Assassin’s Creed Shadows review : For years, the most comment we’ve made about Assassin’s Creed, one of Ubisoft’s most iconic series, was “If only it took place in Japan.” So much so that in the end, Sucker Punch decided to do it. Ghost of Tsushima had released and done a very good job. Finally, Ubisoft responded to the requests of its fans and announced Assassins Creed Shadows, although it received some controversial feedback. Assassins Creed Shadows, which is about the story of Yasuke and Naoe, what kind of a game does it offer us after all these years of waiting? Is it one of Ubisoft’s similar games or has it finally broken this monotonous structure? Let’s examine.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows Review: Samurai and Ninjas Together
Set in feudal Japan, Assassins Creed Shadows tells the story of two different main characters. Yasuke, who came from distant lands and entered the service of Nobunaga, and Naoe, who inherited his father’s legacy after his village was plundered by Nobunaga’s armies and went after his mysterious past. Look, let’s agree from the beginning, we won’t go into much historical detail while examining the story of the game, after all, this is a game series where we go to Cappadocia by ship and see Loki in the last games. I’m not focusing on a 100% realistic history, but on the alternative universe the game offers.
The game’s story is divided into different sections and allows us to experience carefully prepared content to get to know the characters before completely throwing us into the middle of the plot. What does this mean? So after seeing Yasuke’s first arrival in Japan, we play the Iga raid and then we play the Izumi Settsu region where we experience Naoe’s story from the perspective of the ninjas and what he is doing among the assassins. After certain events, our two characters come together and the real adventure begins. I already like the general functioning of the story, the characters being integrated into the story and the alternative history fed by real events, I thoroughly enjoyed it when it was in a region I was familiar with like Japan.
There are some shortcomings in the main story, for example, the main enemy group is introduced in a very interesting way, but as the game progresses, I think they are not working well enough. For example, I wanted to see more about the leaders, but I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. Still, Yasuke and Naoe’s adventure is very good. This time, we can play it straight without relying on the open world too much, and thanks to the Canon mode, they even offered the chance to live this story straight without making any choices. I was tired of stories that forced me into the open world and had a lot of different options but forced me to go down the same path in the end, the Canon mode was very good.
Last year Mirage I mentioned that the story connects to Valhalla while playing and that events have changed a lot since the last game I played. The Shadowsun Animus section also deals with the people who are after our memories and our struggle against them. We even try to stop some glitches that occur in the Animus.
Dive from the Shadows or Through the Front Door
With Assassins Creed Mirage, there was an increase in the talk of returning to the game’s roots. It was a game that moved away from the Soulslike style structure that started with Origins and emphasized stealth, where you didn’t have to level up to assassinate enemies, and removed the ridiculous level scaling issue. Shadows, on the other hand, felt like it combined the two styles throughout the game. While we experienced the old-school AC games with Naoe, we have a style that is close to the games after Origins with Yasuke.
If you want, you can be a ninja-assassin who comes out of the shadows and finishes the enemy quickly, similar to the old style with Naoe. Of course, those who don’t like stealth like me can still fight, Naoe’s style allows him to be advantageous not only in assassinations but also in one-on-one combat. Of course, ninjas can only fight to a certain extent, and when you are surrounded, things get harder when you are surrounded. That’s when Yasuke steps in, literally breaking through the door. He swings his kata, swings his spear, if that’s not enough, he hits with his rifle, when the enemy surrounds him, he shoulders him and passes. I really enjoyed trying to pass by stealth for 15 minutes, then getting angry and switching to Yasuke and slaughtering the entire castle.
As careful and cautious as we fight with Naoe, we fight with Yasuke by shouting ALL OF YOU COME. If they all come, we die, by the way, don’t do it. The difference between the two characters is like Assassins Creed Unity and Assassins Creed Odyssey, and without that bad level scaling. There is no problem with enemies’ health bars that never end. In fact, when you are assassinating with Naoe, if you have unlocked the relevant skills, it is very good to be able to take an extra health bar depending on the angle you attack. Also, for the first time in the series, Naoe can completely lie down and crawl, which is very useful in some places. Yasuke can also perform a Leap of Faith style jump, I leave it to you to experience it.
There are a lot of things you can do in the open world, I don’t expect a different approach from a Ubisoft game anyway. Item chests, ruins to explore, pet cats and dogs you can take to your camp, wild animals you can draw, yokai whose mysteries to solve and more are waiting for you. Naoe and Yasuke also have their own special open world activities. While Naoe goes back to his past and relives his memories to restore his balance, Yasuke does sword training. The mini games here seemed very unnecessary to me, I can’t help but mention that Naoe’s stories are nice, but.
While watching the videos, I thought that the enemies attack in turn, while killing one, the other one waits, the stealth part is not very strong. During the game, I saw that this is not exactly true, yes, when you enter the animation, even the enemy that starts to attack takes a step back and watches, but in normal attacks, while I dodge one, the other one puts the spear. As for stealth, normally the enemies do not see very well, but if you turn on the relevant setting, the enemy starts looking not only left and right, but also up and immediately sees the ninja watching him from the roof. Apart from these, the AI is still a bit clunky, I throw my friend into the well two steps ahead of the bandit, wait, is he there, he comes too so that he can throw me. We still have time to see a Hitman level enemy AI.
