Asmongold TV - Oh, here we go.. Assassin's Creed Shadows "Review" | Asmongold TV

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

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This is the review for Assassin's Creed Shadows. You guys ready? I'm definitely ready for this one. Actually, I'm so ready. I'm going to eat a piece of beef jerky before I even start. Check the like and dislike ratio. Oh my god. It's wild that it took almost 20 years and dozens of games for the biggest stealth action series around to finally bend towards Feudal Japan. Assassin's Creed Shadows makes the most of that theme,

with a great pair of Shinobi and samurai heroes sharing center stage that are fun to sculpt through giant castles or wade into vicious battles with. Besides the setting, the bulk of the changes this time around focus on making smaller tweaks to well-established systems, such as less cluttered maps and skill trees, while also doubling down on things that really worked in 23's Assassin's Creed Mirage. Okay. Like the more focused combat that accompanies its better-paced main quests. It's not a perfect reset as in...

That is a cool execution kill, by the way. Like, I think that's cool. Balances and missed opportunities abound. But I feel more confident than ever that Assassin's Creed could be back and here to stay. Wow. Once this is done, I will never take up the sword again.

Let us get this over with. Like a river in the rainy season, Shadow Story overflowed. with cliches and tropes. But morally complex intersecting plots still keep the intrigue high, which is the same trick that made Assassin's Creed Bahala's stories work when they did.

I don't think I was particularly wild by any of the writing on a regular basis, but there are some standout moments of tense reflection and curious happening sprinkled throughout. I just can't see how, like, I can't see how this came out a week ago. I could see how this came out 10 years ago, but in this rule,

not very good. Like, Yusuke, unironically, is the only character in the game that I think looks visually good and visually well-designed. Like, a lot of the other characters don't really look that good. And, uh, yeah, thanks Obama. I guess so, right? At the Obama. Wait, it, wait, it is Obama. Wait, what? What the fuck? We just saw Death Stranding trailer? Yeah, exactly. It's not even remotely close. Who is behind these murders? I don't know. The typical Assassin's Creek conspiracy woven into it fits perfectly within the war-torned Sengoku period of Japan too, like a hidden blade snugly in its wrist sheath. It's still a bit too full of Gohere do-that quests as bridges between major moments,

but Shadows is organized in a way that can be enjoyed in pieces and at your leisure without getting too lost between plot points. Almost like how one might enjoy a good book. The leads themselves are wonderful. You spend a lot of the early game with the sharp-witted and rooting now. You know what one of my favorite things to see is, is looking at the higher level monsters and the, like, guys that you're going to have to fight. And they're just the same guys that you're fighting now. But instead of saying 11 next to their name, it says 30. That always really fills me with a tremendous amount of excitement to continue playing the game. Who is among the last Shinobi warriors of the Eager clan, a role thrust upon her by tragedy.

That tragedy befell her in part by the hands of the charismatic. Hocke Yaskin, who is a tireless warrior for justice and peace. When they begin working together, they are frequently each other's most reliable counsel, with different perspectives on the events going on around them. Perhaps in that chance lies the seed of redemption for each of us. In other words, they truly do balance one another. And while I don't think either one would win popularity contests against some of the other series stars like Etsio or Edward, together they serve

They gather they serve as a bright light in the center of a largely dark tale of revenge. Yeah, I don't know why they went with characters like that, that like people wouldn't really think or, like, I think Ysukee is kind of okay. Like, now way, I really couldn't give less of a fuck, man. Yeah. Most of the missions in shadow starts on the refreshingly intuitive objective board. Thematically, this approach matches the tone of using all of the information you gather to identify hidden members of a secret society trying to plunge Japan into chaos. Functionally, the way it organizes outstanding tasks and the people involved is far more

useful than the old bulleted quest list. Selecting a quest gave me a short list of clues to help discern where the objective was. Past Assassin's Creed games have tried versions of this before, but this one is the first one that I felt consistently made me look at my map and actually deduce where the spot in question might be. I tried to do this like two times, and it was just annoying. and I quit doing it, and I just turned on the guided quest system. It's just an annoying system.

Like, I didn't like it. Lazy ass? Yeah, it's lazy. I don't want to do it. Lighting up your map with a galaxy of tooltips. It's not even not bad. I mean, like, it's just, it's a waste of, it's basically like, why is there this extra, is this extra step adding gameplay?

To me, it's not. It's just annoying. I get that some people might like it for whatever reason, but to me, it's just like an unnecessary complexity that just makes the game tedious. That's how I feel. Shadows mostly relies on sparse points of interest icons to push you towards the areas you'll need to see in person.

Even when you climb up to the signature high points to take a good long look at your surroundings, you'll see a bunch of these things that tell you that there's something out there, but you're going to have to go check them out for yourself to know what. I love this. I could feel my brain starting to detangle the checklist conditioning that years of these games have instilled in me.

Most of these are discovered locations fall into a number of reliable categories. Like castles you can infiltrate an attempt to steal special gear from, or any of the many villages. But there's not a difference. Every castle as far as I know is the same. You kill the elites and then you loot the chest. I mean, fuck, New World had more variation than that. I feel like it's the same thing.

