Assassin's Creed series [2007-2014 -- Ubisoft]

[Starfox]

Originally published on February 18, 2015 by Doc_Brown

Breaking the mold a bit with this one, doing a general overview of the main Assassin's Creed titles from the 7th console generation.  If you don't see an AC game here, it's either not a main title (Assassin's Creed III: Liberation) or not 7th gen (Assassin's Creed Unity).  And just a reminder: my grading scale is neither a reflection of quality nor a system of recommendation.  The grades simply indicate how I, personally, feel about them.  In other words...

I love it
I like it
I'm neutral
I dislike it
I hate it

Assassin's Creed
I favor the inaugural entry in the series more than most people do.  There's a purity to the experience lacking in any other 7th gen entry.  You're an assassin and everything you do feeds back into that.  You climb towers to get the lay of the land.  You pickpocket, eavesdrop, and interrogate to gather intel on your target.  You rescue citizens so they'll help you, in turn, when it comes time to strike.  Your reliance on counter-attacks forces you to flee rather than stay and fight.  And the citywide, post-assassination alert encourages you to stick to the rooftops to make good your escape.  The game is not without its shortcomings, but if you play it right you can downplay those and focus on its strengths.

Assassin's Creed II
Just as people seemed overly disappointed in the original, I feel they went too far in praising the sequel.  For a revenge story, it spans an unusually long time period with several significant gaps, and it's odd that, after killing who knows how many people over the years, Ezio ultimately decides murder isn't the answer.  On the gameplay front, the villa feels like a waste of time and the puzzle elements are more numerous and difficult than any other entry--not to mention required to advance the main story.  To its credit, though, Ezio is the breakout star of the franchise, and Renaissance-era Venice, at night, during Carnevale, is a magical experience you won't find anywhere else.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
You may have heard of gameplay and story segregation.  Brotherhood, on the other hand, features some of the best integration in the series.  Your targets are Rodrigo Borgia, the Pope, and his son Cesare, General of the armies of Rome, so you can't just run in there and stab them.  Side missions are all about weakening their grip on the city, turning public opinion in your favor, and recruiting and training an army.  Story missions, meanwhile, target the Borgia's allies, cutting off their support and isolating them.  You've got Machiavelli helping you plan, Leonardo da Vinci making your gear...  Everything ties together perfectly, even if the series was drifting away from its ostensibly stealthier roots by this point.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations
There's a noticeable trend in the AC series.  One game will add a ton of new content just to see what sticks (II, III), the second will keep what worked and fix or discard what didn't (Brotherhood, Black Flag), and the third will just give us more of the same (Revelations, Rogue).  The problem is unoriginal content, by definition, just isn't as good, and of the new things Revelations brings to the table, its biggest selling points (hook blade, bomb crafting, bureau defense, Altair missions) are pretty weak.  At least the story, Constantinople itself, the theme song, and the criminally overlooked stalkers are worthwhile.

Assassin's Creed III
III was the first game in the series I actively disliked.  You don't get to play as the main character, Ratonhnhaké:ton, until an hour or two in, which is terrible from both a design and story standpoint.  The fast travel system in the cities has to be unlocked point-by-point via a literal labyrinth of underground tunnels you can't leave the same way you entered.  The homestead is like the villa from II, only bigger and that much more annoying.  The game's highpoint--the sailing missions--arguably should have been removed, as they're done better in subsequent games and detract from what makes this game unique in the first place--the frontier and the new 'treerunning' system.  There was potential here, but they botched it.

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Black Flag is arguably the AC game I find the most fun.  It feels like an extension of Brotherhood, only with ships instead of assassin recruits and forts instead of Borgia towers.  Yes, by this point the combat had reached ridiculous levels, but it fits IV's tone better than it does III's.  Between you and me, I suspect they wanted to make a pirate game and were told that new properties were too risky, so they used an established brand to sneak it through.  For all the crap Ubisoft gets about flooding the market with AC games, it's a unique aspect of the franchise that lets them take risks they otherwise might not.

Assassin's Creed Rogue
For a story that's trying to present the Templars as more sympathetic figures, they sure did a horrible job.  Shay's heel-turn is based on wild assumptions that are never actually proven true, and the new characters introduced in the modern day segments are thoroughly unlikable.  As for the game itself, the counter assassination missions are fun, but they also ruined the stalkers, one of my favorite things about Revelations.  I like the game's equal split between city, wilderness, and open sea, but aside from the North Atlantic there's a lot of reused content from both III and IV.  In short, it feels like we're all just going through the motions at this point.

Update: You can find my QuickViews for the 8th generation Assassin's Creed games here.