Ghost of Yotei Is Best Played on Lethal Difficulty (With One Caveat)

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The katana is a legendary sword, often depicted with almost magical qualities in movies, books, and other media. While real katanas are certainly very sharp, fictional versions often show them cutting through anything effortlessly – even the Earth itself! Ghost of Yotei’s Lethal difficulty mode tries to capture that extreme power in gameplay. It’s a clever concept and perfectly embodies a core part of the samurai dream, making it the most satisfying way to experience the game (though there is a small drawback).

Playing Yotei on Lethal mode is intense, just like it was in Tsushima. Everyone’s super fragile – enemies go from tough fighters to practically begging for mercy with just a few hits if you break their guard. And it works both ways! A couple of messed-up parries and my run as Atsu is over pretty quickly. But honestly, I love this weakness. It really makes you *feel* how powerful the blade is; nobody, not even me, is safe from its razor-sharp edge. It just adds to the overall experience.

Ghost of Yotei‘s Lethal Mode Makes Combat Appropriately Deadly

As a fan, I think what’s really cool about the new weapons, especially the katana, is how they feel almost legendary – like a lightsaber in Star Wars. You know, a weapon that can quickly defeat anyone, Jedi or Stormtrooper! And considering how much Yotei seems inspired by classic Japanese samurai films and Star Wars, I don’t think that’s a coincidence. When you land a hit, it *should* feel impactful, and if you can just shrug off a dozen attacks, it really takes away from that feeling. It’s about making each blow matter!

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, similar to Yotei, shows how a game can get this balance wrong. Both heroes and enemies can take a surprisingly large amount of damage from attacks. A character can be dramatically impaled, but still only receive a small amount of damage if their equipment isn’t good enough. Even a weak enemy wearing very little armor can survive many hits as if they were heavily protected. Even with the new Nightmare mode and Yasuke’s perk which makes everyone more vulnerable, Shadows’ combat feels clumsy and doesn’t capture the sense of danger that is so important in great samurai stories. The disconnect between visuals and impact is much more noticeable in Shadows because Yotei’s fights are fast-paced and deadly, as they should be.

It’s challenging to be truly devastating in a game that relies so much on leveling up and RPG mechanics, and Yotei feels this impact, though only mildly. For instance, improving your sword isn’t as helpful in Lethal mode because most enemies are already quite weak, which reduces the motivation to find better equipment. Bosses also don’t quite adhere to Lethal’s rules and can withstand a lot of damage. It would have made more sense to focus on the game’s existing stamina system for these fights. That way, they could still be defeated quickly, but each finishing blow would require more skill. The use of traditional health bars is reasonable, and these minor issues don’t diminish Lethal’s core strengths.

Ghost of Yotei‘s Difficulty Sliders Make This Mode Even Better

There’s a small caveat to all of this: Lethal mode can be pretty challenging, especially when you first start playing. The lack of any helpful tools to balance things out makes the beginning quite difficult. The number of enemies appearing hasn’t been adjusted for this mode either, so a fight that feels fair on the normal difficulty can become really draining on Lethal. It’s easy to get overrun, make a couple of errors, and end up having to restart from your last save.

Tsushima’s Lethal mode suffered from a similar problem, but Yotei avoids this. Like The Last of Us Part II, it allows players to adjust many different settings. Slightly increasing the timing window for parries makes the difficulty more manageable without removing the challenge of Lethal mode. While dying still requires a few precise attacks, and restarting a camp after a mistake can be frustrating, combat feels more like a smooth, flowing dance of death because perfect parries aren’t quite as difficult to achieve.

As a fan, I think Ghost of Yotei really gets the look and feel of samurai culture right. But what *really* impressed me is how it brings that feeling to life in the gameplay, especially with the Lethal difficulty. Honestly, Lethal mode is what I always wanted from a samurai game – it lets you *feel* that power you expect when you’re wielding a katana. It’s a much more authentic way to experience Yotei, and I wish more games would experiment with clever modes like this.

A PS5 copy of Ghost of Yotei was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this feature.

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2025-10-04 23:16