Guided across Japan, but you can't be sure unless you take them in for yourself. I hate this too, by the way. Like, I'm sorry, but a lot of these mini games are just like, in my opinion, they're like stupid and annoying and a waste of time. I don't want to do this. Just annoying. The common thing I would always stop to handle whenever I came across them were world activities. These are smaller locations and events that when you come,

completed, add knowledge points to your characters, adding new options to their skill trees. Not all these events are excited. The best way that I can explain my frustration with stuff like this is that it feels a lot to me like it's kind of turning a game into quop where like individual things that you have to do become problematic, but the introduction of these problematic elements that make them more complex doesn't actually add any gameplay it just makes things more tedious and it makes them take longer and it makes you have to keep track of more things it's like slot yeah it's like slop just extra padding and i just cape and brain well the thing is that i i really don't like

that mindset because that mindset is implying that it's somehow like like you don't have to be a wizard to figure out where a quest objective is, right? I mean, you don't have to do that, but like, has it ever occurred to you that maybe it's caveman design? That, like, maybe having all these extra steps and extra, you know, like, basically, this is a good way to say it. It's kind of like how wow did this a lot, where they would add friction into a system at the beginning and then take it out later on. Like, they would add in legendary gear in Legion, and then they wouldn't let you buy it until the very end of the expansion. It's like, why are you doing this? They would add in like, you know, corruption vendors, but they were on a rotation. Why are they

on a rotation? Who asked for this? And so there's always these problems, like conduit energy, exactly. It's basically you're quopping your game. You're adding in tedium and you're adding in complexity and difficulty that doesn't actually improve the gameplay or make it any more interesting. it just creates a tedious subsystem that you have to use to interact with playing the game. But they often don't take too long and the points are worth it in the end. And some can add an interesting distraction from the action for a short spell. Sure. Between outings, I spent some time at the hideout.

After collecting minerals, crops, and wood out in the world, you can use those resources to build and upgrade important buildings here that give you access to new assets. I spent the majority of my time at the forge managing my equipment, while other important buildings provide features that can be managed in places outside of the hideout. Like the new summoning ability from the dojo, which let me call in help from certain allies I met during my adventure. Damn, she really beating the fuck out of them.

I'm glad I didn't have to dote on this place very much, as I personally can't be bothered to decorate a homestead. Yeah, it's silly. But those who can won't be disappointed by the amount of cosmetics available to find and buy. This is just like I said this before, like this is just not like why you even put this in the game. Like I feel like this is the reason why video games and AAA studios are unsustainable is that like you're animating and designing all of this content and it's like are people really buying the

game for this content? Like probably not, right? And I think if you compare this to something like Blackmuth Wukong where like everything in the game was like very much based off of like gameplay and the intent of this. design. It's cool? No, it's cool. I get that it's cool and it's nice. But nobody buys a game for this and people aren't playing Assassin's Creed for this. And these video games have this scope creep where they just add in more and more systems, more and more little functionalities. And these things don't actually improve the gameplay. They don't actually make the game better.

They're just little bullshit like ADHD mechanisms in the video game. I it's just blowed and all of this costs money this is the reason why they need to have a store in the game is that they're adding in these weird functions to speak for yourself I am of course I'm obviously speaking for myself but like yeah that's what I think is happening

compared to Yakuza Yakuza is a different game this version of 1500s Japan is a beautiful place there's such a symphony of color over every hill and across every lake. Each season brings with it incredible landscapes, sometimes covered in the copper brown of autumn or in tuned in deep white snow. The season system in the game is good. I found the

weather to be some of the best I'd ever experienced in an open world. It was hard not to be moved watching powerful winds pick up and bring in rolling thunderstorms, especially when nature reacted to it all in real time, as flocks of birds take flight and ground critters scurry to find safety and not for nothing but in my dozens of hours and shadows i encountered remarkably few bugs for a game this side uh have i encountered bugs i've encountered bad ai like there's a lot of bad ai and bad ai design but like that's not a bug it's just bad was ronin or this game a 40 hour main story revolves around this game totally clears ronon on on graphics like ron is a ronon is like a p s3 game compared to this

Like, absolutely. But I also think that this game is like a PS2 game compared to Ronin's combat. Masking and eliminating members of a deadly organization called the Shimbukma. Once you've chosen the targets, their multi-mission arcs give you regular opportunities to handle the situation with either Yaske's height or Nowe's stealth. While there are certainly scenarios where one is more useful than the other, in general, there are remarkably few quests where Noway isn't better suited for the task at hand. That's not true. The fact is Yusuke is just the better option in all cases. I should be quiet.

Yeah, he's just the best he's better at everything. If the Assassin's Creed play style is a combination of concepts. The only thing that Noway is good at is running away and hiding. That's it. Parcour, stealth, and combat. Noway can do all of these competently, excelling at parkour and stealth in particular. While Yaske can't climb very well or sneak around,

much due to his size. He doesn't need to. He doesn't need to. He is a devastating force in combat. Yeah, see that? Simply sneak around most situations that Yaske would cut his way through, solving them with so much less trouble. As much as I like Yaske, he's far more limited in one dimension.

