Assassin’s Creed has been on a roll lately. We recently got to play Valhalla, which took players to Norway, England, and France, and it earned rave reviews. Odyssey, another title with a great review score here on GiN, took us to Ancient Greece. Meanwhile in Origins, players journeyed to Ancient Egypt, and it also earned respectable review scores.
But the series had never been to Japan before. Assassin’s Creed Shadows remedies this and is set in feudal Japan.
Plot: As previously mentioned, this entry in the long-standing series finally takes us to ancient Japan during the Warring States (Sengoku) period of the 16th Century, back when warring daimyo vied for control of the nation. While all of that history is featured in Shadows, it specifically focuses on the ongoing struggle between the Assassin Brotherhood, who basically fight for liberty and freedom, and the Templar Order, who desire a peaceful world through tight control of everyone. There are two main characters this time too, Fujibayashi Naoe, a female shinobi (also known as a ninja), and Yasuke, an African samurai inspired by a real person from history.
The story starts off with the first of our main characters, who is named Diogo at the time (but later becomes known as Yasuke). He’s a slave working with the Jesuit Christians as they petition for the right to meet the current leading daimyo of the era, the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven himself, Oda Nobunaga. Quickly our perspective with Diogo skips forward in time to the final attack on the independent village of Mibuno in the province of Iga. Diogo has changed his name to Yasuke by then, as he named himself after the lord who freed him. He’s also a fully trained samurai.
That’s when we encounter the second main character, Fujibayashi Naoe. Things do no go well for her that night, and she and her father end up fleeing. I won’t go into the story any more, but it’s really well done. Some of the twists that the characters go through might not be too surprising if you study Japanese history, but they are all enjoyable regardless.
Gameplay: The gameplay in Shadows will be pretty different for many players, especially if they, like me, have not really dove into an Assassin’s Creed title since about Unity. For me, the RPG-like system in Shadows and the huge skill tree were really surprising and refreshing.
You also have a lot of different options that you can enable or disable to change Shadows a bit here and there to suit your tastes. For example, I enabled the Guaranteed Assassination option which lets you automatically kill your main target if you are able to get close to them after sneaking or fighting through all of their defenses. This is how the more classic Assassin’s Creed games worked, and I liked that aspect, so it was nice to be able to enable it.
Things get really interesting when you unlock both Naoe and Yasuke because they play very differently, almost like night and day. Naoe is quick and agile, able to escape any encounter by utilizing her ability to traverse the world relatively effortlessly. She can grapple up buildings with ease, climb walls to add distance to your opponents, and generally is a very elegant fighter. Yasuke on the other hand is very much the opposite. He is made to barrel straight into combat and to meet his foes head on. It’s a fun playstyle, but if you try to sneak around while playing as Yasuke, then you’re going to be severely hampered. You can still do it, but it will be challenging, just like if you try to use Naoe as a frontline fighter. The key for most players will be using each character to the best of their ability in different situations.
A great example of how the two characters play differently is how each of them can approach the problem of locked gates in various forts and castles. Naoe can pretty easily circumvent them by quietly climbing walls or stealthily entering through a rooftop hatch, looping around and opening them from the other side. Yasuke uses a much more direct approach: he crashes straight through gates while making a huge amount of noise and then he fights whoever notices the commotion.
Shadows really does a wonderful job of letting players approach the various castles and forts however they want. You can even go back every season to loot them again. Yes, there will be new enemies, but you can also try things with the second main character when you go back to see how different things turn out.
Personally, I’m much more a fan of using Naoe as I prefer the subtler approach to those castle-type puzzles. Using the kunai as a throwing weapon to deal with the guards that I lured into my trap with a bell ringing in a dark area (after knocking out lights with my shuriken) was great fun. Plus, if I got in a pinch, I could always throw a smoke bomb to distract those foes and get away. If lucky, I might be able to assassinate one of them while fleeing, but those smoke bombs are not nearly as much of an instant win button as they used to be back in Assassin’s Creed II. Naoe does have a few other weapons she can use if she gets into direct combat, with her options being a katana, tanto (dagger), or kusarigama (sickle and chain). Each has their uses, with the katana being more of a general purpose weapon for any situation, while the tanto is meant for individual foes. By contrast, the kusarigama is best when dealing with multiple enemies.
