I've tried revisiting the game, in hopes I could have the same experience I had with Forbidden West, which I've learned to love with a bit of effort.
But the world in GoY is just not doing it for me, and I think it's due to the following:
- It's too flat. This, with large draw distances makes it immediately obvious in a 200m radius if there's anything interesting to check out. And usually there's not. If I take FW as a comparison, that game also doesn't have side activities I find interesting. I prefer fighting machines above all else, by far. But the world is a lot more vertical, with mountaintops and trees obscuring your view, inviting you to scale them, and see what's on the other side. There's lakes you can dive in, caves you can visit, large buildings to traverse. It's a lot more diverse and invites exploration. I don't care there's not much to do there, I'm exploring because there could be something there, my mind fills in the blanks, my imagination takes over, and I just let go. GoY has none of that. Part of it maybe because it's rooted in realism, but even Tsushima didn't feel this constrained. I can't tell if I'm misremembering, but it seemed at least a little more vertical and exploration worthy.
- The open world is too limiting. It feels like an early ps4 game. You're constantly blocked off by shrubs, trees, impenetrable bushes, slopes. It feels too linear for an open world game. If I'm on the top right part of the map, there's only one way to get to the top middle part. I can't just draw a straight line and cross it, I have to go around the hills/trees and then continue on this linear path until I'm there. This kills traversal immensely, and makes me want to fast travel, which is a huge let down. The map needed to be a lot more open, and not feel like a few circular areas connected with linear pathways.
- The game is just too similar to GoT. The combat feels exactly the same, and changing the weapons didn't feel any different to changing sword stances. I can't think of a single big gameplay improvement they did. Camping ain't it. You still have the very limited grappling hook, poor platforming, no new traversal options, no new mechanics other than new weapons, which don't really change the gameplay. Using a gun is like using a bow, but worse. I'm still baffled, 3 months after initially playing the game, that this took them 5 years to make. The quests being marginally more natural to discover is not nearly enough. After that discovery it's still go to the marked location, the same way it was in GoT. I just can't understand what have they been working on for so long. Music and rumble effects?
I've spent an hour playing yesterday, and I was just fast traveling/sprinting to duelling trees to fight Takezo's disciples. I tried exploring between each duel, but there's absolutely nothing that invites curiosity. The most interesting part was finding a group of kids, where Atsu said something like "I remember this place, I was here before", which sounded like a potentially interesting side quests I stumbled upon, but then it required the go-back-in-time mechanic and I couldn't be bothered. Walking as a kid Atsu while she talks with other kids is 10 times worse than whatever I was doing up until that point.
One of the most disappointing sequels ever.
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