izigame.me

How people like the newer assassins creed games I don't think I will ever understand.
Sure there's some good in them but the amount of bloat with the lack of any intrigue or substance is baffling.
After these 24 hours I think I can say I'll never play this game again and I wish I'd never bought it.
Any reviewer giving this game 4/5, 5/5, 9/10 or 10/10s are not to be trusted.
Story:
Right from the get go the game tries to lay some basis for why Yasuke is there. Only for you to not talk/interact with him ever again for ~6-10 hours.
After that little bit in the beginning with Yasuke you're then thrown into the fray with Naoe.
I won't go too much into details here for spoilers but to say the story is fragmented and structured horridly is a understatement.
Another mark against the story I'd say would be the English VA and script writing. Maybe some of the weird one liners or conversations are due to poor translations or something but almost every interaction is as jarring as it is awkward. There's some glimpses of good writing in there but it's drowned out but all the absurdity. Only reason it's getting a 4 from me in this subject is due to the few laughs it can give because of how dumb the writing can be. But hey at least it's a story.
If Ubisoft somehow survives maybe the next one will actually have a good story. Both memory and modern day wise. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
4/10
Graphics:
With everything to the highest setting it can look pretty nice. Night's look great when accompanied by the glint of a blade or one of the MANY lanterns, candles and torches. The shades of sunsets are very pretty and are a perfect recreation of what comes to mind when one says "Golden hour". Water is fine. Nothing really special about the water itself. Diving underwater isn't very special either. No fish, coral and barely any decorations like wrecks or shrines. I won't say the graphics themselves are bad. Because they aren't. I just think Ghost of Tsushima's overall graphical style was better.
8/10
Gameplay:
I'm personally not a huge fan of modern AC combat. It's fine, just not refined in a way that can make me feel like a badass during the original generation. I personally think AC shouldn't have gone "Full RPG" with these games. In Shadows I was hoping for some meaningful game play differences between the 2 characters and there is. Just not in the way you think.
Noae- She probably has the best parkour system we've seen in a AC game since Unity. However, I wouldn't say it's better then Unity. The same AC parkour jank still hasn't changed much so don't get your hopes up. They made the correct choice in deciding to have select movements turn into tiny cut-scene/animations that might interrupt the flow just a bit in terms of speed but it makes up for it in style. I hope if Ubisoft continues making AC games in this same style or otherwise they really build on this parkour system from Naoe. Making every assassin here on out even more expressive. Stealthiness with Naoe is what you would expect. Nothing too fancy that we haven't seen in the past. Combat wise she looks as cool as she seems in trailers. It's too bad she can barely put up a fight. If you get in a fight with more then two people? Good luck. Which is fine. As long as she can assassinate better right? Well when the engravings, parkour and THE ASSASSINATION BUTTON ITSELF works then yes. Multiple times I had to re-assassinate someone because somehow the assassination button is a bit bugged IN A ASSASSINS CREED GAME. Can't think of any other AC game I've played were that's happened besides maybe Unity? Either way, just a sad tidbit.
Yasuke- Broken out of the box. Combat wise at least. Dude can't traverse hardly at all and has no way of stealth. However he 110% makes up for the lack of stealth in raw power. Anytime you have a issue playing Noae I suggest playing Yasuke instead because it turn the otherwise hellish jank of the combat system into oddly shaped swiss cheese. Easy mode to put it simply. If you just want to bum rush through story you're doing it with this guy. He's cool for a tankish hulk of a character but personally not what i care for in comparison to seeing a master assassin like Edward or Ezio take out the same number of people with more varied animations.
Both - The modern combat design, to me, just isn't interesting. I dislike after all these years and iterations we still have a limit of 3-5 animations per type of kill. After maybe 3-4 hours of playing Naoe you've pretty much seen every kill animation outside of skills. Same goes for Yasuke. I like that playing Naoe is how a AC game should be played. The challenge stealth CAN provide is nice.
Enemy NPCs - Everything about them is annoying for various reasons depending on who you play and in what situations you're in. Every time I'd died very rarely did I feel like I died due to a lack of "skill". When I die in something like a Souls game or Ghost of Tsushima I can't too often say the same thing. In those games 9/10 it comes down to skill. Because those games have good combat and encounter design.
Bosses/Elites - Just regular mobs with slightly more health/armor with MAYBE 1 slightly different move-set. Otherwise every enemy type is the same. Even the Bosses.
6/10
Exploration: Scaling in this game is also very questionable. How scaling is working alongside gearing and stats just makes no sense in a AC game to me. In a game about uncovering mysteries, exploring the work with parkour(which is a form of self expression) and combat you'd think they'd design a system where levels don't matter. With levels and the harsh scaling present here is actively works against your natural curiosity to explore the world at your own pace in your own way. Instead you'r forced into these zones were you have to interact with the same bases/castles, bandits and outposts. After 20hrs I've more then seen it all at this point. Same tree and castle get reused for almost every sync point. Some sync points are so out of the way you'd swear they're there to just waste time. Puzzles or Parkour challenges? Nonexistent. The new "Scout" system is also a time waster as well.
Additionally, after a while you just start to see the Ubisoft copy/paste mentality everywhere. A world that, at first, seems pretty and unique is actually just a facade. If you've seen one building/castle/fort/camp/enemy/bridge/town you've seen them all. Very rarely does anything stand out. Even when something DOES stand out it's cheapened by the surrounding copy/paste job.
I knew that due to the general Ubisoft design I was going to be looking at icons more then the world itself but I didn't know this game would also start making look at my map almost as much as the other menus. Honestly I think my playtime has been split equally in menus as it has been exploring and working through story. It's just a repetitive, dated blueprint designed to suck as much time from you as possible. Nothing about this games exploration is particularly fun to me.
3/10
Overall:
6/10 Meh.
I hope one day we'll start to get more detail and passion into our AC games and less bloat, battle passes and cash shop items. Maybe then will AC resurface into a new golden era. I really do hope for the best with the AC franchise. The potential with it's story and it's themes from movement to combat can be a inspiration, truly engaging and fun. Just have to keep waiting to see if it'll ever happen. Because AC: Shadows, for me, just isn't it. If you too are disappointed in this game and haven't played Ghost of Tsushima yet I highly recommend it. Plus you can play that with friends with a totally separate story than the main game. Unlike any assassins creed game since Unity.
Honestly I could go on about every tiny thing in this game but at this point I think I've shared my biggest issues with the game that might help make other people make a decision on whether to buy or not buy the game.
Best of luck everyone.
Maybe Next time.