"Nothing is true, everything is permitted."














I've been meaning to replay the AC series for a good while, given that these games are some of the most influential pieces of media for me that I experienced during my youth.

Like many others I went through a pretty violent disconnect towards the franchise after Syndicate came out. Origins was announced and its sheer premise served as the final nail in the coffin when it comes to my interest on the series.

It's been almost 5 years now tho and I missed my good old flawed but introspective adventures with the hoodie boys. Now that we have Odyssey and Valhalla sinking the franchise's bar even lower I have warmed up to the idea of trying Origins now which will be interesting since I did not follow that game's development cycle, thus am completely unspoiled.

Before we get there tho we gotta start from the beginning, with the father of it all.

AC1 is an aged game. I don't think that's a shocking revelation. However it is considerably less aged than I remembered.

This game introduces the skeleton of the series but lacks the added meat that its sequels introduced gameplay wise. The combat is extremely simple and the social stealth mechanics are really shallow. The parkour is definitely the only area I'd say aged decently even if it's still somewhat clunky compared to the likes of Unity or even III.

Visually tho this game still looks quite good, the scenarios and the eerie ambience in particular hold up remarkably well.

The highlight and the heart of this game is definitely Altair. The story acts as a character study of the man and his journey towards redemption and philosophical enlightment, growing from a selfish cold asshole acting with no ideals behind his blade to a caring and perceptive leader, challenging the ideals he was taught and reaching their true meaning. I particularly really like how the gameplay cycle of this game reflects that narrative, making Altair go through an extremely repetitive hitlist with pretty much 0 emotional attachment to any of his victims. The way its final missions become more dynamic and less mechanical and cold serves as a pretty cool storytelling for Altair's development. It's quite a fascinating story and a great spin on the tale of the old man of the mountain. The main issue during the past storyline is a lack of interesting side characters since only Al Mualim and Malik get character work outside of Altair (it's pretty crazy Abbas shows up in this game for literally 10 seconds and has 0 bearing on the story considering his role in Revelations), leaving the templars especially quite one dimensional in this entry, even with most of them sporting really good confession scenes.

Meanwhile on present day we follow Mr. Desmond and tbh this is easily the worst part of the game. Desmond doesn't do anything in this one and we only get an extremely brief introduction to him before the game locks his importance to a cycle of worldbuilding exposition dumps with absolutely no payoff until the next game (this game's ending is quite awkward since it just kinda ends with no conclusion to either of the main characters, something that is thankfully fixed in the next games).

Basically this game is not quite up there as a favorite but it's still an extremely respectable and unique game even inside its own series, setting out to be its own beast and not giving a shit about anything else that was out in the industry at the time. Really can't appreciate it enough.

I'll open this by establishing my thoughts on Drakengard 1 since this game heavily builds upon it and it's impossible to talk about one without the other.

I don't like Drakengard 1 that much. The gameplay becomes semi bearable once you put a lot of time into it but it's still fundamentally pretty shitty. It has presentation issues and the writing is the equivalent of being violently assaulted by wet noddles with a ton of unintentional humor. Most of the characters don't work, the themes range from not existing to being so stupid that the game about how miserable and bad the world is becomes a disturbing comedy.

Basically I don't think Drakengard 1 is this artsy masterpiece many claim it is even if I do admire a lot of its qualities. So much sounds interesting on paper but the execution is somewhat questionable, style over substance one could say.

With that in mind, hearing Drakengard 2 is not even liked by the people who actually get a lot out of the original had me curious. I fully expected to try it, find it unplayable and badly written, then move on.

Well, as you can see by the rating, here we are.

I loved it, it is actually so shockingly superior to Drakengard 1 in every conceivable level. It's the anti-Drakengard 1 in more ways than one.

Drakengard 2 adds so many interesting ideas and players to the already very intriguing world of the first game.
The themes of love, duality, sacrifice, repetition... It's all so fascinatingly executed. It's tamer and less unhinged than DOD1 on the surface but the ways it explores the aftermath of that game, the different ways Nowe views this visceral world and how his idealized reality slowly crumbles around him, the way Manah and Caim strived in search of their own forms of atonement to dispell their grief... It's all excelent.
It retroactively makes the world of Drakengard 1 seem so much grander and adds so much meat to the big players of the original cast who weren't bad but all severely lacked a bigger impact beyond their iconic personality quirks and characterizations.

Honestly it is insane to me how far this game goes to make everything I either disliked or thought were an absolute waste of potential in 1 (Inuart's conflict with Caim) become something that I can actually explore and have good old shower thoughts on.

I wish we got more Seere by the end but his stuff was also really good and I love the impact his ideals had on the status quo. Angelus was beautiful (THE ROLE REVERSAL AND THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE RED AND BLACK DRAGONS BECOMING THIS MYTHOLOGICAL FATE IS SO FUCKING SICK THEY MADE INUART'S LOSER ASS HAVE A COOL THEME BEHIND IT THIS GAME IS NOT FAIR).

