《刺客信條:影》IGN 8分：日本絕美風景，幾乎沒有BUG！

3月19日，《刺客信條：影》即將發售，IGN編輯賈勒特·格林給出8分評測，本作以日本戰國爲背景，地圖與技能樹的設計更加簡潔，讓人不再有清問號的枯燥感，日本絕美的風景也讓人更有探索欲，戰鬥系統更具挑戰性，而且大量任務都是爲角色量身定製的，奈緒江女主幾乎完美符合所有任務的要求，潛行系統做得更好，在系列成熟的基礎上，本作創造了近十年來不斷磨練的開放世界風格的最佳典範之一！對於老玩家來說，本作絕對值得一試，而且在IGN數十小時的體驗中，這麼大規模的遊戲幾乎沒有出現什麼BUG，更加令人驚喜！

《刺客信條：影》的誕生堪稱奇妙——這個歷時近20年、推出數十部作品的頂級潛行動作系列，終於首次將舞臺轉向日本戰國時代。本作充分利用了刺客設定，讓忍者與武士雙主角同臺共舞，兩位塑造豐滿的角色既能在龐大的城堡中潛行，也能在激烈的戰鬥中大殺四方。

本作在沿用成熟機制的基礎上，針對細節進行了優化，地圖與技能樹更簡潔清晰，同時延續2023年《刺客信條：幻景》的成功經驗，主線任務節奏更加緊湊、戰鬥系統更具挑戰性。雖未達完美革新（平衡性問題與錯失機遇仍存），但我對《刺客信條》系列重振雄風的信心非常堅定。

It’s wild that it took almost 20 years and dozens of games for the biggest stealth action series around to finally bend towards feudal Japan. Assassin's Creed Shadows makes the most of that theme, with a great pair of shinobi and samurai heroes sharing center stage that are well-written and fun to skulk through giant castles or wade into vicious battles with. Besides the setting, the bulk of the changes this time focus on making smaller tweaks to well-established systems, such as less cluttered maps and skill trees, while also doubling down on things that really worked in 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage, like the more focused and tougher combat that accompanies its better paced main quests. It’s not a perfect reset, as imbalances and missed opportunities abound, but I feel more confident than ever that Assassin’s Creed could be back and here to stay.

《刺客信條：影》的敘事如雨季激流般奔湧，充滿時代劇經典套路：武士爲榮譽征戰，權臣腐敗欺壓百姓，盜匪橫行鄉野。若你鍾愛詹姆斯·克拉維爾的《幕府將軍》或黑澤明的電影，這些情節對你來說一定不會陌生。但這絕非短板，錯綜複雜的道德衝突依舊能保持劇情的吸引力，這也是《刺客信條：英靈殿》故事成功時的慣用手法。

儘管整體文筆並未讓我時刻驚豔，但其中不乏一些令人深思的緊張時刻和引人入勝的事件。典型的《刺客信條》陰謀元素也完美融入了日本戰國時代的戰亂背景，猶如袖劍藏於腕鞘這般嚴絲合縫。

Like a river in the rainy season, Shadows’ story overflows with cliches that are signature to fiction set in this era. Warriors wander the land to bring honor to themselves and their masters. Absent rulers let wealthy bureaucrats exploit the poor. Bandits hold the countryside in the cold grip of fear. If you’re a fan of James Clavell’s Shogun or the excellent movies of Akira Kurosawa, you have certainly seen the bulk of what protagonists Yasuke and Naoe are made to navigate. This isn’t a bad thing, and morally complex intersecting plots still keep the intrigue high, which is the same trick that made Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s stories work when they did. I don’t think I was particularly wowed by the writing on a regular basis, but there are some standout moments of tense reflection and curious happenings sprinkled throughout. The typical Assassin’s Creed conspiracy woven into it fits perfectly within the war torn Sengoku period of Japan, too, like a hidden blade snugly in its wrist sheath.

