Judging this by the standards of 2023 might not be the fairest thing, but by this metric this game is pretty awful. Not for the janky parkour, the long dialog scenes, or the simplistic combat and parkour systems, but just for how intent it is on wasting your time. You can't just go and kill some guys, you gotta do side-quests, and climb the towers, and sit through seemingly endless tutorials just to BEGIN to complete the objective Altair was tasked with completing.

I don't mind it's meandering pacing and an over-abundance of NPC conversations, because, honestly, I kinda like just how slow the game is. I don't know if I'd call it immersive per say, but the charm of this one would have definitely be lost had it had the movement and mission structure of it's sequels.

Assassin's Creed is not as bad as people say. The influence and innovation brought by it is immense, and while this game might not be so fun or mindblowing today, I can appreciate it's archaic quirks for what would become of them later on. I know we're all AAA-gaming haters here, but Assassin's Creed is responsible for a lot of great games we've gotten since it's release, and I think it's important to recognize that. Besides that, while it is the origin of the timeline were Assassin's Creed Valhalla exists, this game itself is, by contrast, very unique and bold in it's concepts, as weird as calling an AC game "unique" and "bold" might sound today.

Also yeah, the voice acting is amazingly bad, might be worth it to check this one out just for that