If you, like me, have spent the last 24 hours obsessively playing Ghost of Yotei, you might have noticed that while its combat system shares a lot with its predecessor, things are also quite different this time around. Atsu’s adventure across Ezo sees her take on opponents who are as deadly as she is, and every battle is a desperate blur of slashes, parries, dodges, and weapon switches against overwhelming odds.
And that’s just on the game’s normal difficulty. Tune things up to Hard or Lethal and you’re in for a challenge that can have you rage-quitting more often than you’d like. Saito’s forces are quite nasty and give no quarter to Atsu, leaving her scrambling to turn the tide back in her favor after an ill-timed parry or a missed dodge.
But is Sucker Punch’s latest samurai action blockbuster really so different from Jin Sakai’s battles against the Mongols? Well, I’d say yes and no. No, because everything that made Ghost of Tsushima’s combat system shine bright is certainly a part of the new title. Yes, because all of those systems are now fine-tuned so well, making Yotei’s combat feel like less of an overhaul and more like a logical evolution of what came before it.
How, you ask? I’d say that it comes down to three basic pillars: the combat system’s narrative framing, mechanical changes to how fights play out, and a drastically different enemy AI this time around. Let’s get started with how they’ve taken things up a notch in the franchise’s latest outing.
Giving Context to Combat
A key strength of the Ghost franchise is its ability to justify in-game mechanics with narrative beats that support the action that unfolds on your screen. That was done very well in Ghost of Tsushima, where Jin wielded the Sakai katana and tanto with the brutal efficiency that comes with years of training as a samurai. While he did gain access to bows and his Ghost tools later down the line, his family’s blade was his primary tool for dealing with the Mongol threat.
That made sense for the samurai, whose main goal was to attempt to preserve his family’s legacy and traditions while also being an effective living weapon pointed at the Mongol army and Khotun Khan. That balancing act was a major part of Jin’s character arc, and the Sakai blade was the tightrope on which he walked.
Unlocking stances to deal with varied enemy types in accordance with the samurai code’s tenets of being one with the world around them was a part of that balance, as was the honor-bound tradition of respecting life even when taking it away from those who left him with no alternatives.
Honor, and the gradual erosion of it were the core tenets of Ghost of Tsushima, and its combat system played a major role in conveying that theme to its audiences. However, Jin’s reliance on the Sakai blades did limit his range, forcing him to try getting up close and personal with his opponents in open combat. While that worked for him, Ghost of Yotei’s story does things a little differently.
Atsu has not had the luxury of being trained by samurai and is perhaps better off for it. Her combat prowess comes from many years on the battlefield as a mercenary, learning on the job and becoming quite good at fighting in large scale battles. Her innate ability to quickly learn the ins and outs of wielding a new weapon is a part of her character arc, allowing her to gain mastery over four new weapon types that replace Jin’s stances.
Despite her compassionate side coming through on many occasions, the battlefield is the one place where Atsu is utterly ruthless, and she has to be. That’s partly because Lord Saito is similarly merciless, and a master of the art of killing. Another reason is the fact that she actively cultivates her reputation as an Onryo, a departure from Jin’s reluctant acceptance of the mantle of the Ghost.
These narrative beats translate to a combat loop that sets Yotei’s protagonist free from the limitations of the samurai code, resulting in a combat loop that’s more versatile. Atsu’s katana, dual blades, kusarigama, odachi, and yari are all potent tools in the field, each coming with its own pros and cons that make Yotei’s combat feel liberating and dynamic, underlining the smoldering rage she feels for the Yotei Six.
While both titles have effectively woven narrative threads into their combat systems, Atsu’s role as a mercenary in Ghost of Yotei allows the game to bring logical, incremental improvements that make drastic differences to the manner in which fights play out in the game.
