This post is the sequel to the Assassin’s Creed review series Part 1. I hope you like reading this one as much as you did the last one and I also hope that I do justice to this amazing piece of art we call Assassin’s Creed.
If you haven’t read the first part here, I highly recommend you do so to get a better understanding of this part since I will be addressing some points that I might have missed, you can come back here using the link provided in the first post.
Before starting let us have a recap of the scores we gave to the Story, Missions, and the Setting and Cities.
Table of Content
Recap
Story
9/10
Missions
8/10
Side Missions
If you read the last post you might have noticed that we reviewed both main missions and side missions but rated only the Main Missions so in this post, the Side Missions get a—
5/10.
Now let us continue on our quest to review and rate Assassin’s Creed.
Remaining Game Aspects
In the last post, we reviewed three key aspects of the game, in this post we will try to review and rate as many of the remaining aspects as possible. The remaining aspects are:
- Environment
- Characters
- Stealth
- Combat System
- Parkour [since it is an AC game]
- Sound Design [Music]
- Voice Acting
The Environment
The environment of the AC1 is phenomenal. You can tell Ubisoft developers put time and effort into making this game. There are four key points to consider here:
- Colour Filter
- City Architecture
- NPCs
- Enemy NPCs
Colour Filter
As we discussed in the last post, Ubisoft’s decision to add a colour filter to each of the cities to give them a different feel and depict their respective demographic, geopolitical and cultural situations was one of the most genius moves, to set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd. We also see some of this being carried over to Assassin’s Creed 2, but it doesn’t give the same vibe as the original Assassin’s Creed.
City Architecture
Since this is Ubisoft’s first Assassin’s Creed game with an open-world and free-running parkour system, one would not expect them to do a good job in architecting the cities with parkour fluidity in mind.
There are so many different paths you can take in each city from point A to point B, that too with smooth and fluid parkour. There is also this mini-game/side quest you can do where you have to collect flags, doing this side quest really shows you how well the city is structured.
NPCs
The NPCs in this game don’t just roam the streets, their AI is designed in a very clever way. If you fall off a ledge or try to climb in a socially unacceptable way, the NPCs would react, move out of the way and even comment on your acts.
Additionally, there are beggars, mentally ill and drunkards who would get in your way or push you for no reason which makes the game feel more alive.
The Annoyting part
Beggers:
Mid- and late-game, the number of beggars on the street increases, which becomes really annoying since they get in your way and even block your path, hindering your smooth and stealthy assassinations. Late-game 3-4 beggars would get on to you, and since there is no air assassination in this game, you would have to go through the streets.
Drunkards:
Drunkards and the mentally ill will push or throw you off even while running and same as the beggars, their numbers increase as you progress, which gets annoying because if you are being pursued by a horde of enemies, these guys would still push you, causing the enemies to catch up to you.
Enemy NPCs
Enemies in Assassin’s Creed were way ahead of their time. During combat, they would rely on different real-life tactics to land a hit, the worst part, Altair is really squishy during the early game, like four hits and it's game over.
The enemies could fake grab or fake an attack while the other attacks you from the other side, they can even dodge and launch a counterattack at you. These guys have better teamwork than any other enemy NPC in other games.
The Annoying Part
When I say there are a lot of enemies patrolling in this game, I MEAN a lot. If you have played any recent Assassin’s Creed or similar game, you do not appreciate how good you have it now. I would describe this situation as a slightly easier experience than Soulsborne games.
Additionally, the enemies aggro instantly, and there is no easy escape from this since they are everywhere. Furthermore, as they are super intelligent during combat, fighting and running from a horde of enemies makes life in Assassin’s Creed even harder.
The Rating
7/10
Characters
There are mainly three prominent characters in Assassin’s Creed, namely:
- Altair
- Al-Muallim
- Malik
Altair
Altair’s character development is one of the best I have seen in Assassin’s Creed games so far. He started out as an arrogant person because of his title as a master, but he was humbled by his master— Al Muallim after he failed to lead a very important mission which resulted in a heated battle with their enemies. As a punishment, Al-Muallim strips him of his rank and sends him on a solo mission to assassinate nine targets.
During his journey, he learns much about his enemies, but only as puzzles and riddles. Because of this confusion, he develops a sense of curiosity and bravery as he seeks forbidden answers from his master.
Furthermore in the story, he develops a sense of responsibility and charge. Putting his ego aside as a master assassin, he even owns up to Malik—his colleague who gets severely injured and loses his brother because of Altair’s arrogance.
Al-Muallim
Al-Muallim is the Assassin’s GrandMaster. He was indirectly depicted as a mysterious character. Not much is known about him during the playthrough and only during the late game do we get to know more about him.
All we know is that Al-Muallim is the one who controls every operation of the assassins and also seemingly knows everything. However, if I go ahead with his character explanation, I am afraid I would have to spoil major plots of the story, which I will not do, so if you want to know more, play the game.
Malik
At the start of the game, Malik suffers through grave tragedies and injuries because of Altair and hence develops hatred towards him. He is also the bureau leader of one of the cities Altair travels to.
Whenever conversing with Altair, his tone is harsh and filled with hatred towards him and thinks that he is not going to learn his lesson and remain as arrogant as before. However, during the late game, he realises that Altair has changed for good because of his work as a changed assassin. Malik even accepts his apology with a good heart and even starts talking to him more like a friend.
Malk has the second-best character development in the game, while Altair has the best one throughout the whole series.
The Rating
8.5/10
Break
That is it for this one, I understand that breaking it into parts is not good, but otherwise, this post would be too long. So I hope you liked this one too and I will post the next one as soon as possible. Until then have a great time.
Haven’t read the first review yet? Check out Part 1 here.
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