you towards the end.

[Blessing]

Yeah. And I agree with Greg. I think the first half of them are great. And then yeah, you run into some that feel like, okay, well this went quick then.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. Just not, not to push back on that. I completely agree. But also there's a lot of things happening without getting to spoilers.

[Greg Miller]

That's a great point. Yeah.

[Roger Picorni]

Like, like they're all not created equally. And I think that's very much on purpose is because you focus in on a few of them, you understand their motives and their, their motivations. The other ones, they're on purpose to be like, hey, you just kill them. We just move on. Because there's a lot of going on around it.

[Andy Cortez]

A nice little super chat from Volk Dasher complimenting Roger says that you spoke beautifully with the top level review. And here's Roger Tax for being a great human. Look at that. Shout out to Jason with a ten dollar super chat says Birthday Tax. Happy birthday Jason. And and more importantly, happy had very, very excited for Hades2. Our review for Hades2 was yesterday. Go check that out. We have a super chat here from Nimble Trent with a $5 super chat who says is it a similar space as Ragnarok and Forbidden West Both felt like more of their parentheses incredible predecessors but didn't add anything super exciting.

[Roger Picorni]

Oh, interesting.

[Greg Miller]

I like that question. My, my initial reaction coming hot off of playing it right now is that I think it might be the inverse. I, I feel like God of War to Ragnarok. Right. Like God of war 2018 was so unexpected and great and then Ragnarok was more of that and granted unexpected in some ways I feel like it was. Oh, I, I, I don't feel like the change was as large in quality. I guess if I'm Making sense there. I love Sushima Tsushima. We didn't use the review scale back then, but it would have been somewhere in the eights for me. An 8 flat. Maybe. Maybe an 8. 5 at the time now I would think an 8. Whereas I think for me personally, they stepped it up in character, they stepped it up in pace, they stepped it up in not. It's funny, blessed for you to talk about. Or maybe it was you, I apologize. But this is a video game world and you know, it was. You see the Matrix and you stuff. Right? That was a criticism I had had of not only Sushi Man, I think you did too back then, but like I had brought in my Second Son comparison where Second Son looked like a hey, this is a next gen brand new game. But it still had like the big. Here is the. The icon for the photo. Come take the photo here. I was like, oh, you're pulling me out of it again. This one puts you into it, I think at least for me, in such a great way. Even with the map now 40 hours in. I thought it'd be a touchscreen of where you can look through and see where you've been and what you've done and what you've exposed. Like, I feel like when I think of the Ghost franchise, Atsu's performance, character development, the way this story goes, this will be the one I think of more fondly than Number One. As great as Number One was. And I'm not trying to take anything away from Tsushima, this is the one where I'm like, I think I'm gonna like this one longer in the end.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. I mean I never played the Horizon games, but I can say for me at least personally, God of War Ragnarok is like a huge step up from God of War. Just me personally, I think that game's like a masterpiece. So I wouldn't say it's like that level, but it's like really close. Like I think it's more compare comparative to Ragnarok in terms of a jump then I think a Spider man to Spider Man 2. If that makes sense. Spider Man Spiderman. To feel a little bit more iterative. This actually feels iterative but like all the small things add up for me in a way that feels really special.

[Andy Cortez]

I always compared Spider man and God. I always thought they were very similar in that if you were kind of going back to our Hades discussion yesterday, Bless talking about Breath of the Wild to tears of the Kingdom, where if you were to recommend somebody their first experience, I think that Those sequels, like, if you're just zooming out and looking at the macro as a video game, they are better because mechanically they add more. They add more diversity and. And variety to what you can do with weapon sets and armor and all that stuff. But there's just something so special about that 2018 God of War game that was so. Because you experienced it at that time, I was like, wow, this is the first time I'm kind of experiencing this. Bless. How do you feel about the Tsushima to. To Yotei sort of comparison?

