This is a difficult game to review, some things it does right, some are very wrong.

The good: it's beautiful to look at, the worldspace is incredibly well-done. The characters (mostly) are well-written, believable (mostly), and bring out some interesting philosophical ruminations. The combat is snappy and lets you adapt most of the combat encounters as you prefer. The story is good, engaging; the side content is a bit weak but was fun. It's a solid, but predictable, safe, typical, ubishite-esque game if ubishite wasn't completely awful.

The bad: the elephant in the room here is that I felt it was somewhat disrespectful to Japan. It's so subtle that it probably would fly under the radar of most people. First, it's historically inaccurate, completely so. That's fine, but it really makes a fool out of traditional japanese bushido philosophy, as if they were really pushing a modern interpretation onto a pseudo-historical setting. I'm not trying to say it's somehow woke, but I could tell a western studio made it. Aside from the main character, anyone else competent is a woman. The mainland really disregards the situation happening in such a way to make it look like monkeys are running the show. I can't put my finger on it, but it felt, in some ways, malicious. I don't want to give examples because they would be spoilers, but I was quite surprised throughout the story. I think I would sum up my impression of their take on another culture as subtlety dismissive. Idk if it was intentional or not.

The mediocre: just about everything else. it's a typical, fairly empty, repetitive affair. Aside from the parkour, combat, story, it's dry as a bone. Stay away, far away, if you're a completionist. They went to lengths to summon great suffering, particularly with the hideously banal and awful multiplayer hellscape. If you want to run around a gorgeously designed 13th century japan with a perfect dash of mysticism and romanticism, then I heartily recommend it. Taking it too seriously or thinking it's the next Witcher 3 or Baldur's Gate 3, it's not. It's on the level of other Playstation fare such as Horizon Zero Calories. But generally, I would hesitate to recommend it. It's hard to give this a thumbs up.

This is a difficult game to review, some things it does right, some are very wrong. The good: it's beautiful to look at, the worldspace is incredibly well-done. The characters (mostly) are well-written, believable (mostly), and bring out some interesting philosophical ruminations. The combat is snappy and lets you adapt most of the combat encounters as you prefer. The story is good, engaging; the side content is a bit weak but was fun. It's a solid, but predictable, safe, typical, ubishite-esque game if ubishite wasn't completely awful. The bad: the elephant in the room here is that I felt it was somewhat disrespectful to Japan. It's so subtle that it probably would fly under the radar of most people. First, it's historically inaccurate, completely so. That's fine, but it really makes a fool out of traditional japanese bushido philosophy, as if they were really pushing a modern interpretation onto a pseudo-historical setting. I'm not trying to say it's somehow woke, but I could tell a western studio made it. Aside from the main character, anyone else competent is a woman. The mainland really disregards the situation happening in such a way to make it look like monkeys are running the show. I can't put my finger on it, but it felt, in some ways, malicious. I don't want to give examples because they would be spoilers, but I was quite surprised throughout the story. I think I would sum up my impression of their take on another culture as subtlety dismissive. Idk if it was intentional or not. The mediocre: just about everything else. it's a typical, fairly empty, repetitive affair. Aside from the parkour, combat, story, it's dry as a bone. Stay away, far away, if you're a completionist. They went to lengths to summon great suffering, particularly with the hideously banal and awful multiplayer hellscape. If you want to run around a gorgeously designed 13th century japan with a perfect dash of mysticism and romanticism, then I heartily recommend it. Taking it too seriously or thinking it's the next Witcher 3 or Baldur's Gate 3, it's not. It's on the level of other Playstation fare such as Horizon Zero Calories. But generally, I would hesitate to recommend it. It's hard to give this a thumbs up.