雙主角設定堪稱驚豔。遊戲前期你將與伊賀流最後的忍者少女奈緒江（Naoe）深度綁定——這位因悲劇被迫揹負氏族命運的少女，機敏而憂鬱的性格，極具人物張力。而與她形成鮮明對比的，則是以正義爲旗的雄壯武士彌助（Yasuke）。頗具諷刺意味的是，奈緒江的悲劇某種程度上正是拜這位充滿魅力且體格魁梧的彌助所賜。當這對宿敵轉爲同盟後，他們總能在關鍵時刻爲彼此提供可靠建言：奈緒江的敏銳洞察與彌助的果敢決斷形成完美互補。雖說單論人氣，他們或許難與艾吉奧或愛德華等系列經典角色匹敵，但他們攜手並肩，也成爲這個充滿黑暗復仇故事中的一抹亮光。

The leads themselves are wonderful. You spend a lot of the early game with the sharp-witted and broody Naoe, who is among the last shinobi warriors of the Iga clan, a role thrust upon her by tragedy. That tragedy befell her in part by the hands of the charismatic hulk Yasuke, who is a tireless warrior for justice and peace. When they begin working together, they are frequently each other’s most reliable consul, with sound and often different perspectives on the events going on around them. In other words, they truly do balance one another, and while I don’t think either one would win popularity contests against other series stars like Ezio or Edward, together they serve as the bright light in the center of a largely dark tale of revenge.

故事的結構設計得恰到好處，你可以按自己的節奏分段享受，而不會在劇情節點之間迷失

敘事結構則呈現出模塊化特質，類似《英靈殿》的區域章節制設計，每個區域都承載着相對獨立的故事單元。值得稱道的是，《影》大幅改善了前作中角色與事件"人走茶涼"的割裂感，在角色與劇情的連貫性方面做得更好——即便離開某個區域，你遇到的每個關鍵人物和故事線，仍會在後續劇情中留下回響。章節間的過渡節奏也更爲緊湊，惱人的跑腿任務雖仍存在，比我理想中的節奏稍顯拖沓，但整體結構清晰，讓人可以像閱讀一本好書那樣，隨時拾起故事享受其中，而無需擔心跟不上劇情發展。

The story overall is paced similarly to Valhalla, where the cardinal reason to be in each of the nine regions of the map is to play through a mostly self-contained chapter. That said, Shadows does a better job of making sure at least some story elements and characters don’t just completely vanish when you leave a region the way they did in its predecessor. Not every new lord or business man you meet becomes completely irrelevant after you’ve solved their problems. I also found these sections, and the overall time it took to move from chapter to chapter, to be more brisk and less filled with frustrating filler than past games. It’s still a bit too full of “go here, do that” as bridges between major moments than I’d prefer, but it's organized in a way that can be enjoyed in pieces and at your leisure without getting too lost between plot points, almost like how one might read a good book.

《刺客信條：影》的多數任務始於任務系統——這是一張比《刺客信條：幻景》更加複雜且細緻的任務圖表，列出了需要援助的民衆與必須剷除的目標。從主題上看，這種設定與遊戲的核心理念十分契合——玩家需要收集情報，去揭露那些試圖讓日本陷入混亂的祕密成員。從功能性角度來看，這種任務組織方式比傳統的列表式任務系統更加直觀，能夠更清晰地展現待辦事項及相關人物。

不過，這種高效的代價是犧牲了一些探索的魅力。我曾多次偶遇一個無法通過交涉解決的混蛋，果斷將他擊殺後，發現他的檔案在任務板上已經被劃掉，甚至還能看到他所屬幫派的剩餘成員數量，而在此之前，我根本不知道他們之間的聯繫。儘管削弱了一些探索的神祕感，但相比之下，我依然更願意接受這種設計。

Most of the missions in Shadows start on the objective board, a bigger and more elaborate chart of people that need assistance and targets that need eliminating adapted from Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Thematically, this approach matches the tone of using all the information you gather to identify hidden members of the secret society trying to plunge Japan into chaos. Functionally, the way it organizes outstanding tasks and the people involved is far more useful than the old bulleted quest lists. It does trade some of the magic of exploration away as a cost of this efficacy, though. More than once I organically stumbled across a jerk that couldn’t be talked down, just to kill them and find not only his crossed out profile tacked to my board, but also the exact number of remaining silhouettes of the gang I had no idea they were a part of until right then. But it’s a trade I would make every time.