We can’t start the game with Yasuke and switch to another character saying I’m bored Naoe, it’s your turn and then switch characters again. In the introduction, we quickly get to know our characters, then we experience an adventure of about 10 hours using the stealth-based gameplay we are accustomed to with Naoe. We are given a taste of the open world, but what we can do is limited. When the real events take place where Yasuke joins our team, then we have the chance to experience the real potential of the game. We change characters from fast travel points, and there are plenty of these around. If you cause too much trouble with a character, you start being searched, camps are alarmed, etc. This situation continues until the necessary conditions are met and the season changes.
There is also a Scout feature in the game, which is directly connected to our base. We can build new buildings in our base and open various features, one of which is the scouts who do work for us. These scouts can determine the location of the people mentioned in the mission for us, and they also carry the resources found in various places on their backs. It is a great idea, but in practice it is a bit of a chore. They find our targets according to the descriptions given in the missions, but if you don’t choose the right place, a scout is wasted. I can already find most of the targets by going to the same mission area with Naoe and exploring the surroundings. We never have enough scouts to carry the materials, even after completing the updates. We constantly have to go back to the camp or the safe house and get new scouts. I clean the castle, everything is ok, then I have to go and get scouts and go around again and collect the materials I couldn’t get. Considering that they are the ones who will do the errands, it always made me think that we were the ones doing the errands. But it is a good idea.
Let’s Look at the Technical Parts
I played the PC version of Assassins Creed Shadowsun and it was a pretty problem-free experience overall. The game has done a pretty good job visually, and making Japan look bad would probably be another achievement. I toured 9 different regions of the map, in different seasons, experienced dynamic weather changes and witnessed amazing landscapes. The animations were very good both in combat and in environmental interactions. The things that bothered me the most while playing the game were minor things like clothing sometimes clipping on characters or textures sometimes loading late. Maybe it will be fixed with the first day patch or it can be fixed in the future, but in general I didn’t encounter anything that bothered me.
I also got a pretty good performance in technical terms. While playing at a fixed 75 FPS in 2k resolution, the frame rate was around 45 on average in 4K resolution. The game only crashed twice with a Dx12 error, and it did this not in the middle of the game but while opening. Also, when I finished the missions, the characters would freeze for a while, I think this is related to the online servers because a similar freeze would occur when opening the map and then new photos taken on the map would appear. This is something I cannot comment on until the game is released.
The best bug I saw in the game was the boats in the port areas. I don’t know if the game will be around when it comes out, but the boats in the ports made very interesting moves during the time I played the game. One time, while approaching the port with a horse, I came across a boat that descended from the sky by rowing and flew into the air just as it touched the water. Another time, a boat that was going flat in the water suddenly jumped into the air as if it had been hit by a whale from below, its occupants fell into the water and sat down next to me on the dock. I have witnessed various boat bugs like this, and they were not annoying and always made me laugh.
The game’s music was worked on by 3 different names, The Flight, who previously worked on Odyssey, the Japanese psych-rock band TEKE::TEKE, and Thunderdrum. The Flight and Thunderdrum did a great job on the game’s music and supported the game with music that completed the atmosphere. TEKE::TEKE, on the other hand, I’m not sure how to describe it exactly, but it added a Tarantino vibe to the game. It comes in at moments and makes you say “What’s happening now?”, at first you get confused, then you either like it or you don’t like it at all. I had a lot of fun, they have a very different style and I think it suits the game. There was a game called WET during the PS3 – Xbox 360 era that I really liked, I wouldn’t find it strange if they said it was from the OST album of that game, that kind of music.
I have a complaint about the voice acting. They have put different options in the game regarding the voice acting. If you want, you can play with the voice acting in the language you choose or you can set it to improve the cinematic narration, in this case the Animus parts are in English, the parts that take place in Japan are in Japanese and the foreigners’ speeches are in their own language. This is the best option. But I always prefer to give English voice acting a chance. Here, Yasuke has a very good English voice acting, while the sister who speaks for Naoe managed to carry the feelings of “let’s finish so I can go home” into every dialogue. It is surprising that both names who have never done voice acting before offer such different performances. The Japanese voice acting is perfect, and since the mouth movements are also compatible, you can easily play with the cinematic voice acting option.
Conclusion
Assassins Creed Shadows is a game that set out to please both those who love old-school AC games and those who prefer the style that started with Origins, and it did this by using the most demanded area of the series. They took a certain amount of risk, but they did it in a planned way and prepared it in a way that would please the players.
They said, “If you want, play stealthily, if you want, destroy the castle on the enemy’s head, if you like, progress by making RPG-like choices, or don’t bother at all and complete the current story linearly.” They said, “We have a Japanese main character, but if you want, there is also a western character, there is authentic local music, but there is also a more authentic and interesting style of music.” I felt like they said, “We put it all together, you take what you like” while playing.
I played for about 45 hours, I didn’t feel the boredom I normally experience in open world Ubisoft games this time, and I think the biggest reasons for this are that I can change my playing style with a more compact map and character. As a player who couldn’t even be patient enough with Odyssey, I liked another new Assassins Creed game after Mirage. It has its flaws, there are many things that could be better, but it made me think that the future of the series could be even better with both the Japanese adventure and the increase in Modern World content that is slowly being included in AC games.