Assassin’s Creed Shadows Review – CNET

Nearly 18 years have passed since Assassin’s Creed’s privilege for the first time, after more than ten games, The shades of the killer of belief You may have finally found the right mix of work and ghost to please everyone.

In the major traditions of the series, Assassin’s Creed shades to the players to another period of time, this time to the feudal Japan in a period of conflict with a major civil war across the ground. For many gameThe players have an option to control Naee, a female Shenobe who was invented for the game that works better in the shadow to quietly assassinate the enemies, or the African samurai Yasuki, a real historical figure who was initially a servant in the Portuguese before they rose among the Japanese ruler Oda Nubonaga.

The two people are embodied on two methods of the Assassin’s Creed series that have evolved over the years. NAOE is the real hidden character that was originally built, focusing on the silent movement of the enemy’s vision, delicate planning and deadly accuracy, while Yasuke represents the most heavy fighting style that has become prevalent in recent games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Odyssey and Oriigins. By allowing the players to choose their characters and the style of play along with an open adventure in the world and its amazing presentation, the shadows can be considered the best game in the series for many players.

With the game’s opening, you can try a little Naoe and Yasuke as an educational program, but then spend the next few hours with Naee alone. At a certain stage inside the game, after achieving it through the story, Yasuke will return to the image. At this stage, it will be up to you to determine the character you want to use, and you can switch in almost any time. For me, I found that the Yasuke game that you play is more satisfactory, as it could face multiple enemies at one time, as it offered its raw strength and its flexibility in the battle.

I had a certain moment when I was fighting an officer as part of the search. This happened completely with a sensation of my battle, and the other officers I needed to get rid of the presence. So, I was here, I faced several officers at the same time with their soldiers, and I was able to defeat them all, barely.

On the other hand, more fragile in direct fighting, is unable to absorb the largest damage or dealing like heavy strikes like Yasuke. But do not get it twisted – it is still tremendous. Its ability to move, accurately, and the ability to stress together is quick and deadly attacks while avoiding direct confrontation. However, with Nae, there is some elegance with its assassinations. Early, when she plays with her, she eventually gets a Tanto knife for her from the hand that opens the double assassinations. My favorite is when you walk directly between two soldiers and stab them in the neck with her sword and Tanto.

Get certain equipment and can open a triple assassination. He surprised me when that happened. NAOE flew from the top of a small building, two soldiers fell and soon threw Shorikin to drop a third nearby without anyone noticing. It can also use Eagle Vision (Assassin’s Creed Staple) to know the location of the enemies, as well as its buildings on its way, unlike Yasuke, which cannot climb much with its heavy shield.

Ubisoft made it easy to exchange between Naee and Yasuke at the will – just go to the menu to switch, and after the fast download screen, the other letter will appear in the same specified place. This has been working well since traveling because Yasuke will make him face views to find more sites that must be visited, but he cannot climb like Naee, so the switching procedure without the need to travel separately is a blessing. The switch can also get rid of the required personality status, which occurs when preparing warnings in a controlled area of ​​the enemy. In some tasks, there is an option to go with anyone for the entire task or just a slide. There are also questions when you start as one character, such as Naee, which will infiltrate into a castle where the president opens the door to Yasuke to come.

Undership enemies, complete tasks, discover landmarks and more activities, players will be rewarded with XP. Both people rise simultaneously, as they earn mastery points that can be spent on their skills trees. The Naee skill tree focuses on assassinations, ninja tools and its distinctive weapons, while Yasuke’s is designed towards swords, bow, long -range Naginata Spear, and strong TepPo rifle.

The new capabilities, groups, additional damages, and more tools are some skills that can be lock, but to obtain more advanced skills, the players will need to increase the rank of their acquaintances – in other words, they need to obtain cultivation. This requires visiting more sites, collecting coils in temples and playing through various memories of the past.

NAOE and Yasuke also have their own shield groups that can be found in search areas, enemy -filled castles, or bosses. Each piece of equipment has some statistics, and its scarcity can increase the damage to the attacks, or acquire more adrenaline used in skills or add some unique properties. One of the specific shields allows Yasuke to prevent non -applicable attacks, which makes the fighting enemies almost easy – non -statistical attacks are what tends to go to you if you start from attacks.

As in previous games, Shadows has a hideout that offers different benefits such as equipment promotions, more resources and allies who will provide questions to complete. These players who enjoy expressing their creativity will be happy to know that there are many small structures and motifs to make their hideout unique.

Who are the characters behind the shade?

