Yasuke Is Like Nothing Ancestral Creations Has Seen Before
It's tough to ignore the elephant in the room that is Assault's Creed Shadows' Feudal Japan - Yasuke, the playable samurai who looms over most of the other characters seen throughout the demo with apparently unbelievable power and composure. Though samurai were immensely crucial to the ongoing political upheavals of Japan at this time, he is less evident in a game typically about sneaky, ninja-like acrobats twisting the shadows to their will. He is surely a fit in the era the game is visiting.
Yasuke does hardly any of that. Rather, he confronts adversaries head-on, as demonstrated straight from the start when he rode into town and got sucked into a confrontation between exploited peasants and money-hungry crooks. Yasuke's battles seem like a sequence of duels, the samurai deft in parying strikes and following up with his own. In the demonstration, he had access to two melee weapons: the more elegant (and identifiable) katana and a club, not unlike those you could find an oni holding in traditional art.
Naoe Is My Loving Traditional Assassin's Creed
Naoe is the revival of the Assassin's Creed franchise's history, while Yasuke is its modernizing agent. She is the tiniest protagonist in a mainline Assassin's Creed game, hence she grabs advantage from Naruto. Smart decision making, accuracy kills, and on-demand adaptations that feel faithful to the core qualities defining the best of Assassin's Creed in the past define her gameplay.
One feature Naoe lacks is Eagle Vision; that has been replaced with a mechanism known as Spy Network, which progressively lets players create their own group of information gatherers and informants and direct them to uncover valuable secrets about targets. Without Eagle Vision, gamers must use their minds to locate targets; hints like "likes to wander the garden at night" give opportunities to scout soon-to-be dead bad men.
An amazing, thrilling balance between Old and New Assassin's Creed
My main learning from the long presentation is just how much Shadows represents the joining of two previously parallel ideas - the "modern" Assassin's Creed that features open world, RPG elements, skill progression, and more, and the more "traditional" Assassin's Creed that was stealth-based first, with an eye toward player's solving world puzzles via observation and creativity. Shadows is the progression of Mirage, a return to form for the series that combines the smart, clever concealed weapon strategy that first set it apart with the action gameplay that has started to define its recent releases.
Clearly, it is too early to say exactly how much Shadows truly harmonizes these two concepts. Ubisoft said in the presentation that most gameplay will allow users select between Yasuke and Naoe. Beyond them, it seems freedom is the name of the game; there will be character-specific tasks and narrative moments that need limiting choice. Given the wide world Japan sets in, in a protracted campaign - nevermind potential side content - that can be a challenging design question. While Naoe can scale over environmental challenges, Yasuke can charge through them. How often will those subtleties show themselves, and how much will gaming truly change?
Shadows marks a franchise first for Assassin's Creed.
Players have been yearning for what feels like a great fit for the gameplay, encased in a Japanese story, for as long as the series has been successful. With that comes the weight of expectation; literally years later, Ubisoft is at last arriving at an era that both fans and creators have been excited to see. After all, games like Syndicate and Black Flag have made much less clear settings for Assassin's Creed's universe function. It's time to show that sentiment is accurate with Feudal Japan the place many default to as a natural habitat for a future access.
Although we couldn't get hands-on with Assassin's Creed: Shadows, we did catch a quick look at the game during a closed-door presentation at Summer Game Fest. I observed a little of an approach that holds the player's hand a little less during target investigations as Yasuke and Naoe tackled the identical assassination operation with somewhat different techniques during the demonstration. At first glance, the mix is a winner, balancing modern and traditional to create a varied experience customized to the particular characters featured in Shadows. It really does feel like a mix between the more RPG-style elements of recent entries and the return to stealth Mirage brought with it.
Assassin's Creed Mirage represents a deliberate attempt by the show to get back to its origins.
With Yasuke swinging the katana almost like a dance form, it has a far more clearly samurai vibe. There were merits to both weapons. Should their guard be down or their armor destroyed, the club was mercilessly efficient, destroying foes with ease. It's slow, and leaves Yasuke exposed to follow-ups if used irresponsibly, but it was a damage-dealing force with more than a few quite brutal execution animations. The katana, on the other hand, has a far more distinctly samurai feel to it; Yasuke uses it almost like a dance form, effectively blocking his opponent's finest stroke before launching devastating rapid attacks.
Yasuke is much more than just the imposing strongman—which is vital. Although his portrayal may be pigeon-holed into a one-note approach, he looks like he has quite a number of feasible ways - just not ones that would fit the typical stealth players could expect from Assassin's Creed. Though he has a rifle that helps him avoid getting zoned out of battles by a group of foes with a combination of melee and ranged weapons, his design is well-crafted.
Shadows: The Potential Pinnacle of the Series Assassin's Creed
Should the response be significant, this is the darkest Assassin's Creed game produced ever. Right now, what I have seen grabs my attention far more than it did in past years. Though I have always loved Assassin's Creed, I have considered some of the more recent designs—except from Mirage—to be somewhat too bloated for my taste. Shadows will establish itself alongside Brotherhood as one of the greatest if it finds a mix between just enough open world content and greatly more stealth gameplay than, say, Odyssey. More of Assassin's Creed: Shadows excites me, and I'm beginning to consider it might really make good on a site that feels like it should be done near-perfectly to fulfill long-standing questions.
For myself, Naoe excites me more since she reminds me of Brotherhood and other early entries. Though, the fact she differs so much from Yasuke makes me even more inclined to interact with the latter too; it's there that I believe Shadows has truly found foothold. It will be difficult to pick just one if both characters are as fascinating and complex as they appear in the demo; with the possibility to flip between them at most points in the game, it's great to know I won't have to.
