Assassin's Creed Shadows
Played about the first three hours, I made it past the late title card and (I think) the tutorial. It does seem very good. Very polished, looks fantastic and runs great, controls are nice and responsive. It does seem that on default difficulty, you actually need to pay attention in combat when playing as Naoe. If you just mash attack you die pretty fast, you need to dodge and parry, the timing of which is fairly generous thankfully. Haven’t played Yasuke much but he seems a lot more forgiving, what with the heavy armour and big sword. It’s still AC but it feels like the best it’s been to me.
Alright already, I bought it. 
FYI cdkeys have got £70 top up for £60.99.
There’s elements of this I really like, but I don’t know that I’m going to feel compelled to finish it. I’m about four hours in and I’m not really feeling the assassin bit yet.
Brave It’s a very slow start. I found it a bit confusing and overwhelming at first. I’m a few hours ahead of you and it’s starting to all click for me. I spent an hour and a bit last night methodically picking off every guard in a fortress and had a great time. The exploration/investigation stuff is starting to make sense now as well, particularly now I’ve recruited a few more spies. It’s a nice change from the usual map janitor system of previous AC games.
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Yeah the start does take quite a while to get going. It’s just opened up for me, at least for Naoe. I found in some of the initial bits I wanted to try and take everyone out, but it was more set up for you to sneak through.
One early recommendation I’ve seen is when it does open up concentrate on your first two assassinations, rather than exploring too much, as that will progress the story to include Yasuke. That means you’ll get loot for him as you wander around too.
It is a really beautiful game. Very different stylistic approach to GoT but impressive in what it does. Density and variety of foliage is particularly impressive.
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Played the opening section yesterday. It was good but a bit slow, as others have said. It takes the game quite a long time to open up. Also once it does open up there is a shrine very close by that will chuck you into another story section. I am liking it so far though and obviously the visuals are incredible.
I will say that I’ve figured out what I don’t like about this modern souls-eques combat style, which is so prevalent in games these days. The whole thing is just reactionary, you’re constantly on the defensive, waiting for small windows to attack, you never get the chance to go on the offensive. You are stuck constantly reacting and you rarely get to choose how the fight is going to play out.
It’s an incredibly weird decision to make invert y reverse all input on the right stick. Like, did invert y need to be reinvented? It’s very difficult to get used to.
Alex there is a happier setting for this. Invert look on y - just right stick - then leave the invert aim setting off. This extra one seems to then apply an extra invert of the invert if you turn it on. Confused me at first. It’s not really as difficult and complicated as some games try to make it. They should make people who use invert look develop this shit.
Also, Ubisoft seems to have done a pretty good and respectful job of incorporating Japanese tradition and information. A bit of a misstep in allowing the improved destruction carry over into areas it shouldn’t, but they addressed that day one.
One thing I did notice though, was the “please respect the Torii gates by not climbing on them” message, but leaving them peppered with L1 grapple points seems a little at odds with that.
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I’ve unlocked Yasuke now, and can safely say that he doesn’t follow the same cautious counter and parry-heavy style that Naoe does. It’s more along the lines of “just batter the absolute shit out of everyone” and it’s a lot of fun.
TAA to be replaced by PSSR in a future patch - recent improvements in PSSR have made this a better choice now.
RT reflections also to be patched into Balanced mode on Pro.