Given that the base of the franchise is always have been around sneaky assassins who hide in the dark and scale buildings, it is absolutely understandable that fans have long wanted a ninja-themed hero.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows are the solution of this popular demand, but it offers a much more by introducing a second protagonist, Yasuke the Samurai.
Yasuke is the first playable historical character in the series, and his reach is completely different from the shinobi protagonist, Naoe. We get to experience these different playstyles firsthand during an exclusive demo in Los Angeles.
The scene starts when Yasuke enters in a town, immediately attracts the attention of everyone around. His ornate armor alone would be enough to make him stand out, but his huge personality captures all eyes to stare at him when he moves through the streets.
As per the developers, Yasuke cannot blend into the crowd, nor he can scale buildings like Naoe or other assassins. Still Yasuke is anything but powerless.
A woman asks for help from Yasuke to help remove a local group that imposes heavy taxes on community, and he agrees without hesitating even for a moment.
Rather than displaying a marker on the screen to guide the player, a list of clues which contains the target’s whereabouts starts appearing. Yasuke then walks towards the indicated district with a gesture of calmness.
Immediately Yasuke is asked to leave by the guard, when a corrupt samurai is spotted. Without making a delay Yasuke reveals his intentions, and immediately draws his kanabo, a big spiked club, and gets into combat.
His swings are devastating, making one enemy bleed and crushing to death to another enemy. Yasuke’s strength is so good that during the demo, a civilian was hit by mistake while getting ready for a more powerful attack by our player. I tend to make a note mentally so that I can pay attention to my surroundings when I do this mission.
After Yasuke gets interchange to his katana and wins from the samurai boss in a one-on-one combat, developers present us with a decision. The daimyo, who is the boss of the corrupt samurai, also needs to be assassinated.
But the decision has to be made by the audience that which character they want to witness in action. After seeing theYasuke’s skills and enjoying it thoroughly, we can vote unanimously to see Naoe in action.
Naoe gets in the castle grounds during night, covered completely by the darkness and a convenient rainfall. Her technique of play is almost similar to what we have seen in the series, utilizing parkour and stealth.
She uses a hook which has the grappling feature, to swing from one tree branch to another, and then gets down to crawl through the grass nearby.
The area well lit by paper lanterns during the nights. But Naoe can make use of her kunai to put the lanterns out, and can distract her targets which can make her approach much easier.
While her run, many lanterns were extinguished making the title apt “Shadows”. At first it seems normal, but after seeing the player’s interaction with light sources makes it quite apt.
At last, when Naoe reaches the daimyo, she loops around to a deep pool next to him. She drops to her stomach, gets in the water by herself completely, using it as cover.
After waiting for some time, we get to see her pull out a reed to use as a makeshift snorkel and gets ahead stealthily. The Damiyo does not see her coming, and he is found dead in a single thrust of her blade.
The demo ends with another journey through the castle for each character. Yasuke takes a direct approach, while Naoe goes through a daytime path. There is a introduction of new weapons such as Yasuke has a rifle, Naoe has a chain weapon called a kusarigama.
The characters also showcase flashy weapon abilities and numerous assassinations, showing their different playstyles. Seeing these things makes us excited try them both when the game releases this year.
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