Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Assassin's Creed Shadows Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

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Yo, what's up? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games Cats for Tuesday, March 18th, 2025. I'm one of your host's Blessing, Adia Jr., joining me is W-W-E legend. Greg Miller. That's right, Blessing. How are you? Good to see you. This coat. If you're an audio listener, stop what you're doing, pull over to the side of the road, turn on the YouTube video, because this man's got a P-coat, and he's fucking crushing it out of here. I appreciate it. Yeah, I took a page out of Malcolm Moore's book and went to the thrift store. Let me tell you, they got good stuff there.

Yeah? They got good stuff there. For get prices. How much is? Set you back if don't mind me asking. I mean, probably like 30 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Feels good.

I like it. Also joining us, of course, is the CEO junior. Barrett Courtney. I'm very hungover. Very excited for you. I'm not even going to hide it. I'm so fucking hung over, y'all. I'm very excited.

From the mix? From the midmax meetup. Ah. Hanging out with the homies. Met the homie Charlie for the first time last night, part of the nasty boys. you know, the Nassie boys, you know, like Jesse Pitelli, don't follow, Michael Hine, all of them.

It's better if we don't know, it's better if we don't know. What that means. Where does he? You know, hanging out with the homie Janet as well and meeting Sarah for the first time and all that stuff. So, yeah, it was a fun time. But, yeah, it was. When I just review this for two hours and you're all set.

Fuck. Yeah, I love that. You feel this way during the. the biggest Barrett review of the year, of course. We're talking about some assassins, Creed Shadows, unless they somehow stealth relief. This is going to be like his Jordan Flu game.

You know what I mean? Yeah. He's going to come out so hard on this one. He's going to put up so many threes. Also joining us, we have special guest, Tegan, aka lightweight gaming, returning to the show. So happy to be back.

Thank you. Yeah, of course. You've been on, I believe, PSLW and Xcast in the past. Is that correct? Yes. Yep. And you're here to talk about some Assassin's Creed shadows. What's your history of Assassin's Creed? So I am a big Assassin's Creed fan.

Origins is my favorite, which I don't know how a lot of people feel about that, but I feel very strongly. I also, we built our honeymoon around the locations for Brotherhood and two. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Another one that's one of my favorites that people don't typically like, so I'm going to get a lot of flack and I'm prepared. But unity and syndicate are some of my other favorites as well. So I feel like I bring slightly different take, which I'm excited for. We'll see.

Hell yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm excited to talk to you and this panel to talk. I just got lost my sense. I'm sorry. But heading over is like a wave takeover here as well. I'm also slightly hung over from last night as well because, yeah, I did the Minmax meetup and then I went to the mix where I had two more glasses of wine and I always try to limit myself

at one glass of wine. Because wine, it's different for me nowadays. Yeah. It's messed up. Now that you're 30. Now I'm 30. That'll do it. It's different.

But let's talk about a size and creed because remember this is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video. games live on YouTube, Twitch and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad-free, watch us record them live, and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance, be a part of the show, some of your thoughts and opinions as YouTube superchats

as we go. Housekeeping for you, we're an 11-person business, all about live talk shows. KHD, right before this was about PlayStation's big new games that they're working on. after this is the kind of funny podcast and after that is a nuzzlock girdle stream with nick roger and jolly that it's just it's just it's just a nuzzlock stream with nick and is it is just nick joey also on the ropes i believe out there i'll be i'll be on the ones and twos hungover being there uh as emotional support for nick as he is lost without both andy and he's never played a Pokemon before and we just tossed him in he's only yeah he doesn't know the types of

Why did I ever matter, huh? You're leaving, too. I know, but you said he's lost out Nick and Andy. Mike and Andy, but yes. Is this like a situation where he's just grinding, or is he actually going to try to make progress here? We'll find out. Here's the thing Nick doesn't even know.

Nick will sit down and play for an hour, and then he'll decide what he's trying to accomplish. Will we go back to the mall, probably? My favorite was the subred of the threat of just like, he's wasting so much money. Why is he spending money like this in the game? I do love seeing the Reddit Threat. The most backseat gaming threads I've ever seen my life.

Or people just are watching Nick and they're like, I got to say something. I can't just keep letting this slide. I mean, I can only imagine how painful it is to watch a 40-plus-year-old man play a game for 12-year-olds. And lose half the party in the process. Because I did catch the last stream, at least the last part of the last stream. And let me tell you, if you haven't been watching the Nuzzlock,

you got to check out the Neslock. It's good stuff. If you're a kind of funny member, you can get today's Greg Way, which is... I'm going to do it on the way of the GDC. This morning, I had a rough morning. so came in. Didn't have it ready to give. Check that out when it goes up later.

Of course, thank you to our Patreon producers, Islani Twining, Carl Jacobs, and Omega Buster. Today, I'll rock you by Shady Ray's, Miundis, and Factor, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start with topic of the show.

Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tats, Tats, Tats, Tats, Tass. Assassin's Creed Shadows. A game, that was supposed to come out. Last November. Got delayed into this year. Got delayed into February. and then got delayed again into March.

Finally, it is coming out. Finally, people at this panel have played it, are ready to talk about it. To give a quick synopsis, of course, people know what Assassin's Creed is. People know what Assassin's Creed Shadow is. But to set the stage, I'm pulling from the steam description here,

experience an epic action adventure story set in feudal Japan, become a lethal Shinobi assassin and powerful legendary samurai as you explore a beautiful open world in a time of chaos. Barrett, you are the Assassin's Creed guy here at Kind of Funny. He is the animus.

I'm not going to start with you. Oh, all right. I want to save you for the last. I want to let this marinade for a second. Greg? Hey. I'm not going to start with you either. Yeah.

Tegan, I'm starting with you. Of course. No, I'm not going to be. Now, Assassin's Creed Shadows has had a lot of hype going into it, I'd say, for the simple fact that is the Assassin's Creed that everybody's been asking for. It takes place in feudal Japan, lets you do samurai shit. Tegan, for you, does Assassin's Creed Shadows, live up to the hype of, you know, what we've been building towards with it?