[Blessing]

I mean, I think out of all the games that we mentioned, I think for me, Tsushima Deote feels the most iterative. But I don't mean that in a bad way. Right. Like, I. When Tsushima came out. I fucking love Tsushima, but I think I still would have given it an 8 out of 10 at the time. Like, if I have to. I mean, having not gone back to listen to the conversation, right. I feel like a lot of the same ways I feel about Yotape probably are consistent with the ways that I felt about Tsushima. And I think a lot of that is like, I don't think this game is a big overhaul of what they did for Sushima, right. I don't think the changes they did here were that big. I think they are good changes though, right? Like the small things they did structurally. One of the things that I really like here compared to Tsushima is when you play Tsushima, the way that you're unlocking the map feels a bit linear as far as you're just working away your way north, right. And so you unlock those three chunks one at a time here. I do think that, like, you know, the way they start you off and the way that like, they kind of give you that bit of choice as far as how to tackle things makes opening up the map feel a bit more natural. And so I do think that, like, overall I think Yote is better, but I'm not looking at it as like a ground up. This innovated, this like changed the game by any means for me. I'm like, this has given me more of a game that I really, really enjoyed.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's talk weapons. Greg kind of mentioned some of the stuff that he loves sticking with. Do you want to expand a bit more on that, Greg? No, no. How about yourself?

[Greg Miller]

Okay, I let them talk, though. I've said too much.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, it's as the same thing as Tsushima.

[Andy Cortez]

You don't.

[Roger Picorni]

You don't get all the Weapons in throughout the main story, you can go out and you can. You can basically finish the game with only a few of the weapons. I ended up getting all the weapons before I finished or most of the weapons before I finished the main story. I actually ended up mostly using the big odachi, like the big super heavy one that they've added in this one.

[Andy Cortez]

I love that progression, by the way, just to kind of pop in here because I. When you had mentioned this to me, it. I assumed it would have been the way Metroidvanias introduced progression. Maybe not silksong necessarily, but, you know, you play something like Prince of Persia, which is a lot more handholdy. And it's like, now it's time for the double jump. Now it's time for this and that. I assume that now you get the odachi, now you get the kusarigama or kurisariga.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, they do that. They do that for a few of them. But then there's. There's the last few where like, hey, there's certain enemies that you can kill if you just work really hard, but these ones are gonna poke through their armor a little faster.

[Greg Miller]

There was a boss fight I was doing where I wasn't getting my ass kicked by anything, but it was more like I fucking missed it. They had said before that this, you know, this. The rock, paper, scissors game, that this weapon happened when this. This happened. And so I, I texted a friend and I was just like, hey, I'm at this part. Did I? I must have missed it. What's the weapon? He's like, oh, it's this weapon. Like, oh, I don't even have that weapon. I was able to get through the fight and beat the fight, but it was like, oh, interesting that it's like that it not intense, but Metroidvania slash discoverability. Like, you know, to get there later and be like, oh, this would have helped me a lot in X, Y and fight. And it's the same thing I'm talking about now of like, you know, you go to these altars or clear camps to get to the altars. You bow to it. You get a technique point that you can then go put into like three or four different categories. Right? But it's the idea of like, oh, that's how you upgrade the abilities you can on these weapons. And I've been unlocking stuff now post game where I'm like, ah, this really would have helped me. I wish I would have had this when I was in this fight. Like, I at to back to it of like I really should have had the mindset if I in a perfect world to be able to play it for two months of getting everything and then being like, now I'm going to.

[Andy Cortez]

Kill before we get to bless real quick. And his favorite weapons, is there an ability for like life leech? I love a good life leech. Yeah. Like on a perfect parry you get.

[Roger Picorni]

To know back on something. Oh, I mean you get like the. The little thing they can use for health. Right. The little circles. What are those called?

[Andy Cortez]

The spirit orbs. But like, but there's nothing like, you know, here's you do the critical.

[Roger Picorni]

Get it. Not that I remember.

