I have completed 4 games in the Assassin’s Creed series. I did not get all the flags in Assassin’s Creed 1, but I achieved 100% in Assassin’s Creed 2 and direct sequels. Assassin’s Creed 1 had some progression in that each chapter I got an upgrade, and the more objectives I completed the higher my health (to a cap). It was rather slight all told. Assassin’s Creed 2 had a much more varied progression, and it went up to what felt like a lot of progression in Ezio’s finale in Revelations. And, I’m not sure I played it as intended.
Let me back up though. I am an MMO player. I don’t normally like single-player games that aren’t little bites (like “Papers, Please”). So while Far Cry 3, Dishonered, and the like all look great, I just don’t feel a compulsion to play them. Assassin’s Creed 2 and beyond felt different. It felt like an MMO in the sense of the world and exploration. As the series progressed the landscapes felt more and more alive. I must say I was blown away when I started Assassin’s Creed 3; it just keeps getting better. Anyway, somehow Assassin’s Creed itches some part of my MMO nature.
I want to discuss particularly Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which was the last game I got 100% on. By sequence 4 of 9 (sequences are the long chapters of the game filled with missions) I had one of the best armors and weapons. (I will admit though the sword was from a DLC.) For progression, I was nearly done. See, I saw things like the guild challenges, which would give me more weapons and upgrades to my NPC hires, and well I had to go for it. In Brotherhood especially I felt these challenges were not going to be easily completed in the normal course of things (e.g., counterattack steal instead of counterattack kill). So if things could be checked off, they would be.
It was a blessing and a curse. Like I said, I was a health and attack monster by mid-way through the game, but I almost completely burned out. The other thing about Assassin’s Creed series is that there are sometimes invisible walls to complete thing. In Brotherhood for instance I could not get the best armor until sequence 5 because the final area wasn’t opened. I also saw that one of my assassin’s refused to complete a mission I had sent her away on because the game didn’t want to give me the best sword. Without the internets, I would have no idea when these invisible walls would be brought down. I kind of miss the clarity of Assassin’s Creed 1 where the walls were very clear in both limit and duration.
Assassin’s Creed 3 has me a bit frustrated already even though I am blown away by the smoothness so far. However, I am ignoring optional objectives for now. I am just playing through sequences until I get to a certain… transition, let say. Now, the missions have multiple objectives which aren’t clear on the first playthrough. In earlier games I had one optional objective (e.g., kill the target with the hidden blade) known at the beginning of the mission. I find myself repeating missions way more than I would like for the “gotcha” factor, and also the “do all optional objectives in one playthrough”.
The end of sequence 2 was particularly frustrating as I had to figure out how to avoid a firing squad of 10. If they hit me, I lost the objective. This was at the end of the mission too, so if I failed the objective I had to reboot a very long mission. That’s more of an achiever problem though. I am mostly thankful that due to the way the story is going right now I am finding it easy to ignore all the possible progression I could be doing right now.
Overall I am really enjoying the series. I am playing in order, and I don’t think I could skip around. There is no way I could go backward to Assassin’s Creed 1, and right now I think the gameplay in Assassin’s Creed 3 blows away the prior 4 games. Still I see my MMO side peek through way too often. I will do less fun things for some reward or check box without hesitation. I guess it’s just part of my nature.
–Ravious
“gameplay in Assassin’s Creed 3 blows away the prior 4 games.”
Are you playing AC 4 or 3 right now, because I don’t know of there being 4 prior AC games to AC 3?
AC1, AC2, AC:Brotherhood, AC:Revelations :)
Wow – they snuck a couple in there! I only played 2 but was really impressed with the exploration/living feeling of the cities. I didn’t quite get the MMO feeling from AC as I did from skyrim but may have to attack AC4 from that mindset.
I felt AC:B was a better version of AC2, although I did miss the separate maps. AC:R felt samey because one city again like AC:B, but the story was really good, but also really final.
I admit AC4 is the reason why I am going so strong for this…. but I want to go in order because I am digging the story.
The Ezio trilogy in particular feels quite a bit like a single player offline MMO – with more stealth and story than is typically feasible in an MMO. Most of the console games I play fill this sort of niche – much closer ties to what that specific character is capable of doing than you’ll find in an MMO where most content needs to be beatable by all classes.
I can see why playing Assassin’s Creed as you would play an MMO might lead you to say they keep getting better. Certainly, in each game (to 3, I haven’t played 4 and don’t intend to) you can do a wider and more detailed variety of things in a more and more open world.
Playing Assassin’s Creed as a story-driven game of rich lore and flavour which at least leaves open the option of planned stealth even if it doesn’t heavily incentivize it – I would suggest they do not get better. For me, the first story intrigued me and I wanted to see it play out, and by the end of AC3 I felt like someone had changed their mind and thrown out all the plot laid out in AC1 in favour of something else they felt like doing now.
I could rant about that at length… but I won’t in a first comment haha.
If you like AC3 and AC:B I think you might like AC4 as well. I know some of the guys who worked on both Brotherhood and AC3, and they really like AC4 as well. To the point where even the tester wants to go back on the weekend to play the game XD