Well, I just checked and I'm 70 hours in and two trophies away from the platinum. So I'm going to say yes. Wow. Wow. Wow. Now, for you as an Assassin's Creed fan, like, what are your overall thoughts here about it? Overall, this is my second favorite just under origins. Obviously, it is not a perfect game. I have things that I would like to point out that I would like to have improved on it. but overall I absolutely loved it I loved some of the characters and their storylines and I couldn't

put it down hence the reason I have 70 hours in it hell yeah now on the kind of funny scale of course we work off of a 20 point scale technically a 19 point scale but you know I think a point five can't exist I agree but what about what about a 10.5

what about zero that's no stop that that's insane so we have the kind of funny scale which you can see if you're watching the video version here right where 10 is Masterpiece 9 is amazing. Eight is great. Seven is good and so on and so forth. What would you give Assassin's Creed Shadow out of 10? I would give this a 9 out of 10 for myself. I think it was an amazing game that I was, it lived up to the hype that I had for sure. Hell yeah. Greg Miller. Hi. What do you think about Assassin's Creed Shadows? What a big question, blessing. Thank you for

asking it. You know, we did, we've been through the ringer with Assassin's Creed Shadows, right? I went and saw it at SGF when they did the presentation alongside Outlaws. I liked what I saw. they talked a lot about how this is going to be a very modern Assassin's Creed. They had a whole bunch of new ideas. Then you jumped to Barrett and I doing the hands-on preview, which was what, four hours, six hours, whatever? They let us play that day. And Barrett and I both came back and I like, yeah, it's Assassin's Creed. It's Assassin's Creed, which is not a bad thing.

It's just, it's Assassin's Creed. I am going to abstain from giving a score on Assassin's Creed Shadows. Coward. Well, hear me out, right? I'm 13 hours in. my take on this is using the colloquial words here, not using an adjective to actually assign a score because I don't think I've played enough to do that.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is a good game. I just don't think it's good enough. I think it might just be that I'm officially burned out on the Assassin's Creed formula. There's a lot of reviews up. They're all positive. There's many positive reviews up, right? We're seeing a lot of, it's an 82 on Metacritic right now.

Something that resonated with me was dual shockers, which is the most negative one I've seen so far. It's a 5.5 out of 10. Scroll all the way back at the top. The writer is Ethan Krieger. Ethan's closing remarks, right? His final outro here as he gets ready to give his verdict that I'm scrolling back because it's a very long review.

Good job Ethan writing so much. But he goes, Assassin's Creed Shadow is a bloated collection of uninspired quests that quickly turn into a repetitive, boring grind. I'm on the other side of where Tegan is, where I, every time I put down Assassin's Creed Shadows, I wasn't excited to pick it back up. I was excited to play something else or do something.

I didn't. I commit to what I'm reviewing or playing, right? And I had a week with this game based on how schedule shook out, but then it's also GDC week and yet it did that. My thing about it was there's a very definitive point of, I won't be picking this game back up. It's going to get uninstalled when I get back to my PlayStation's. But there's a point last night where I was playing and it's like,

okay, I was running around playing this as Greg Miller plays, open world games. Cool. they have it back broken up into zones where it's like this is the level you should be or what the level the enemies are going to be here the ones that are too crazy or red right? And if I could, I was running to every one of those

synchronization points and setting it off and having my towers and ready to go and blah blah blah. And last night there was a thing where it's like, all right, cool, you got to go talk to this person. And I said, all right, and I threw up on the map and that quest was all the way across the open world and it's well beyond where I was with my points. And I looked at it and I'm like,

I am not looking forward to the horseback ride all the way over there. I've already in 13 hours had my fill of synchronization points. I've had my fill of going into the enemy camps and, all right, I got to find five of these leaders to take out to then get the chest to do the... I'm like, ah, I just don't want to do that. And that was the thing for me. It's like, there's nothing wrong with this game from my limited time with it to say,

like, it's broken, it's this, is that. Combat is enjoyable. The world is gorgeous. They're doing a lot of fun things in there. I'm not viving with the strength. story. I think it's, there's very much like, this is Assassin's Creed put into feudal Japan. Like,

these are the, like, I know this mechanic from the other ones I've played. I know what I'm doing and, I got to go discover this guy and blah, blah, blah. And there's good and bad to all that, but it was just the thing of like, I saw that last night and I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm not craving this. I'm full. Wow. Barrett, I'm going to throw to you, but

before I do, I want to talk. You played a bit. A little bit about me. Yeah. Yeah. So, originally I wasn't going to be on this review. But then the other day at work, I looked at you, Barrett. I was like, man, y'all, y'all are gatekeeping a little bit about this Assassin's Creed game. Y'all were gatekeeping. Because the deal with me in Assassin's Creed is that I've never been an Assassin's Creed person. I remember back when I was in college, my friends James and Stevie, they loved Assassin's Creed.

They would talk about the Assassin's Creed lore. They would talk about what's the name of Homeboy that was like in the modern day that it was going to? Desmond. Desmond. Come on. Never forget, Desmond. They would talk about like the modern day story and like the theories around it. And they were hyped into Assassin's Creed.

so much so that it infected me a little bit of, oh, I should check this out, I should play this game. So I borrowed Assassin's Creed 1 from James, played all the way through it, struggled through it. Not that it was hard, but it was just that I wasn't loving it, right?

I was kind of bored going through it. Finished it, and they were like, all right, but Assassin's Creed 2 is like where it gets good. You should check it off Sands Creek 2. Yeah, and I started playing and I was like, it's a me, Mario, I like that joke. And then like I started, I got further into it. And I just couldn't do it.

Like Assassin's Creed just wasn't working for me. I tried dipping into Black Flag when that came out. And there's something about the Assassin's Creed franchise. I mean, there's a deeper discussion we could have about it. Because it is, I think, that UiSoft Open World Formula, the kind of like checkbox. Not a checkbox. Checkbox, thank you. Checkbox nature of it.

That doesn't necessarily resonate with me. So I've been out of the Assassin's Creed game forever, essentially. And, you know, ever since Ghosts of Sushima, I've been of the mind of like, maybe I'll check out the Tudel Japan one. Because I do like the setting. I do like that direction for an overall. open world. That seems like it'd be fun in the Assassin's Creed world. And a few nights ago, I'm hanging out. I'm hanging out with my friend Avery, right? And we're looking for a game

to play. And we're trying to figure out, like, all right, I'll play this game for you. It's, like, a tough soul kind of thing. I don't know if that's going to be enjoyable, like, for you to watch for us to play together. She starts playing lost records. And it's like, all right, I don't know if I'm feeling this. And I told her, I'm like, I got Assassin's Creed downloaded. For the record, maybe you also has a review code. I'm not breaking a bargo. Sure, you aren't. Yeah, sure. What is his Avery work for? worry about it.

But, you know, we're like, okay. You broke out the NDA. Yeah. Like,

I'll sign this first. She's like, oh yeah, I played the prolog. Like, you should check out the prolog. See what's up. So I start playing through

and I get to the end of the prolog. Probably takes me about an hour and I have to get there. And I was shocked by how into it I was. The world is beautiful. The game is beautiful. The combat early on, I was like, oh,

I'm kind of feeling this. I kind of like where this is going. The intro of it, like your, like, learning a little bit about Yaska's character, learning a little bit about Nowey's character, and kind of like getting a fuel for the world.

It reminded me of watching Shogun back when that came out on Hulu. Of course, not that it's like one for one of like the seriousness of Shogun and like how grounded that show is. But there's something there in terms of setting and world that has already grabbed me to where... The premise is really good, I think, from that prologue. Yeah. That's what you came away from the preview with Mehta. Yeah.