[Greg Miller]

No play.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm moving on to something else. Bless. What are your favorite weapons? Weapons use?

[Blessing]

Yeah, it's. I mean it's an interesting question because I never felt like the game really, you know, incentivize having a favorite weapon. It's similar to the stance system, right. Where it is the rock, paper, scissors thing. And so the more you're able to switch back and forth between your different weapons, you know, that is the strat of the game. That said the kusari gama for you know, what it's good against and also for how it can be used for crowd control a bit. I did like for that. I think that that's a good one.

[Greg Miller]

And I like the augmentations you can do to it. Right. Like I believe it was in the first game. Right. But applying fire to your sword or whatever on your katana or whatever, that always feels so great when I'm like, you know what? I've had enough of your fucking shit now I'm going to fuck your life up and go from it and to jump in. Another one of the things we haven't talked about. But I'd like to touch on right. In terms of both the fire and then for me personally feeling like, oh, like I'm living in this world in a different way than in other games. You can camp when you're by your horse, right. So you call your horse in, then you can camp. That refills your spirit. It'll refill your life. You can cook to get augments, you know, to your melee or whatever like that you can go craft your ammo to.

[Roger Picorni]

Sometimes people will come.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. But you, you can get crazy. You can craft, you know, make more of your throwing knives or your bullets or whatever you need or whatever. You can play music to get buffs or whatever. And then, yeah, other people will show up and, you know, you can buy maps from them, buy Other stuff from them, just talk to them. They'll tell you things or whatever. Like, it was an interesting one of. I was deep into the game when I. It was finally, I'm a fucking more. I should. After every fight, I need to camp. Like, I'm not. I wasn't doing it. I was just running to the next thing coming in with like an orb and a half. Like, when I started doing this again, it was like, oh, I'm preparing. And again, more importantly, slowing down. Like, I think it's a game that you. If you slow down and take it all in in a more meaningful way, it pays off even more for you.

[Andy Cortez]

Let's talk about some quick features, like accessibility. Sure. I. I love being able to, you know, get into the nitty gritty of options. And I just love when devs give you that, you know, that sort of menu of stuff. Were there any things that you were moving towards when it comes to? Like, for example, I love when. I love when in souls games, which is weird because souls games do not really give you very many options at all, but I love a minimal HUD when. When I'm not fighting, everything goes away and I just sort of live and breathe in that moment. Then once the combat starts, then you see your stamina and your health bar. What sort of cool things were you all messing with in the menus?

[Greg Miller]

Well, again, the visual modes return. Right. This is something we've talked about.

[Andy Cortez]

All right, PS5 Pro, how are we looking?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, gorgeous.

[Andy Cortez]

We have a PS5 Pro like mode.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, yeah, yeah, he had perform.

[Roger Picorni]

It's performance and ray tracing.

[Greg Miller]

Literally. I jumped in. I'm playing. Raj is like, oh, tweak the one. I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't playing on the performance.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, he was on quality mode of the main thing. And the game runs amazing on PS5. Have, like. Oh, yeah, gorgeous.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I got base PS5 and it runs great. And I don't know what's going on. I feel like my base setting got switched somewhere along the line because, like, it started off in quality mode.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. Something's wrong with the PlayStation thing where it just automatically, like, you have the, like, the PS5, like, main settings where you can like, say, oh, if every game that I have starts off on performance mode, it just doesn't work anymore.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I don't know what's happening. But yeah, I played the first, let's say 10 hours in quality mode.

[Roger Picorni]

You didn't notice?

[Greg Miller]

I.

[Blessing]

Well, no, because the game looks so beautiful that, like, I think I was just lost in it. I didn't notice. And then I switched it. I was like, oh, shit.

