Mothergamer Plays Herdling

 When I saw the trailer for Herdling I was already in love with how cute the creatures were and the artwork. I knew I was going to try it out for myself. I did make a point to check the accessibility settings and I saw one that greatly pleased me and I highly recommend it. You can turn on immortality for the creatures known as Calicorns so they don't die. They can still get injured, but this prevents animal death which I was grateful for.  From the start, the artwork for Herdling is beautiful looking like a picturesque story book come to life. The game starts by introducing us to a young child who is homeless sleeping under a bridge in a nameless city. The city itself looks practically abandoned and foreboding with the only light source being dumpsters lit on fire and there are empty cars everywhere. We don't get to know what happened in this world because that's not what the story is about. In a few moments the child runs into a creature that looks like a combination of yak and goat with its face stuck in a bucket. 

This is where Herdling truly begins. The child can pick up a nearby stick and get the bucket off and we discover the creature is called a Calicorn. There is then a prompt to not only tame the Calicorn, but we can name it as well. I was fascinated by how adorable the Calicorn was and was delighted that we could also pet it. Then there is a minor tutorial showing that the child must guide the Calicorn with the stick towards the exit out of the city. It took me a minute to figure out how to move the glowing white marker in the direction of where I wanted the Calicorn to go. Once I figured it out, it wasn't terribly difficult and I guided it and discovered two more Calicorns that I tamed with the help of the first Calicorn and named them and then continued guiding them out of the city. 

Taming my first Calicorn. 

There is a very lovely and interesting moment where as we got closer to the exit, there was a painting on a building wall that the Calicorns stopped and looked at. It was a painting of Calicorns in the mountains. Suddenly, the painting glowed a brilliant gold and the fur on the Calicorns glowed the same brilliant hue. I realized because there's no voice acting, the story is told through the actions and art so this was the Calicorns telling the child that this is where they need to go, the mountains were home. It's such a lovely detail and showing that there's a touch of magic to the Calicorns themselves. 

Finally, we made it out of the city and onto a vista of a plains with farms in the background and a train going by. The sunlight was dazzling and the sky lighter and the Calicorns fur also seemed to brighten as if saying that yes, outside of the city in the open with grasses and trees is better. I agreed and ran with my Calicorns discovering you can make them stampede to run faster and their fur changed to the most beautiful primary colors, like a lovely rainbow. Sometimes the Calicorns would get sticks in their fur and I would have to clean them out and then I would pet them all. There's a nice subtle touch that shows when the Calicorns are happy that they're cared for that involves their horns glowing for a moment in those same bright colors. 

Taking a break with the Calicorns.

There are environmental puzzles as you go on your journey such as having to push open a gate to make a ramp for the Calicorns to climb up. You don't have to do this alone however, as many of the puzzles are designed to get the Calicorns to help you. One gate was huge and as I pushed, all the Calicorns lined up beside me and helped to push it open so we could go up the ramp and camp for the night. There's so many cute games throughout Herdling with the child and the Calicorns. You have to find sticks of firewood when you're at a camp site and some of the Calicorns will point them out to you. At some of them, there's a colorful yarn ball and you can throw it and a few of the Calicorns will play Fetch with you. I really enjoyed this and just cuddling with all of them. If a Calicorn is hurt, there are little bushes with bright blue berries on them. You can feed these to the Calicorns to heal them and the berries also build up the stampede gauge as well as strengthening your bond with them. You can also hang cute and colorful ornaments on their horns. I loved all these little details that added to the storytelling.

Petting a little Calicorn on a boat ride.

Crumbling cliffs or narrow paths were not the only dangers my Calicorns faced. Sometimes we would run into some pretty scary predators and the only thing I could do was get them to stampede so we could run quickly to a canopy of trees to hide or through a cave tunnel to escape. Luckily, there were always blue berries nearby so I could heal any of the Calicorns who were injured. There were moments at the campfire where a spirit that looked like a Calicorn would appear in what seemed like dreams, guiding the Calicorns up the mountain. Other times the spirit would appear in front of us on a path and I would find a Calicorn that was hurt nearby. I would help them, tame, name, and the other Calicorns in our herd would joyfully greet them. I started to realize that this spirit was of a Calicorn that had died and it was trying to help and guide them on their journey home to the mountains. It's such a nice and bittersweet element to the story itself.