And so right now I'm in a place where I'm excited to play more. Not saying that I'm going to stick with it forever, but this is the most excited I am to play in Assassin's Creed. Now, Barrett, for you, somebody who has played all the Assassin's Creed's Rheets and reviewed them for kind of funny. I said I just know. You know, all that happens. Maybe we'll get

an update on that later. Whoa. Assassins Creed Shadows. What does it do for you? It's interesting, right? Like, we haven't just been waiting for this game for six months with its delay. We've been waiting for Assassin's Creed shadows for a decade at this point, right? Like, in the

fervor of Assassin's Creed when it was at its popularity peak, with like Black Flag and like the, the the PS3 Xbox 360 generation, fans have been begging for feudal Japan assassins, Creed. And I think after a decade-long wait, I really wish they made the game back then. And I feel like the anticipation for this game kind of reached a level that I don't know if it was ever going to live up to what we've built up in our heads as fans. I think very often Shadows is a game that doesn't know what it wants to be in terms of gameplay,

in terms of exploration. I think a lot of mechanics are singular good ideas, but then we'll conflict with other things that kind of take away from the exploration of the world in terms of playing around with gameplay mechanics, taking out castles, camps, all that stuff. And in terms of story, I think there's a lot of problems. promise there, but I don't think it fully lives up to what it sells at the very first, like, two hours. And I only finally got very invested in it in the last five hours of the game. And then the game ended.

And it was like, oh, man, this is what the entire story should have been as an Assassin's Creed fan. And I think it's just very interesting that the promise of Feudal Japan Assassin's Creed, it was like, I want to see that world and that lore of Assassin's Creed injected into, this kind of era right and I think the game spends so much time trying to shy away from that and I feel like it pulls its punches a lot and so with all that I think Assassin's Creed Shadows is a 7.5 good I had a good time with it I don't think it's a bad game

I just think it has a lot of interesting and confusing choices made that kind of get in the way of the fun a lot of the times and yeah as far as like the open world stuff of the open world Assassin's Creed's. I think it's the weakest of the modern Assassin's Creed games. So yeah, overall thoughts.

Wow. I'm going to stop myself there because now I feel like I'm just like talking. So I want to throw back to Tegan because now that we've gotten the overall thoughts, I want to get into specific elements of this. I want to talk about story, I guess, to start off, right? Because I think a lot of people go to the Assassin's Creed games to, you know, get to know the characters,

get to get into the quests and enjoy the stories of the quest and do all these different things, right? Taking on the narrative level, like, did you enjoy the story of Assassin's Creed Shadows? What did that do for you? I did. I will say it took me a while to get into it. So I totally see where Greg is coming from with, like, the first,

I would say, act one. I really loved Nowe's character, but you were pretty much locked into one character for almost the entire first act. And while I liked her character, I wanted to also play as the other one. I wanted to see what that other character is all about. I wanted to see the story. So I don't think I really started falling in love with the story until act two.

The end of act one, there's a big crescendo moment that really solidified like, okay, I'm invested. I want to know where this is going. I want to keep playing this. And it did have those big story beats that absolutely caught my attention and absolutely made me want to keep playing. I think part of the downfall and part of the criticism I do have for it is there the golden path, like the main storyline is not necessarily clear. There was one point towards the end where I still

hadn't rolled credits, but I felt like I should. And I was like, I don't know what I need to do in order to roll credits. And typically, I'm not necessarily one who's playing a game just to try to roll credits. But with a review, you know, I wanted to try to beat it so that I could talk about it. And I wasn't exactly sure, okay, what's main story? What's side content? What do I actually need to do? So I think I do have some positives about that, but that also took away from the story a bit because some of those storylines weren't the strongest. So I think the main story really does shine, especially at one point it does a little offshoot of a main story for Yaske, an offshoot of a main story for Noway. And those two in particular, especially Yaske's really, really, really amazing stories.

I teared up at one point with Yaske's story and got like goosebumps all over my body and I was so excited. But because there isn't necessarily that clear golden path with the story, sometimes it gets It's a little muddled, and then you're like, wait, is this actually as good as I think it is? And then you realize, oh, no, I've been doing side content. Maybe that's why I don't like it as much. Let me go back to this main thing and get back on this main path. But it does get a little confusing sometimes about what you actually need to do as part of that main story. I want to bring in a super chat.

I want to throw this one at Greg. Seth Sanders writes in and says, if I'm not tired of the Uesoft formula, will I like it, you think? again, I'm not saying it's a 4.5 or something like that, right? If I'm saying it's good, just not good enough for me, which does, without doing it, put me in the sevens range. So yeah, I think you would. Again, it strikes me so much. Jumping in and playing this, I was immediately like, oh man, like, this is doing what

Rise of Ronan did for me in a way, where it is like, cool, this is just checklists, go over there, do that. I just think the traversal was more fun in Rise of Ronan. Do we ever get a wing suit in this like we did in Assassin's Creed 2, right? Yeah, no. I think that was like the biggest thing where I'd get up to these high points and sink and then I'd be like, man, I wish this was Rise of Roden where I could just jump off and go over there. Because I can't, I've got to slowly go back down and find the thing to jump.

Demon Hacker Super Chats and it says Assassin Creek Shadows or Rise of the Ronan. I mean, let's be frank. I mean, this is a better game. Like I enjoyed Rise of Ron for what it was. You go back and watch that. And I think this is an interesting one where if you go back and watch that PSI, I Love You, I think, where we reviewed Rise of Ronan. I was like, I like Slop, give me Slop, give me the checklist, give me the things to do.

It's the fact that I think the open world segment of Rise of the Ronin flowed better than this one does. My problem here is going up, sink the point. All right, cool. Now I slowly come back down. Okay. Now I need to get out of that. There was points of, you know, you get in these giant encampments and you've got to find the five bosses or whatever. And I could not.

I asked you one point. I was playing at the couch. I'm like, am I missing? Is there a power up or a special? special like I can't find this last guy. I've been running around and it left and I found him finally and I killed him. And then it was like, okay, cool. Now I got to get out of here.

So I go over the wall and I come back down and I jump into the water and I swim out of the water. All right, where can I actually climb up this wall? All right, climb up here, get at the top. Fuck, there's another moat. Jump in the water. Come back down. I'm like, this isn't cool. And I can't fast travel out of it because it's an enemy encampment.

