"Che nessuno ricordi il tuo nome. (May no one remember your name.) Requiescat in pace. (Rest in peace.)"
My thoughts on this one are partially brief but a little bit "complex" too I guess?
Brotherhood is a lot of people's top 1 AC game and I can see why.
This game to me is both a gigantic step forward from AC2 and also a sizeable step back.
To start with the negatives, this game was the first annual AC and it definitely shows in certain areas.
It's quite buggy (ESPECIALLY on PC. I stumbled upon around 5 glitches that either forced me to reset the game or change certain configs after searching for solutions) and it can feel quite volatile gameplay wise from time to time.
The story is considerably weaker than AC2's. I hear the phrase "less is more" being thrown around in Brotherhood's defense a lot and honestly I just don't agree because:
1 - Brotherhood has more content and said content is actually better than AC2's in general.
2 - The main campaign is short but it is not as focused as it should be, meandering quite a bit during certain beats.
The Ezio trilogy structurally is quite perfect. We follow Ezio during his youth in AC2, his adulthood in Brotherhood and his final years as an assassin in Revelations. My issues with Brotherhood don’t relate to the trilogy’s structure because it definitely nails its purpose as the middle story. However, I’m not the biggest fan of AC stories where the Brotherhood gets big enough to essentially become a “gang” (games like AC1, Unity and Rogue very clearly show how that amount of power easily corrupts the creed’s fundamental purpose) so I take some issue with the way Brotherhood handles the Order. HOWEVER, I do love Ezio’s philosophy and the reasoning he has for “fighting fire with fire” so this is the one AC story I can forgive for doing that pet peeve of mine (for the most part at least). All the stuff concerning Ezio and how the supporting cast from AC2 gets expanded upon is fantastic, my problem lies with the story’s main antagonist. Mr. Cesare Borgia gets a stellar introduction, being presented as both intimidating and an incredible threat during the attack at monteriggioni but after that he essentially leaves the story until the very end where he comes back and becomes a joke. He’s characterized as a whiny brat and spends the entire climax of the game being a butt monkey who gets humiliated by Ezio non-stop. It’s quite a shame especially since much like AC2 the other templars in this suck a lot and Rodrigo is not in this story at all. The main narrative has its strong moments but the overall package is just decent.
That’s it for negatives. Now onward to the positives.
This game has STELLAR side content. The Cristina memories are fantastic, Leonardo’s machines are very fun, Leonardo’s disappearance although kinda sloppy at times for a DLC is still mostly a really good time with a great send off to the character, Copernico’s mission are really cool and the Rome take over mechanic is really well balanced with a fair economy system. I did not feel compelled to do none of the side activities like races in AC2 on this replay but Brotherhood’s world sucked me in hard.
On that note, it is shocking how Brotherhood was made in 1 year. I mentioned a few of the cons that come from that fact but this game is an insane step up from AC2. I think Rome is way better than any of AC2’s cities and I’m glad they went with the 1 focused city per game approach for most AC games after Brotherhood because it pays off greatly. Rome is a fantastic open world.
Graphically the jump from AC2 is quite insane. The models are monumentally improved and the color grading in particular pleasantly surprised me a lot.
The gameplay is mostly the same but the combat is reworked a bit. The kill streak system pretty much murders any challenge but since I was not into AC2’s combat I take that as a positive, less time on it is better. The crossbow was the best addition by far tho holy shit it's so useful.
Mission design is really great on this one except for the 1 TRILLION TAILING MISSIONS OH MY GODDDD (NAH I DONT GET HOW DIE HARD AC GOONS GET PISSED ABOUT BLACK FLAG'S TAILING BUT NEVER MENTION HOW MUCH OF THAT SHIT IS IN THIS ONE)
Game design problem I had tho was the start. When Ezio gets to Rome it's kind of a slog because he's nerfed back to 0 way too violently (taking away the climb leap in particular is extremely stupid) and the tutorial missions are really intrusive, teaching the player a lot of ac2 mechanics again but in a way less engaging manner (ac2 has a stellar tutorial segment and this game basically has the opposite).
Modern day stuff is great. It got even more engaging than last time with Desmond feeling just as good to control as Ezio. Lots of interesting twists and turns there and a weird ass twist abrupt ending as always.
Brotherhood is a really good game, it’s very easy to talk about it superficially since it’s just a good ass game so I had to kinda dive into certain “nitpicky specifics” for the problems I have with it and it shows. Many consider this to be the definitive AC experience and it's definitely up there for sure. At its peak it's all killer no filler but the somewhat passable story definitely lowers its impact on me. It’s a perfect sequel to AC2 and a great game on its own.
