Desmond and Altair's stories dovetail really well to slowly reveal the philosophies of the assassins and templars, something that later games often skip over for a simpler good guys vs bad guys conflict. Desmond is a prisoner who must sneak around and scrounge for bits of information just like Altair, but he ran away from the responsibilities that Altair has to re-learn the meaning of.
The game design reflects Altair's perspective as a tool of a strange murder cult: he doesn't care about money or doing side quests that don't relate to or aid his primary mission. The crowd is just an organic mass of obstacles for him to carefully navigate around. Nuisance characters will challenge his patience, but the right decision is always to stay calm and keep hiding in plain sight. He needs to manually lock on to targets, demanding focused attention for each kill. Like Desmond, he is not exactly a free man, and always has to operate under bureaucratic approval.
The limited toolset encourages waiting for the right opportunity to move and strike, rather than clearing out every guard from a safe position. There is always a danger of getting caught if you get too greedy with high profile actions.
I love how slow and methodical climbing is, while still allowing for agile manual maneuvers in a pinch. Even the combat being all about waiting for counters kind of works with the game's focus on slow, patient observation, though unfortunately there is too much combat for that feeling to hold.
The real problem with this game is that it's already way way too much of a ubisoft open world game. 420 collectibles and 60 templars is an absurd number, but at least those are easy enough to ignore. But the map is littered with icons for too many viewpoints and too many save citizen missions, which are all just a combat sequence with the same dialogue. Not only is there icon spam but there's also audio spam, as you'll hear the same save citizen mission barks over and over, and they're so densely packed into each district that you can't miss them. The rewards are genuinely useful, but they're such a chore that I found myself ignoring them and accepting the constant barks. Honestly I'd rather clear chests in unity than do all the save citizen missions as I come across them, or check off all the viewpoints that are 30 feet away from each other.
Masyaf and Kingdom ended up being my favorite maps because they are so sparse and quiet and moody. I think the main cities would be way better if there was less content in them. I don't mind the repetitive structure of the investigations, because it fits with Altair needing to work within the system, and they always come with unique dialogue and helpful information. But the open world fluff just drags the game down so hard, which is such a shame because the atmosphere is truly unmatched in its best moments.
The game design reflects Altair's perspective as a tool of a strange murder cult: he doesn't care about money or doing side quests that don't relate to or aid his primary mission. The crowd is just an organic mass of obstacles for him to carefully navigate around. Nuisance characters will challenge his patience, but the right decision is always to stay calm and keep hiding in plain sight. He needs to manually lock on to targets, demanding focused attention for each kill. Like Desmond, he is not exactly a free man, and always has to operate under bureaucratic approval.
The limited toolset encourages waiting for the right opportunity to move and strike, rather than clearing out every guard from a safe position. There is always a danger of getting caught if you get too greedy with high profile actions.
I love how slow and methodical climbing is, while still allowing for agile manual maneuvers in a pinch. Even the combat being all about waiting for counters kind of works with the game's focus on slow, patient observation, though unfortunately there is too much combat for that feeling to hold.
The real problem with this game is that it's already way way too much of a ubisoft open world game. 420 collectibles and 60 templars is an absurd number, but at least those are easy enough to ignore. But the map is littered with icons for too many viewpoints and too many save citizen missions, which are all just a combat sequence with the same dialogue. Not only is there icon spam but there's also audio spam, as you'll hear the same save citizen mission barks over and over, and they're so densely packed into each district that you can't miss them. The rewards are genuinely useful, but they're such a chore that I found myself ignoring them and accepting the constant barks. Honestly I'd rather clear chests in unity than do all the save citizen missions as I come across them, or check off all the viewpoints that are 30 feet away from each other.
Masyaf and Kingdom ended up being my favorite maps because they are so sparse and quiet and moody. I think the main cities would be way better if there was less content in them. I don't mind the repetitive structure of the investigations, because it fits with Altair needing to work within the system, and they always come with unique dialogue and helpful information. But the open world fluff just drags the game down so hard, which is such a shame because the atmosphere is truly unmatched in its best moments.