The spirit in a dream. 

I loved traveling through the different vistas with the Calicorns. Going from the plains to a verdant forest and then through a dangerous, yet beautiful snowy mountain pass was interesting. There are of course puzzles throughout each area that the Calicorns can help with, but I was glad that the puzzles weren't overly complicated and not frustrating. Many were very much open a gate here, figure out where a key stone is for a door, or hiding behind boulders to brace against strong mountain winds. 

I was able to find all 12 Calicorns and as the group gets bigger it definitely adds a layer of challenge with having to keep them all together. I would have to stop often just to do a head count and make sure none were missing. These were also moments I could stop and clean the sticks out of their fur, give them a little rest break, and pet all of them. Any time one of them fell or got hurt, I would be very worried about them and rush around looking for the blue berries to heal them. It was so easy to become attached to the Calicorns because of their cuteness and their varying personalities. One of my favorite ones, their personality was affectionate and every time we stopped to camp they always wanted to play Fetch and have lots of cuddles. 

The music in the game is fantastic matching the mood and vibe of each area perfectly. With each new area the bond between the child and the Calicorns grew to the point by the time we were nearing the end of our journey there was a deep love and trust between them and the story shows this in how much they look out for one another and help each other. Herdling shows that bond in such a wonderfully thoughtful way highlighted through the artwork and music creating a perfectly told story. The game itself is not terribly long, I finished it in seven hours and I loved every moment of it. Herdling is truly an indie gem that is worth checking out because of how well all these elements blend together and I know I will be playing through it again because that's how great the game is.  

Gathered together around a campfire.

*Herdling is available now on the following platforms: Steam, Epic Games Store, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Review

  *Note: There will be some spoilers in the review, so if you haven't started the game or haven't finished it, just a heads up. 

I had been counting down to the day Death Stranding 2: On The Beach released. I absolutely loved the first game and I couldn't wait to see what the second game had in store. Death Stranding 2 is set eleven months after the events of the first game. The UCA is fully connected to the chiral network and we find Sam living a peaceful life in Mexico with his daughter Lou. It was so nice seeing Sam and Lou again and getting a little tutorial on how the controls work as they walk home together. Of course the scenery in the game is beautiful and naturally I was as clumsy as ever tripping over some rocks and my own two feet. I was also able to tweak the accessibility settings in the game to add subtitles, change the difficulty setting to easy so I could just enjoy the story, and more. Accessibility is important and I'm always pleased when a game has those accessibility options right from the start. 

Sam and Lou. 

That peace doesn't last very long as Sam's old friend Fragile shows up asking for Sam's help connecting all of Mexico to the chiral network via her new company Drawbridge. Fragile explains that if Sam does this both he and Lou will be pardoned by the UCA and they can continue living their peaceful life. Sam agrees and leaves Lou in the care of Fragile and heads out. 

The BTS are still around and bigger and badder than ever. Some of them can now see Sam immediately and are a little more aware. It definitely added to the heightened sense of danger as Sam makes his deliveries and connects the chiral network. Combat is pretty much the same, but there are some new weapons and gadgets for fighting BTS including automated grenade launchers. Sometimes I didn't have any choice when it came to fighting the BTS especially the giant scary ones, so the grenade launcher definitely became one of my favorites for quickly taking them out. 

A giant BT appears. 

Mexico is basically a good tutorial chapter area refreshing our memory on how the game controls work, how Sam has to connect everything, as well as make deliveries. There's also the sub orders which are basically side quests and as odd as it sounds, I loved doing those. Sam gets some pretty sweet rewards from those in the form of items that help on his journey with upgrades to weapons, vehicles, his backpack, and more. The vehicles in the form of a tri cruiser and a buggy are pretty neat. I liked the buggy more and you can add the sticky gun to it which picks up lost packages. 

Traveling on the tri cruiser. 

