While Ghost of Yōtei’s Atsu plays similarly to her predecessor Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima, the standalone sequel brings enough new ideas to the table to make her stand out. Instead of katana stances, Atsu uses different weapons entirely to take down foes, like an odachi and a kusarigama. She can also summon a terrorizing wolf to fight alongside her. But the coolest addition to Atsu’s gameplay is her ability to impale enemies by throwing weapons.

Enemies will frequently drop their weapons in the mud and snow upon death in Ghost of Yōtei. Atsu does a lot of killing in this game, meaning farms, forests, enemy encampments, really anywhere else she slaughters some of Lord Saito’s outlaws will be full of throwable weapons after a few quick fatal blows from her katana.

And throwing them is a doozy. They can one-shot kill weaker enemies, and equippable charms can severely up their thrown damage against sturdier foes. Thrown........

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