[Greg Miller]

I was prepared especially for going from the Pro on our giant TVs, you know, in the quality whatever. And then I went on the road to New York, right, for that Fallout 76 thing. I brought in my PlayStation 5 Slim, put it up on a hotel TV and I was like prepared for it to be ugly and it still looked awesome. Granted, I got dumb eyes, so I don't know anything.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

But before we get too far away, I wasn't talking about the quality whatever modes on this. I was talking about the Kurosawa mode. You know, put it black and white. What is it? The Miike. Yeah. Mode where it's like more blood more.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. That was a little disappointing. I play. I agree. I played a lot of that game in that mode. It's just like. It's like more blood and says more mud, but it doesn't really. I mean, the blood, there's a lot more, but it doesn't.

[Greg Miller]

There's a lot more mud too. Just walking.

[Roger Picorni]

But it doesn't feel like super distinct. It just kind of feels like a lot of visual noise. And then I like the blood, though.

[Greg Miller]

So I got Watanabe mode, which is the one with the lo fi beast and stuff. Yeah. I turned it on for a second. I was like, oh, is this.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, it's weird.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I try. I did the same exact thing where I cycled through all of them.

[Greg Miller]

So. But to turn it around and get back onto the accessibilities you were talking about, there are options here. I find them lacking, especially for a Sony first party game, especially from. And I'm comparing it to. The Last of Us just got an insane suite. Again, this is where it gets hinky, where I'm hoping Steve Saylor will have an accessibility review. Up on that front, I'm talking more of what you're able to go in here and tweak and do and not do right for me. I am not Perry Poppy. We've talked about this a lot. And so early on I was frustrated with some of the things of like there's still the big shiny, you know, when it does Perry here. But you know, Perry at the last second, and I was like. I was having so much trouble getting perfect poppy or perfect parries that I went into accessibility. I'm like, is there a way to increase the window? Can I just do that? And there isn't. There is difficulty which then change, but it's like difficult.

[Andy Cortez]

I'M not change anything across the board at that point.

[Greg Miller]

I'm not looking for them to die with me breathing on them. I'm just asking if I can get a little bit here. I couldn't. I beat the game, no problem. I was never like, whatever. But you go through and it's like, there's a lot of that in here to your point. Like there is, you know, I didn't fuck with it, but there's a HUD style, either standard or expert. Expert will take a lot of it off there and do that for you. You know what I mean? Like, you can go in and do that, turn off stun meters, do things, but it's not the minutia that I would like. And it's the same thing for a game that is so gorgeous and I'm going a little bit different. But if you want to come back to possibility, we can. It's the same thing with Photo Mode, where we've had so many really fleshed out crazy photo modes that once again, Photo Mode returns here to ghost once again. It's a gorgeous game and a great thing. I wanted more filters. Oh, really? I wanted the grid. I like a good grid when I'm trying to line things up. It's got a bunch of stuff you can do all the weather and do the particles and do this time of day. Yeah. But it was like, you know, I think a spider man where you can control where the light source is. Get really into the minutiae of what you're doing. It's here. It's not by any means bare bones. I just wanted more options and, you know, you got your F stops and things like that and depth of field. But even then I'd like to be able to move the focus manually. I've seen. So sure.

[Roger Picorni]

I get what you're saying.

[Andy Cortez]

As somebody like a B minus or.

[Greg Miller]

A B. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[Roger Picorni]

As somebody who just like a B.

[Greg Miller]

Or B plus problem.

[Roger Picorni]

Okay. Who goes into the photo modes just like casually to do it occasionally. I was very impressed for what they had here.

[Greg Miller]

Especially like, let's see what Jack Quaid says.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, that's the real review. But like the time of day and also like the fucking sword glint and everything. Like, you can go kind of crazy with that. But yeah, I understand what you're more.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And that's the thing is they have a lot more control. Yes. I want to customize more. They have a lot of great built in. Hey, here's like, you know, right off the lot, factory settings of like. Oh, yeah, Glint on your sword. Change at his face. That always drives me crazy. Change the expression of their face. And you do it and they barely move. Yeah, it's like, all right, let's make some exaggerated expressions. You know, I have played Yakuza, the new one. No, anyways, though, like I said, I took, what, 120 some photos or whatever, had a great time. Go check out my Instagram. Go look at them. Go like, follow me on Instagram. Get me to 100.