Just like in the first game, you can interact indirectly with other players by building a bridge, a safehouse, leaving items they can use in a shared locker, or leaving ladders to climb up steep cliffs. You can also help by adding materials to various structures to help them be built.  It's a nice nod and connection to the first game. I always liked that mechanic in the first game and it's nice to see it here in the second one. 

Building a bridge. 

Sam does successfully connect all of Mexico, but tragedy strikes when Sam returns home to find his home attacked by an unknown group finding Fragile severely injured and Lou dead. This is devastating to say the least and we jump in time to a month later with Sam in a very bad way with his depression and grief over Lou's death. Fragile visits Sam asking him to come with her on the ship the DHV Magellan which can sail through tar currents. Fragile tells Sam they're going through a plate gate that leads to Australia and the goal is to connect all of Australia to the chiral network in order to open other plate gates to the rest of the world so that everyone can be connected.

This is where the majority of Death Stranding 2 takes place as Sam meets new people like Tarman, Dollman, Rainy, and many others. Australia in the game is huge and it's full of beautiful new areas ranging from desert, to beautiful trees, and new threats in the form of variations of BTS. There are bandits too and the game does introduce new ways to deal with them. Honestly for me, many times it was more satisfying to just punch the bandits, take all their stuff, and call it a day. 

Sam shows a bandit his punching skills. 

Sam is a man of few words, so Dollman is a welcome companion coming along with him on his journey. Dollman isn't an idle sidekick however. One fun trick that was very helpful was throwing Dollman high into the air so he could act as a scout for various dangers in the area. Need to know how many bandits are there? Toss Dollman into the air and he totally helped with that. He had a wide range of view so it helped a lot with knowing how many enemies I was dealing with. Dollman also has an interesting and sad backstory that gets revealed later on. He quickly became a trusted friend for me. I loved all the characters in Sam's group and the people he met in Australia were pretty cool too. 

The introduction of fast travel early in the game with the Magellan is brilliant. It made things a lot easier especially with deliveries that were breakable. There is also a neat fast travel system in the form of hot springs that Sam finds. My one complaint about the fast travel system with the Magellan was how every time it was a main story chapter fast travel would get locked and not be available. That got old very quickly and was a source of constant frustration because Australia isn't easy to walk with all the mountain terrain. 

I was grateful for the vehicles especially the buggy because it go offroad and once I had upgraded the tires and some of the accessories on it, that made things a lot easier. There are also cool side quests here like rescuing a kangaroo from a wildfire and returning it to an animal sanctuary. That's not the only animal you can rescue either. I found wild Emus, Wombats, and even a cute Quokka. There's photo mode in the game and I spent so much time taking lots of lovely photos on my adventure. 

The story in Death Stranding 2 is beautiful, perhaps even more beautiful than the first game with some of the introspection that happens with each character, especially Sam. Sam having to face some truths he didn't want to think about are shown in a way that is poetic and thoughtful in a way only Kojima can do. I found myself sympathizing with him so often especially in regards to grieving the loss of his child and wanting Sam to have that healing and happiness that he needed and deserved. 

Of course a familiar villain is back in the form of Higgs and if Sam is the light and hope, Higgs is fully darkness and despair and definitely the foil to Sam. Troy Baker is incredible as Higgs and quite the showman in every scene he's in. Higgs challenges Sam's world view every step of the way and he's exhausting, frustrating, and even more unhinged which of course makes him an excellent villain here. 

The main takeaway from the story for me personally was the importance of those connections to people we love, to people we helped along the way, to not regret those connections we made because they're important not just to us, but to them, and to the whole community. Death Stranding 2 does a beautiful job of highlighting this through Sam, his friends, and the vast amount of people he helps in Mexico and Australia. It's done in such an exciting and creative way that showed how beautiful all of those connections really are. There are of course some moments of beautifully and delightfully weird that only Kojima can do and some of it is flat out hilarious as well. The story made me cry, smile, laugh, cry some more, and then smile again. Death Stranding 2: On The Beach truly delivers something wonderful and special, that is even better than the first game and I'm so glad I got to experience it. 

Sam and Dollman admire beautiful plants. 

*Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is now available on Plastyation 5

*Join our community on Twitch while we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Garden Buddies

I thought Garden Buddies looked very cute just from the short trailer I watched. I did pick it up when it was on sale for about two dollars on Nintendo Switch. Let's say I'm glad I didn't pay full price. Let's get into what works for this game and what doesn't. 

Garden Buddies setup for the story is pretty easy to follow. You meet an adorable apple character Mutsy who explains to you that you're going to work together to make a lovely garden for him and new friends to relax in and have dance parties. This opens up the tutorial showing you how to place bouquets of various flowers. The flowers also act as currency for placing furniture items like a tree swing. I played in story mode, but there is a free build mode for playing around and creating your own garden designs. 

Meeting Mutsy in the garden. 

In story mode you design the garden with Mutsy a bit and then you take breaks to help him welcome new friends to the garden. This introduces several mini games as well like starting a dance party. It's like Simon Says and you have to push the button prompts to dance. There's a bug catching game and a few others that are quite fun. 

Dance party! 

The main story is over the course of five days and Mutsy meets a new friend each day. They're all quite adorable and my personal favorite was a cute bat named Betty. At the end of each day Mutsy goes over the events of the day with you and there's a lovely moment of taking a break and doing a breathing exercise with Mutsy. It's a nice and gentle reminder to take a moment for yourself and just allow yourself to be. 

We meet Betty. 

Now we get to the not so great thing about Garden Buddies. The main story is not very long, about 91 minutes which is not a bad thing. I've played plenty of short and sweet games. However, for a game this short there should not be as many issues with crashing as there were. I wasn't very far in when I had my first game crash. I closed the game and rebooted and it crashed in the same spot. I tried out other games on my Switch to make sure it wasn't the console itself that was the problem. It wasn't, but I did a hard reboot to be sure. I also uninstalled and reinstalled Garden Buddies. It did work for a bit, but I found I had to skip some of the mini games because again the game would crash. I did some digging and it doesn't just crash on Switch, it crashes on Steam as well. The game isn't that new, but it's frustrating when you're trying to just enjoy it and it has all these crashing issues constantly considering that it doesn't take up that many resources. 

Other than the crashing issues, Garden Buddies is a very cute and relaxing game when it works. 91 minutes for this type of game isn't bad and the concept, art style, and characters are all very cute. I do wish there was a little more to it, but overall it's a lovely game. If the developers can sort out the crashing issues that will make it even better. As I said, I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it. 

Making a nice garden.

*Garden Buddies is on the following platforms: Nintendo Switch and Steam 

*Join the Mothergamer community on Switch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Tempopo

 Tempopo introduces us in a very cute way to Hana and her garden of  musical flowers. Hana attempts to have a concert, but things go horribly wrong and her flowers are scattered everywhere. With the help of her magical Tempopo friends that resemble adorable pink flower seeds, Hana can rescue her flowers and bring them back to her garden.

Hana and her musical flower garden. 

Right from the start I genuinely liked Tempopo. It's a musical puzzle game, but it's not terribly frustrating because it's obvious they did have kids in mind with the puzzle designs, the bright colors, and the whimsical music. The game has three difficulty modes: puzzle mode, challenge mode, and adventure mode. 

I'm not the best at puzzles even though I like them, so adventure mode and having hints was great for me. The free moving camera is helpful because the puzzles themselves are basically 3D so you can rotate the camera around the puzzle to see hidden corners or a path you may have missed. The goal for each puzzle is for Hana to conduct where the Tempopo go to safely rescue the flowers on the puzzle map. If one route doesn't work, you can reset and try again. I appreciated that there's no rush, no timer, so I could take my time figuring out each puzzle. It does slowly get a little more challenging and a bit more complex with each puzzle, but not too much so I was never overwhelmed. Once Hana successfully rescues her flowers, she can start placing them wherever she likes in her garden. 

One of the many puzzles. 

The music in Tempopo is lovely. Each area seems to have its own song that matches the rhythm of the flowers and the spirit of the poppy, bright colors. The game has 60 puzzles to solve and no two were exactly alike. Each puzzle had its own unique pathing, music, and I was invested in each one. When you finish an area and are ready to move onto the next one, there's fantastic art showcasing each area done by various artists. My personal favorite was called Full Moon by Jessica Smith because it's this delightful whimsical picture of Hana in the nighttime sky with magic jellyfish. 