The new cast is all good as well.
I think Nowe is a bit too passive and reaction triggered alongside having a pretty tame personality that could've shined more with a few tweaks but I absolutely adore his purpose in this story. He works brilliantly as this story's MC and his conflict with Legna is absolutely fantastic.
Speaking of, Legna also a banger, really really like him.
URUCK IS THE GOAT I WISH HE STICKED AROUND FOR A BIT MORE BUT HE WAS A BANGER THROUGH AND THROUGH.
Eris is great, she's hot as fuck so that's already a sell but her presence in the story is very striking and her Novella is incredible, expanding and giving some much appreciated finality to the story of this game.
The generals were cool one off antagonists and they fit their purpose as the gimmicky bosses (I enjoy the way the pacts are used with these characters a LOT).

THE GAMEPLAY HOLY SHIT
THIS GAME IS ACTUALLY PLAYABLE
I CAN DO OK COMBOS
ITS FAST
THERES A BUDDY SYSTEM THAT ACTUALLY HAS A PURPOSE AND FUCKING WORKS
THE BOSSES HAVE ACTUAL COMBAT DESIGN
THE LEVELS DONT GO ON FOREVER
MANAH DOES A FUCKING BREAK DANCE
I CAN MOVE THE FUCKING CAMERAAAA

All in all, fantastic game. I hope Taro goes fuck himself because I'm gonna fuck his wife.

Sakurai when she writes a sequel to 2 games she didn't play troll face gif

Nasu when he doesn't know what the fuck to do with Hakuno without Niino to guide him so he decides to rehash their original character arc which he did AGAIN one year after this game came out in Last Encore troll face gif

This game when it's so absolute dogshit I'm more invested in the shitty generic musou gameplay over the writing it shoves down your throat like it's a visual novel troll face gif

"Hakuno Kishinami was someone who treasured herself and the things she loved. The things I insist I want to protect are only those I see before me.
That's the sort of shallow, greedy person Hakuno Kishinami was."






The third game in the Niino psp trilogy, the most "beloved" one and by far the entry I have the most complex feelings towards.

I kinda went through a character arc with this game. Upon finishing it I was very lukewarm. Niino pulls a gimmicky true ending on 2nd playthrough schtick that he first tried with his Black Rock Shooter game and I am not a fan of that design choice in both cases. Unlike a Taro game where the story diverges during certain plot beats (which I also still really don't like), his method is essentially ripping out a chunk of the script, usually regarding a specific character (Nana and Sakura for BRS and CCC respectively) with a specific plot beat that revolves around them, saving that for the 2nd playthrough. It's a pretty lame thing to do because it lowkey robs the impact of the first go in both cases since you're essentially witnessing a purposefuly unsatisfying finale which is unnecessary and dumb and if both games didn't have that design choice I'd appreciate them WAAAY more than I already do.

With that out of the way tho, this is an amazing sequel.
It builds upon so many things from the original Extra while standing as its own beast.

If Extra is a tale of self discovery with Hakuno Kishinami learning who they are, CCC is a story about self acceptance where they learn WHY they are. In that same vein, Hakuno's journey in Extra revolves around the meaning of being human, while in CCC, Hakuno's new story revolves around the meaning of love. Much like each chapter in the original had an exploration on a particular aspect of humanity, each CCC chapters explores a form of expressing love, with its many twisted possibilities, culminating in a perfect synergy between the game's main theme and what Hakuno learns in it.

It is such a clever contrast that fully solidifies CCC as a fantastic sequel (The only Extra sequel that had the balls to actually be its own thing instead of lazily rehashing Hakuno's original character arc but that's a whole other can of worms I'm not opening rn).

So many of the side characters get much appreciated expansion, having them on your side consantly bantering is an absolute blast. Shinji is great, Julius is incredible, Gatou out of nowhere becomes one of the best characters ever, it's wild.

Every single new character is a banger which was amazing to see. BB easily the most relatable character in all of fiction (I too want to fuck the shit out of Hakuno Kishinami).

The OST is really really good, it doesn't have the jazz but the tunes still go off.

Gilgamesh is a welcome surprise, easily him at his best. Has an incredible chemistry with Hakuno while also sporting some shockingly touching character development.

The gameplay is p much unchanged outside of the fact it's REALLY easy now lmao. Like some of the fights can still be tough but the retry option in every single battle combined with fountains around the dungeons where you can save and other touches like that make this game a cakewalk overall. HAKUNO CAN JUMP NOW THO LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO

It looks great much like the original, has a lot of very striking imagery.

This game to me above all suffers from not being nearly as tied up and polished as Extra. I mentioned how none of the themes in that feel wasted with each chapter properly fleshing them out and well... CCC has a problem with that. Rin and Rani chapters are really weak thematically and they meander so much that they end up feeling meaningless with what they're exploring by the end, they're funny tho I guess. Passionlip's is also not nearly as strong as the ones that follow but it's still good.

Essentially my big problem is that this is the sequel to my favorite thing ever so the bar is on another dimension but even with all that hype to live up to it still manages to be a banger, fantastic game.