Sympathy For Lady Vengeance: ‘Ghost of Yōtei’ Is A Nearly Perfect Successor

What happens when the flames of rage consume your soul well past your breaking point? Sucker Punch’s latest Japanese-inspired action-adventure video game, Ghost of Yōtei, manages to smartly maneuver through the nuances of that question to yield satisfying, if not slightly flawed, results.  

Yōtei picks up 300 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima, and we are placed in early 1600s Japan, more specifically, Ezo (now modern-day Hokkaido). Here, the shogunate factions have begun to exert centralized control over law and order, in contrast to the warring states period of Tsushima’s protagonist, Jin Sakai. But despite the clear blue skies, vast grassy plains and forests teeming with life underneath the watchful eye of the story’s picturesque centerpiece, Mount Yōtei, a sinister storm is brewing. 

She Wants Revenge

“I don’t know who I am without this anger,” proclaims Yōtei’s spitfire protagonist Atsu (Erika Ishii) to one of her confidants during gameplay. It’s a tumultuous struggle that Atsu will have to contend with for much of the game and for good reason. You see, Atsu has lived in torment for nearly two decades after witnessing the death of her family members at the hands of locally feared thugs that go by the moniker: the Yōtei Six. But that’s not all. After stringing up her family to perish on the grounds of Atsu’s homestead, the members that individually go by the Snake, the Oni, the Kitsune and a pair of brothers the Spider and the Dragon and their father Lord Saito, who also doubles as the group’s leader, also pin her to the family’s Ginko tree and light it on fire leaving her to die. But die, she does not. At least not physically. Instead of succumbing to the tragedy, Atsu transforms. By miraculously surviving the ordeal, she makes a promise to the spiritual remnants of her mother and father that she will one day seek vengeance for their deaths, no matter the cost. 

It is this violent note upon which the game begins. Just as quickly as young Atsu, the player must also contend with the fact that a girl who once lived peacefully in the comforts of her home—surrounded by the warmth of her mother, father and brother—died that day. Thus, the unquenching thirst of the Onryō, a Japanese term used for violent, wrathful ghosts, was born. 

After nearly two decades away to get the best training in the more populated towns that mainland Japan has to offer, Atsu returns to Ezo. She’s no longer a defenseless little girl, but one of the most skilled swordspersons in the entire region. As she journeys through Ezo, aiming to take out the Yōtei Six, one by one, you get a front row seat to see just how terrifying the woman you’re now playing is. 

Thank the Shinto spirits that Sucker Punch bypasses the need to put the player through what could have been a series of monotonous trials in seeing young Atsu mature into the lean, mean fighting machine that she is at the start of the game. In a way that wasn’t established so early on in Tsushima but is present by the time you’re in control of Atsu, her fierce reputation as the Onryō precedes her. Through a series of combat tutorials that feel natural to the flow of the game, you learn quickly just how ruthless and precise each swing of the blade brings her ever closer to quenching her bloodlust. From learning how to utilize perfect parries to throwing nearby weaponry to fatally pierce the chest of your enemies, Atsu is here to kill first and threaten you with the last of your dying breath later. 

The Descent of a Woman 

While Atsu slices, dices, drinks and gambles her way through Ezo, you might start to wonder how exactly the game deals with the situation of Atsu being a female mercenary. Are the citizens of 17th-century Japan woke, or are they also plagued by rampant sexism? After all, she is looking to facilitate a deadly end to the unchecked corruption led by the Yōtei Six, who have long since sunk their teeth into the underbelly of Ezo, especially in the years she’s been gone. 

As it turns out, the people of Ezo are pretty chill about the whole thing – for the most part. The way Sucker Punch chooses to offset Atsu’s character development being bogged down by the fact that she would be (generally) considered an uncouth woman is by counteracting the in-game sexism. In Yōtei they add a vibrant and cunning set of women who have each of their own valuable skill sets. They also lean into the humor of having a tomboy with impeccable skill dominating men (and sometimes women) in light of their ignorance.

