The game is gorgeous (and was super well optimised, ran like a dream on my first-gen fat old PS4), and the combat is mechanically satisfying. But those pluses are just not enough to carry it through its (way too long) runtime.

The story is only okay. But it suffers from a consistently dour and overly serious tone, with almost no variation. You get some crumbs of comic relief with Kenji, and that's it. The rest is stone-face almost monotonously serious.

The mission design is also mostly awful. You have a couple of signpost missions (like the Legendary Tales I think they were called?) that are cool, and the bossfights are fun of course. But the rest is almost all talk, move to area, kill some dudes, return. The main story missions are also filled with endless walk-and-talk (or ride-horse-and-talk).

Add to that the extremely repetitive open world UbiSoft style collect-a-thon, and the game just wore my enthusiasm down over time.

I would also wait for a sale, unless you desperately love the setting. And even then, maybe wait and see how Rise of the Ronin pans out.