I can't follow the Story...

[Gisborne]

I must be super dumb because I can;t follow half the story int his game, I'm doing the plot with the castle and the guys son etc but I have no idea who is who, whats going on most of the time, I can't remember all the Japanese names etc. jesus... first game I've ever played where I don't know wtf is going on, I never had this issue in GoT though... here it's like who? who? who is this? who are you? what happened? F ME...

[JKDos]

The writing is all over the place. I felt the same way in Mirage IIRC. Too many names to keep track of, so much so that all the big reveals never shocked me like they were supposed to.

[Flaccid Snake]

Same with all these RPG games, you're introduced to so many different characters who'll appear once, and the game gives you so many targets, it's a fool's errand to try and keep track of what is happening or why.

Just follow blue marker and stab

[Shield]

I would say you maybe need to know like a fraction of them to be able to consume the story.

Most characters are for historians and/or weebs to pog at because that's a name in a history book. They usually just give you a soliloquy that vaguely aligns with their real life story and die.

[Drac]

after about 5 hours in i started skipping every cut scene of dialogue and just went on missions i'm 30 hours in and i don't even know wtf is going on all i know is i must kill

[teires]

If you happen to watch or play any other media that revolves around Oda Nabunaga, you will see alot of those names again.

[Gisborne]

Yeah I think the missions board is a big part of the problem, there's 50 active quests at once and more keep getting added wish you could highlight all missions per zone basis so you could select a zone and only one on thay zone highlighted... madness this is lol.

[bruh]

i paid attention to the story, and the only important target after the epilogue is the previous last target and the last one, he is not detectable till you kill most of the board.

all the rest are just people who were in it cause they were promised power. and they will all say they don't know where the box is.

[Weltall8000]

I am not far into the game, but what I gleaned from it so far, is that much of this is really about smaller stories with some minor connection to the main story. Like, this guy was there on that night...but he really has his whole thing going back home, and he just rode with them because that was part of the deal he made for power, which he took home and do what he wanted there.

Repeat several times.

Makes me think of a lot of JRPGs I have played where you go to a new town/region and there is a mostly self contained story there that you resolve to find the bread crumb for the overarching story to take you to the next town/region and...do the same again. Repeat until it's time to end it.

[Shin Happens]

It certainly does help if you are familiar with the history of Japan. AC Shadows is, in some ways, a kind of prequel to "Shogun", and here I mean the book and the two tv shows (the one from the 1980s and the one from last year). In Shogun a British sailor who is the pilot on a Dutch trade ship gets stranded in Japan and ultimately becomes a samurai (an actual samurai): William Adams or John Blackthorne as he is called in Shogun (which changes all the names of the characters but is based on the real historical events). Shogun is set about two decades after the events of Shadows, 1600 vs 1581 in Shadows.

If you are not familiar with the history, at least in broad strokes, I guess you will be very lost very quickly because the game literally throws characters at you left and right, then they all have names many westerners may have a hard time remembering and then it can take tens of hours before you meet them again and by then you have forgotten who they even are or how they are connected to the story.

A very quick summary:

Japan, at the time this game is set, was locked in almost eternal civil war, the various factions / clans fighting for power, Japan was a very divided country in which every regional feudal lord (daimyo) did his own thing more or less (alliances existed).

Oda Nobunaga (the guy who dies in the burning building, the one who liberated Yasuke) was a powerful daimyo (lord of a province) who tried to unite Japan and to bring ultimately peace (under his reign of course), so warred on other daimyos and took control over their territory, but he ultimately failed, because he was betrayed by Akechi Mitsuhide (this game's big bad and one of the Shinbakufu), historians actually do not really know why Mitsuhide turned on Nobunaga.

Then a guy called "Hideyoshi" (he is a minor NPC in the game) continued Nobunaga's work, Hideyoshi instituted various reforms under his rule, he established the strict class system, made it illegal for peasants to leave their home region and created the Daimyo - Samurai - Peasant class system and mandated that peasants no longer can become samurai or even own weapons, which is ironic because Hideyoshi himself has a peasant background and rose through the ranks... and one of his allies, and an old ally of Nobunaga's, is "Tokugawa Ieyasu" (Naoe meets him in the game in her personal quest chain). When Hideyoshi died Tokugawa did not heed his wishes tough, Hideyoshi's heir did not take over, in fact, it was Tokugawa who finished what Nobunaga started and seized power over all of Japan for himself after conflict erupted after Hideyoshi's death, turning the Emperor into a figurehead and thus the Shogunate was born (the Edo period, because the defacto capital, where the Shogun resided, was moved to Edo, what is modern day Tokyo), which lasted for about 220 years or so until the US arrived and forced Japan with several warships on the coast to finally open up and to allow for free trade (highly ironic in 2025). Tokugawa also restriced access of the Portuguese / Jesuits to a few port towns, like Nagasaki, but Japan under his rule was ultimately completely isolated from the rest of the world.

So this game then is set in the somewhat chaotic period shortly before Japan was united under Tokugawa and experienced peace after centuries of conflict. It's a pivotal moment in the history of Japan.