[Blessing]

Yeah, yeah, Tsushima. I, like, I. I found a folder like a month ago or so with like 100 pics from Sushima. I forgot how obsessed I was with the photo mode in that game. Yeah, I did not have that with this game. And I don't think it's.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, man, I was having so much fun with it out there.

[Blessing]

And it's not the fault of Yotei. I think it's just the way I'm playing it this time around. Right. Like, it just didn't stand out to me as much of like, oh, man, stop here, stop here, stop here. The game is still gorgeous, right? The game still has so many beautiful vistas and so much beautiful foliage and different environments and the colors pop and do all that. And so, like, if you're a photo mode sicko, like, you're still going to have fun here. But I was surprised that I wasn't stopping in every moment taking pictures.

[Andy Cortez]

Do you feel like that's maybe, like, past you? Maybe, maybe. Maybe the gimmick of it early on was something that you were like, holy shit.

[Blessing]

Like, I think Sushima was the. Was one of the first times where I was like, damn. I mean, this game is fucking beautiful. I have to, like, you know, capture all this shit. And I, Yeah, I think that was the past me of wanting to dive deep into those mechanics. I just don't have that. That dog in me.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Hold on. Kebab says in the options menu and Perry is under difficulty. It's called timing Windows.

[Roger Picorni]

Oh, okay. But I will say the. The difficulty is cool just because it. It doesn't restart. You can just change it to easy for really quick and then go to normal. And then it's just dynamic. You don't have to.

[Andy Cortez]

You're not having to go check.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah. So, you know, maybe there's a few times very, very nice where I was like, okay, I'm not good enough.

[Andy Cortez]

As we are wrapping up our discussion here, I'd like to read a couple more.

[Greg Miller]

I have the difficulty across the board.

[Roger Picorni]

Accessibility or is there well, he said.

[Greg Miller]

That'S not what he said to go to or they said to go to. Sorry, I mean, option menus and Perry's under difficulty, it's called.

[Roger Picorni]

We'll get to the bottom of this.

[Andy Cortez]

I have a super chat here from Zeke Speak, who says Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, thank you for the five dollar super chat. Zeke Speak says Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, you have to set it in custom. Where is it? Oh, is there a custom? Different. Oh, why the fuck would you put custom all the way at the end? I was like, that's super hard. I wouldn't go there.

[Roger Picorni]

That makes sense.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I'm sorry. Just enemy aggression, timing windows, enemy damage, stealth, hero bonus perks. There you go.

[Andy Cortez]

Damn.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Look at that.

[Greg Miller]

Should have gone deeper. My apologies, everybody.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, a PC gamer, loves looking through through options. Like, you got to get there.

[Greg Miller]

Greg Miller.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Best PlayStation on the thing. Plugs it into a gorgeous TV, just starts going, whatever.

[Roger Picorni]

I'm going.

[Andy Cortez]

Greg sitting in his chair. Make parries easier.

[Greg Miller]

Crack another.

[Andy Cortez]

The super chat from Zeke Speak says Greg. I. I'll bet you $100 and a dozen artisan donuts that you won't bring Erica back on the show for a yote spoiler cast. You wouldn't dare.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I like what. Okay, I see the reverse psychology. If you. If we want to do a spoiler cast, for sure, I'd love to have Erica come through. We can talk about that. Nate Fox in here too.

[Andy Cortez]

Another super chat from Matt. Thank you for your support.

[Greg Miller]

Would you want that chat? Would you want that Eventually.

[Andy Cortez]

Who says, how is the platinum? Is it easier or more difficult?