選定任務後，系統會提供簡短線索提示目標方位，具體破解難度取決於玩家對該區域的探索程度。雖然前作也曾通過線索製造追蹤目標的阻力，但《刺客信條：影》是系列第一個真正讓我頻繁查看地圖，並結合線索和合理推測來推斷目標具體位置的遊戲。我還可以利用據點藏身處培養的偵察兵縮小搜索範圍，他們會在地圖上標記一個區域，並高亮其中未識別的目標。這種偵查方式並不會揭示隱藏地點或特殊地圖元素，僅僅是提供一個標記，因此並不適用於遠程探索地圖的迷霧，而且無論偵察兵是否找到目標，都會消耗一個偵察兵，而偵察兵的補充方式非常有限，所以在主線推進初期，最好是降低使用頻率。

Selecting a quest gave me a short list of clues to help discern where the objective was, which is easier to figure out depending on how well I’d searched that part of the map already. Past games have given hints to identify targets like this before, hoping to create some friction between you and the effort to find your quarry, but Shadows is the first one that I felt constantly made me look at my map and actually deduce where the spot in question might be by using those clues and some educated guesses. I could use scouts, one of the assets you can develop at your hideout, to assist in the narrowing process, pinging an area on the map and highlighting unidentified objectives in the zone. This doesn't reveal hidden locations or features of the map outside of just a marker though, so it's a bad way to clear fog of war from a distance. It will also cost one scout whether they find something or not, and scouts are replenished in very few ways, so scouting can be a real risk if you’re trying to make progress in the main story – especially early on.

我不由自主地想要騎馬穿越鄉野，真正去探索這個世界。

與其在地圖上鋪滿密密麻麻的標記，《刺客信條：影》採用了更加剋制的方式，僅通過零星的興趣點圖標，引導玩家親自前往探索。即使攀登至系列標誌性的高點，眺望四周，你所看到的也只是一些模糊的標記，暗示那裏可能隱藏着某些內容，但具體是什麼，還得親自下去一探究竟，用腳步丈量這片土地。我非常喜歡這種設計——它讓我逐漸擺脫了過去幾年玩這類遊戲時形成的“清單式探索”思維模式，我不再執着於逐個完成地圖上的任務標記，而是單純地騎馬漫遊，隨心所欲地探索，哪怕不一定會有豐厚的獎勵，也樂在其中。

Rather than lighting u***our map with a galaxy of tooltips, Shadows mostly relies on sparse point-of-interest icons to push you towards the areas you’ll need to see the finer details of in-person. Even when you climb up to the signature highpoints to take a good long look at your surroundings, what you’ll see is a bevy of nondescript icons that tell you that something is out there, but you’re gonna have to hop down from that perch and go check them out for yourself to know what. I love this – I could feel my brain starting to detangle the checklist conditioning that years of these games had instilled in me. Not only did I feel compelled to just ride through the countryside and genuinely explore stuff without much expectation of grand rewards, I also felt no nagging compulsion to check off every possible thing to do in a region inorganically.

這些未探索地點大多屬於幾種固定類型，比如可以潛行的城堡，其中可能藏有特殊裝備，或是散佈在日本各地的村莊。但在真正踏足之前，你永遠無法確定其中隱藏着什麼，而在旅途中，我總會忍不住停下來參與各種世界活動——這些小型地點或事件，不僅能提供豐富的探索體驗，還能爲角色積累知識點，提高知識等級，並解鎖新的技能選項。雖然部分內容略顯枯燥（例如在寺廟間奔波搜尋殘缺卷軸），但耗時較短且收益可觀，而像騎射挑戰這樣的玩法，則能爲緊張的戰鬥節奏帶來短暫而有趣的變化。

