the game dropped this past friday and i may have already put in about 20 hours on it...it's good. everything i expected. the ship combat is simple but pretty solid, the new pirate ("Sea Dog") battle style is awesome, and all the majima content is just whipped cream and a cherry on top. there's a lot of reused stuff from infinite wealth, which i can't really blame them for given how sprawling it was. but there's no rpg systems to be found, it's all old-school beat-em-up combat. story-wise i'm not super far in, i'm in chapter 2 out of 5 (which is how long gaiden: the man who erased his name was) but the new antagonists are great. queen michele i am obviously a big fan of but samoa joe looks really cool as raymond law, even if i'm not hearing him since i'm japanese-only for yakuza games. (especially this one because i cannot at all imagine matt mercer as a good majima. mark hamill or bust)
anyway if the rpg stylings of infinite wealth weren't for you, but you liked riding a segway around hawaii, you'll have a hoot here. if you're looking for the sprawling naval words of, say, assassin's creed: odyssey, you won't find them here, but there is some pretty fun stuff explore. i would rate the expansiveness of the naval modes about on par with the pirates of the carribean world in kingdom hearts iii, maybe a little bit higher because of the pirate coliseum