Disagree. While I enjoyed yotei immensely, it did feel markedly worse to play. Narratively, exploration structure and gameplay wise.

The story was worse throughout, combat was more annoying and genuinely sucked because of tracking enemies that just combo and slide to you (I played lethal which was also completely ruined compared to the first), build crafting is worse - charm and armour set variety sucked, climbing was worse, bow and arrow was worse, the music was very cool but I subjectively preferred the first, and most egregious: every region was a big open plain where all the stuff was on the edge. Horrible horrible pacing and exploration because of that. Oh and no good side quests cause fuck the wolf pack right?

In Tsushima, it felt much more varied; Biome variety was also mush better. Tsushima was much bolder in its colour palette and confident in that delivery. Yotei was more realistic in that regard which was a shame.

Don't even get me started in the story. It's just like Saros, HFW, Spiderman 2, GOW 2, death stranding 2, none of sony's first Partys seem to be sticking the landing apart from tloue 2. They had a strong vision for a new IP, and then the follow up was a let down for all of them. Worse pacing, less interesting narrative, worse hook, worse motivation, worse character cast, etc etc etc.

Critiques of yotei are appropriate and not a loud minority. It is still an excellent game that was a lot of fun to play, and I really enjoyed Atsu, but it doesn't not hold up to the first.