The Last of AC Shadows

 

The Red Sox were rained out last night in Yankee Stadium, so here instead is my last post for the video game Assassins Creed: Shadows (games are esports, right?).

In a post last week, I said that Claws of Awaji, the DLC for the game which is supposed to add 10 hours of gameplay, would probably take me about 25 hours to complete. It turns out I was exactly right - I finished it late last night after exactly 25 more hours of playtime. That brings my total in-game hours after two complete playthroughs of the main game and one of the DLC to 433, the fourth-highest of any game I've played. It's even passed Horizon: Forbidden West (426 hours), a frankly far better game that I enjoyed much more.

I finished the game with my characters at Level 91 and right on the cusp of reaching 92. Naoe, one of the two characters you play as, had five available adrenaline slots, 22,168 health points, and an average 19,348 damage points. The other character, Yasuke, also had five adrenaline slots but 44,982 health points and dealt an average 13,380 damage points. I reached Knowledge Rank 10 (apparently only 1.3% of players reach that level) and completed 61 of 72 achievements on Steam, the rarest of which, after Knowledge Rank, was "kill 5 enemies with one single Wind Slash strike" (1.5% of players).   

To be honest, I didn't care much for the Awaji DLC and it kind of tainted my opinion of the game as a whole. The DLC throws four bosses at you, one of which (Yasuhira) is actually pretty easy, and another of which (Nowaki) doesn't put up much of a fight when finally confronted, but getting to her requires a long frustrating stealth mission during which she repeatedly teleports to other locations whenever you get close or get a hit in on her. However, the other two bosses, Tomeji and the final antagonist, Yukari, are near impossible to beat. Tomeji is a damage sponge who simply doesn't wear down, although he can one-hit you and end the bout. Yukari is impossibly fast so you can't parry or dodge, and her hits force a "stunned" reaction from your character from which it takes a second to recover (and split seconds count in this fight).  

Those two fights were frustrating and after multiple (more than 10) attempts at each, I finally switched the gameplay to "easy" mode just to get through the scenes and finish the goddamn game, a tactic I don't like to use. But I like getting killed repeatedly by a boss I can't beat even less, and my options were to either rage quit the game or switch difficulty modes.  

But despite the bad taste the DLC left in my mouth, the game is incredibly beautiful and running through its version of 16th Century Japan is fun and rewarding. I'd give the game an "A" for exploration and a "B" for combat and characters, but a "D-" for story. The plot is fubar and I've been playing this game since February 13. It's past time to move on.