this game has some really good narrative elements that appeal to me. the philosophical elements and conflicts between the brotherhood and the templars are a good mechanism to portray an interpretation of utilitarianism and virtue ethics. i even liked the desmond sequences an amount, even if other people may find them boring. regardless, the way this game portrays the templars and assassins is more complex than it ever is during the whole ezio trilogy, where the templars are just sort of the bad authoritarian guys with no real individual perspectives and justifications for their actions. really bothers me how in this game altair takes the time to talk to his targets while ezio just says "requiesce in pace" and calls it a day, but i digress.

though, the gameplay is dated. i really cannot rate this any higher even with my appreciation of this early narrative that is far more compelling than later entries. the flag collectible system is awful, and after having lost my completionist desires for such things, it really makes me realize how much of a waste of time it was getting all those flags. aside from that, the combat is just parry and riposte with ok (but dated and repetitive) animations. the climbing is much more grounded than later entries, but it has its issues as a result.

the locations are pretty good here, there are some interesting spots and historical buildings, and each city has their own sort of structure to them that makes them varied. the kingdom is too big though honestly.

i dont think this game appeals to everyone, but it does its job for the people it does appeal to, and i appreciate it for that.

this game just felt like AC2 with less variety in locations and more side content gimmicks that artificially increases playtime for completionists.

while i like that there was much more emphasis on the overarching plot here, we end off once again with a cliffhanger and still a really weak understanding of the lore.

some things that bothered me specifically:
- the reuse of locations over and over again (because of the lack of locations)
- how the crossbow makes this game ridiculously easy
- how the game bugs out at certain points regarding full synchronization, and has multiple points in time where having over 60 fps will softlock your gam
- the guilds system as a whole (leveling up guilds is just lame as hell, including the assassins guild)
- some missions are just straight up boring

ultimately it's still assassin's creed and it's still fine. just not special at all.

the honest truth is that this wouldn't really be bad by any means if it was released on a system that had better capabilities. unfortunately though, the controls really hamper the game, in addition to the very sluggish performance.

aside from that, the game is a nice little linear assassin's creed game that fills the gap between ac1 and the codex pages in ac2. i was impressed by the segments of altair writing his thoughts down until i learned that they were just some selected codex pages in verbatum, but the voice acting for altair is honestly still more "accurate" to how i would imagine him sounding than ac1.

regardless, i found myself enjoying the linear approach this game had over the ridiculous amount of lame side content brotherhood had, for example.

still, i can't really justify rating this any higher based on the limitations of the hardware, unfortunately.

honestly, the problem i had with this game was just that it wasn't punishing enough for the most part. i mostly focused on leveling health over energy (energy kind of isnt that useful most of the time), combine that with trying to collect everything and overall i didn't have many issues beating this game, and the bosses, while being fairly cool, sort of just fell over. never took more than 2 tries for any boss in the game, which kind of sucks because the bosses are fairly short (aside from the final boss). most of the time, i would just be sort of annoyed when getting hit by something, and considering when you max out you have a ridiculous amount of total life, and access to tents fairly frequently, it really was not difficult after getting used to how it works.

that all being said, this is a really nice game with enough parts to it that it kept me captivated throughout. the world design and enemy design is pretty great honestly, and the bosses are really, really well put together. the story, while not really being too interesting in my opinion, is presented well enough. theres a good variety in terms of enemies, locations and mechanics that i never got bored playing.

definitely worth playing, but it's not above and beyond.

i really just think the hunting grounds update made this game ridiculously boring, grindy and repetitive. the gameplay isn't bad at all but damn does it suck that it's made boring by the leveling done by running place to place on an island over and over.

equipment elements were completely trivialized as a result as well, meaning that you really only care about what cells a piece of equipment has instead of the protection / damage it does against a specific enemy. the only cases where it semi-matters is the legacy modes, the arena one and escalation, but even then perks are probably more powerful than bothering with elements most of the time. perhaps im not at late game though, but who would trudge through to late game when it's so lame?

and obviously theres not really much point to play this when you can afford monster hunter games. just kinda sucks cuz the potential was there back when i played in early access.

a very rough diamond.

i don't think ive played a game that had more visual bugs than this game had, and yet it's so solid in every other regard that i can't give it that much flak over it. exploration, combat, style, environments, story, characters, everything is so solid, but not exceedingly special.

the major thing aside from visual bugs is a lack of variety with enemies. the cool boss fights are cool, and there are great moments, but theres a lot of repetition in enemies, and the difficulty doesn't change with different enemies, but instead by increasing the amount of enemies. it gets boring fighting the same animals, same stun stick troopers, and run into the same bounty hunters over and over again, but everything else makes it flow fine.

once again, ubisoft proves that they have great ideas marred by application of those ideas.

the open world is crafted well, the story is cheesy but works ok, the mechanics are pretty fun and unique, but there's wayyyyyyyy too much shit to do in this game that is ridiculously repetitive. the fact that you have to do 10 drinking games each at 3 different bars for completion is ridiculous, and the same goes for every other chore that you have to do.

i was really disappointed specifically with the investigations. instead of having a mission that ties up the investigation and is an interesting, unique mission akin to the story missions, theyre just the same shit as fixer contracts, criminal convoys, or gang hideouts, except slightly more difficult sometimes.

i really just think this is due to ubisoft's insistence on these ridiculous open worlds filled with bullshit to retain playtime, but it ultimately just makes everyone hate ubisoft instead of making everyone excited to mess around with all the "fun" missions.

the city is legitimately well designed through and through, cars feel better than they do in gta5, hacking in the open world is fun, and the story missions are pretty fun. it just sucks that theres so much repetitive shit in the open world that will ultimately make people bored if they pursue it. its especially egregious because the story is pretty damn short if you go all in for it, leaving you with a mountain of side content that just isnt compelling.

all that being said, its an interesting experience nonetheless and worth playing, just dont bother with the side content unless you really want to see the completion percentage go up.

great addition to the overall story, interesting gameplay change from the base game, but very few levels. the levels that are here, though, are pretty well designed and use hel's unique abilities (and limitations) really well. there are some cool segments here that force you to work with her limitations with smartly designed obstacles. while the bosses in the base game were also sort of lame (aside from the elevator, that was dope), this dlc's bosses are more lacking to the point where i have to take away a point. regardless, solid expansion, amazing visuals once again, very cool, when ghostrunner 2?