So it's still red. These are, is this nitpigigieg and two negative by games? No, I'm telling you what broke the traversal cycle for me where it didn't feel effortless. Like, I never had this problem in Rise the Rhone and I ever had this problem in Odyssey. I don't have this problem in Odyssey. Like, I adore Odyssey. Even Valhalla, which was too big of a game, I felt, and went on too long, I have so many positive remember. Rememances. Positive memory. Jesus Christ. Of Valhalla, even though I never rolled credits, but I put like 55 hours into it. Yeah. This game, like Assassin's Creed games are all about, especially these modern ones,

all about exploration. And this game does so much to make exploration. and not interesting or not captivating. A lot of, like, there are so many goddamn sink points in this game. And every time you go up to one, you look around, and it's just the, it's just question marks. And then, like, that's fine.

It's like, okay, there's a sense of mystery. Like, there's a thing to do over there. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just a town. And that's just what the question mark is. But then, like, the landscape, none of it is naturally, like, interesting. Like, oh, there's like a thing here

that would want me, like draw me, you know, like the, what is it, the Bethesda rule of three or whatever, there's always, like, three things that you can see, like, walking around that, like, interests you and engage you into going and exploring. This game doesn't really have that. They really leaned into making Japan feel very realistic to, like, this part of Japan. A lot of mountains, a lot of just, like, trees to look at and stuff. And I think with that, it just, leaning so... heavy into that, I think, gets in the way of what modern Assassin's Creed games did so well,

which is exploring around getting lost and, you know, constantly finding something that you're engaged with. And the things that you are finding throughout, there's a lot of just like rinse and repeat activities that after a couple of times, you're like, you know, one or two times of like praying at shrines, buying these shrines or, you know, finding these lost pages. Let's find these scrolls, Barrett. Let's find these lost pages that aren't interesting collectibles. God forbid they have historical facts on them or like lore or anything

Nah they're just lost pages Nothing more To jump back in here This is again where I was like Oh man this isn't gonna be one for me Where it was these things When I got there and I saw the I gotta go all the way over there

And I saw the question marks And the untamed map It wasn't that excitement of I can't wait to get to that sync point And see what's there It was like I know what's going to be there It's going to be a burned out house That I climb up and look around

Like okay cool And again that's not bad I think I don't know because I still love open world games I still love checklists I don't think this is the indictment of that it's just that I didn't think it was fun to go

from point A to point B Teagan I will say going off of that the other thing is too it gives you an option where it will give you the line on the ground to follow if you select where you want to go and you absolutely needed that

because this is the first AC game in a long time where you couldn't just go off-roading anytime I tried like there was one time I almost had like a Skyrim moment because I ended up sliding down a hill because you can't climb anything that's not meant to be climbed. So I started sliding down this hill that I thought I could climb, got stuck in a bush, and then started glitching out, and then all of a sudden I flung in the air like I had gotten hit by a giant in Skyrim. And I thought that was the funniest thing. But after that moment, I was like, okay, I really

cannot be going off-roading and climbing up these hills. You really have to follow the designated paths, which, again, I feel like I'm saying a lot of negative things, but I really did love this game. I have more positives, I promise. No, no, you're doing great. But you really do have to follow that line and go where that line wants you to go because the foliage is so dense, like Barrett said, they made it look very realistic and feel very realistic from this region of Japan, like, for the topography. But that makes it really impossible to go off-roading, which one of the things that I really

liked about Valhalla Odyssey origins was that you could kind of go wherever the heck you wanted to go. You couldn't really do that here. Yeah. Right there with you. The amount of times I'm running up and sliding and falling down. Exploration feels so linear And that being in an open world game

I think it's just That's what I talked about in the beginning I feel like it's so conflicting with And it's this weird choice I feel of All right cool I'm right there with you Teagan I'm like okay cool I've learned my lesson I can't just climb over the mountain which sucks But I want to get to the thing

I throw down the line Which already then feels too handholdy for me But then I'm like all right I've gone that far I then let go the sticks and I'm like Oh it's not auto follow Like the horse isn't going to go on its own Like so many games do that where you can hold the, but I actually have to

now I'm just pushing the horse along the white line. I'm like, this sucks even more. Yeah. Which I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you could do auto like pathing in origin. I thought so too because I was like my muscle memory tried to turn it on and then my horse should stop moving and I was like, wait, why am I not following this path? Like I want to eat my snack.

Yeah, exactly, right, I'm like, all right, cool, make it cinematic and go because again, the world's beautiful, but like no. And Tegan, I do want to hear some of your positives, right? I think you came out of this, it was sounding like the person who was like the most, you know, high, on Assassin's Creed Shadows. What are some of the things you like the most about the game?

I really, I loved the characters. I know I had mentioned the main story was really good, but I fell in love with Yaske and Nowe. I loved how they interacted with each other. I thought the world itself was absolutely beautiful. And where I differ with like Barrett and Greg, I found going to those question marks.

I really enjoyed doing that because I felt like it actually had purpose to it for me. Yes, it was disappointing. you couldn't read those pages. I thought, okay, if you're going to have me collect pages, at least put something short on there, like, hey, this shrine, you worship Buddha at or something, you know, like something, something small. And they did have that in other capacities. But again, if you're going to make me collect those sheets, give me a little something.

But they did lead to things like knowledge points, which you need if you want to unlock the next tier of the skill tree. They did lead to with, there's this one little meditation spot that leads to a minigame, which gets really freaking hard, by the way. I felt like such a moron it. For some of them, I was like, I cannot do this. That took me way too long. But those sometimes led to little flashback side quests, which I thought were really cool. And sometimes just like a little haiku or a little anecdote or something like that. But I still found enjoyment out of those.

So I liked going to the question marks, but I do agree it was a pain in the ass to get to them sometimes because you really just had to follow. And then there's one trophy where it's like get to the highest point of the map. And I was overthinking it. And I was trying to find the mountain that was going to be the highest. And you can't off road. So I was like, how the hell am I supposed to get up there? And I totally overthought it. It was much simpler than it needed than I was making it.

But so I thought they improved the exploration from Falhalla. One of my things with Valhalla, it was too bloated. There was too many things that didn't do anything for me. And with this, if I was finding stuff, I could use it to upgrade my camp, or I could use it to upgrade my armor, my skill points for my abilities and that sort of thing. So I thought that they really trimmed that down. And then I like how. they blended the stealth and the action.

I loved Syndicate with the two characters, but there was no reason to switch between the characters. Like, I wanted to play as Evie, so I just played as Evie. There is no reason for me to switch who I wanted to play. With this, there absolutely is a time and a place to play as each character, depending on how you want to tackle something. And I think they did really good job, in my opinion, of having situations where you know, okay, now it's definitely going to be better for this.

Okay, Yaska is definitely going to be better for this. and you can choose how you wanted to play it. And I thought it was really interesting. I was quickly scanning through some reviews before I went live here. And some people were like, oh, no, just do Nowe. It was just you can tell us Taylor for Noway. And I was like, that's interesting because I felt like that was Taylor for Noway. So I think it really depends on how you want to play it.

