After playing about 6 hours of Arkham city i decided to try and finish up Assassins Creed Bloodlines since that sequel is right around the corner, but i soon found that the combat that i remembered pretty fondly was an awful atrocity! I played about an hour and got used to the combat again, but that first 40 or so minutes i was hating every second i had to be in combat. Batmans ridiculously intuitive and great feeling combat feels extremely similar to the feel of Assassins creeds and the similarities make it impossible to switch between the two. I have now hit a brick wall with both and to add insult to injury i got back onto Arkham city only to immediately dive bomb into the ground and get beaten unconscious because i couldn't remember the controls.

Has anyone else felt this or am i just crazy?

Combat is definitely not AC's strong suit (hence why it's basically absent from the multiplayer) but yeah, I had a similar experience with AC2 (might have been Brotherhood) and Arkham Asylum.

@Undeadpool:

Yeah, everything from counters to using gadgets in combat just feels awkward compared to the Arkham games.

I love the combat in Assassin's Creed.

Well bloodlines was the psp game right so that's where most of the problems might stem from. I don't have that problem since Batman is a more active combat experience where in Assassin's Creed it is very counter heavy. Brotherhood made it better in that after a counter you can kill everyone else in one hit if you keep a combo going.

@UnrealDP: Combat is the one place AC has never really improved, and judging from the gameplay footage for the new one not much has changed in that regard, which is a shame.

I like the combo systems in their own unique ways. In Batman, I want to feel like Batman so being able to completely destroy opponents with 50 hit combos is perfect. In Assassin's Creed I want it to be a slower, more challenging sword fight, because if I couldn't kill them without being seen, I probably deserve more of a challenge.

@SethPhotopoulos: Yeah i guess the part where i'm playing on a PSP probably doesn't help much ether....

The real issue I have with the AC combat is how only one guy attacks at a time, everyone else stays in the back.

It's been a while since I played it but I remember the combat in AC brotherhood being pretty awesome and fairly similar to Batman. The whole countering and then stringing a load of execution moves together felt super satisfying.

@huntad said:

I like the combo systems in their own unique ways. In Batman, I want to feel like Batman so being able to completely destroy opponents with 50 hit combos is perfect. In Assassin's Creed I want it to be a slower, more challenging sword fight, because if I couldn't kill them without being seen, I probably deserve more of a challenge.

That is just it though, the combat isn't challenging in assassians creed. You can literally combat every attack a guy puts at you and just insta kill him. The rare times it does fail you just switch it up by actually being offensive and attacking people.

I love the assassin creed games, but I really wish the combat was a little more challenging.

The combat is better in Batman but the traversal is better in Assassins Creed.

It bugs me that so many people feel that batman's melee system is shallow. 
 
AC's combat is weak in it's own right without even comparing to something like batman but to me it's forgiveable because
 
1) it's serviceable and provides some cool death animations and more importantly
2) it's all about the stabbin

@Hizang:

Yeah, i guess Batman does have some of those shimmying sideways segments that always felt like some light version of AC, so it goes full circle i guess..

Sounds like a personal problem unreal double penetration.

I still havent played Brotherhood other than the opening hour or so, and I am fearing going back to it after so much Arhkam City play! It always happens with games that play similarly, but control completley different!

@mosdl said:

The real issue I have with the AC combat is how only one guy attacks at a time, everyone else stays in the back.

Yeah, they all just stand around in a circle and watch as you murder their buddies, one by one.

Well, AC is always best if you run instead of fight. That's how they've always marketed and that's why a lot of people disliked the first.

I agree that Batman's combat is amazing, though, although I prefer the slower, more methodical take on it from Arkham Asylum than the hectic "Dynasty Warriors done right" version of Arkham City. Still good, though.

The combat in AA and AC is essentially identical. What are you talking about?

Batman is more dynamic, jumping from enemy to enemy. Creed is more counter based, always looking for a counter