Most of these undiscovered locations fall into one of a number of reliable categories, like castles you can infiltrate and attempt to steal special gear from or any of the many villages scattered across Japan, but you can’t be sure unless you take it in for yourself. A common thing I would always stop to handle whenever I came across them were world activities – these are smaller locations and events that, when completed, add knowledge points to your characters, increasing their knowledge levels and adding new options to their skill trees. Not all of these events are exciting, with running around temples to find missing scroll pages being my least favorite, but they often don’t take too long and the points are worth it in the end. And in the case of something like the horse archery challenges, they can add an interesting distraction from the action for a short spell.

在完成任務和掠奪的過程中，我自然而然地解鎖了大量裝飾品，多到讓我有些應接不暇

每次出行間隙，我都會在藏身處停留片刻——這座藏身處有點像《英靈殿》中渡鴉據點，採集到礦石、農作物和木材後，你可以用這些資源在這裏建造和升級關鍵建築，從而解鎖新功能，我大部分時間都花在鐵匠鋪打造裝備上，而其他重要建築則提供被動增益，或具備在藏身處之外管理的功能，比如道場中新推出的召喚技能，能讓我呼喚在冒險中結識的盟友前來助陣。我倒也慶幸自己不必費心去裝飾這個地方，因爲我個人對佈置家園實在提不起興趣；不過，對於喜歡這類內容的玩家來說，系統在玩家推進主線時慷慨贈予的海量裝飾品，絕不會讓你覺得單調！

Between outings, I spent some time at the hideout, this iteration of Valhalla’s Ravensthorpe settlement. After collecting minerals, crops, and wood out in the world, you can use those resources to build and upgrade important buildings here that give you access to new assets. I spent the majority of my time at the forge managing my equipment, while other important buildings provide more passive additions or have features that can be managed in places outside of the hideout, like the new summoning ability from the dojo which let me call in help from certain allies I met during my adventure. I’m glad I didn’t have to dote on this place very much as I personally can’t be bothered to decorate a homestead, but for those interested in that sort of thing I was absolutely flooded by the cosmetics I unlocked just in the natural course of completing tasks and looting, so you’ll never be starved for options to spice the place up.

真正的視覺盛宴藏於開放世界之中。16世紀的日本美得令人屏息——每座山丘、每片湖泊都像是一場色彩交響曲。每個季節都帶來令人驚歎的風景，有時大地披上了秋日的赤褐色，有時則被皚皚白雪所籠罩。事實上，我覺得這裏的天氣是我在開放世界遊戲中體驗過的最佳之一。看着強勁的風勢捲起滾滾雷雨，目睹大自然的實時反應——成羣的鳥兒振翅高飛，地面生物紛紛奔逃尋求庇護——這一切都足以讓人動容。而且，在我數十小時的體驗中，這麼大規模的遊戲幾乎沒有出現什麼BUG，實在令人驚喜。

The real sightseeing, though, is out in the world. 1500s Japan is a beautiful place – there’s such a symphony of color over every hill and across every lake. Each season brings with it incredible landscapes, sometimes covered in the reddish brown of Autumn or entombed in deep white snow. In fact, I found the weather to be some of the best I’d ever experienced in an open world. It was hard not to be moved watching powerful winds pick up and bring in rolling thunderstorms, especially when watching how nature reacted to it all in real time, as flocks of birds took flight and ground critters scurry around to find safety. And not for nothing, but in my dozens of hours in Shadows I encountered remarkably few bugs for a game this size.