[Roger Picorni]

I was looking through it.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Roger Picorni]

I mean, I'm kind of like, iffy on if I'm gonna do it. It's. There's some things where it's like, do all the bounties and all that jazz, but I think it's definitely doable. It's not like, crazy, but it's not like mega easy like Superman, Spider Man 2, where you can do that.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

No, no, it's. It's more of the Ghost of Tsushima trophy list. Right. So it is a do everything kind of. And it was, you know, as I thought comprehensively, as I was playing it, you know, I was like, okay, I'm interested to see. And yeah, I went in, turned network off so I could see him locally. And I went in there and it was like, you know, you're 10% thin. I'm like, oh, my God. And so it's like, my heart would love to do that, but I Don't know it's going to be on my PlayStation 5. But yeah, I'm on to the next three redacted reviews we need to do. We'll like double back to whatever. I imagine I'm going to double back to Yote to fuck around and do a camp and do this, but I don't know if I will do it over the next few years.

[Roger Picorni]

Few things that I want to call for me personally, I didn't play with English voice acting. I played the entire thing in Japanese. I'm not usually that person. That's not like a anime. I'm like, yeah. Subs versus Dub. I'm usually a dub person. It's just when there's a video game that's about Japan and like Japanese culture, I tend to just be like, oh, it just feels a little off. But really great. Amazing performances. They did a great job just like they did in Tsushima. One negative I want to call out with the game that I think is like my biggest negative of the entire game. There's like one puzzle in this game and it sucks. And we continue to bring back. Go back to it and there is no variety in it. It is complete. It is like bizarre. Honestly.

[Greg Miller]

We're talking about the.

[Roger Picorni]

Yes, yes. There is a. There is a puzzle in this game. I don't want to spoil it too much but like BAS is. Is. They just give you like this key that's like, hey, these are the symbols and these are what. What are these? What these symbols mean. And that's kind of the only puzzle in this game. And they go back to it constantly, even in side quests. And it's just. It is so mind numbingly easy. Like I'm literally half paying attention, just getting it all going past. It's like. It's like don't even have this or. I think that's what you would do for the sequel is to really make this and flush this out a little bit more. Because there is so many shrines, so many beautiful areas in this game that could have like a lot more.

[Greg Miller]

See, I think that's where. Yeah, we. If you want to talk about middle of the road, mainstream, whatever, like that's a great example of like we heard you like puzzles. So we gave you this key that like that's. Once you memorize that this one means that if you never touched.

[Roger Picorni]

It almost feels like out of place though for me at least because like half baked. Half baked. And it's just like it is so like abundantly clear that this is half baked. And Everything else in this game does not feel like that.

[Blessing]

I thought.

[Greg Miller]

I thought you were gonna talk about the one where you spin stuff. Oh, I hate those fucking things. We'll talk about it later. I don't want to argue.

[Blessing]

I mean, I do have, like, not to be. I feel like I keep being a.

[Greg Miller]

Negative Nancy, on which I don't be Nick Scarpino. It's fine.

[Blessing]

But I think this game overall, great. But to echo what Roger's talking about. Right. I think even outside of that, there were a few puzzle moments where I was kind of like, oh, really? This is what we're doing here where, you know, I. I walk up to a thing and I'm like, looking for an altar or something to upgrade. And I run into a thing that's essentially like, hey, play music here. And I'm like, oh, really? That's like the solution to this puzzle. And even as right before coming here to record this, where I'm doing, like, a different puzzle thing and ATU just says what the solution is, and I'm like, why? Why are we still doing this? Like, I. I think that's for sure.

[Greg Miller]

Especially.

[Roger Picorni]

Especially with the side quest. That's the moments where you can really push it.

[Greg Miller]

We have a B.S. that's a blue sky.

[Blessing]

Oh, yes.

[Greg Miller]

My review of Ghost of Yote before our actual review on gamescast is that we as a gaming society need to make it so the characters in the video game I'm playing don't tell me the solution to the puzzle I'm solving.

[Andy Cortez]

Didn't we have Atreus, like, lowering the bar?

[Greg Miller]

Hey, dad, what's that over there? Do you think that means this?

