It has been almost 18 years since the Assassin’s Creed franchise debuted, and after more than a dozen games, Assassin’s Creed Shadow Maybe the right action and stealth combination was finally discovered to satisfy everyone.
In the grand tradition of the series, the shadow of Assassin’s Creed takes the player to another period, this time during a dangerous period, a major civil war across the land. most gamethe player has the option to control Naoe, a female Shinobi invented for the game, most effectively assassinating enemies in the shadows, or the African samurai Yasuke, a true historical figure who was originally a contract servant of Portuguese and then under the rule of the Japanese ruler Oda oda oda oda oda Nobunaga.
These two characters embody two play styles of Assassin’s Creed series over the years. Naoe is the true form of stealth character originally established in the series, emphasizing silent action from the enemy’s sight, meticulous planning and deadly precision, while Yasuke represents a more action-oriented combat style that has become common in recent games like the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Odyssey and Orgins. By letting players choose their own characters and playing styles, as well as a remake of open world adventures, Shadows can be considered the best game for many players, frankly.
As the game opens, you can try some Naoe and Yasuke as tutorials, but then spend the next few hours with Naoe. At some point in the game, Yasuke will be restored to the picture. By then you will decide which character to use and you can switch at almost any time. For me, I found Yasuke’s action heavy gameplay more satisfying as he could instantly take over multiple enemies, showing his original strength and resilience in combat.
A special moment stands out to me when I fight with part of a mission. It happened that with the uproar of my battle, other officers I needed to deal with appeared. So I was here, and with their soldiers, hiring several officers at the same time, I barely defeated them.
Naoe, on the other hand, is more vulnerable in direct combat and cannot absorb damage or thumps caused like Yasuke. But don’t twist it – she’s still a powerful force. Her abilities lie in agility, accuracy and fast and fatal attack capabilities, while avoiding direct confrontation. Despite this, her assassination was somewhat styled. Earlier, when you play her, she ends up getting a Tanto knife for her deputy to unlock the double assassination. My favorite thing is when she walks between two soldiers and stabs them in the neck with a sword and Tanto.
Get some devices and she can unlock the triple assassination. It surprised me when it happened. Naoe flew out of the top of a small building, removed two soldiers, and quickly threw a shuriken, falling down one third without anyone noticing. She can also use Eagle Vision (another Assassin’s Creed Nail) to see where the enemy is, and running in different buildings from Yasuke, who can’t climb too much with his heavy armor.
Ubisoft can swap Naoe and Yasuke at will – just go to the menu to swap, and then, after the quick loading of the screen, another character will appear in the same exact location. This is good because Yasuke will make him encounter views and look for more places, but he can’t climb like Naoe, so switching without having to travel alone is a blessing. Switching can also get rid of the character’s wanted state, which can happen when setting alerts in enemy control areas. In some tasks, you can choose to choose between the entire task or only a portion of the role. When your characters like Naoe start, there are also some quests that will penetrate into the castle where the boss is and open the door for Yasuke.
Knock down enemies, complete quests, discover landmarks and more activities will reward players with XP. Both characters upgrade at the same time, winning mastery points that can be spent on their respective skill trees. Naoe’s skill tree focuses on assassination, ninja tools and her iconic weapons, while Yasuke’s skill tree is tailor-made for swordsmanship, his bows and arrows, long-standing Naginata Spear and powerful Teppo rifles.
New abilities, combos, extra damage and more tools are some skills that can be unlocked, but to gain more advanced skills, players need to increase their knowledge levels – in other words, they need to accept culture. This requires access to more locations, collecting reels on the temple and performing various flashbacks.
Naoe and Yasuke both have their own armor suits that can be found in Quest areas, castles full of enemies, or demolition bosses. Each piece of equipment has certain statistics, and its rarity can increase damage to attacks, gain more adrenaline for skills or add certain unique traits. A special armor allows Yasuke to block unstoppable attacks, which makes fighting with enemies too easy – if you attack them with attacks, enemies tend to slow you down.
Like previous games, Shadows has a hiding place that offers different benefits such as device upgrades, more resources, and allies that will provide tasks to complete. Those who love to express creativity will be happy to know that there are many small structures and ornaments that make their hiding place unique.
Who is the character behind the shadow?
