9 Hours in and I like the story, but the gameplay just feels samey. You know. I have never complained about Ubisoft open worlds design and I guess I'll start now. They are masters at creating beautiful maps for you to explore. But man do their games feel empty as of late. Odyssey was a hack and slash, but was far from an Assassins creed game in gameplay. It was fast and fluid with a lively world, but just felt too big for some reason. Valhalla was lively and long. If it wasn't an Assassins Creed game, I would be fine with it. But Valhalla is.
Now this game. This game suffers from a world where its beautiful, but it looks repetative. It just feels like everything looks the same. The world doesn't feel alive and people just wander the streets to wander. The hills and mountains that I climb don't have amazing views but a constant fog that looks terrible across the land. Older Assassins Creed games made the worlds feel full and lively through markets with people having conversations and small events happening. And they were interesting, while Ubisoft's recent games, feel just the same and empty. Go here, clear a base out, collect the loot and upgrade your kit, just like every other game. The characters aren't interesting and the voice acting is laughably bad. This is far fetched from the Sony's version of this game, Ghost of Tsushima. In that game, the characters and story was so cool, the land scape was beautiful and I just wanted to see more. It was diverse and cinematic in all of its aspects. Shadows just isn't. It starts out great, then grinds to a halt with progression that just takes forever to do. It feels like a chore to run around the map as it all looks the same. Where as Ghost, the world just popped with color, design, diversity, and beautiful lighting.
As for the story. I like the premise. The age of Oda Nobunaka was an interesting one in Japan 1500s. But the execution is just uninteresting. The base building mechanic for this game doesn't make sense as it did in Valhalla. In Valhalla, I was excited to build a new feature for my home as it felt like I was expanding my grasp onto the land. For Shadows, what is the purpose of building a new hideout other than to gain new scouts for a revenge story that doesn't feel tied to the Creed. It just doesn't feel like Assassins Creed. It's just a revenge story and not a great one. Assassin's Creed 2 had a revenge story, but it lead Ezio into learning what the Creed stands for. Not revenge, but to prevent the corruption of power and control over people.
I just reached level 10, killed the one ear demon, and already I don't want to pick this game back up. It's just Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Origins, Valhalla, and Mirage but in Japan. Give me back running around big cities looking for my targets. Give me back the smooth parkour system of Unity. Give me the love and detail of Assassins Creed that was in the past. Not these small ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blink and you'll miss it towns. That being said, I don't recommend this game. Maybe one day I'll slog through it. But not today.
