Assassin's Creed: Shadows is an experience that was enriching, beautiful, and at times, gloriously confusing.

I poured in roughly 65 hours of play, and it was time that — for the most part — felt like a strong gust of wind through a field of cherry blossom trees. I was enraptured, even with the full knowledge that this installation of the series generally followed the path of the ones that came before it: The hero embarks on a journey(s) to extinguish a grand list of enemies who have done wrong. During that journey, more lists of enemies and subplots emerge, all for the hero to eventually face as they raise their strength (levels) in their travels. I didn't mind traveling across feudal Japan, tracking down groups of bad guys and girls, whether they were people at the higher levels of power or an assemblage of douchebag ronin terrorizing the people. I dueled students of a former master to learn more about the ways of the sword, or the naginata, or other weapons. I hunted pirates. I raided secret caves. I collected exquisite tea bowls. I became a feudal foodie, traveling to sample dishes for a noodle master. I helped an adorable chubby kid make soup.

Where the experience occasionally faltered, unfortunately, was in the technical nuances of its greatest strength: the parallel appearance of two fully formed, wildly different protagonists, both with their own layered narratives and both carrying bucketloads of aura. One is an actual historical figure; the other is an avatar for the more classic Assassin's Creed experience. Individually, they are incredible. Together, they are … OK?

I first encountered the story of Yasuke in entertainment form via an anime series on Netflix a few years ago, with LaKeith Stanfield as the voice behind the titular, enigmatic and real Black samurai who served Oda Nobunaga until the legendary lord's death. In Shadows, Yasuke was depicted as an outsider who embodies the samurai ideal — loyalty, service and, in gameplay terms, the absolute power opposite of much of the Assassin's Creed stealthy ethos. He's a one-man army with very little need to sneak around or climb up stuff, cutting down throngs of people with a variety of weapons to get to his target, and the dude is thorough. With a naginata, he lopped off someone's arms before slicing off their head. Even his "assassination" mechanic is called a "Brutal Assassination," where he yells at his soon-to-be-killed enemy to face him before running him through with his long katana, lifting him up into the air, and tossing him aside. He's the feudal Terminator. He's the guy you pick when you're sick of everyone's s–t and just don't have the bandwidth to wait and do stealth things. His slave-turned-samurai story was one of tragedy, some love and personal growth that came at very, very high cost.

There were also some very satisfying moments in his origin story missions. To reclaim his master's sword, Yasuke duels and kills three repugnant students of the nearby rival school, then walks up to the that school's freshly shamed master, eyes his teacher's katana behind him and utters — with that luscious African lilt — "I'll take that." Everything Yasuke does is about being upfront, with little regard to whether his enemies see him coming.

Naoe, the shinobi (and to my knowledge, not a real person in history), will feel much more familiar to Assassin's Creed veterans. She has the signature Hidden Blade and functions as the vessel for the classic Assassin way of operating. She stays in the shadows, uses her agility to climb up and over things, reaches vantage points for opportunities to strike and elude, and she essentially looks cool while doing it. Like Yasuke, Naoe has the ability to rack up bodies in open combat, but she's much less powerful and efficient in doing so. She's the explorer of the two, and she houses the essence of what it means to actually be an assassin. Her tale was one of vengeance, as she swore to track down, Arya Stark style, a group of masked samurai called the Shinbakufu who killed her father and stole a relic that her family had been charged to watch over. As with past AC games, like the Cult of Kosmos or Order of the Ancients, the trek and effort to find each member is a small odyssey.

From a storytelling perspective, I loved both of them. They are wonderfully voice-acted, feature moments of poignant and emotional writing, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing and watching the two of them talk to each other, whether it's talking about the collective mission they're on, bantering while looking at the stars, or trying to decide someone's fate. "They killed your lord," says Naoe. "They killed your father," says Yasuke. Their interactions served as touchstones for their causes. Yasuke was seeking justice and honor, while Naoe was seeking blood and vengeance.

However, as fun as it was to play as both of them individually, the gameplay synergy between them felt clunky and inconsistent in a way that distracted me. For instance, they were never on the same screen fighting together, even during moments when one would expect them to actually be in the same space. In the lead-up to a confrontation against one of the Shinbakufu, there's a shot of both Yasuke and Naoe, posing and ready for a fight as they face the enemy. The screen freezes to let me make a choice: Play as Naoe or Yasuke. I chose Naoe, thinking that Yasuke was probably going to fight the samurai surrounding my target to give Naoe room to find a vantage point and swoop in for a kill. Nope. After choosing Naoe, when it was time for action, Yasuke was nowhere to be found, and I was suddenly on a rooftop, trying to escape everyone's notice while I worked for the assassination angle. Then when I finally kill the guy, and we get to a cut scene, Yasuke is right by Naoe's side again. Dude, where's my samurai?

I could switch between characters at almost any time, but it wasn't entirely seamless or logical. Sometimes it felt almost too convenient. An example: As Naoe, I explored a "path" of sorts that's clearly meant for Assassins (use of jumps and other feats of agility, plus a grappling hook), but at the end of this path was a crazed, high-level enemy who managed to get the better of an underpowered Naoe. I was ready to gear up and try again, but then I wondered if I could just switch to Yasuke and buzzsaw right through this joker. Sure enough, I could, and I did, but in the back of my mind, I couldn't quite understand why that would connect logistically, since Yasuke had no means of traversing that same path to get to that point. Are they traveling together all the time? Apart some of the time? I was never quite sure. I knew that as the player, we're in the Animus, so weird things can happen, but that feels like a stretch.

One thing that I was certain about was that they both were capable of whipping a lot of ass. The combat features a color-coded system to signify when to block/parry and when to dodge outright, which I've seen before used to great effect in games like Ghost of Tsushima, Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade. Both also have an array of interesting weaponry, especially Yasuke, who can use a sword, naginata, kanobo (a giant club), a bow and a rifle, known as a teppo.

I appreciated how exploration was not only a means to take in such wondrous scenery and visual detail, but also to find ways to gain points to improve my heroes, recruit companions with special skills (and relationship options) and gain resources to build my hideout, which was basically a hub for upgrades and support. However, the essential part of exploration was the use of scouts to dispatch to different parts of the map to find targets or people of interest. Every mission point you follow on a large "objectives" screen is accompanied by several bullet points of map details, such as, "He is in Harima," "he is north of Azuchi," or "he is at Yunomite, recovering in an onsen," and it's up to your map-reading skills to use those details to narrow down your search area. I found this concept to be relatively cool overall, but also occasionally tedious and frustrating. Part of this was me admittedly overthinking some of the vague details, but part of me also couldn't help but think some of this was needless busywork. I was also a little put off by the "looty" vortex of constantly finding, buying and/or upgrading weapons and equipment every time I opened a chest or took down some ronin who happened to have better stuff than I did.

I do, however, enjoy that there's still so much for me to do in Assassin's Creed: Shadows. I'm whittling down a short list of raiders known for terrorizing villages during winter and looking into members of a mysterious group … one of whom I killed while I was on the way to do something else. I also have a lot of a fogged-up map that I would still like to clear up and explore, whether it's to find some lost pages floating around a temple or engage in a meditative minigame to unlock more of Naoe's story. For an experience that featured so much conflict, it's a rare moment of peace.

Score: 7.7/10