As for why these two distinct characters come together, Nao and Yasuke are intertwined due to the actions of a famous figure in Japanese history: Oda Nobunaga. Neither of them entered the Saviors, and they were both on the same side while hunting Shinbakufu, a team of Warriors who conspired to manipulate the troops fighting wildly in Japan. When Naoe and Yasuke chase these dark characters, they will meet allies and form alliances once, knock them down once.
The Shinbakufu you hunt can be found on the in-game target board, among other character tasks. As Naoe and Yasuke progress through the story, more characters and their respective tasks will appear on the board. You can see when it’s appropriate to jump from task to task, each with recommended role levels to complete it. Although this free flow approach does allow some freedom, the objective committee has an annoying habit of not always following the task line.
Before the entire task is completed, some task reward tasks have to complete multiple tasks. For some reason, the next task will not be automatically selected after completing the previous task. This means I have to keep going back to the board, select the next task, complete that task, go back to the board and choose the next task, and so on, which is tedious.
That is, start the task to overhaul for a more organic process. When a mission is selected, its target – the person who talks to the enemy or defeats the enemy – does not appear immediately on the map. Instead, players will have to conduct some investigations, which are conducted in two ways.
First of all, by using scouts. As the game progresses, you will be able to unlock scouts who can command access to an area of the map and find someone interested based on the clues given, which usually requires that person to be near a city or area on the map. If you select the correct area for the scout, a mark will be displayed telling you where to go.
However, there are limited numbers of scouts available at a time, and while you can supplement that number at a price, you have other options to do your investigation: Just head to the area and do your own. When exploring the area or city mentioned in a task, you can use the Observation button to find regular people with task markers above their heads. Wandering around them, you’ll eavesdrop on tips on these people talking to themselves or other people introducing the location of the person you’re looking for.
The system feels like Ubisoft’s answer to long-standing criticism of what is called “Ubisoft Formula“This term is used to describe the company’s trends in overload gaming in publishers’ open world franchises, such as Assassin’s Creed, Crying Island and Ghost Scout, and with too much on-screen information and over-structured gameplay.
The result of Assassin’s Creed Shadow is a cleaner and messy interface. It balances the game constantly guides you and gives you the directions from one goal to another, but rather makes you get lost if you want to. It does take some time to get used to this setting, and sometimes it takes a few more steps to complete the task. There are indeed more tools that can be made to make the system more seamless for players.
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Japan is where the creed flourishes
In short, the feudal environment of Japan is a beautiful scene. Ubisoft has created this beautiful, lush landscape for players to explore whether it is the mountainous land of the Tamba region, the bustling harbor of the Vacasa region, or the colorful valley of the Amato region. I remembered The Ghost of Tsushima. Although the shadow doesn’t have the same eye candy as the ghost, it looks spectacular, especially considering how much to explore.
The shadow appears abnormally. My time comment is playing Xbox Series X And play Geforce now. When streaming, I was able to set the graphics settings to Ultra, and the shadows and lighting were incredible.
I have to pay attention to the light source at night because of the candles or lights that can be seen in the dark. In fact, in some cases it’s almost too dark and requires adjustments to the graphics settings. Still, the use of lighting is great and should be through the franchise, focusing on stealth and games when fire and moonlight are the only light sources at night. I do wish there were more details to the NPC and the Soldiers, but I thanked me for feeling like I was fighting the same five defenders and wherever I went, I would encounter the same five characters.
One frustration is that the English voice performance is not that good. I know that Ubisoft wants to achieve a realistic way of how dialogue can speak English as if it weren’t their primary language – it seems to remind players that yes, it’s set in Japan. But when other characters speak English with minimal accents, it sticks to it. It doesn’t make sense, because Naoe doesn’t seem to be trying to speak English for real reasons. Save your worries and change it all to Japanese with subtitles.
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Apart from some quirks with the Quest system, less-than-like English voice tracks and storylines of racing may not be the most compelling franchise, it is difficult to find the Assassin’s Creed shadows and it’s hard to find a major mistake. Ubisoft has found a new formula that might be the series, and it will hopefully re-engineer this formula to keep future players fresh for players. Some stubborn fans may find the shadows too action-oriented and sneaky compared to previous games in the series, but I feel the original recipes in this game are still enough for them, and those who just want to use a big sword to chop up some heads.
Assassin’s Creed Shadow will be available on March 20 for $70.