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Along with Ubi's business practices over the years, the reviews—approving, mixed, disapproving, and even down-right toxic—convinced me that this is a game that needs time to tell what its worth really is. (I'm only interested in reviews that say something more than "good/bad game" and reviews that don't focus on the one thing that upset the review writer.)
The above review has reinforced my thoughts to wait longer.
Though I'll say I'm a bit baffled anyone is annoyed (again) by there being an in-game store. It's been there in every game since Origins at least, hasn't it? And I've never needed or wanted to buy a single thing from it. If it gives someone joy to buy cosmetics, they can have at it.
Battle-Pass? Yeah that seems new, but again, why would I care? I am occasionally getting notified I have "earned" new things by picking up glowing keys in game or doing the Animus missions, but I've largely ignored that. I am not hunting for them and have only done some of the Animus missions where I literally ran across them on accident. And I've gotten maybe the first three or four rewards on that list basically by putting in zero effort. It's bad?
AI though, I pretty much agree is not great. That enemies won't chase you onto rooftops is very bad design and makes escaping back into stealth waaay too easy. In combat, they also often seem susceptible to being cheesed by the same posture attack over and over again. Not the best or fastest way to win, but safest if you are hurt.
It is in other words another good open world sandbox I can lose some time in. If you enjoyed Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla, you'll probably find something to like in this one. But as with every AC iteration, they mess about with the formula. Whether you like or hate some of the specific differences is hard for anyone else to tell you.
+1
The "cash shop" isn't blocking access to the game. Either you buy the cosmetics or you don't. No need to complain about it. There's especially no need to act like Shadows is the first single player game to ever do such a thing.
As for the battlepass, it's completely F2P. There is ZERO option to pay-to-win the battlepass. There is no Premium-track either...It could use some work though. The weeklies should be dailies, and there should be longer and more challenging objectives for the weeklies.
It's pretty, amazing environment design. Season and weather changes give the different vibe every time; however, from level design perspective changes are minimal and I feel Hitman has done more in 2016 to make its variations of the same level provide a distinct experience. Sure, you can hide in shallow water in Spring and you can't do that in Winter. Quaint? Yes. Will I be replaying the same mission in a different season for that? No.
I currently have 200 hours, and I've climbed atop of every single radar tower, paid respects to all 69 (nice!) road shrines, collected all 16 teapots... while it's technically "lots of things to do" it's also tedious, mind-numbing busywork. Side content has been reduced to "quests" like "kill 100 ronin". There is nothing memorable like Chikaros we had in Odyssey. Last time I saw a game developer make side content this way was Piranha Bytes on the edge of bankruptcy in ELEX 2.
Shadows had an opportunity to replicate Fallout 4's winning gameplay formula, where you explore, fight, collect crafting materials, come back to your base, build a little, rinse and repeat. However, the overwhelming majority of buildables have to be purchased, and you need the money for gear and ally upgrades. Some merchants are locked behind high-level areas. As a result, hideout building becomes an endgame activity. A huge missed opportunity.
Well I'm not so sure. Where is tools customization from Mirage? Call me spoiled, but I find stealth in Shadows too basic, too lacking. Like it needs that certain oomph to be good. Disguises? Caltrops? Poison darts? Everything about stealth and parkour in Shadows screams "a feature, not the focus". This makes me disappointed that the unnecessary samurai fantasy had to come at the expense of things that are more important in such a game, according to me anyway.
I wish they've done more with castles, just as I wish they've done more with seasons and shadows. Like, castles is the high point of this game, it's the only real thing where it undoubtedly wins over Ghost of Tsushima. However, you only need to infiltrate once before you get a comfy viewpoint on top of a tenshu you can always teleport to. There is, like you said, nothing to do at those castles after you've done with the Daishos.
The fantasy where you infiltrate a castle to assassinate a daimyo protected by bodyguards on top of the tenshu is nowhere to be found, except like maybe twice during the story missions. Instead, all the contracts for some reason take place in random tiny encampments scattered around the wilderness...
I haven't played such a dull story in an AC game before. Usually the main villain is a mystery, this time I called it almost immediately. The narrative is uninspiring and never makes you second-guess, as the simplest explanation is truest one. The choice is an illusion. I chose TWICE not to spare a character, but Naoe spared him anyway. 'Nuff said.
If you explore the entire map like I did you'll end up with a lot of "keys" to spend on the exchange so you technically never need to pay, but still there's no excuse for adding this to single player games in 2025.
Yeah. I killed a sleeping enemy and he kept on sleeping. I killed an enemy while hiding in a box and the game teleported me under the building from which I couldn't climb back and had to load a save. Ability they featured in their blog post on progression doesn't work. Ability of a paid weapon from the shop doesn't work. I would be willing to overlook it because "massive game" et all, but it was delayed twice for polish. TWICE, Carl!
I agree with this take. If you're someone like me whose favorite childhood game was Shogun: Total War and who spent tons of time training ninjas to watch the assassination clips. If you've been looking for a game to scratch your castle infiltration itch and Ghost of Tsushima couldn't deliver due to its rural landscape. If you're a sucker for Japanese setting and a loot goblin at heart, with a strange passion for repetitive, tedious and mind-numbing gameplay loops... then yeah, Shadows is pretty good.
However, in many ways it's a ridiculous downgrade compared to Odyssey, and that's an old game, mind.
Yeah, it will never be a GOTY, Ubisoft - and I mean this lovingly - would not be capable of such a game even if its life depended on it (come to think of it, it kind of does). But at this point I'd be content with just more radar towers to climb and more areas to explore.
However Valhalla still had a back story outside of the Animus and Isu artefacts in the game.
in Shadows I dont even know what I was doing there? I mean it was fine gamplaywise but why? Who made me relive these memories and whats the reason behind it?
Yeah actually that was an oportunity for a lesbian romance but in the end I just said "go F yourself" to her cause she didnt even try to hide that it was the most tedious, pointless thing to search for all 69 of these shrines and btw she wasnt even that hot!
Next the 16 teapots, I believe you mean just the food for the rations upgrade which is also for an achievement, yeah that was also kind of annoying.
Actually I am just 3 of these "kill 100 ..." away from 100% completing the game and its actually only 25 Rounin. I know this cause I just did it today and even though its only 25 it took me so long cause Harima is probably the region with the least Rounin population of all regions in the game and since Rounin are just randomly wandering around you cant do anything else than just riding around and hope for good luck and then again its so pointless especially the reward of 1 gold for completing the entire quest. I dont even know what to do with one gold? I mean I know its for upgrading gear but I am Level 60 quite some time so I havent gotten any Low Level Gear in a while, also I got like 60k Mon and tons of upgrade materials. So why would I ever want to use gold instead?