I couldn't decide whether to make a new post or necro a similar thread.
Continuing on with my self-torture I have now played through Assassin’s Creed Unity. Going in I had pretty low expectations of this game based of the anecdotes online and from review scores. I know I played a more ideal version of the game with all the patches that had been done so I’m not denying people’s initial reactions with the game. I did come across a fair number of bugs, two of which required a reload, but overall I really enjoyed my experience with this game. This made me wonder if the game would have garnered a slightly more positive reception had it not been a broken a mess.
I liked Arno and his character progression. He feels responsible for the death of his father(s) and without those catalysts we’d never get to see his story or him using the Brotherhood for his own agenda. I feel like Arno’s path of redemption and protecting what he loves plays well with Elise and her self-righteous path of revenge. The best part of the intertwining stories is that while Arno is partially to blame for her father's death, at some point he had it coming just by virtue of being a Templar, she never puts the full blame on him. This is especially true after the real antagonist is revealed.
Arno unfortunately only learned what it meant to truly be an Assassin after the death of Elise. I actually liked the final sequence of events with Elise, Germain, and Arno from a story perspective. Mechanically it was easy to break by just throwing Smoke or Stun Bombs on Germain and then going up for Assassin Strike. Story wise though I thought it was cool that Elise was trying to distract Germain so that Arno could press the attack.
The interesting part comes when Germain loses control of the Sword of Eden and it knocks part of the cavern on Arno. Elise comes to try and free Arno but when she looks back sees a vulnerable Germain. In her rush for revenge she leaves Arno trapped and rushes after Germain. Arno calls out saying that it’s too dangerous to go alone and thus her lust for revenge is her downfall. The attack that kills Elise also leaves Germain stunned and a freed Arno goes in and slowly kills Germain. In the sequence that follows we get a little back story on Germain’s back story and that even with this death the events he had placed in motion will continue on.
This part stands out to me as it is the first time we see a character that is dying actually speak to the Assassin as they are being killed. Part of this might be part of the power of the “Sage” but I really liked the discussion between Arno and Germain at this point in the game. And while we didn’t learn anything new to further the story I just thought the dialog between the two was great.
Back to Elise for a moment. I really felt that she was an enjoyable side character and someone they could have done more with. I had this theory about her role throughout the game. My theory was that part of the plan to kill Arno’s father was Elise distracting him when they were children. This would have all been masterminded by her father and possibly she did it unknowingly. Arno wouldn’t find out until he had to either put Elise out of her misery from Germain’s attack or assassinating her making him question whether their friendship and love was truly meaningful. Now granted I was completely wrong about all that but
The upgrade in this system leaves a lot to be desired. While there is a lot of customization in regards to what skill you can and when you cannot get all the skills by playing the single player. This forces completionist’s to do the co-op missions which playing right now have extremely long queue times. You can play them privately but there are some missions you can’t 100% without a group.
With that said I do feel that your assortment of tools feel useful and necessary if you like to go for the 100 percent sync in story missions. You can even get tons of the tools you like by getting different pieces of gear making some of the mission 100% pretty trivial. Actually this is true of a lot of the gear is the game is incredibly easy to break for some of the earlier sequences. With a lot of patience I was able to get through all off the Dead Kings missions prior to completing Sequence 5. I’m okay with that though as I feel like it made my progress of getting 100% on the missions not as frustrating.
Maybe if I had some friends to play with I’d like the Co-op but even still I think it feels a little tacked on. Going into Co-op missions there is no back story with regards to why you are doing the mission and upon completion there is no story significance either. The bummer is for someone like me is I’d still like to see some of it and I’m a completionist and would like to get all the gear and outfits. Glad to see that Ubisoft is not going to include it for Syndicate.
Speaking of being a completionist there is waaaaaay too much stuff on the map. Good gravy! My OCD to collect all of the things was so overwhelmed that it may have broken me of getting all things in any video game ever again. It's so cluttered that finding missions or fast travel points becomes a Where's Waldo hunt just to find it to click on.
Well this turned out significantly longer than I thought it would and I actually have a few more thoughts but I'll keep them to myself. Overall I keep liking the AC franchise despite its attempts to make you care about what is going on in the real world. I hope at some point that they do get around to that setting but I doubt they ever will. I’ve just purchased AC: Rogue for the PC and should be here this Friday but I may hold off on it to play both Dragon Age DLC’s for a small change of pace. I might just wait for it to arrive as I’d like to catch up on the series prior to Syndicate.
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