What I mean by this is, yes, you’re going to hear Atsu referred to as a bitch or a sex object from time to time. You’ll also see how several side quest bosses, Ezo citizens, and even the Yōtei Six themselves, mistake her gender as a weakness to their detriment. One particular interaction with a group of Matsumae soldiers, a clan of samurai who, like Atsu, aim to dismantle the Yōtei Six, results in one of the haughty commanders patronizing her, even though they are on the same side. “Look, a woman with a sword, how does she even lift it?” says the curious commander who unknowingly entered f—k around and find out territory. To which Atsu brazenly responds, “It just has to be high enough to hit rude people in the groin.” 

However, on the flip side of this, there are more instances of NPCs acknowledging that while Atsu is unique in her quest to single-handedly defeat a dangerous group of outlaws who control the land and terrify its citizens, other women are holding their own in battle or possessing their own agency. Yōtei has a rich tapestry of good and villainous female characters. The best of them is Oyuki, a skilled shamisen player who can utilize her beauty as a distraction to obtain pertinent information. She also sometimes comedically encourages Atsu to lean more into the feminine wiles of gracefulness and proper hygiene. Other women teach you the culture of the Ainu, own their own farmlands, use the promise of sex to lure corrupt samurai to their deaths and do the menial bidding for the fringe outlaw armies controlled by the Yōtei Six. 

While Tsushima was a tad sparse in the area of female involvement outside of the core characters of Jin’s close confidant, Yuna, and Lady Masako, Yōtei certainly has improved upon it. (Note: There is something, perhaps, to chew on about the rampant use of dead mothers as motivators between both games. It’s a double-edged sword and maybe a conversation best suited for a spoiler-filled article post launch.) 

Get Mon or Die Trying

Outside of the storytelling, Yōtei simultaneously manages to improve and expand its predecessor’s open world system. While chasing after the Yōtei Six, you can explore the wilds of Ezo in a more natural sense. Each region of Ezo has its own diverse landscapes, offering visually stunning gameplay elements that showcase features such as an abundance of blooming flowers, dry brushlands, and icy mountain snowcaps, which break up the monotony found in Jin’s journey as he traipses across Tsushima. Like other games in the action-adventure genre, you can now set up camp, which helps you restore spirit (also known as resolve in Tsushima) in a pinch, along with being able to cook food for combat perks or craft ammo. It’s a convenient system that allows for more leniency than being pigeonholed into looking for a few key spots to upgrade or refuel. The camping method also provided me quite a few laughs, as without warning, you could be visited by an NPC who will forcibly sit down at your camp–without an invitation–and tell you either something unique about the area you’re in, spill tea about some side quest drama, trade merchandise or significantly upgrade your weapon or offer you maps to aid in your journey across Ezo. 

Another fun way to gain spirit, if camping is not your style, is through drinking sake. Atsu has a penchant for getting lost in the sauce. The good news is that her proclivity to drink can provide great benefits in a serious pinch–especially during battle if you find your spirit depleted while fighting a formidable foe. The bad news is that when you drink, Atsu becomes tipsy, causing the screen to lose slight focus and become blurry for a period of time. The need for sake even extends to certain side quests, such as trying to complete a bamboo strike while intoxicated. It’s a hilariously simple mechanic that can make certain repetitive drags of gameplay that much more entertaining. 

The Bounty Hunter system is also a new addition to Yōtei. If there’s almost anything Atsu loves more than making a clean cut through the neck of her enemy, it’s earning extra mon (the currency at the time of the shogunate). As a mercenary for hire, Atsu will do whatever job, as long as it doesn’t involve lies and tricks, to pay for her food and sake, indefinitely. Throughout the game, Atsu will come across various Inns that offer different surprises, side quests, skill boosters, armor, costume upgrades and some bounties. In my playthrough experience, there are about six bounties per Inn, with one extra dangerous foe not listed on the bounty board, only available after completing the original six bounties per location. Each unique bounty puts your investigative skill to the test, which ultimately leads to an especially fun battle that will end with you gaining a new ability or a new costume piece. In addition to this, it functions similarly to Tsushima’s “Legend Increase” mechanic, where in Yōtei the more you go around capturing bounties and dismantling the Yōtei Six, the higher your “street cred” becomes, ensuring the other people are less likely to mess with you or simply run away if they see you coming by to turn them into human sashimi. 

