Finished the story last night on Hard difficulty. Still have a mountain of side stuff left, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm gonna bother - though I might do the character missions.
This game is a pretty underwhelming, standard open-world icon clearing exercise, that is elevated to an extent through a very strong and unique aesthetic and setting. By the time I got to Act 3 I was just barreling through main missions because I couldn't stand to find another bloody fox den or clear another outpost or happen across yet another merchant surrounded by 4-5 enemies, or yet another person with their hands bound... surrounded by 4-5 enemies. I started off doing every side mission I came across, then eventually stopped doing them completely because it was always the same few mechanics - ride and talk, follow footsteps, survey areas, defeat a handful of enemies, sit through overlong and unskippable mission end.
Which brings me to my first criticism: This game has no respect for your time. The amount of unskippable and unnecessary fluff was very much grating on my nerves by the end. Every mission has an unskippable intro routine where it shows the name of the mission, unskippable "cutscenes" that are often just a fixed wide shot of Jin talking to someone, and then a painfully long end sequence where the name of the mission comes up again and you're forced to watch the requisite experience meters go up, then sit and watch Jin sleep next to his horse for 20 seconds or whatever. All of the sword duels also had the exact same, extremely lengthy intro animation..
Next: The game is too in love with it's own aesthetic. This game has a really striking and colourful look, and I love the blowing leaves and reeds etc. But too often the cinematography (ESPECIALLY side missions) will just be a fixed wide shot of two characters talking like a PS2 game, so you can watch the leaves or whatever blow around them (and also probably to hide some of the sketchy animation).
On the flip side, I really liked the story by the end. I didn't care about Shimura at all until the end of Act 2, when you started to understand the merits to his perspective a bit more. Up to that point he just came across like a pretty one dimensional father figure blathering about honour, and it felt like I could see where the story was going a mile away. I thought the introduction of the Mongols using Jin's poison was an interesting wrinkle to help this transition along, though I also thought it was a little bit of a cop out (since Shimura's objections went way further than just poison, and Jin had a MUCH stronger moral position on virtually everything else). I thought the very end of the game was handled beautifully - just that entire last mission where you think maybe they are going to hug it out and go their separate ways, only to realize as Jin does that it just can't be that way. I do think the game-ification of the duel robbed it of some of it's emotional weight when you're, say, retrying it for the fifth time and listening to the two characters exclaim the same things in battle. I get it though.
It feels like the game has too many throwables and secondary weapons. In that same vein, i don't know why black powder bomb and sticky bomb are two different things. Black powder bomb should have been the default with the ability for it to stick being an upgrade. At the very least black powder bomb should be on the R2 trigger wheel so that it's easier to use in combat. I never felt compelled to use it in combat because switching to it in the heat of battle was a pain in the ass since there's no slowdown on the L2 trigger.
Absolutely. Even by the end I was routinely fumbling around in combat as I kept forgetting how to pick certain throwables, since some were auto-lock quick throwables like the kunai, and others were treated like the bows.
Spear attacks felt a bit inconsistent particularly in standoffs. I've had more than a few standoffs where i got hit with a spear attack that was barely telegraphed at all due to the increased range of the spear.
Spears felt very cheap at times, because enemies would just skate along the ground during heavy attacks to try and stay in your range as you rolled away or whatever. This was especially apparently during multi-swing heavy attacks.
Combat in general was super-easy though, even on Hard. The ghost weapons render most encounters a bit of a joke. Chuck some kunai, and go to town while everyone is staggered. Stealth is even easier.
I appreciate how much cosmetic variety there is in the game but tying stats to armor sets sucks and feels like antiquated game design.
I'd have been more okay with it if they had a quick select menu to change outfits. By the end of the game I was mostly just in traveller attire in the open world, because I couldn't be bothered to constantly go into menus to change my outfit for the situation.
As for a final "score", I think I'd give the game a 7 or 8. I was loving the game at first, but by the third act the open-world aspect of the game had definitely worn out it's welcome with me. I actually caught myself telling one of the golden birds to "shut up" out loud, because I was tired of being guided to yet another Fox Den or haiku location.
I think a sequel could be something special, if Sucker Punch learn from the criticisms of this game.