Many NPCs you meet in this game are very famous historical Japanese characters, even minor NPCs like the tea ceremony guy are real historical characters, he ultimately became a "friend" of Hideyoshi until one fine day Hideyoshi threw a hissy fit and demanded the tea ceremony master commit seppuku. And so on and so on.

[superlloyd]

Yeah, same.
I thought it was because I played a bit to intensely 14 hours a day for 3 days straight on release.

But as I chilled down, got better sleep, and took time to listen to the dialog closely.... I realised there are some easy to follow missions. And there are mission with lot of name calling and I quickly disconnect because I can't keep up with all the names and who's who and who did what when.

[ZemX]

Much as I enjoyed playing the game, the main story is the weakest part of it. I might even say it's the worst AC main story in the entire series. And no, not because of Yasuke.

The problem here is there's no big conspiracy. If the mystery boxes contain pieces of Eden, we are never told. Not in the base game anyway. And I'm willing to bet most of us who are longtime fans of the series immediately assumed that whatever was in the box HAD to be some powerful piece of Eden because that's how these stories go, no?

Actually... no, it turns out.

Then there's the big bad evil organization. Are they Templars? Surely they are Templars right?! Again... no. And why not? After traipsing about in pre-history for the last few games and ignoring that one little appetizer of a game called Mirage, we are finally back in a time period where the world has proper Assassins vs. Templars action possible and... no? Really? We're not going there?

And more to the point, are the Shinbakufu even an organization? It seems they gathered in that field at the beginning of the game for the sole purpose of allowing Naoe to get a good look at all of them for her drawing. They never gather again or work together again and had we not seen them together would have no way of knowing they were even part of any group.

Endings are SO important. Any storyteller knows that. And the ending to this game is a massive massive letdown. "That's... it?!" I couldn't believe it. And if we thought there was a lot of trolling over this game, just imagine how it will go if the DLC provides that proper ending that we didn't get for a $70 base game.

[AdahnGorion]

You are not really supposed to. The story is all over the place and in my opinion low quality.. it serves merely as a pause to action and move to new section

[superlloyd]

ZemX a écrit :

Much as I enjoyed playing the game, the main story is the weakest part of it. I might even say it's the worst AC main story in the entire series. And no, not because of Yasuke.

The problem here is there's no big conspiracy. If the mystery boxes contain pieces of Eden, we are never told. Not in the base game anyway. And I'm willing to bet most of us who are longtime fans of the series immediately assumed that whatever was in the box HAD to be some powerful piece of Eden because that's how these stories go, no?

Actually... no, it turns out.

Then there's the big bad evil organization. Are they Templars? Surely they are Templars right?! Again... no. And why not? After traipsing about in pre-history for the last few games and ignoring that one little appetizer of a game called Mirage, we are finally back in a time period where the world has proper Assassins vs. Templars action possible and... no? Really? We're not going there?

And more to the point, are the Shinbakufu even an organization? It seems they gathered in that field at the beginning of the game for the sole purpose of allowing Naoe to get a good look at all of them for her drawing. They never gather again or work together again and had we not seen them together would have no way of knowing they were even part of any group.

Endings are SO important. Any storyteller knows that. And the ending to this game is a massive massive letdown. "That's... it?!" I couldn't believe it. And if we thought there was a lot of trolling over this game, just imagine how it will go if the DLC provides that proper ending that we didn't get for a $70 base game.

I mean you're only half right.
I passed the end credits screen and, it turns out, the templars are part of the picture. And the thing in the box, I am told, have "a power I can't comprehend".
But yeah, they both only get mentioned once and.. that's about it.

They totally dropped the ball about the Isu, fantsaticalstory this time.

Now everyone is entitled to, and have different opinion. I have seen on this very forum, from what seem earnest to god player of the game (instead of the numerous troll) conflicting opinion and desire on the amount, or lack of thereof supernatural, Isu, fantastical elements in this game.
Sufficie to say that, personally, I am happy they dropped the useless short modern time gameplay, but I would have like more Isu & supernatural. Granted in Odyssey the Atlantis supplement was the big chunk of it. But you had main mission with 2 cyclopes, 1 sphinx and some Isu visions.

Here... a very subtle ghost, 1 Yokai which make 1 sudden appearance for a single boss fight (and also a custom dialog with obvious foresigns - blue eye NPC - but no dialog option), and a few Mythical animals you have to be very lucky to find (they are gated behind both specific place and times and no quest for them, and all you can do is draw them).

[MythicRocfordson]

Definitely brush up on some history to get better acquainted with all the names and the politics. Until you do, it'll be harder to understand Yasuke's involvement here or why specifically Nobunaga took a liking to him, why he attacked Iga, why this whole story surrounds the box and Naoe discovering her Assassin's roots

If you know what's going on it's pretty damn compelling

[Gisborne]

MythicRocfordson a écrit :

Definitely brush up on some history to get better acquainted with all the names and the politics. Until you do, it'll be harder to understand Yasuke's involvement here or why specifically Nobunaga took a liking to him, why he attacked Iga, why this whole story surrounds the box and Naoe discovering her Assassin's roots

If you know what's going on it's pretty damn compelling

They removed the Codex entries for story chars this game unlike Valhalla, in a game we actually need them...