And those two characters felt so different. So I actually was taking time to say, okay, do I want to play as Nowe here? Or do I want to be more head-on approach here? What am I actually going to lead to? because if I fail at stealth, then I'm going to get my butt kicked with Noway. So do I want to just go in swords blazing, if you will? So all of those things, I think they definitely improved on. And I'm going to stop talking because I feel like I've been talking too long now.

No, I mean, I'm going to throw back to you in a second because I do want to ask. You're not off the hook. Yeah. I do want to ask about, like, you know, the Noway and Yoski aspect of it. And, you know, I know you mentioned that you really like syndicate. I know Barrett, your favorite is syndicate? Is that correct? The syndicate is the factually the best one.

Yes. What's your favorite syndicate? Okay. But it's also factually the best one. Factually the best one. So I do have questions about the dual protagonist thing, right? That's my man, Kevin. Wow, Odyssey's so good.

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And Barrett, I want you know that you shut the world when you said that syndicate is factually the best. I saw chat erupting. Saras 8.01 writes in and says, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood is factually the best AC game. Syndicate was good but does not have the sauce from the NCO trilogy. The syndicate is the better version of Brotherhood. Wow.

That's this crazy. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. It's almost as good as Odyssey. Here's the thing. It's like we have a factually correct ranking that we'll get to later. We'll get to later. And we can show you guys.

One rogue employee put it together, you know what I mean? One rogue employee who played all of them back to back over the course of a year. That's why we call him CEO Jr. He did the science. He did the science, everybody. I have been fascinated. I think everybody's been interested in. All right, dual protagonist.

We're going back to the syndicate thing. You're going to have Nowe. You're going to have Yoske. They play very differently. Does that work? Yes. I really, I think it's very weird. like we were saying earlier

that there's a long time where you don't get to play as Yoske. And I think that's a very weird decision to introduce him and then be like, oh, you like that? Fuck you. You're not going to be able to play as him for 12 hours. It's like, okay, cool. But in a gameplay sense, when you

get to finally play as him again, there is this like level of power fantasy that comes along with Yoske where, you know, when you get caught as Nowe and you have, are forced into fights. Like, even a two-on-one can be a little bit, like,

uh, of a rough time if you get like one kind of thing wrong in terms of dodging. Yeah, or someone's got armor and stuff like that. And then to play a Ziyoske and you're, you're messing up like six, seven dudes all at once. Uh, it, it feels good. It feels really fun to play as. And I, I do agree is that I think the, a lot of, uh, level design or castle design,

camp design stuff feels well designed for both of them if you want to play as one or the other. I was spending a lot of time in the last like 10 hours kind of like deciding to play as Yaske in camps because I like, you know, Assassin's Creed. I like playing stealthy. I like doing all that stuff and mastering all of that. But I was like, okay, I'm going to do this on purpose. And yeah, playing as him, there's a different type of exhilaration in terms of just like messing dudes up. and then also not being able to have like the, was it the Eagle site or whatever? Like you don't get to tag people the same way.

And so there's like a, there's a fun level of just like, oh, who's around the corner type of thing? Like is it going to be five dudes? Is it going to be a solo dude? Is it going to be a big dude? You know? And so I think that stuff is fun.

I have a question based on the one, the only, the Don, Imron Khan, who was popping off on blue sky today talking about this. He said the, because I, when I have unlocked Yoske, I got through act one, I did all that. But it was a thing of, And then anytime the choice popped up, I'm like, I'm committed, I'm now, hey. I mean, I've come this far.

I've leveled it up. I know what I'm doing. I enjoy the gameplay again. Like, it'll never not be fun to hide into bush whistles, stabs me in the face, come through, you know what about. But Imran put this out there. And I don't, I want to know from both you and lightweight, of course. The addition of Yoske makes the game more fun in terms of battles, but also undercuts now he's gameplay. Why would I sneak around an enemy camp, picking off guards one by one by one, when Yoske can literally run in, kick people across the camp.

20 minute sections become one minute, which kind of sucks. My rebuttal to that is like they're, to me at least they're both fun. So it's just like whatever you're in the mood for. Like if you want to like slowly and methodically take people down, like I don't think having the option to do the other way, it takes away from that.

I think that it just gives you the option. Because here's the other thing is that realistically you could kind of do that in the other games too, like an Odyssey and Valhalla. It felt like especially, like, the two sides that Yaske and Nowe kind of represent in terms of these modern Assassin's Creed games were boiled down to one character in the last couple of games. So you could go into a camp and just start messing people up if you wanted to. They've just designed it in a way to like, if you're going to go into a camp, you're locked into one. And so I personally, I find that a bit more interesting than having both accessible to you at all times.

That makes sense. That's my takeaway. Teague and I assume same for you. Yeah, it really just came down to what do I feel like doing at this moment. And I also, it depended on the season too, because I thought there were certain seasons that were more fun to stealth in and certain seasons that were more fun to just go in as Yaske and destroy everything. Talk to me about that. What was your favorite season to stealth in? So I thought spring and summer because you could go in the rivers and you could like breathe through a little reed to hide.

You had the grasses that were dead in the wintertime. But then on the other hand, winter is really cool. too because there was icicles and things everywhere. So it was more of a challenge because if I was running on the rooftops, they would hear the icicles fall. And all of a sudden, now the AI, I will say the AI was pretty smart in this in comparison to other Assassin's Creed games where if I kept assassinating people from the rooftops, they were starting to check the rooftops.

And then they were seeing me all the time. And I was like, what the heck? Why are they seeing me? Why are they looking up? And I was like, oh, well, because if I was in real life getting murdered from the rooftops, I would also check the rooftops. So I thought the seasons really, depending on what you like. from the season would help kind of choose what path you want to take.

Also, I thought it's really funny because Yaske trying to run an ice was hysterical. He would just slip and slide all over the place. And but also he could run through snow where now it was really slow in the snow. So I think with the different seasons, with the different style of gameplay you want to play, it really is just to give you more options. There isn't one reason like you have to play as this one or the other. It's what do you want to do and how can I give the player choice in what they want to do and how how they want to play this.

And I think they really did a great job of if you liked something like Mirage that was back to the stealth roots, you can do that with Noway. If you like something like Valhalla and you wanted to just destroy everything, Asiyazka, especially by late game, by late game, my Yaske in particular was so Opie. I had this two moveset where I could literally just destroy people in two hits, if they had armor and one if they didn't. And it was awesome. And I felt like a god and probably felt like what he would have really felt like in real life

if he was towering over all these people. So it really just came down. to what do you feel like doing and how do you want to play and they gave you the option to do that and I really appreciated that. I got a super chat from Spilling the Beans who writes in and says, I'm in agreement with lightweight's review. Love that you're not punished for sticking with one character in the game. Shadows is my favorite after brotherhood.