My favorite art in the game. 

Tempopo isn't a terribly long game. I took my time with the puzzles using a lot of trial and error until I could rescue all the flowers and have a concert with all of them. For the main story it's about 5or 6 hours to complete. There is also a fun free build feature in the form of Melody Garden which is unlocked after you complete the Spring section of the game. You can arrange the flowers and test out how they sound. For example, the roses can sing while jazz flowers can make flute or saxophone sounds. You can play around with this as much as you like and create your own songs and arrangements in the Melody Garden and it's a lot of fun. 

Tempopo is a great indie puzzle game that is accessible for people of all ages to play from adults to kids because of its enchanting artwork, the gameplay, and just the fun you can have solving puzzles and then making your own music with the flowers. It's delightful to play and doesn't overstay its welcome. 

Hana and her rescued flowers. 

*Tempopo is available on the following platforms: Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam 

*Join the Mothergamer community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays To a T

 I was very curious about To a T as it is the latest game from the creator and designer of Katamari Damacy, Keita Takahashi. I also wanted to check it out after hearing that the game is an allegory for being disabled. That resonated with me due to my issues with Fibromyalgia and arthritis. 

 The game itself is described as a coming of age story. The main character who is just named "Teen" who is  a 13 year old kid (don't worry, the game lets you change the name if you want) is stuck in a permanent T-pose. There is a bright and colorful opening theme song about it that feels like a fun anime or tv show episode. The art style is cheerful and full of whimsy which adds to a lot of the cuteness and energy of the game.

The Teen forever in a T-pose.

The Teen also has a dog (of course I named it after our dog Jake) which you can name and the dog isn't just a pet, the dog helps Teen with daily tasks such as getting dressed, brushing their teeth, and getting breakfast. You can also pet the dog. In fact, it's one of the first things you can do and it's very charming. 

Dog helps Teen get dressed. 

This isn't your typical town. It's full of lots of interesting characters and not all are human like a cute ladybug that runs the local newspaper or a giraffe who runs a cafe that makes tasty sandwiches. Even the teachers at Teen's school are a myriad of amusing differences especially the science teacher who claims one student is qualified in dark magic. It's fun and shows moments where the game doesn't take itself too seriously, but does a great job of telling Teen's story. 

We do learn why eventually why Teen is forever stuck in a T-pose. No spoilers, but the reason is quite a surprise and bizarre in the best ways. There's also moments of familiarity with Teen being bullied for being different from everyone else. This does get resolved pretty quickly with a few lessons about the importance of understanding that being different doesn't mean bad and how a little kindness can go a long way. Dog even has its own little adventure making new friends with folks like someone they call DJ Pigeon and a menagerie of other fun characters. It does add an extra layer of silly fun to the game's story and comes full circle in the ending. 

Dog hangs out with DJ Pigeon.

When Teen is done with school, you're free to explore the town. The town map helps with that and you can do extra things like play a speed eating mini game at the ice cream or sandwich shop, or collect tokens all over town to buy new outfits for Teen. It's not easy being a T so Teen has to figure out how to turn sideways to fit down hallways or going through a doorway. One of the cuter things in the game is the theme song with the lyrics "you are the perfect shape" which is such a bop and plays at the start and end of each chapter. There's also another cute song about the giraffe explaining how making sandwiches brings them happiness. 

While To a T brought a lot of joy, whimsical things, and an absolutely original story, it's not perfect. Sometimes the camera angles would zoom in so much I could barely see where I needed to go. This was especially true for Dog's adventure because it was zoomed in so much I had a hard time with a platform jumping section because of it. This made things incredibly frustrating for certain puzzles and trying to navigate the town which is a shame because the game itself has a lot of charm and moments of thoughtfulness within the story. 

To a T is still worth playing the five hours for the great story full of laughs and a wonderful message at the center of it; that being different doesn't have to be bad and we can just talk to each other and be surprised at how many things we may have in common and that the differences are what make life far less boring than if we were all the same. That's a lovely sentiment that To a T brings with a lot of earnestness and humor. 