奈緒江幾乎完美符合所有任務的要求！

長達40小時的主線故事圍繞兩位主角奈緒江和彌助展開，他們試圖揭露並消滅名爲“新幕府”的組織。一旦你選定了目標，多任務的劇情線會定期爲你提供機會，比如讓你選擇是用彌助的力量強行解決戰鬥，還是藉助直江的潛行巧妙應對。雖然某些情境下兩人的作用各有側重，但總體來說，幾乎所有任務都更適合奈緒江來完成，這主要歸功於他們各自能力的分工。如果說經典的《刺客信條》玩法融合了探索、跑酷、隱匿與戰鬥，那麼奈緒江在這些方面都遊刃有餘，尤其擅長跑酷和隱蔽潛行。而彌助由於體型笨重和動作不夠靈活，不太適合攀爬和潛行，但他在戰鬥中的破壞力卻無可匹敵——可以說是系列中最具壓倒性和主導力的角色。不過，直江往往可以悄然繞過那些需要彌助大開殺戒的場面，以更爲輕鬆的方式完成任務。儘管我個人很喜歡彌助，但他的風格顯得更爲單一，遊戲中許多部分似乎並未充分利用他的優勢，讓人感覺缺乏針對性。

The main 40-hour story revolves around the dual protagonists attempting to unmask and eliminate members of a deadly organization called the Shinbakufu. Once you’ve chosen a target, the multi-mission arcs give you regular opportunities to handle a situation with either Yasuke’s might or Naoe’s stealth. However, while there are certainly scenarios where one is more useful than the other, in general, there are remarkably few quests where Naoe isn’t better suited for the task at hand. This comes down to how their abilities are divided between them. If the classic Assassin’s Creed playstyle is the combination of exploration, parkour, stealth, and combat, Naoe can do all of these competently and excels at parkour and stealth. Yasuke, meanwhile, can’t climb very well or sneak around much due to his size and general lack of grace. He is a devastating force in combat – maybe the most overbearing and dominant protagonist in the series – but Naoe can simply sneak around most situations that Yasuke would cut his way through, solving them with so much less trouble if done well. As much as I like Yasuke, he’s far more limited and one dimensional in his style, with large parts of this game not quite designed to take advantage of his strengths in a way that feels intentional.

尤其讓人惋惜的是，《刺客信條：影》確實在某些任務中爲兩位角色量身定製了各自的技能應用，通常是在那些更大、更關鍵的重要戰役中，要求兩位英雄必須通力合作才能成功。這類特殊任務被劃分爲多個階段，你可以根據自己的喜好選擇以哪位角色繼續，任務要求也會隨之變化。在後期的一次任務中，奈緒江負責守衛城堡外圍、消滅持槍敵人，而彌助則突入城中，要求與本章的敵人決鬥以拯救人質。根據你選擇扮演的角色，要麼是在障礙中悄無聲息地幹掉特定敵兵，避免驚動整個城堡；要麼便是與一位強悍的武士展開激烈對決。這種設計令人讚歎，也讓那些相對單調的過渡環節顯得黯然失色。

It's particularly disappointing because Shadows does find ways to tailor missions around both of their skills on occasion, usually in bigger, more pivotal and important battles where both heroes need to operate together to succeed. These special missions are separated into sections that allow you to choose which character to proceed with, changing what’s asked of you depending on your choice. In a later game mission, Naoe is securing the perimeter of the castle walls, taking out gunmen, while Yasuke storms the place demanding to challenge this chapter’s foe to a duel for the lives of his hostages. Depending on who you play as, you’re either weaving through blockades to drop specific soldiers without alerting the whole castle, or you’re having a fierce duel against a powerful samurai. It's awesome, and made the more homogenous space between these moments a real bummer.

遊戲會圍繞兩位主角的技能量身定製任務，這種設計真是令人讚歎

整體來說，戰鬥難度比以往更高。敵人（尤其羣體戰時）攻擊性更強，經常發動連擊和無法格擋的招式，且普遍配備格擋能力與護甲系統，相當於擁有"第二血條"。玩家需通過精準閃避與招架創造破綻，再迅速發動反擊——這種機制要求更嚴謹的戰術執行，雖充滿挑戰卻絕不至於淪爲機械重複的負擔，唯獨在捕捉所有動作視角時顯得力不從心，尤其是室內戰鬥視角控制常令人抓狂。

Combat overall is more challenging than in the past. Enemies, especially in groups, are more aggressive, relying on combos and unblockable attacks as often as possible. They also tend to have solid defenses, both in that they block a lot and also in that many of them are armored, essentially giving them a second life bar. Effectively taking them down means having a solid defense of your own, dodging and deflecting their blows to make them vulnerable, and taking advantage before they recover. It requires a more thoughtful execution of your various abilities than previous games have, and I never felt like combat was a chore in and of itself – though the camera really struggled to keep all of the action in frame, and doubly so when inside buildings.