What a Beans. What a Beans. I want to talk about the direction of Assassin's Creed because, you know, ever since Origins, it feels like they took a step into making a bit more open, a bit more bigger of a game, right? A bit more RPG elements are integrated a bit more, right? And as we've been going, you know, I've been, I've always listened to KFD and I listen to the kind of funny stuff, right? Before I worked it kind of funny. And I would hear Greg talk about the bloatedness.

Or I hear people in general, honestly, talk about like, oh, mean, these games are getting bigger and bigger to the point where it's like you're playing Odyssey and it's, oh, man, I put it in 80 hours into this thing. It was great. When we're talking about Assassin's Creed shadows, how does this game, Kevin, I think your mic's on, how does this game, I guess, take the direction of Assassin's Creed? Do you play this one and go, all right, we're headed in the right place? Or does it feel like we're standing in the same spot with it? I personally think we're, it's not the same spot. And I don't think it's the right place or the wrong place. Like I think in terms of map size, this is maybe a little bit bigger than origins,

but it's incredibly dense. There's a lot to do within a lot that they put in. Now, granted, is a lot of that stuff very rinse and repeat, kind of doing the same stuff over and over again. Yes. and I think in terms of my biggest hang up with the open world is like the exploration and getting to those things

that I think is very hampered. So I think it's a different spot that I don't know if I would want them to kind of repeat after this game but yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, obviously my take on it as somebody who's tapping out on it would be that I feel like I feel it's a bit lost right now.

I think Barrett talking about it being a conflicted experience is that my, my push would be I'd want to see them bring this down and not go all killer, no filler, but I would, I mean, like, I think, and I know this sucks to keep comparing these games, but goes to Sushima right, I felt like was such a great

pace between, hey, here's all this stuff you can go do if you want to, but it's also just fun to get to the next thing, and here's the story beat, da-da-da-da-da, three sections, there you go, that's the game. I would rather see something more condensed like that because, again, the sprawl of this game is where I'm looking at it going like, I ain't got 48 hours in me, 70 hours in me to go

do this, and I'm not hooked in by the story enough to where I need to see that. I feel like the story starts that prologging in is strong to set these characters up. By the time we get back to Yoske, as Tegan pointed out, the act one into act two finale there does a really cool thing. Oh, boom, this is the setup. And it's like, damn, that is cool. That's like, oh, wow, we're finally here.

Yeah, that is cool. But it's, again, not cool enough where I'm like, I want to put up with the rest of it. And then I feel like I'd be playing the game wrong to, as I've been told, an avowed when I made the blasphemous comment of saying, well,

I noticed that, you know, I was getting closer review so I started doing just the main stuff and people ate me, ate me alive, like, oh my God,

dare you. You know what I mean? So I was like, I'm playing a lot of game. I'm playing the game. I'm playing the games when I feel them, but I'm not feeling it in the loop.

Anyways, so then to sit there and be like, well, now I'm just going to run to every main objective. I'm like, that's going to suck. Especially because they're far apart.

It's not like, this one was. It's like, ugh. in terms of the other direction I want to kind of talk about real quick just because I didn't get to talk about story

you know I think another interesting one with a lot of these modern Assassin's Creed games is that they've kind of gone away a little bit from like the assassins but it always felt like there was a point to it right like origins is literally the origins of the Assassin's Creed right

Odyssey while there wasn't assassins that was a bit more hinting at the, uh, kind of early stages of the Templar order coming together, which was also cool. And there's also like some Isu lore, uh, in there as well. And while there were assassins in, uh, Valhalla, you, Avor were just kind of homies with them. But then that game also leaned heavy into like some deep lore stuff in terms of the, the ones who came before and all this stuff. And I think one of my frustrating, one of my more frustrating, uh, points with this game is it feels so disinterested in being an Assassin's Creed game in terms of story for a very long time.

And I think that was kind of like one of my biggest hangups was like, damn, like, the reason people really wanted to see an Assassin's Creed feudal Japan story was to see the Assassin's Creed world and lore injected in there. And this game spent so much time trying to not do that. And I don't know. There's a whole thing in the very beginning. You put the blade in a hole and turn it. There you go.

Yeah. Cool. Where's the box? Yeah. And like I said earlier, like there's a moment near the end of this game where I was like, okay, cool, we're finally getting somewhere. And I had this moment where I was like, there might be like another 10 hours of this game. And then the game ended like an hour later. And it was like, oh, that's where we're ending. Like we're ending right as we get going. Like as an Assassin's Creed, like nerd and who loves that shit. Like I was so let down by that.

And I think in terms of like the personal stories, I think there's a lot. of, I really liked Yaske's, like, premise and, like, where he goes, I think so little is done with that, though, throughout the game. I think Yaske has, like, some really good, like, moments here and there, but in, like,

a game that took me 48 hours to beat, it felt, like, way too few and far between. And then Nowey's is, is, nowe's story is very much, if you've played in Assassin's Creed, you know Nowe's story. And so, in terms of that, I was also let down a little bit.

And so, yeah. Yeah, it definitely took a while to get into the Templar versus the assassin's story. And again, I wasn't even sure if that was part of the main story, like, if I had to do that or if that was technically side content or like what I needed to complete of that versus what I didn't. However, once we did get into it, I really did love it. I love how they wove the Templars in. But there is, it kind of ends randomly on a cliffhanger. And I almost wondered if I did things in the wrong order because the ending I had did feel like a little anticlimactic when I rolled credits. and I almost wish I ended with a different quest

that was much more like, whoa, that would have been really cool if I ended there. So I don't know if there's a correct order or not, but I felt like the way I did it, I would have preferred if I had flip-flopped a couple quests. But it does feel like, okay, there's going to be a DLC, and we're going to answer a lot of these questions in the DLC.

Don't get me fucking started. Don't get me started on a main. I just, you awoke something in me. Don't get me started. He's off the bench. The hangover's gone. On this main plot point that is threaded throughout the entire,

entire fucking story and it's not resolved by the end. I almost, oh bless, I almost threw my controller. I was so mad. I was like, well, like,

I hit credits and I'm like, that can't be how it ends. And then there's like, you know, sometimes there's story mission after credits. That's kind of how these modern Assassin's Creed games have worked. And I was like, okay,

there's still like a little bit more. Let's see where it goes. And it ends with very much like, I'm not going to do this thing until I'm ready. And I was so, I was angry. I was very upset about like, yeah, that's cool. Don't make that a major point of the game throughout 40 hours to then leave it off of like DLC, winky face. Yeah.

Because that did feel like the main, that felt like one of the main questions, like what is going on here? And then that was the one that didn't get answered and all the other ones did. So it's like, okay, well, I definitely want to play the DLC because I want to see where the story goes. but I almost wish they had left like the Templar story more as the the DLC or something so that we could have some answers

because we just didn't get any we just kept asking questions and asking questions and we really didn't get anything resolved with the assassins storyline. I still really had fun with it and I thought the way they introduced it was really good but I was definitely sad that it didn't get resolved.

