Summary - All in all, gets a one star because I'm finding actual game breaking glitches/visual breaks in NORMAL average play.
If you exclude the game breaking glitches, I'd probably give this a 3.8 star. It is not as good as GOT in terms of play and play style.
It does blow GOT out of the water in terms of visuals though in my opinion.
Read on for my detailed review and pay attention to spoiler alert I put in towards the bottom.
Did they even play test their own game? Or are they just following suit with the rest of the trash age of games. I haven't been able to watch the main cutscenes due to them making the screen entirely white. Hell, had to fight the Oni with a pure white screen, I could only see his blue, red, and gold flashes. Wish I could post the video🤦♂️
Not only that, but I've glitched through several walls just running, the wolf den wolf has gotten stuck on a log or rock several times and I had to abandon it all together.
Character has "floated" over the rock wall then fell to her death rather then grab the climbing points a multitude of times.
The FEELING of the story isn't there like Tsushima. Seems like an angst filled teenager that's overly cocky then a woman filled with overwhelming sadness on a quest to avenge her family. Not only that, but the amount of times she gets her ass kicked is ridiculous to have that mentality behind the character.
And who the hell did the voice acting. It's atrocious in English. Atsu sounds like a gruff old man as a child along with some other characters just sounding weird. You couldn't get heavily accented Japanese-American voice actors to do the English versions? So it would still be English, but would have that authentic match to the game still.
Can't understand a word, but 100x better in Japanese with English subtitles. Doesn't sound like crap at least.
Now, positive.
It is a BEAUTIFUL game. It's a little laggy on Ray tracing or quality mode on PS5, but not unplayable. I sat there and compared all three quality modes and finally settled on performance. The smooth screen rate makes it way better then the unnoticeable differences between the others.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Don't read on if you haven't even beaten the Oni, or explored much of the map.
Why the hell do we need five melee weapons??
Where in making the game so detailed and based around that era would a warrior be carrying five melee weapons and various ranged items?
It's clunky, and taxing rather then smooth. Having to switch around and remember what works against what multiple times in a single fight gets annoying.
I liked the stances much better. They tied into realistic much better.
Being able to tackle a foe by altering your attacks/stance is a real tactic vs pulling a sickle on a chain or a six foot spear out of your a$$. It was much smoother. Tried to do too much there SP.
All in all, gets a one star because I'm finding actual game breaking glitches/visual breaks in NORMAL average play.
If you exclude the game breaking glitches, I'd probably give this a 3.8 star. It is not as good as GOT in terms of play and play style.
It does blow GOT out of the water in terms of visuals though in my opinion.