With large parts of this game, not quite designed to take advantage of his strengths. It's particularly disappointing because Shadows does find ways to tailor missions around both of their skills on occasion, usually in bigger, more pivotal and more important battles where both heroes need to operate together to succeed. These special missions are separated into sections that allow you to choose which characters proceed with, changing what's asked of you depending on your choice. It's awesome and made the more homogenous space between these moments a real bummer. Yeah, I never even a play the girl.

It's more challenging and thoughtful than in the past. Enemies, especially in groups, are more aggressive and tend to have south. defensive, both in that they block a lot and also in that many of them are armor, essentially giving them another lifebar. Effectively taking them down means having a solid defense of your own, dodging and deflecting their blows to make them vulnerable and taking advantage before they recover, though the camera can really struggle to keep all of the action in frame. Uh, yeah, a little bit I could say that's true.

...tick-forward combat encounters really sing when playing as Yaske, whose suite of weapons are all perfect for decimating enemies. How do you... Yeah. ...of a man, being able to literally run through walls and shake the earth with his blows. Yeah, this is awesome.

Nowe is very fragile by comparison. Yeah, she sucks. ...doing lots of damage when enemies are vulnerable. She gets overwhelmed easily by mobs, especially well-armored cruisers. Like two mobs. Look at this. On the foot side,

Noweay is a menace when striking from the shadows or catching enemies unaware. Oh, that was cool. All right. To be fair, that was cool. Being able to crawl and dodge while prone, as well as some returning ones like her eagle sense and the long missing double assassination,

all of which add up to make Nowe one of the most robust assassins in series. Yeah, that's cool. All right. Enhancing your combat abilities is mercifully less tedious than Bahala's skill constellation. Nowewe and Yaske have skilled trees focused on their weapons and specialities.

with every node feeling far more impactful than simple passive damage bonuses. Well, there are passives, but there's not as many. Gaining new abilities is obviously the most impactful, but some of the real hidden gems add new functionality to weapons, like being able to turn certain attacks with now as chain sickle into grapple that you pull enemies into obstacles are off cliffs. Yeah, that is cool. Speaking of excess, Shadows takes a big step backwards

from the work done around your inventory in Wahala or Mirage. There are far too many pieces of randomized colored tiered gear to pick up from fallen foes or earn as forgettable quest rewards that had no chance of making it into my rotation. Yeah, that's probably true. Some might do as last minute stopgaps to keep your stats in line with the bad guys, but only until you find that next piece of legendary gear or earn enough resources to know what a piece you already like. The skills of legendary gear, like this armor that has a chance to negate range attacks entirely, are impactful in a way that the generic buffs that you get from the,

lower tiers of gear never even come close to. Yeah, the legendary gear is so good. It's insanely good. Assassin's Creed Shadows takes a flashing blade to the series established norms, trimming them to a more precise form in lieu of chopping them down outright. Combat is aggressive and requires more intentional parrying and skill management than in the past. And exploring the gorgeous provinces of Sengoku period of Japan is encouraged thanks to her revamped map that deemphasizes collecting icons and checking off lists.

Yeah. Now, there's not as many of those. Realize a memorable protagonist, even though most of the story they drive follows pretty predictable paths. Both have unique play styles that bolster each other's weaknesses, but they are ultimately imbalanced by the fact

that you can make use of the stealth and exploration skills the master's Shinobi far more than the superhuman strength of the samurai. I... Yeah, I don't know about that. It's not. Yeah, I don't know about that. ...changed the minds of folks who have never connected

with the series before. But for those of us with lots of hours logged into the animus. See, like, I think that was one of the things that was really good, is that they added in a character for people like me, that, like, I like more traditional Dark Souls action combat type games. I'm not really a big fan of stealth games. So I think the idea of adding in your traditional assassin character and also your John Creed, basically he just goes in there and kills everybody.

you know, like Dark Soul style, I think that's great. You know, yeah, you want to have an unabunga option as well. Yeah, Warriors Creed, exactly. And so it's good to have both options. Stupid take? Well, no, I don't think so because like you already have. And by the way, if you're going to have one, you should definitely not accommodate me.

Because I'm not really the target audience for what this game is. But if you want to add in a character to bring in a more mainstream, like action combat audience, I think the way that they did Shadows is a good way. Does that make sense? Some of Shadows parts provide a refreshingly alignment that you should not skip. An eight. For more action, check out our reviews of Monster Hunter Wilds or Xenoblate Chronicles X definitive edition. So this game was as good as Monster Hunter Wilds because that was an 8 too.

And for everything else, stick with IGN. I was actually expecting them to give it a nine. To be honest with you, I was. But yeah, that's at least where I'm at. And what a joke of a quote review. Well, there's the video right there. I mean, paid review? You know, I don't know if it's really a paid review.

I just think that it's something that, you know, I don't know if I'd entirely agree with it. Ubisoft deserves an eight. Yeah, this is like, yeah, didn't they also give Wu Kong an aid as well? Like, it's very, very weird why there's. just giving all these games eighths randomly. Like I don't get it at all. But yeah, there it is, right?