Sympathy For Lady Vengeance 

It’s tough to dig into the true meat of the game’s core themes without breaking embargo spoilers. But, overall, I would say Ghost of Yōtei is a well-written revenge tale that is painstakingly careful to avoid one-note clichés that it could have so easily fallen prey to. One of the best ways Sucker Punch achieves this is by solidifying Atsu as a woman whose trauma continuously fuels the fire within her. Her unrelenting hunt for the people who stole her family is the only thing that keeps her tethered to the earth beneath her feet, or else, she would have given up long ago. There are many characters, as in Tsushima, although not as big and splashy, that Atsu comes across in her journey that lightly try to convince her that life might have more to offer should she decide to take her blood-stained glasses off. But alas, she is resigned to never waiving. Though both Tsushima and Yōtei dabble in the gray areas of mortality, Yōtei is more potent against feeling bad for doing what’s right. Atsu knows what she thinks is right. She has her own steadier moral compass. Her story doesn’t really lend itself to the same bombastic cast of characters in the hopes of building up an army to defeat invaders in the same way Jin’s story did. Not that Atsu is without help, but it’s clear she is a lone wolf hellbent on the path of total annihilation at the cost of anything and anyone, including herself. This strong sense of self allows Sucker Punch to chart a compelling path for Atsu, as well as the player, where her blood-soaked journey back to her humanity simply can’t be ignored. 

In building depth through Atsu’s journey, which remarkably lands some shocking plot twists and emotionally jarring moments, Sucker Punch has rivaled their success in storytelling. Sure, Atsu is not a perfect, clean-cut samurai from days of yore out on the hunt, out to save her world from a cataclysmic event. Instead, she’s a scarred mercenary trying to reconcile all the anguish that began festering inside of her when the concept of the only world she knew ended so tragically as a young girl.  She’s a deeply flawed adult, full of bite, unyielding bloodlust, and perhaps, a little too much sake, but she’s all the better for it. 

Other notable Ghost ramblings

• Yōtei’s in-game tabletop game Zeni Hajiki is just as fun as it is addictive. It’s a coin-based game where you gamble with other losers degenerates to test your flicking skills at the local Inn of whatever region of Ezo you are in. If you win a certain number of times in a row (in my gameplay, it was about two or three times), your opponent will offer you a charm for your inventory. 

• The only true pain in my ass was the map system. Unlike Tsushima, where you unlock the map by simply traveling from main mission to side quest, Yōtei, I guess, out of forcing the player to discover things more naturally, is set up for the player to rely heavily on a cartographer to gain skills, fox den or wolf den knowledge. This cartographer, like NPCs that can improve your armory or skill set, is found across the different Inns in Ezo. He can also show up at your campsite unannounced, or you can simply find him camping somewhere if you happen to pass him on your off-the-beaten-path exploration. Here’s the problem: he runs out of maps. And while that’s ok, as the game doesn’t want to you unlock certain areas until you complete certain quests and main missions, but what grinds my gears is not really that he runs out of maps, but rather, once he runs out of maps, you’re basically stuck until you find him again randomly on the road where he might have more maps. Why are you at the mercy of this man? The open world is too big to go searching for his ass in new locations so that I can 100% the game.  

• Another map complaint. Perhaps some people will really like the ability to obtain these maps and discover where they lead on the blank map of Ezo. A specific map unlocks a location on the blank map that fits like a puzzle piece. I know this is hard to follow, but you’ll get it as soon as you start playing. But, if you’re like me and you’re not that great at puzzles, the game will eventually tell you where to place your piece of the map puzzle on the bigger blank map if you fail to find its location. 

• The game has guns. That’s wild. Not that you wouldn’t see that in the 1600s when guns were making their way around the world. But I remained true to the power of the sword, using the firearms as sparsely as possible, even when the game encouraged me to do so. 

• When I think about the potential possibility of Jin Sakai and Atsu ever crossing paths, I think she would absolutely be able to drink his samurai-honoring ass under the table. Potentially even win against him in a fight as she is a crafty, spiteful tiger, and Jin was a tactful observer. But I think they would make for great friends.