I want to address the elephant in the room as we're talking about Assassin's Creed Shadows I was here. I'm embarrassed looking around for the elephant. I'll tell you what the elephant is. Its name, Ghost of Sushima. All right. I've been sitting here.

There's a green goblin mask that's been speaking to me. Just like Ghost of Sushima, mention it. Talk about it. Let's compare it. Let's do all the things. And I've been trying purposely,

obviously, we've mentioned Ghost of Sushima already. But I've been purposely not been reading all of the Ghost of Sushima super chats we've been getting because I don't want this to be about that game, right? But I am going to bundle them here, right? And put them all in one place. Of course, we got one from Carlos Villegas, who writes in and says,

Vahala is one of the few games I've 100% completed. I haven't played all AC games and was about to start Ghost of Sushima. Which should I play? Tundra Boy also writes in and says, Ninja Stuff and Ghost is Kind of Mid. How is it here? And then there's one more if I scroll down from Brennan Riley. It says, Barrett, you were a scholar and a gentleman.

Syndicate is my second favorite after Black Flag. How does Shadow Story compare to Tsushima? Of course, different questions about Tsushima here. Starting from the top with the first person, should they play this or should they play Tsushima? as someone who didn't beat Tsushima because I was that came out around a rough time

of like being burnt out on games for me Yeah It was right after last this part too In a pandemic so that's fair Yeah I think I was also working on Assassin's Creed in review at that time too So doing another open world

Kind of game around that time was rough I would play Tsushima Get ready for Yota I mean obviously if you're a big Assassin's Creed fan Then like if it's calling you Play Assassin's Shadow's but you're asking, I mean,

ghosts of sushi. But I mean, he's a big Assassin's Creed family. That is true. That is not like, I guess. I guess from hearing both their perspectives,

which kind of fan are you? Like what are you looking for from it? You know what I mean? I mean, like, what would you say? See, this is a tricky one.

I will say I, obviously, just like everybody else, had the fears that I was going to be comparing this to ghosts over and over and over again. And I really do think they did a good job of distinguishing themselves

through the music style. Like, don't even get me started on the music was so good. I loved what they did with the music. I thought the art style was great. They have a lot of these moments that felt very Tarantino.

So we're into a Tarantino film. I think there's a lot of this that you'll really like in terms of like the art direction. So I don't, I don't necessarily feel like you can say like you can compare them in that way. If you want something that has like an amazing story, go go Sushu. If you want something that's really fun in terms of just like being an assassin or being a juggernaut samurai or something like that. and you are an Assassin's Creed fan, go with the Assassin's Creed, but I genuinely feel like there's a place for both. So I'm going to sit the fence here.

To jump in on it and talk about it, I agree with Teagan talking about the styles being different. My issue is that I think, from the 13, 14 hours I played, right, that Assassin's Creed Shadows dips their toe into it, but never does it in terms of a style, where it's like that opening prologue, the setup, like I texted Barrett that after night one and I was like, I enjoy

this. Like I am enjoying playing. He's like, I don't know if this is good or bad text. But I was like, the setup to it feels like a samurai movie of what they do in that prolog, right? And I was like, I'm excited for them to invest in that. And then over that next 10 hours from those first whatever hours,

it's one of those, oh, this is still Assassin's Creed. They're still telling it in cinematically showing everything in the Assassin's Creed way, rather than the Ghost way. And there's a moment in the shadows where Nowe, no it's Ziyoske, is confronting somebody

and the guy's like, fight me like a samurai, duel me like a samurai. And they're like, that age is fucking over. And the other dudes lift their guns. And I was like, what that immediately did to me was like, oh, like it's shot like Assassin's Creed and it immediately made me think of ghost and how fucking dope it was every time you go into

a battle and Jin would just go and not his abuse. And I was like, I miss that. I wish this chose a style. Tegan, references it early on and no spoilers but I think I'm on the same page Tegan tell me if I'm wrong but there's a mini game in there where you have to hit buttons and they slowly fade away

and it's based on and as you do it it fades into this black and white and makes it look like a brush stroke painting and I was like this is so cool I wish they did this elsewhere I wish this was like I wish I in ghost you feel like you're in a world you're in this Japanese feudal world

whereas this I was like I'm in Assassin's Creed and that's not bad it's just not what this was, and I wanted more of that. I wanted the samurai film to it. And I think in terms of that, too, I think how some of that stuff is told in terms of story is also very frustrating. Like, we mentioned there's like flashback stuff,

and I think they did that to avoid the intro being super slow, but there are moments that are held for flashbacks that'll play like three minutes after a moment with a character. And you're like, well, if I got the flashback first, that moment that I just had with this character would have been more emotionally

like charged. Yeah. And I just think like how they kind of roll out, especially Yaske's story I thought was just kind of just all over the place and weird. Yeah. Addressing Tundra Boys' question about the ninja stuff, right? They didn't enjoy the ninja stuff

and ghosts. How would you say the ninja stuff is here? I mean, it's the Assassin's Creed is what I expect. I mean, yeah, that's their fucking bag. So it's great. And that's why like, this is a good game. Like I Once you get into the flow of, you know, taking out castles, going around, you know, building your base, which I definitely got lost in and making my base look cool as hell. Which I, of course, had no interest in. Oh, whey, no thanks.

You know, it is fun. And, yeah, like the stealthing around being a Shinobi cross-assassassant, I think is really fun. Oh, yeah. Can we talk about the hideout base building a little bit? Please. So I loved it as well. I thought it was so much fun buying different cosmetics and being able to like choose what I wanted my buildings to look like where I wanted to place them. It was a nice progression from Ravens Thorpe.

So if you enjoyed it with Valhalla, I think you'll really enjoy it here. I also loved that anytime you pet an animal, it unlocked in your camp. So like Jerry the King Lawler would have loved my hideout because there was just puppies, puppies everywhere. And I literally had max amount of puppies I could possibly have. But also you could have like an ox. You could have a monkey. You could have a pig. Like, I loved that.

I had tonicies. I had deer. It was great. So, so fun. Like the customization, great. I felt like improving the buildings actually had passive improvements on my gameplay. But it was so jarring because the frames, and I normally not a frame person. I don't normally pay attention to that because that's like not something that I necessarily care about.

But it was jarring. When you went into your hideout, it dropped. I don't even know what the frames actually were. It feels like a solid 25 frames per second. It was to the point where I was noticing it, which you know, it's like, okay, that still needs to be improved on. You were playing on a base PlayStation or a pro or a slim?

A base PlayStation. I did it on pro and I didn't see any of this. Yeah, I was on normal PS5. Yeah, going from, you know, I play in performance. So going from 60 to what feels like sub 30 is very jarring. I do think there's a lot of like back end things that are happening that maybe this part of the game wasn't really,

quite ready for in terms of coming out now, which is crazy to think because it's been delayed over and over again. But I definitely had a few crashes working on my base, but it was just so fun.