在正面強攻的戰鬥中，彌助的表現尤爲出色，他那一套劍、長刀、棍棒、弓箭甚至火器，都能輕鬆碾壓敵人。他不僅僅依賴武器，本身就像一臺無可阻擋的巨獸，能夠衝破牆壁、震動大地。他也異常堅韌，可以承受更多攻擊才倒下。相比之下，奈緒江則顯得脆弱得多，雖然在敵人露出破綻時也能造成可觀傷害，但硬直控制能力，她很難將敵人擊退。面對成羣結隊的敵人，尤其是那些裝備精良的猛將，當敵人數量超過三四個時，投擲煙霧彈脫戰往往是更優解，比在混戰中硬拼更爲明智。

Straightforward combat really sings when playing as Yasuke, whose set of swords, naginata, kanabo, bows, and even guns are all perfect for decimating enemies. He is a juggernaut of a man outside of his toys, being able to literally run through walls and shake the earth with his blows. He’s also tough and can take many more blows before succumbing to his wounds. Naoe is very fragile by comparison, and while capable of doing lots of damage when enemies are vulnerable, she struggles to stagger them without the help of her tools. She gets overwhelmed easily by mobs, especially well-armored bruisers, and when the numbers get above three or four foes, I almost always found it better to drop a smoke bomb and disappear versus attempting to fight them all in an open melee.

《刺客信條：影》將標題中的"影"字詮釋得淋漓盡致

另一方面，奈緒江在本作潛行設計堪稱系列之最，將“Shadows”、"影"字發揮到了極致，遊戲爲她提供了一些全新的機制，比如匍匐閃避與經典鷹眼視覺，可以透過牆壁看到敵人的輪廓。此外，暌違已久的雙重暗殺機制也重磅迴歸，這些新老元素的結合，使奈緒江成爲系列中最強大的刺客之一，而在潛行暗殺能力上，也令武士彌助望塵莫及！

On the flipside, Naoe is a menace when striking from the shadows or catching enemies unaware. This Assassin’s Creed takes the “Shadows” in its name seriously, with darkness being a key part of her stealth gameplan. There are some new features that help her out, like being able to crawl and dodge while prone, as well as some returning ones like her Eagle Sense, which lets you see silhouettes of enemies through walls. The long-missing double assassination is back too, and all of these add up to make Naoe one of the most robust assassins in the series. Yasuke can’t hold a candle to his ninja counterpart in this arena.

技能升級方面，相比《英靈殿》複雜繁瑣的星座圖系統，這次的優化讓人倍感輕鬆。奈緒江和彌助的技能樹圍繞他們各自的武器和戰鬥風格展開，每個技能節點的提升都更具實質性，不再只是單純的傷害加成（當然，這類加成仍然存在，但數量較少）。最重要的自然是解鎖新技能，但其中一些隱藏的強力技能還能爲武器賦予額外的功能，比如奈緒江的鏈鐮可將普通攻擊轉化爲抓鉤技，讓她能把敵人拉向障礙物或直接甩下懸崖。而彌助擁有多種武器選擇，他的一些技能樹對我來說可有可無，尤其是弓箭和鐵炮——作爲一個近戰猛將，我很難說服自己把大量技能點投入到從未真正使用過的遠程戰術中。

Enhancing your combat abilities is mercifully less tedious than Valhalla’s skill constellation. Naoe and Yasuke have skill trees focused on their weapons and specialities, with every node feeling far more impactful than simple passive damage bonuses (which still exist, but in small amounts). Gaining new abilities is obviously the most impactful, but some of the real hidden gems add new functionality to weapons, like being able to turn certain attacks with Naoe’s chain sickle into grapples that let you pull enemies into obstacles or off of cliffs. Yasuke and his abundance of weapons made for some skill trees I largely ignored, especially his bow and teppo, as he is such a close ranged juggernaut that I had a hard time justifying spending my admittedly plentiful skill points on a ranged strategy I never embraced.