Teen with Dog with all their friends in a group photo.

*To a T is available on the following platforms: Xbox Series X/S (Gamepass), Playstation 5, and Steam

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping

 *Note: I received a code for the Nintendo Switch for my honest review of the game. Thank you so much to Future Friends Games for the code!

I quite enjoyed Duck Detective: The Secret Salami and was happy to see our hard boiled duck Eugene McQuacklin was back in The Ghost of Glamping. The sequel sees Eugene down on his luck divorced, addicted to bread, and living with Freddy Frederson the alligator from the previous game and possibly the only fan and friend of the duck detective. The opening gives you a refresher on how to look for clues and do de-ducktions. You can also adjust the difficulty of the game to story mode to make things a little easier. 

The Duck Detective is back!

Freddy drags Eugene to a glamping trip (glamorous camping) and right from the start things are going terribly wrong. Camping chairs are stolen, tents are ransacked, there's a rude celebrity guest, and Freddy continues to irritate Eugene with his cheerful positivity. The guests at the campground are the main cast for the mystery and they're all in agreement that the trip so far is subpar and the events happening around them are making that worse. The camp manager Emilia is trying her best, but it's obvious she's stressed trying to keep everything running smoothly. 

Freddy and Eugene arrive at the campgrounds. 

The artwork for the game is just as cute as the first one with everyone looking like cute stickers running around. It's obvious that each of the campers has something to hide with the exception of Freddy and the child of one of the campers. Eugene has to talk to everyone and the game helps by highlighting all the questions you can ask. You can also highlight who you're talking to with a magnifying glass and examine them looking for clues that stand out. Then you can check your notebook and put those clues together by filling in the blanks. If you get stuck, the game has a hints system that gives tips like going to a different location or questions you might have missed. I liked story mode because it shows you which answers are wrong and which are correct. The game lets you take your time and there's no pressure to hurry. When you do get it right, Eugene can do some de-ducktions to unravel more of the mystery. 

Examining a character for clues. 

The music for the game fits the film noir vibes of the game and the story itself is interesting and amusing. The humor from the previous game is still there puns and all with a few new ones which caused me to chuckle often. The voice acting is great and the voice actor for Freddy does a great job capturing that earnestness about wanting to help his friend, but also wanting to have a memorable and fun camping trip. The game doesn't overstay its welcome and wraps up everything in about two to three hours. I go slowly and take my time so I finished in three hours. Overall, The Ghost of Glamping is a fun whodunit with a smart way of showing nods to the previous game through Freddy. I enjoyed it and had a great time solving this mystery. I hope we get to see our Duck Detective friend again sometime in the future. 

*Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is available to play on the following platforms: Steam,  Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, and Xbox Series X/S

*Join our community on Twitch where we play games and discuss mental health: https://www.twitch.tv/mothergamer

Mothergamer Plays Assassin's Creed Shadows

 I was so excited for Assassin's Creed Shadows when I saw it would be set in feudal Japan and not only that, but that we would get to play as an actual historical figure in parts of the game, Yasuke an African samurai who served Oda Nobunaga. Yasuke wouldn't be alone because we also get to play as a young shinobi woman, Naoe. I was ready to dive into the game and begin my adventure. Once again, the accessibility settings for the game are great. I was able to tweak the size of the subtitles, adjust the difficulty to my liking, as well as getting the controls how I wanted them. 

The story introduces us at first to Yasuke known as Diogo here traveling with Jesuit priests who are meeting with Nobunaga to request safe passage through Japan. He agrees, but only if they allow Diogo to be in his service. They reluctantly agree and Diogo trains as a samurai for Nobunaga and is now known as Yasuke. It does a great job of setting up the scenario and themes for the game. Shortly after, we meet Naoe, a smart and talented young shinobi in her village of Iga. This introduces us to the tutorial on the mechanics of the gameplay and of course the usual favorites like leap of faith are still there. I instantly liked both Yasuke and Naoe. Both voice actors did a wonderful job with them. Naoe is sharp and quick with her wit while Yasuke is more than just a big man, he has a thoughtful demeanor that stands out and is a good foil to Naoe's sometimes brash impatience of the young.