Right, it was so fun. I definitely recommend checking that out. In the cut scene after the prologue. I picked it up yesterday because I was like, all right, I want to play more, you know, like I really want to play more with this game.

And I started the first cut scene and I was crash and I was like, it's a sign. I'm going to go work on game showdown. I got things to do, but I'll be back. Hopefully I'll be back.

bag. A couple of quick hits, quick hit super chats for you. Snugs writes in and says, is there any magic folklore stuff in this one? Of course, if that's a spoiler, you don't have to answer. I've seen a lot of stuff asking about animus stuff too. Animus stuff is a little weird because obviously, you know, rest in peace, Assassin's Creed Infinity, long live, the animus hub. That stuff I didn't get as into. There are activities that are animus related that didn't feel, if, didn't feel very compelling and it felt weirdly like live service of like, ah, do this animus thing in the next six days or it'll disappear.

You earn these points and you can unlock this outfit. Yeah, so it's very much like, that's what the animus hub is going to be. That is what it's going to serve as an Assassin's Creed launcher, even though it's not a launcher. It's, you're downloading shadows and it, like,

is like your main menu and you get the option to launch other games from this game. It's fucking weird. Animus Hub, God, I love it. It's so stupid. And then, sorry, what was the other? Magic folklore. I wish there was much more. There definitely feels like nods to folklore stuff, but it doesn't lean into it like Valhalla did.

And I think Valhalla did it in very fun ways. Flying Penguins writes in. Oh, sorry, you can go. Oh, no, that's okay. I was going to say I can only think of one actual little side story that kind of dipped its toe into and introduced like a folklore character. but other than that it wasn't a main component by any means. Got a super chat from Flying Penguins who writes in and says,

is there a transmog system? How are the micro-transmog is great? You know, something I didn't realize until a couple of days ago is that for weapons for transmogging, you can transmog individual parts of the weapon. Oh, neat. Like, Kababs was saying in the chat, like it feels very much like the Jedi games

in terms of what you can change around for transmogging. And then, yeah, like, A lot of cool outfits in this. I found very quickly the outfit that I wanted now to stay in. So that was accessible for us for review, which was great. Because I think, like, they've been kind of weird about Transmog and the launch of past games. So it was good to have this time around. Yeah.

You unlock it shortly after you're going. Yep, yep, yep. And then with micro-transactions, you're paying for stuff? Paying for blades, playing for hoods? It's nothing out of the ordinary of Assassin's Creed since Blackfaxon. flag right uh you can uh use uh you can pay for you know base building uh stuff which is kind of been the norm since black flag uh there's dLC or there's like outfits and stuff that you can buy stuff that looks silly and goofy and stuff like that maps that will help you out yeah yeah stuff like

that we've seen in the past assassins creed game they don't shove it in your face which uh i do appreciate like i did have to kind of like search for that um and so if you want to ignore that stuff It's very, very easy. Let me buy armor from a horse. Yes. All right, let's get real. They do have, like, those animus moments that you can find in the game. Like, you can find credits in the game almost.

And then you can do, Barrett, you had mentioned, like, little animus activities that will give you a different, it's not a helix credit. It's a different type of credit that will unlock things that do feel micro-transaction-y, but you're finding those in the game. So it doesn't feel as bad. But then, yeah, it's exactly the same as the other ones where you can go in and buy the really cool armor set that makes you look like a skeleton if you want or, you know, makes your horse a dragon or something.

Hell yeah. Fuck yeah, let's go. It's better than horse armor. We're going to close out with one more super chat from Volcanochu. Who writes in, let's bear you got something. Oh, Beir it. I forgot. I want to listen to your podcast within a podcast.

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Assassin's Creed in review. Everybody's favorite pod or in review series relegated to a podcast within a podcast. Review. A.C. And review. That's exactly how I went. Last time we were here.

We reviewed and ranked Assassin's Creed Mirage show. Right now, the ranking is number one, syndicate, number two, Valhalla, number three, origins. That's, don't show that yet, Kevin. Number four, black flag, I told you I was going to call to it. I told you. I'm so sorry. Number four, black flag, number five, brotherhood. Number six, Assassin's Creed, two, number seven, Assassin Creed Mirage, number eight, AC Odyssey.

Number nine, Rogue, number 10, Assassin's Creed three, number 11, Revelations, number 12, Unity. Number 13, Assassin's Creed One. I took a bit of time yesterday to really think about this game, because I'm I have a lot of ups and downs with it, something that I think is kind of persistent throughout the entire series. And after much debates on where kind of in the middle of the list, Kevin, you can now pull it up.

I have a syndicate at number eight below. Wait, no. You messed this out. Kevin. I see what happened here. That's great. Kevin, I like it. Kevin, he's on the ropes.

Let this main drink is water in the desk. Let him back to show. I put shadows below Odyssey at number nine, but above Rogue. So, yeah, it sits kind of in that middle spot. I don't think, again, 7.5, this kind of being more in the middle of the list, I don't think it's a bad game. I think a lot of the middle of this list is very solid games, very enjoyable experiences. So, yeah.

Fair enough. A couple super chats to get us out of here. Jordan and Dow writes, and it says, for me, this game is the perfect balance, between old and new creed. Is it the Assassin's Creed in Japan? I thought we would get after all those years. No. But the franchise has changed.

This balances only in new creed. This balances, I think the main old and new creed well, in my opinion. And then we got one from Volk Dash who says, this sounds like the Horizon Zero Dawn of Open Worlds, where it had lots of limitations and didn't feel fun until the second game improved at all. Shadows had so many games take inspiration from. Sounds like they didn't, question mark, question mark. well dash out if i agree with all your thoughts here but i respect the swing uh guys thank you so much

for talking with me about assassin's creed shadows and telling me all about your thoughts are you going to go back to what's your plan i'm going to pick it up it's the tough thing of there's a lot of games coming out in march and april and so right now i have another game that i'm reviewing at the same time that is a bit more my speed uh and then also xenobleda chronicles x comes out this weekend and i've been telling myself the entire year i'm going to finally play it's zenoblade game because this one has mex in it oh yeah so we'll see but i do want to pick it up, maybe give it a few more tries and see if it sticks with me. We'll see. Tegan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me back. It's been great.

Yeah. Is there a place where people can find you if they want to check out some of your content? That would be awesome. If you like gameplay, let's play videos, you can find those at lightweight gaming. If you want to watch me watch your favorite movies, that's at lightweight reacting. If you want to hear me talk more about video games, you can find me on the Trophy Room PlayStation podcast. Hell yeah. Of course. This has been the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together and talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics. in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and all podcast services around the globe.

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