Assassin's Creed Shadows Review - A Feudal Return To Form

Few games launch with as much baggage as . It would have already had a tough hill to climb thanks to finally tackling the Feudal Japan setting that fans have been requesting since the series began nearly two decades ago, but 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:several high-profile misses 🌳from Ubisoft, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:multiple sudden delays, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:t🐠he swirling culture war around Yasuke means that Shadows simply needs to be a hit like no other game before it.

Seeing the weight of the world on Shadows’ shoulders has been especially strange as someone who hasn’t been bothered about leaps of faith or hidden blades for a long time. The last game I fell in love with🐻 was the incredibly divisive Unit🍬y, and I’ve been reluctant to give Assassin’s Creed more of my time ever since the infamously stuffed Odyssey and i🔯ts even chunkier successor Valhalla.

Henry of Skalitz from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 points an arrow at Yasuke from Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Kingdom C🎃ome: Deliverance 2 Has Prepared Me For Assꦓassin’s Creed Shadows

Kღingdom Come: Deliverance 2 requires yℱour full attention, and I'm ready for something a little less intense.

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While everyone else had make-or-break expectations for As🐠sassin’s Creed Shadows, all I wanted from it was a reason to care about the series again. Thanks to its lusciously expansive recreation of Japan, two distinct protagonists, and satisfying tweaks to its trademark mechanics, this new entry gives me that, even if some repetition and bloat keep it just shy of being a new peak🐼 for Assassin's Creed.

A More Grounded Assassin’s Creed Story

Yasuke and Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Shadows takes place in 16th-century Feudal Japan, towards the end of the Sengoku period when the country was embroiled in civil war. The ongoing battle for power between corrupt shoguns and daimyos ties together the fate of new protagonists Naoe (the shinobi) and Yasuke (the samurai), whose tragedies at the hands of the Shinbakfu unite them in building a ﷽new order to exact revenge.

With such a tumultuous time in history as the adventure’s setting, than any other Assassin’s Creed, while also trying to tell a more serious story. It’s refreshing to see a more grounded approach, and the inner workings of Feudal Japan’s culture remain interesting throu🧜ghout the 40-hour story, but the end result is a little mixed.

Don’t expe💟ct any signific﷽ant updates to the series’ modern-day story in Shadows since it’s pretty much ditched within the first five minutes. I miss you, Desmond.

Despite starting strong, Shadows’ story eventually makes way for plot threads that feel largely disconnected from the main conflict, leading to a hurried conclusion that left me wondering if I’d missed something. But ꧂even as the grander plot fizzled out, Shadows still kept my attention thanks to some wonderfully realised char𝔉acters and their more personal tales.

Take A Leap Of Faith And Give Yasuke A Chance

Yasuke smiling in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Naoe’s journey from a humble shinobi-in-training to an assassin driven by𝔉 vengeance who has to find balance in an uptur♒ned world is well-told and reminiscent of Ezio, while her found-family relationships with the group she gathers throughout the narrative make her one of the series’ more relatable heroes. Some occasionally wonky voice-acting lets a few of Naoe’s scenes down, but they’re few and far between compared to the gut-wrenching moments that star Masumi Tsunoda nails.

However, Yasuke is undoubtedly the star of the show. He’s consistently charismatic, honourable, and charming, despite having a tragic and complicated past that sees him derided as an “outlander” and “foreigner” by most he runs into. Shadows doesn’t🥂 shy away from Yasuke’s historical standing as the first Black samurai, as there are plenty of tense and uncomfortable moꦏments that remind Yasuke, and us, how far away he is from home and do right by the heavy s🐻ubject matter.

Naoe 🍰and Yasuke are both engaging characters in their own right, with backstories that become the game’s most interesting plot threads, but the real joy comes from watching them work together and slowly become friends. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is at its best when it focuses on the plights of the people (such as my favourite boy Junjiro) and, while the main plot can get lost in daimyo drama, the journey is worth it to see the pair grow and aspire to change the world around them.

One of my favourite scenes is when Naoe and Yasuke play a drinking game together to ge𓆉t to know one another, which cements how well Shadows executes these more intimate moments.

Odyssey And Valhalla Meet OG Assassin’s Creed

Naoe assassinating someone in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Whether it’s the recent RPGs or the earlier entries that started it all, Assassin’s Creed’s gameplay formula have almost always been split into two halves - stealthy traversal as you run across rooftops, and action-packed melee combat when the quiet approach doesn’t work. In Shadows, this split is persoꦐnified by Naoe 💧and Yasuke’s unique playstyles, which makes each of them 🐼better suit൩ed to different situations.