A Mechanical Marvel
The most obvious difference that I noticed when I began to find my footing in Ghost of Yotei was the stance system being replaced with different weapons. For starters, their varying range makes each one quite handy in different situations. The kusarigama is a perfect crowd control tool while the odachi could be quite effective even against non-Brute enemies once you figure out its moveset. If I were to drop a pro tip, I’d advise you not to switch weapons simply based on stagger damage but to act on instinct and choose the best one for what you’re trying to achieve in the moment.
A more subtle change that sets Yotei’s combat apart from Tsushima is the way in which you’re going to adjust your attack timings on the fly as you switch between different weapons. The Sakai katana attacked in largely the same rhythm, with only minor variations between stances. But each of Atsu’s killing tools has a unique moveset and gets you very involved in each swing as even the slightest error can take control of the fight away from you.
That’s because your enemies come with tricks of their own, the ability to disarm you being a very important one. I cannot imagine Jin losing his sword in Tsushima but I found my time with Atsu being dotted with occasions where I’d fail to appropriately respond to a disarming strike and then scramble to regain my dropped weapon. Inflicting disarming strikes of my own and then flinging my foe’s weapon into them was another brilliant addition that I quickly weaved into my battle strategy. They are creative flourishes that I believe should have been in Tsushima too but it is what it is.
Another important aspect of Yotei’s combat is that Lord Saito has seemingly invested in better training for his soldiers than Khotun Khan ever did. While consecutive strikes were relegated to boss battles in Tsushima for the most part (looking at you, Kojiro), I was (un)pleasantly surprised to see even basic enemy soldiers coming at me with multiple slashes and stabs that I had to parry individually. Regular troops often switched weapons on the fly, adding even more depth and nuance to an already excellent combat system.
Add in different special attacks for different weapons and the possibility of your wolf buddy joining the fight from time to time, and you have a recipe for a combat system that’s constantly working both for and against you depending on how well you’re able to adapt to the action and stay two steps ahead of your opponents. The Onryo Howl is an important part of this combat loop, and is quite devastating when used correctly.
All of these additions create a combat loop that almost feels alive in Ghost of Yotei, a stark contrast to the challenging yet comparatively static one on display in Tsushima. Once again, Sucker Punch hasn’t reinvented the wheel, but made iterative improvements that add up to create an experience that renders its predecessor obsolete.
Which brings us to the final facet of this evolution: the enemies themselves.
A Stronger and Smarter Rogues Gallery
Aside from my foes switching up weapons and chaining combos together in their attacks, the enemy AI in Ghost of Yotei makes the Mongols feel too easy waving their weapons around and hoping to catch me off guard. Saito’s men are vicious and unrelenting, adapting their tactics in response to my own strategies while finding very creative ways to initiate encounters with Atsu via traps and ambushes. I constantly found I had my eyes peeled as I tore across Ezo, wary of enemies looking to trip up my horse or stage a well-planned attack that could have me on the back foot right from the start.
They flank Atsu quite cleverly, often coming at her from all directions and with different weapons, forcing me to abandon one strategy for another in ways that the Mongols could never force me to do back in 2020. They felt unresponsive even on higher difficulties and I’d even go as far as to say that they were quite a sloppy bunch in comparison to Saito’s outlaws. Their arsenals were limited and their attacks now feel so simple and repetitive thanks to Atsu’s desperately pitched battles against opponents who are willing to be as dynamic as she can be in the field.
You might even find yourself making regular use of the Loadout system depending on which member of the Yotei Six you’re hunting. I found myself relying heavily on the yari when taking on The Kitsune’s shinobi and their preference for the kusarigama, for instance. Yotei’s enemy AI is the final pillar of how its combat system has taken the basic skeleton of its predecessor and added enough muscle to it to make it feel familiar yet fresh.
I’d say that Jin would have a thing or two to learn from Atsu if the two protagonists could have met. Her aggression and dynamic approach is something he’d find easy to understand but hard to master thanks to his rigid samurai training.
As far as combat is concerned, the Ghost has gracefully made way for the Onryo to take the center stage in one of the franchise’s most crucial aspects.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
