There is something serene about the lush locale surrounding Mount Yōtei. The quiet before the raging storm, as the wind picks up and the forestry around Atsu waves around, like a build-up to a standoff that’s bound to happen. And even in this non-combatting stance, it would make Akira Kurosawa proud of what he has inspired.
Ghost of Yotei is now, for all intense and purposes, complete with a new game mode that’s all about the combat and a sort of Roguelike Boss Rush, while its latest expansion does well into setting up the motions of both wrapping the main story and what lies ahead for the incredible team at Sucker Punch.
Woven Into Fates
The basic premise of Ghost of Yōtei is of revenge for one lone mercenary, Atsu, and her quest of removing the notorious group, The Yōtei 6 from the mortal plane, which is led by the renegade Samurai Lord Saito and his mercenaries. It’s quite a chunky game, as mentioned in our original review, and without spoiling the game, it is quite a ride from start to finish.
The new expansion, Echoes of Sekigahara, is much like how we visit some parts of Atsu’s story before the campaign, but with this one being more centred to Atsu before her return to Ezo (which is modern day Hokkaido), and her motivations to begin this revenge quest at all. It is a good addition to the narrative of the game, plus you get to explore the locale that were only mentioned during the base game, and that’s pretty cool.
What’s also cool, is the various stuff that you can get in the complete edition, which includes Amour that are based on other games made by the folks from other PlayStation Studios, like the The Last of Us one (aptly named the Yokai’s Infection), or even the Helldivers 2 one (Champion of Democracy, which includes the theme music too when you equip it), all of which are part of the new most, Most Wanted.
But before we get to that, might I give a shout out to the Beauty of Yotei mode, where it’s a sort of a screen-saver idle mode where the camera pans out into the lush beauty of the Ezo environment, like those video montages you see whenever you wanted to buy a TV at the department store, and can be switch to Photo Mode if you want to capture that beauty, per say.
Yōtei’s Most Wanted![]()
The Most Wanted mode is quite an addicting roguelike, if I could sum it up in a few words or less. It’s combat encounters in stages before taking down bosses that are consisting of the Yotei 6 and locations that you visit around the game, which you can either play as Atsu, one of the newer characters that’s in the Expansion, Nagato and of course, the one players are excited for, Jin Sakai, the previous protagonist for this series.
It plays like you would expect a roguelike would go, there are a set number of enemies and levels that you have to defeat, getting power-up buffs to help your encounter be faster and/or powerful before fight the boss, for example the Oni from the main game, and getting rewarded on every takedown.
This in-turn would contribute to unlocking more arsenal, or upgrading your base stats for all of the characters before going onto another run once more. It’s quite a fun gameplay loop, and should you finish the main campaign before the release of this expansion, it could serve as a good course refresher for taking on the Echoes of Sekigaharaexpansion, or even starting up New Game+, complete with those aforementioned Amour sets that could be unlocked after playing this mode.
Verdict![]()
If this were my first foray into the game, I’d say the Complete Edition of Ghost of Yōtei is quite an intriguing purchase, should you wanted to experience Atsu’s journey as a newcomer to the series, or already being a fan of the previous game, or even anything Sucker Punch has made in past, there is something for you to experience here in Ezo.
And with the easter eggs found within the game is perhaps alluding towards a new future away from the Japanese Isles, it could be rather interesting to see what the Bellevue team would be cooking as the dawn of a new era is immerging towards the horizon sometimes soon.