Yasuke is made for direct combat, and his equipment is mainly focused on his weapons without any of Naoe’s gadgets. His close range options include a long katana, a brutal kanabo (a very large, spiked club), or a sweeping Naginata. He also can use a bow or a matchlock rifle to attack from range, although there are abilities players can earn to let them fire those weapons up close in a pinch.
All in all, the various playstyles and options are really great in Shadows, and I have enjoyed playing it quite a lot. There are some hiccups, of course, like the fact that using the tanto as Naoe locks her out of any of her shinobi tools or even swapping to a different weapon because of a bug at the moment. You can work around it by jumping off a crate or attempting to climb a tree and then swapping weapons out in midair. Still, it’s not the greatest way to operate, and there have been times when playing Shadows that I’ve messed up and alerted the entire province because I was attempting to throw a kunai at a distant guard after performing a double assassination, which is only possible if you have the tanto equipped. There are a few other launch bugs, but Ubisoft is quickly squashing most of them.
In addition to all the combat, there is even a base building part of Shadows, which is really fun to play with. You can construct various buildings at your base to attain different bonuses or even to train NPC allies that you can recruit to your cause. Or you can just have fun and fill up your base with various pets ranging from adorable little fluff ball Akita Inu puppies to playful macaque monkeys. You can also get creative and plant trees around the buildings or make a relaxing Zen garden. It’s a nice break from all the combat for sure.
Art: The art in Assasin’s Creed Shadows is amazing, and getting to see the warring states of Japan at different times of the year and in different seasons is a real visual treat, particularly during storms or the springtime when the cherry blossoms are blooming. Also, the animations of Naoe’s parkouring in particular are pretty freaking great, and it’s something I’ve wanted to see in this series since I first started playing with Assassin’s Creed II back in college. It involves Naoe performing all sorts of twists, spins, and flips, and generally looking the part of a true badass ninja. I desperately want to see future titles in the series include these types of animations. Yasuke is fun to watch too. I’ve seen him dab after performing a combat finisher which was highly amusing, as was seeing him gracelessly performing the series’ iconic “Leap of Faith” into a hay bale and utterly failing as it tends to ruin any of the ones you land in by flattening them. There’s actually an achievement in Shadows named “Leap of Fail,” which is funny and accurate.
Music: The music is also amazing, with several of the key fights being set to some awesome tracks. Generally, the music and soundtrack makes it feel like the players are really in feudal Japan. I also enjoy playing in immersive mode since I understand the Japanese language, and the performances are really emotional when not translated.
There are few hiccups here though in terms of sound. For example, in immersive mode the subtitles and the spoken words don’t always match. I don’t mean they’re incorrectly translated, but the subtitles sometimes display something different from what is said, even though they are technically still correct. For example, there is a line Naoe says after ending combat when she sheaths her sword. The subtitles read “chichue,” which is something close to honorable father, and it is a highly respectful form of address. But what she actually says is “otou,” which is another form of addressing one’s father that is still respectful but a bit less so and also less formal. It’s a very minor nitpick, but I’m having to really reach for some examples to prove that Assassin’s Creed Shadows isn’t a perfect masterpiece even if it’s still really, really good (and a lot of fun).
Overall: Assassin’s Creed Shadows is easily one of the best titles in the series. For me, it ranks right up there with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag.
It’s so good that I am going to keep playing so that I can reach 100 percent completion and earn all of the achievements for Shadows, something I have not done since Black Flag. It’s that good.
For those who like: Action, Adventure, Stealth, Drama, Assassin’s Creed, Ninjas and Samurai, Amazing Gameplay, Awesome Plots and Characters, and Great Artwork and Music.
Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above, but you really ought to give Shadows a try regardless. You will like it, even if you haven’t enjoyed many of the more modern Assassin’s Creed titles after Unity.