Today’s game is Assassins Creed 2. I went ahead and buckled down and finished it today. I really enjoyed it. The DLCs did kind of interrupt the flow of the story. I think they’d have been better placed being put after the main story. But that’s just me.
The whole raid on Rome section was fun. I felt like it gave a linear space to utilize the stealth skills the game had been teaching you. My main gripe though comes from the linear aspect. It’s very obvious they had two main routes they expected you to follow which I didn’t really like. I ended up hugging the edge of the wall you run along to get there without being seen.
I did like the section where I had to get to the levers through the crowds. After not having crowd blending in AC1, I have to express how badly I missed it. If it was a physical concept I could kiss it.
I also really liked how Ezio is just a relay to get a message to Desmond. It adds some nice meta stuff and I really love the game utilizing the fact that there’s weird pseudo time travel shit going on. I’m hoping Brotherhood has less of that.
Speaking of Brotherhood. I went ahead and set it to download. I don’t know yet if I’m going to hop straight into it, as I love Assassins Creed, but 3 games back to back is a bit much. Then again I dont feel like the Ezio games are crazy long. So maybe I’ll commit to it and stop it AC3. Speaking of that. Since I already played it and Black Flag, here, what I instead was planning was just hopping in, finishing 100% and continuing to the next one.
Speaking of time shenanigans and AC3, that game had the most bonkers example at the very end, where Minerva has a real-time argument with Desmond and Juno despite being a recording. Too bad Ubi kinda just forgot about it afterwards as they tried to pivot the modern day story to “Ancients in the PRESENT DAY oooooo…”, which itself got killed by Unity’s disastrous launch and Syndicate being kinda lackluster.
I didn’t necessarily mind the Isu being in the present day in the newer games, but I wish they’d just commit to one damn plotline. Even now it feels like they dropped Basim and are doing this whole “Dark Animus” thing unless there’s something I’m missing there
Honestly, man, I have no idea what’s even going on with the modern day story anymore. Unity and Syndicate were already super light on modern day stuff (something about deep diving the Animus/Helix for… reasons?), and the only one I’ve played since was Mirage, which somehow has even less (William does a voice over at the very start of the game, and that’s it).
All I remember from Unity and Syndicate is that you’re a hacker helping out the Assassin’s, something something Phoenix project. something something sequence Isu Genome. It’s disappointing because done right i could see myself liking it.
On the subject of Mirage, I’ve seen gameplay and it looks closer to the older games i like. How’s the parkour though? Is it still that awkward feeling RPG Parkour like what Shadows has? (This might just be a me thing)
I’ll freely admit that I’m a terrible pick to ask about the parkour, sorry. Aside from the obvious improvement between AC1 and AC2, I’m intellectually aware that the parkour has been changed multiple times (certainly at least once per engine change), but during actual gameplay the parkour has never really felt different enough for me to notice, and Mirage is no exception. Like, I guess I noticed the more flashy animations in Unity and Syndicate compared to before, and I’m aware that people have complained about it feeling floatier in those games, but that all just goes right over my head.
Nothing to apologize for lol. I’ll freely admit the difference in parkour is a personal taste thing, and there’s some people who are different and won’t notice.
I still appreciate the insight nonetheless