說到冗餘，這次的《影》在裝備系統方面，反而比《英靈殿》和《幻景》的改進倒退了一大步。敵人掉落或任務獎勵的裝備種類過於繁雜，顏色等級系統的隨機性讓大部分裝備都顯得毫無存在感，甚至連嘗試裝備的興趣都提不起來。雖然某些基礎屬性（比如傷害數值）可能會在你等級提升的過渡期派上用場，但最終玩家依然會把目光鎖定在傳奇裝備上，或者乾脆投入資源強化自己喜歡的裝備，傳奇裝備的技能比如某款鬼金棒能讓敵人在護甲被擊碎時變成爆炸性彈片，對戰局的影響力遠超那些普通裝備的微弱增益。

Speaking of excess, Shadows takes a big step backward from the work done around your inventory in Valhalla and Mirage. There are far too many pieces of randomized, color-tiered gear to pick up from fallen foes or as forgettable quest rewards that have no chance of making it into my rotation. Base stats like damage might make them relevant as last-minute stop gaps to kee***our stats in line with bad guys at your level, but only until you find that next piece of legendary gear or earn enough resources to level up a piece you already like. The skills on legendary gear, like a kanabo that turns enemies into shrapnel grenades when you break their armor, are impactful in a way that the generic percentage buffs to XYZ skill that you get from the lower tiers of gear never even come close to.

總結

通過完善現有系統的優勢，《刺客信條：影》創造了近十年來不斷磨練的開放世界風格的最佳典範之一！

《刺客信條：影》在系列傳統機制上揮舞利刃精雕細琢，使其更加精煉，而非粗暴顛覆。戰鬥節奏更爲激進，相較以往，更強調精準格擋與技能管理。同時探索日本戰國時期美輪美奐的風景也變得更加吸引人——全新的地圖設計削弱了收集圖標與清單打勾式玩法的存在感，讓玩家更專注於沉浸式探索。

奈緒江與彌助是一對塑造鮮明、令人印象深刻的主角，儘管他們的故事主線大多遵循較爲傳統的敘事路徑。二者的戰鬥風格截然不同，能夠相輔相成，但從實際體驗來看，這種平衡被打破——相比武士超凡的力量，玩家能夠利用忍者大師的潛行與探索能力的機會要多得多。

這並不是一款能夠徹底改變“刺客信條”質疑者看法的作品，但對於那些在“Animus”中積累了無數遊戲時長的系列老玩家而言，《影》帶來的種種革新與調整，讓這場全新的潛行之旅變得耳目一新，絕對值得一試。

IGN 8: Great
By sharpening the edges of its existing systems, Assassin’s Creed Shadows creates one of the best versions of the open-world style it’s been honing for the last decade.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes a flashing blade to the series’ established norms, trimming them to a more precise form in lieu of chopping them down outright. Combat is aggressive and requires more intentional parrying and skill management than in the past, and exploring the gorgeous provinces of Sengoku-period Japan is encouraged thanks to the revamped map that deemphasizes collecting icons and checking off lists. Naoe and Yasuke are well-realized and memorable protagonists, even though most of the story they drive follows pretty predictable paths. Both have unique playstyles that bolster each other’s weaknesses, but they are ultimately imbalanced by the fact that you can make use of the stealth and exploration skills of the master shinobi far more than the superhuman strength of the samurai. This isn’t the Assassin’s Creed that will change the minds of folks that never connected with the series before, but for those of us with lots of hours logged in the Animus, the sum of Shadows’ parts provide a refreshing realignment of the series that you should not skip.