It has been said many times before

how samurai cinema and wild west flicks have a lot of cross pollenization

Ghost of Tsushima is a samurai epic

Ghost of Yotei is a western

I've met the gang of bandits who killed my family and rule this island

I've met the lawman who doesn't appreciate me taking matters into my own hand

I've been outlined in the doorway of an inn where everyone immediately stopped talking twice

I've got a bounty board to investigate

The only things missing are revolvers and cacti

I really need/want to carve out the time to play these games, I just know I'll be completely lost to them for months

Okay a bit further into things:

Jin was a goober. A good kid who was doing his best and kept on getting in situations out of his depth and having to learn quickly

Atsu is an asshole

She's a wandering murderhobo

More specifically she spent 16 years struggling as a mercenary and that has given her the skills she need but also a very cavalier attitude about killing people

And like

She has no reservations about being The Ghost

ALSO

They kept the red and blue attacks from the first game but they have added GOLD attacks

which, if you don't counter them properly, make you drop your weapon

Fortunately you also are carrying several other kinds of weapons

Right now I have two swords so I can switch between dual wielding or not

So I'm dueling a guy and he does a gold attack and I fuck it up

Sword goes flying

Leaves me needing to frantically dodge and roll until I can draw my other sword and keep fighting

Finish his ass off and then walk over and pick my sword back up

Which is a moment that the first game just never had

And it creates this moment of incredible tension that I love

It's dynamic!

The alternate weapons are replacing the stances from the first game but some enemies have moves that can temporarily disable one of your stances

getting disarmed in games is so rare

especially during a fight

KH 3's DLC does it once, and it's a huge freak-out moment in an already tough battle

I get why

You gotta work to make sure the player never like permanently loses an important weapon

or just feel really unfair

but they put the work in and it rules

it's something I think more games could do, to build more tension during battle

and having an unarmed, but weaker moveset as a backup could help prevent having to dodge spam while you don't have a weapon

a hip throw counter

minimal damage but it gets them off balance for a few seconds while you run for your sword

people would definitely do weaponless challenge runs where they lose the weapon asap every fight then never get it