My thoughts on this one are partially brief but a little bit "complex" too I guess?
Brotherhood is a lot of people's top 1 AC game and I can see why.
This game to me is both a gigantic step forward from AC2 and also a sizeable step back.
To start with the negatives, this game was the first annual AC and it definitely shows in certain areas.
It's quite buggy (ESPECIALLY on PC. I stumbled upon around 5 glitches that either forced me to reset the game or change certain configs after searching for solutions) and it can feel quite volatile gameplay wise from time to time.
The story is considerably weaker than AC2's. I hear the phrase "less is more" being thrown around in Brotherhood's defense a lot and honestly I just don't agree because:
1 - Brotherhood has more content and said content is actually better than AC2's in general.
2 - The main campaign is short but it is not as focused as it should be, meandering quite a bit during certain beats.
The Ezio trilogy structurally is quite perfect. We follow Ezio during his youth in AC2, his adulthood in Brotherhood and his final years as an assassin in Revelations. My issues with Brotherhood don’t relate to the trilogy’s structure because it definitely nails its purpose as the middle story. However, I’m not the biggest fan of AC stories where the Brotherhood gets big enough to essentially become a “gang” (games like AC1, Unity and Rogue very clearly show how that amount of power easily corrupts the creed’s fundamental purpose) so I take some issue with the way Brotherhood handles the Order. HOWEVER, I do love Ezio’s philosophy and the reasoning he has for “fighting fire with fire” so this is the one AC story I can forgive for doing that pet peeve of mine (for the most part at least). All the stuff concerning Ezio and how the supporting cast from AC2 gets expanded upon is fantastic, my problem lies with the story’s main antagonist. Mr. Cesare Borgia gets a stellar introduction, being presented as both intimidating and an incredible threat during the attack at monteriggioni but after that he essentially leaves the story until the very end where he comes back and becomes a joke. He’s characterized as a whiny brat and spends the entire climax of the game being a butt monkey who gets humiliated by Ezio non-stop. It’s quite a shame especially since much like AC2 the other templars in this suck a lot and Rodrigo is not in this story at all. The main narrative has its strong moments but the overall package is just decent.
That’s it for negatives. Now onward to the positives.
This game has STELLAR side content. The Cristina memories are fantastic, Leonardo’s machines are very fun, Leonardo’s disappearance although kinda sloppy at times for a DLC is still mostly a really good time with a great send off to the character, Copernico’s mission are really cool and the Rome take over mechanic is really well balanced with a fair economy system. I did not feel compelled to do none of the side activities like races in AC2 on this replay but Brotherhood’s world sucked me in hard.
On that note, it is shocking how Brotherhood was made in 1 year. I mentioned a few of the cons that come from that fact but this game is an insane step up from AC2. I think Rome is way better than any of AC2’s cities and I’m glad they went with the 1 focused city per game approach for most AC games after Brotherhood because it pays off greatly. Rome is a fantastic open world.
Graphically the jump from AC2 is quite insane. The models are monumentally improved and the color grading in particular pleasantly surprised me a lot.
The gameplay is mostly the same but the combat is reworked a bit. The kill streak system pretty much murders any challenge but since I was not into AC2’s combat I take that as a positive, less time on it is better. The crossbow was the best addition by far tho holy shit it's so useful.
Mission design is really great on this one except for the 1 TRILLION TAILING MISSIONS OH MY GODDDD (NAH I DONT GET HOW DIE HARD AC GOONS GET PISSED ABOUT BLACK FLAG'S TAILING BUT NEVER MENTION HOW MUCH OF THAT SHIT IS IN THIS ONE)
Game design problem I had tho was the start. When Ezio gets to Rome it's kind of a slog because he's nerfed back to 0 way too violently (taking away the climb leap in particular is extremely stupid) and the tutorial missions are really intrusive, teaching the player a lot of ac2 mechanics again but in a way less engaging manner (ac2 has a stellar tutorial segment and this game basically has the opposite).
Modern day stuff is great. It got even more engaging than last time with Desmond feeling just as good to control as Ezio. Lots of interesting twists and turns there and a weird ass twist abrupt ending as always.
Brotherhood is a really good game, it’s very easy to talk about it superficially since it’s just a good ass game so I had to kinda dive into certain “nitpicky specifics” for the problems I have with it and it shows. Many consider this to be the definitive AC experience and it's definitely up there for sure. At its peak it's all killer no filler but the somewhat passable story definitely lowers its impact on me. It’s a perfect sequel to AC2 and a great game on its own.