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, just wait 15. Wait till 20 minutes and me just banging my head against the wall.

[Blessing]

Let me press R3.

[Roger Picorni]

Yes.

[Blessing]

R3. To reveal.

[Andy Cortez]

Hint.

[Roger Picorni]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

So, yeah, I told you about PlayStation 5 game cards that barely work for.

[Roger Picorni]

For even first party games.

[Andy Cortez]

Super chat from Kenneth Fox who says, as someone who also reviewed the game, I had no problem acting like a scumbag and throwing smoke in my enemies.

[Roger Picorni]

Oh, I love it.

[Andy Cortez]

Or using my pistol for a quick hit.

[Roger Picorni]

Or the Kunai.

[Andy Cortez]

Right?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Roger Picorni]

Throwing them in their faces. Once you get the fire ones, you.

[Greg Miller]

Got a lot of fun little things to go in there and tweet. I don't think I got the fire ones.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, it's one of the perks.

[Greg Miller]

It's real good.

[Andy Cortez]

Super chat here from Guitar Hero Arrow. I don't know how spoilery this is. They're just asking about Mount Yote as a location and they're saying that they love the way that it was showcased in the Forza Horizon 6 trailer, but they're asking like is it utilized more than just a mountain looming in the distance?

[Greg Miller]

I think it's best to leave all that.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, we'll leave. We'll leave all that as a secret for you to find out. I have a. More importantly, the most important super chats today are from trevor with a two dollar super chat and no feats with a $2 super chat saying congrats on finishing Silk song. Andy.

[Roger Picorni]

Hey. Wow, congratulations.

[Andy Cortez]

About a five hour, five hour journey. Last night on stream I was like six and a half but five hours for the boss fight. Good time. You know, we. We conquered. What a video game.

[Roger Picorni]

If I bring in my switch, will you tell me how lost I am and where I need to go?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Cool. That might be a top 10. We'll see if it makes top 10.

[Greg Miller]

Chat's calling out that in the Forza Horizon it's Mount Fuji, not.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, okay. Well right into guitar hero.com you're wrong.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, super chat to cancel out that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, just text him.

[Andy Cortez]

All right. Any final thoughts here on Ghost's yote? I was gonna say.

[Roger Picorni]

Yeah, I just want to say like this conversation is great because I see everything that blessing saying. I see everything that Greg is saying but like all I want to do is play this game. Like I am devouring it in a way that as you were alluding to of like, oh, it's like 11pm I'm doing. I have had so many 1am Nights on school days, on work days, which is like I never do that. I am not snow bike mike scrolling on TikTok. I go to sleep at 10pm and I'm like do my little sudoku and it's like 2am I'm like I need to go to fucking bed right now. I am obsessed with this game. I am like I'm in love with everything they're doing here and I cannot wait to see what Sucker Punch does next.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I mean I think it's an amazing video game. I think if what we sound. If what we've said sounds good, definitely try and yeah, I would say take your time. I would pull the Persona 5 move of just like really get out there and enjoy it.

[Blessing]

Oh yeah, I echo that. And also can't wait for legends. Oh my God.

[Roger Picorni]

Let's go squad up.

[Andy Cortez]

That's super exciting. Yeah, that's very, very exciting. We also have the most most final super chat right here from Jens. Who says, who asks do you think Sony can stay relevant in the, in this changing game industry by making banger exclusives like this? I think they can.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I think if this game is a, you know, continues to be a banger and sells well, I think they'll. They'll do just fine.

[Roger Picorni]

I'll do great on PC two years from now.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, yeah. For that. Remember everybody, this has been a Kind of Funny Games cast.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I light the fires.

[Roger Picorni]

I was thinking about that the entire time. Is not that like the mouse. The mouse wheel.

[Andy Cortez]

Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. And if you love what we do, please support us with a Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. You can catch today's Kind of Funny games daily on YouTube or podcast services and know that until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Bye.