For years, we begged. We pleaded. We offered Ubisoft our firstborn children for an Assassin's Creed set in Feudal Japan. Well, the monkey's paw has finally curled, and Assassin's Creed Shadows has arrived with the grace and subtlety of a shogun falling down a flight of stairs. The game presents us with two protagonists: Naoe, a nimble shinobi who is supposedly a master of stealth, and Yasuke, a powerful samurai who is a master of getting stuck on low-hanging lanterns. The idea is to switch between them for tactical advantage. In reality, you switch to Naoe to perform the one successful stealth takedown of the mission before immediately being spotted by a guard with supersonic hearing three villages away. This forces you to switch back to Yasuke, who handles combat with the elegance of a runaway ox cart. His heavy attacks have such a long wind-up time that you could file your taxes and make a cup of tea before the blade actually connects with anything. Stealth, the very foundation of the "Assassin" name, has been interpreted in a fascinating new way. Here, "stealth" means crouching behind a paper-thin shoji screen while a guard stares directly at your silhouette, his detection meter filling up with agonizing slowness as he presumably tries to remember if that talking shadow was part of the original decor. The enemy AI seems to operate on two settings: (1) The situational awareness of a decorative rock, and (2) An all-seeing psychic hivemind that knows you just thought about stealing a rice ball from across the map. And the world! It's beautiful, no doubt. The cherry blossoms are immaculate. But it feels less like a living world and more like an exquisitely designed checklist. Liberate 37 identical bamboo forests? Check. Collect 150 lost samurai haikus that all complain about the weather? Check. Synchronize from the top of a pagoda only to perform a Leap of Faith into a pile of hay that inexplicably breaks your fall from 200 feet? A resounding, tradition-honoring check. My journey was filled with memorable moments. There was the time my horse developed a sudden passion for architecture and decided to merge permanently with a teahouse roof. Or the climactic duel where my target simply forgot how to fight and stood there, T-posing his dominance over me until I put him out of his misery. Assassin's Creed Shadows isn't a game; it's a cry for help hidden inside a beautiful travel brochure for Japan. It’s the answer to the question, "What if a ninja tried to sneak around while wearing squeaky shoes and a giant neon sign?" It finally gave us the setting we always wanted, but in the process, it forgot to bring the fun. Final Verdict: A Dishonorable Discharge.
                                                                
                                                            
                                                            
                                                                
                                                                    
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                    
                                                                
                                                                
                                                                    
                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                                one of the best assassin's creed