Wonderful game, if a bit derivative
Here's what you need to know. Combat: 10/10, Story: 5/10, Open World: 5/10, Art: 10/10, and Mission Design: 5/10. For me, the combat and the joy of traveling around, seeing all of the beauty, makes for an extremely engaging experience. I have put 150+ hours into this game and have loved every second of it.
The combat is extremely snappy. All 4 stances are a joy to use. I particularly loved ending combos with the wind stance's heavy attack. I love flips! The lethality of Jin was amazing from the beginning, and is only enhanced once Jin and the player master all of his former and newfound abilities. They found ways to ground everything in reality, but I have to say I would love to see them push past that in the future.
The wind and artistic take on distant objects makes navigating this world a joy. I never found myself lost or confused about where to go (ahem, take note AC with their stupid caves). It is clear that lots of amazing tricks are being used to keep your eye focused on the vibrant and the beautiful, and I loved it.
That said, the mission design is seriously flawed and rote. Almost every single mission is a variation of the fetch quest, minus a handful of more interesting Main/Character missions. This is where the open world design falls completely flat for this game.
I also found many of the moments of precision to be lacking. For example, switching stances is nowhere near as snappy as it should be. Both Nioh games do it way, way better. As well, I found the grappling hook to just not be very fun to use. It was too easy to mess it up and fall off of a cliff. They should take more notes from Insomniac on that one.
That being said, the combat is truly wonderful and was a joy to engage with. The stealth is also excellent, but not to the same heights as MGSV or TLOU2. The world is beautiful and characters interesting. This game makes me extremely excited for Sucker Punch's next project, which hopefully will be GoT2!
