Here's the first 60 minutes of Assassin's Creed Shadows: It's Good and Bad

Assassin's Creed Shadows has finally been released, and the game has been received quite positively by both reviewers and the small number of users who have rated the game. While it's still very early to gauge the total perception of the title, preliminary results look quite promising for Ubisoft.

Above is the first hour of Shadows, and the following will be an explanation of my experience, quick takeaways, and overall thoughts. It should be noted these thoughts are after just an hour of playing the game, and aren't indicative of a full review of the title.

Let's start with the positives. This is the best-looking Assassin's Creed game Ubisoft has ever released, with environments and locations being particular graphical highlights. Character graphics are also great, with only some parts of the cinematics looking a little worse than others.

Movement feels clean and fluid with both Yasuke and Naoe, and the small amount of combat that I have experienced I did enjoy. Parry windows are quite forgiving, so any Dark Souls players will have a field day here, and the AI of NPCs seems to be improved compared to Star Wars Outlaws - which perhaps isn't the best comparison considering how bad the NPCs were in that game.

Negatives. Dialogue. Boy, oh boy. I really hope that as I progress through the game, the dialogue improves, as my experience at the start hasn't been fantastic. The writing feels staggered, exposition-heavy, and lacks any flare whatsoever. I believe this problem is partly attributed to my second critique: voice acting.

The voice acting for both Naoe and Yasuke feels below par, but I think the main culprit is sometimes the animation for the character's faces don't line up with how the voice actor has delivered the line. This may result from my playthrough not being on "Immersion" mode, which changes all of the voice acting to Japanese.

The introduction of both Yasuke and Noae has so far been very interesting and is enough for me to want to go back and find out more. Yasuke's introduction was less interesting than Naoe's, but still good enough for me to consider selecting him as my main protagonist. Noae's was much more interesting, as it contains strong elements of mystery paired with emotional ties.

Overall, I'd give my rating on the first hour of Shadows a solid 8/10. The game has been quite enjoyable, and I'll continue playing to find out more.

For more information on Assassin's Creed Shadows, check out this link here.