The reason why these two very different people meet, Naw and Yasuki are intertwined from their destinies due to famous personal behavior in Japanese history: Oda nobunaga. Without entering the spoilers, both find themselves on the same aspect in the search for Shinkovo, a group of warriors who conspire to manipulate the forces that collide with battles engraved inside Japan. While Nae and Yasuke hunts these mysterious characters, they will meet the allies and form alliances at the same time.

The various shinbakufu hunting, among other personal questions, was found on the game’s goal board. When Nae and Yasuke advances through the story, more characters and tasks each will be on the blackboard. You can jump from one endeavor to another as you see appropriate, with a proposed letter level to complete it. While this method that flows free to deal with tasks allows some freedom, the objective plate has a disturbing habit for not always following the search line.

Some practitioners have the search for multiple tasks to end them before the entire task is completed, and for some reason, the next task will not be automatically determined after completing the previous task. This means that I had to return constantly to the painting, choose the next task, complete that task, and return to the painting to determine the next council, and so on, it was boring.

However, obtaining tasks for more organic flow has been fixed. When the research is determined, his goal – the person who speaks to the enemy or his enemy – does not appear immediately on the map. Instead, the players will have to do some of the investigation, which is what happens in two ways.

The first is through the use of the scouts. With your progress during the game, you will be able to open the scouts who can request a vision of a specific area of ​​the map and search for a person with attention based on the submitted clues, which usually require that the person is in a specific city or near a specific area on the map. If you choose the appropriate area for the scouts, a mark will be shown to you where you go.

However, there are a limited number of scouts available at the same time, and although you can renew this number for the price, you have another option to achieve: you only need to go to the area and do your scout. When exploring the area or city mentioned in The Quest, you can use the Observe button to discover ordinary people who have search signs above their heads. Those around them wander and you will hear those who speak to themselves or fall into hints about the whereabout where you are looking for.

This system looks like a Ubisoft answer to long criticism of what it called “”Ubisoft formula“The term used to describe the company’s tendency to increase the download of games in the open publishers’ privileges such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon with excessive information on the screen and excessive organized play.

The result in Assassin’s Creed shades is a cleaner and less disturbing interface. It is constantly attracting the balance of the game and allows you to reach the directions yourself from one goal to another, and instead, it allows you to lose if you want it. It takes some time to get used to this preparation, and sometimes, some additional steps to complete the tasks. It seems that more tools can be done to make this system smoother for players.

Read more: Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Environmental technology promotion brings weather and overwhelming seasons

Japan where the doctrine flourishes

Japan feudal status, simply, a beautiful scene. Ubisoft has created this lush beautiful landscape of players to explore whether the mountainous terrain of Tamba or the loud wakasa port or Mitari Colorfi Valley in the Yamato region. I remembered the landscape Ghosts Tsuhima. Although shades do not provide the same eye candy as ghosts, they look amazing, especially given the amount of exploration.

The shades are presented exceptionally well. My time was divided into the review between playing on Xbox X. And flow on GeForce now. When flowing, I was able to set the graphics settings on Ultra, shadows and lighting were incredible.

I had to be aware of light sources at night, as the candle or lamp was all available to see it in the dark. In fact, it was very dark in some cases, which requires a disk of graphics settings. However, the use of lighting is great, which should be expected par excellence focused on the ghost and a game that occurs at a time when the fire and the moon light are the only light sources at night. I was hoping that NPCS and soldiers had more details, but I could not feel that I was fighting the same five guards and running in the same five characters wherever I went.

One of them is that English audio acting is not good. I understand that Ubisoft wanted to achieve a somewhat realistic way of how the dialogue flowed as characters like Nae and Yasuke spoke English with a heavy tone as if they were not their basic language – apparently remind the players, yes, he was appointed in Japan. But she sticks to when other characters speak English with the lowest capacity. It is not only logical that Nawa seems to be struggling to speak English without a real reason. Save yourself discomfort and change everything to the Japanese with translations.

With the exception of some dodes with the Quest system, the English lower star sound path and a story may not be more privileged, it is difficult to find big mistakes with Assassin’s Creed shades. Ubisoft has found what could be the new formula for privilege, and we hope to re -equip this formula to maintain new future titles for players. Some fans may find that the shadows are somewhat directed and less directed than the previous games in this series, but I feel that there is still enough of the original formula in this game to please it, as well as those who want to use a large sword to cut some heads.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is launched on March 20 for Mac, PC, PS5 and Xbox Series for $ 70.