Naoe the young shinobi. 

One fun thing that I got for having preordered the game was a fun cosmetic that gave a cool Sekiryu dragon armor for the horse and weapons and armor for Naoe. I was able to use the dragon armor on Yasuke's horse as well and it was fun pretending the horses were very cool dragons. 

The Sekiryu armor in action. 

The nods to previous Assassin's Creed are spread throughout the game which I appreciated, but I also enjoyed that Shadows explored its own story with the usual Templar versus Assassins thread woven in. I love that the game lets you take your time with the main story and allows you to explore everywhere. For me, that's always been one of the joys of the Assassin's Creed games; being able to mosey along discovering fast travel view points and getting to take in the gorgeous scenery from atop a mountain or at the top of a castle. 

The main story missions and side quests are spread out on a huge objective board allowing you to find the clues for each one in the various areas. I also love that the game allows you to switch between Naoe and Yasuke for the story missions and side quests. Both Naoe and Yasuke are quite skilled and depending on which skills you want or need for a mission, it's very easy to switch between the two. You can also switch when fast traveling. There are of course some story missions that are specifically just for them and these are very well done flowing organically through the story. I loved Naoe's stealth and agility, but I also had a blast busting through doors like they were paper and bouncing baddies around with Yasuke. The combat for both is a lot of fun and I liked seeing what both of them were capable of. 

Yasuke shows off his samurai skills. 

Of course it wouldn't be Assassin's Creed without allies and some of the side quests give you a myriad of characters who meet Naoe and Yasuke on their journey and join their cause. This means you have a base hideout that you can expand and build provided you get enough resources. Raiding various castles and bandit hideouts helps with this because Naoe and Yasuke can tag the items to be smuggled out of their by their scouts. When the seasons change in the game, it resets so you can raid those places again. Another cool thing is you can summon certain allies in a fight to help you out. My personal favorite was summoning a badass monk Yaya who had no qualms about busting the heads of the baddies she helps you fight. 

There is also romance and romantic dalliances in Shadows. I was pleased to see there are two Queer romance options for Naoe and Yasuke. I did that for both of them and the romances are thoughtful, sweet, and quite lovely. The writing for all the characters and allies is very well done. I was invested every step of the way for not just the main story, but the side stories as well as Naoe and Yasuke's personal story quests. 

Assassin's Creed Shadows also understood the assignment about letting everyone pet and hug dogs and cats in the game. Every single dog and cat I came across I absolutely hugged and cuddled them and they were all incredibly cute. It seems like such a small thing, but it brought me so joy stopping to cuddle a cute dog or play with adorable kittens. 

Cuddling a cute, good dog. 

The only thing I wasn't really a fan of is the knowledge point system. The game doesn't do a very good job of explaining it at first or that a lot of Naoe and Yasuke's skills are locked behind this system. You need a certain number of knowledge points to unlock those skills. Some are unlocked automatically after certain story chapters are done, but the rest you get from doing exercises in various map locations that give you knowledge points. For example, Naoe has to do a meditation known as kuji-kiri following the button prompts and when successful gets a knowledge point. For Yasuke, it's doing exercises like the kata with various weapons or being able to shoot targets with his arrows while moving on horseback. I understand what they were trying to do here and why, but frankly knowledge points are not fun and often feel like a tedious chore to get in order to unlock new skill trees and gain mastery of those skills. I was relieved when I had mastered all the skill trees because it meant I didn't have to do it anymore.

I had an amazing time with Shadows. The story itself is well done and there are a lot of interesting side quest threads that do tie in with the main story beautifully. I really love Naoe and Yasuke's blossoming friendship not just with each other, but with their companions and the many people they help throughout the story. I took my time with all of it and ended up putting about seventy five hours into the game. The story reveals blew me away and by the time I got to the end of their journey I was sad to say goodbye, but I was impressed with how well they tied everything together giving a truly satisfying ending. I'm looking forward to the DLC we have coming in September because Naoe and Yasuke are both characters I came to like a great deal and I can't wait to adventure with them again.

Naoe enjoying the cherry blossoms. 

*Assassin's Creed Shadows is available to play on the following platforms: Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows (Steam)

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