I love this game. I can't recommend it. Here is why; (minor spoilers ahead) [h3]The Story is Trash.[/h3]  It just is. It's told in an annoyingly messy way that Ubisoft is known for. It's fractured and told through flashbacks. God forbid we just experience a story as it happens. The two protagonists have ZERO reason to work together. They try to equate Naoe striking back at a genocidal warlord to Yasuke carrying out said genocide. In cultural context Oda Nobunaga is really just the more efficient warlord. Feudal Japan was a terribly bloody time for Japan. Innocents were murdered all the time by the "honorable" samurai. However, Naoe is given a much more modern sense of honor and justice as it mainly refers to her family. It makes no sense that she would agree that she is just as murderous as Yasuke. I don’t care if some kid gives her a lecture. The kid is wrong and childish as he should be… but Naoe is a full grown woman. It’s so bad. The antagonists vary in interest. Some of them are pretty fun quests, some of them are boring and drawn out unnecessarily long. The small amount of good in this game's story cannot make up for the mountain of bad. If you play this, do so with the canon option because your choices do not matter in this game. I recommend immersive settings for audio because I do not think the english voice acting is very good. The Japanese and Portuguese voice acting is excellent and impactful. [h3]Exploration is Trash.[/h3] It’s the Ubisoft curse of having a handful of things to do (clear out outposts, pray at shrines, find scrolls, do meditation quicktimes) over and over and over again. They aren’t done in an interesting way. There are no parkour puzzles, it’s just climbing onto a roof, grabbing an item and that’s it. The world is beautiful and feels like a real feudal Japan which is to its benefit and detriment. Everything is way too samey. There are a few villages that look different enough to sort of stand out, but I struggle to remember the majority of the villages. There could have been so much more done to make these locations interesting. There is a severe lack of interaction with the locations. There are safe houses and vendors. That is it if it isn’t tied to a quest. I do like the safe house system though. [h3]The Stealth is Amazing[/h3] The reason I love this game is Naoe’s gameplay. Playing on the highest difficulties and taking time on infiltrating locations is addictive. I know this is not going to be a good selling point, but as a huge Tenchu and general stealth game fan, I love doing it over and over again. It’s so rare we get a technical stealth game anymore. We have light detection, sound detection, memorizing guard patterns, using tools of distraction, and being able to hide bodies. It’s all there. It is done well and I will continue to replay this game because of it. But this is like taking a starving person to a nice restaurant and saying they can order everything. I want it so bad and there are no other options so I stuff myself here. God I wish there was a good story and interesting world surrounding it. [h3]Combat is Okay[/h3] Again, another Ubisoft curse is making some pretty decent combat but making enemies damage sponges that just become a chore to fight. The combat is not deep or interesting enough to make the long and arduous combat encounters worth it. Unless you play as Yasuke who is basically the opposite problem. He just melts his way through everything and is boring to play. It’s obvious Naoe’s playstyle is way more supported here. It feels like Yasuke was a last minute add in after the game had been created around stealth gameplay and to make up for it they just made the enemies take more hits. Bad game design overall. [h3]Final Thoughts[/h3] Ubisoft has some very talented devs they do not properly utilize. I can feel the brilliance seep through while playing stealth, but the second I'm back to anything else I lose interest. If this game was more like a Tenchu game and it was level to level play, it would be an instant classic, but there is so much Ubisoft bloat and redundancy that it makes this game a chore to play. Not near as bad as Valhalla, but it’s still a serious problem. I wish I could recommend this game, and if you are like me and enjoy the stealth so much that it’s worth slogging through the Ubislop, then I could. However, for the average player that deserves an overall good game, this just ain’t it.
                                                                
                                                            
                                                            
                                                                
                                                                    
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                    
                                                                
                                                                
                                                                    
                                                                        
                                                                            
                                                                                amazing  details.. hope more improvements on stealth and combat