Maybe the most missunderstood and wrongfully shamed game of 7th Gen. From the critics who claimed it was a repetitive techdemo with a shallow parcoure system, to the sequel dickriders who retroactivly shunned it: Get fucked. The First Assassins Creed is a game of focus, a clear vision of making a historical spy thriller with a sci fi twist.
It weaves historical fact with fiction excellently and creates a believable world for Gameplay to take place in. Altair is an excelent protagonist, beeing a reflection of the World he lives in. A Land that is beeing grinded down between the waring parties, where your fundamentalist believes and oaths justifie the end to any means. And unlike many of the Sequels: Altair actually changes and earns his arc as he learns the truth about the Holy War. Hes not Ezio who becomes the Holy Prophet of the Creed even after fucking up again, again and then a little bit more for good measure. Assassins Creed 1 considers consequenz and choice important to the narrativ, like it fucking should.
The gameplay consists of parcouring through the distinct cities of the Middle East. Jerusalem, Damascus and Acre all have unique districts, color pallets and Architecture. The devs had so much trust in the level design that they allow the minimap to be turned off and let the player explore based on landmarks and directions given in missions briefings alone. And it works. Having the buro always in the north of a city gives a clear starting point for exploration, making it entirely the players fault if they get lost.
The traversel through the citys is handle by a complex parcoure system allowing complete freedom of movement with side ejects, back jumps, slides and eventually ledge grabs. The later getting acquired to late in the game even though it unlocks a cruchial new layer to the traversal that should have been unlocked after the intro in my opinion. That and a piss poor tutorial, wich the series still suffers from, may have contributed to the lack of engagement players might have fellt toward this first Entrie. Although I would argue the game is open enough to allow experimentation without the need for endlessly forced tutorials. And perhaps that was the point.
The missions that are supposedly so repetitive all tie into the movement and use it well. And to be clear: there are no side missions in AC 1. Its all in service of the story and how much context the player wants to have before killing their assignt target. AC 1 simply prefers to not pull away any focus with random bullshit, just sometimes stoping the plot for present day segments that give further Context and even have their own secrets to discover. Random Flags and Templars to kill are placed in the world, wich I do admit feel very tacked on and unecessary. Their isnt even any reward for doing it.
Combat is not nearly as complex as parcour, but still provides solid fun. Its all about the numbers, giving even more the feeling that your a lonely Assassin send into the lions den. Parry can become a Get Out of Jail Free Card if its mastered sure, but in the late game enemies turn up in such high numbers that the most viable strategie really is the make a quick escape across the rooftopes. To give some credit to the critics: Combat does become repetitive simply due to the fact that by one of the last sections it becomes a litteral Kill Corridor of Enemies with no Stealth or any way to avoid it. It sucks and it reeks of a rushed deadline they had to met.
Still those are minor problems in my eyes for a game that is so unique among it own Series even. It is a shame that Ubisoft kickd the series creator Patrice Desilets to the curb when it came time to make follow ups, just so they could have complete control over milking their new cash cow dry until the heat death of the universe, or more fittingly: Soon the company itself, according to all the reports. I wonder what could have been, but Im also glad AC 1 still exists. Its a game I keep coming back to since I was Tennager and I appreciate it more every time I replay it.
It weaves historical fact with fiction excellently and creates a believable world for Gameplay to take place in. Altair is an excelent protagonist, beeing a reflection of the World he lives in. A Land that is beeing grinded down between the waring parties, where your fundamentalist believes and oaths justifie the end to any means. And unlike many of the Sequels: Altair actually changes and earns his arc as he learns the truth about the Holy War. Hes not Ezio who becomes the Holy Prophet of the Creed even after fucking up again, again and then a little bit more for good measure. Assassins Creed 1 considers consequenz and choice important to the narrativ, like it fucking should.
The gameplay consists of parcouring through the distinct cities of the Middle East. Jerusalem, Damascus and Acre all have unique districts, color pallets and Architecture. The devs had so much trust in the level design that they allow the minimap to be turned off and let the player explore based on landmarks and directions given in missions briefings alone. And it works. Having the buro always in the north of a city gives a clear starting point for exploration, making it entirely the players fault if they get lost.
The traversel through the citys is handle by a complex parcoure system allowing complete freedom of movement with side ejects, back jumps, slides and eventually ledge grabs. The later getting acquired to late in the game even though it unlocks a cruchial new layer to the traversal that should have been unlocked after the intro in my opinion. That and a piss poor tutorial, wich the series still suffers from, may have contributed to the lack of engagement players might have fellt toward this first Entrie. Although I would argue the game is open enough to allow experimentation without the need for endlessly forced tutorials. And perhaps that was the point.
The missions that are supposedly so repetitive all tie into the movement and use it well. And to be clear: there are no side missions in AC 1. Its all in service of the story and how much context the player wants to have before killing their assignt target. AC 1 simply prefers to not pull away any focus with random bullshit, just sometimes stoping the plot for present day segments that give further Context and even have their own secrets to discover. Random Flags and Templars to kill are placed in the world, wich I do admit feel very tacked on and unecessary. Their isnt even any reward for doing it.
Combat is not nearly as complex as parcour, but still provides solid fun. Its all about the numbers, giving even more the feeling that your a lonely Assassin send into the lions den. Parry can become a Get Out of Jail Free Card if its mastered sure, but in the late game enemies turn up in such high numbers that the most viable strategie really is the make a quick escape across the rooftopes. To give some credit to the critics: Combat does become repetitive simply due to the fact that by one of the last sections it becomes a litteral Kill Corridor of Enemies with no Stealth or any way to avoid it. It sucks and it reeks of a rushed deadline they had to met.
Still those are minor problems in my eyes for a game that is so unique among it own Series even. It is a shame that Ubisoft kickd the series creator Patrice Desilets to the curb when it came time to make follow ups, just so they could have complete control over milking their new cash cow dry until the heat death of the universe, or more fittingly: Soon the company itself, according to all the reports. I wonder what could have been, but Im also glad AC 1 still exists. Its a game I keep coming back to since I was Tennager and I appreciate it more every time I replay it.