Naoe’s penchant for sneaking around, clambering over rooftops, and assassinating with her hidden blade means that she’ll feel familiar to anyone who loved Ezio’s games and is perfect for trying to do things quietly, while Yasuke’s tank-like ability to soak up damage and powerful attacks makes him the clear lౠoud option with a playstyle that’s more reminis🌱cent of Odyssey and Valhalla. In a lot of ways, Shadows feels like the perfect middle ground between the series’ two identities.

While stealth has felt li♎ke it’s been in the background of recent games, it’s better than ever in Shadows thanks to the ability to go prone and tamper with lights🔯 to hide in the, ahem, shadows.

At first, I was worried that Yasuke and Naoe would feel rail-roaded into handling certain missions and that there’d be a clear ‘better’ way to play Shadows, but b🔯oth are capable of doing most of the same things, just to different degrees of success. Yasuke might have an easier time with taking on crowds of enemies, but Naoe’s katana and tanto skills keep her in the action just fine. On the other hand Naoe’s grappling hook allows her to scale buildings much faster, but Yasuke can still clamber up and explore well enough in spite of his larger stature.

This clever approach means you don’t feel locked out of part of the game away when you choose either (combined with the freedom to switch between them pretty much on a dime), and is helped by how great Shad❀ows feels to play. Combat has seen the biggest tweaks and is now more parry and dodge-focused similar to (but not on the level of) , while parkour is smoother than ever thanks to some new moves and tools despite the 📖complicated Japanese architecture.

Even though Shadows is the most satisfying Assassin’s Creed has felt in years, the same repetition and bloat I felt with the other RPGs did eventually start to set in and sour 🎃me a little. The lack of enemy types and small pool of weapons means that fights often go the same w🍒ay, while the additions to stealth, like turning out lights, don’t feel like they mix things up enough to stop assassinations from above from being the go-to like they always have been.

Shadows’ Japan Lives Up To The Near Two Decades Of Hype

Naoe standing on a Synchronization Point in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

While Assassin’s Creed Shadows mostly plays like an improved version of what you’d expect, its big swing of finally adapting Feudal Japan is, without a doubt, its greatest strength and my favourite setting from the series to date. Most of the recent entries in the series blur together as a cityscapꦛe soup, or else offer spaces far too wide that strip you of your ability to feel like the Assassins of the early games. Shadows goes the opposite direct꧅ion by mostly shifts its focus away from towering buildings and packed cities.

Don’t worry, it’s not quite as wide as Valhalla’s empty spaces as there are plenty of things to climb on, but the humongous map feels more varied since the locales you’ve come♓ to expect are sprinkled in between gorgeous, unique, and memorable settings that I stopped in awe at nearly every time ♛I came across them. From the dense forests of the Ibu Highlands to the small fishing town of Sakai, some of my favourite moments occurred when I stopped roaming the lands and stopped for a second to soak it all in.

One of the most impressive things about Shadows’ map is that there are 🦩technically four versions of it thanks to the in-game Seasons. These not only change the look but also affect gameplay, with the snow making it harder to move around and freezing over some water.

Beyond being Ubisoft’s best-looking game by a country mile, Shadows actively encourages exploration unlike any other. Instead of revealing the🉐 whole map, Synchronization Points now act as fast-travel points that show you what’s around without explicitly marking it, giving you a reason to engage with it all other than just fast-travelling around and mopping up collectibles. Japan feels more like a living breathing world than any other Assassin’s Creed, one that is steeped in history and culture to uncover.

Naoe looking at a waterfall in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

The only downside to the excellently realised world is that the things you can actually do in it feel a little copy-pasted, which doesn’t help that repetitive feeling I mentioned earlier. There are only so many times you can find a temple with Lost Pages to collect, or another mission giver opening up yet another se𝄹t of assassinations without it feeling a little tired. I know many people come to Assassin’s Creed to have that big checklist feeling but eventually, looking under every nook and cranny wore me down.

Despite some repetition and bloat that makes Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ final stretch drag more than the rest of the game excites, its brave approach to exploration in a gorgeous world, hea🌞rtfelt personal stories, and satisfying tweaks to the formula still make it stand as one of my favourite entries yet. While no one can say if Shadows will be the all-timer hit that both Ubisoft and the series need right now, I can at least say that it’s more than worthy of your time.