I feel clinically insane for enjoying this more than Brotherhood. Istanbul/Constantinople is less visually distinct and less pleasant to look at than Rome in Brotherhood, or Florence and Venice in 2. But that shit doesn't matter because its gameplay and flow as a level in a videogame is SUBLIME. Fucking finally! No horse! No awkward streets just wide enough that they force you to get off the roof! No buildings that take 10 MINUTES to climb! No 10 types of collectibles. No 20 hours of clicking through menus to level up all your Assassins. Barely any side-missions that completely kill your interest in 100%ing the game. No side objectives that turn the game into an unenjoyable nightmare. The addition of ziplines, more fast travel points. All of this is achieved while still selling you a fantasy of walking those busy, diverse, streets during one of its many historic moments. This is the only one out of the first 4 AC games that doesn't feel like it actively wastes your time if you want to do anything else other than the main story. But the main story on the other hand does feel like a waste of time...
This is mostly spoiler free but no promises. Okay, it breaks down like this: Desmond does nothing but get a cheap story reveal that's only meant to sequel bait in the last 10 minutes unlike Brotherhood where he did the most out of the 4 games so far. UNLESS you start getting the only real collectible Revelations has to offer, then if you also bear the worst fucking first-person puzzle game I have ever played in my life, you get to hear more about his origin, relations to other important characters, and such. You know, all the stuff incompetent Ubi writers forgot to give him more in the MAIN, FUCKING, STORY.
Ezio is doing something interesting, unlike in Brotherhood which his part in might as well have been filler. He's tracking down the Assassin stronghold where the first game took place to finally get some answers. This is where I have to point out, that the marketing material sorta implied there would be more Altair? But he only shows up for like 4 short missions. It's still cool, you get to find out what happened to him from the end of 1 to pretty much the end of his life. His character gets more fleshed out, he actually feels like a person and not a robot unlike 1 (but his, and ESPECIALLY his son's voice acting is... I would barely call it acting. They are just reading lines man. Altair always sounds the same even though he ages significantly between some scenes). This is only part of the story though, and the main plot focuses on Ezio interacting with Istanbul's Assassin's Brotherhood and getting involved in a power struggle between two candidates to become the next sultan of the Ottoman empire. The power struggle is the major part of the game, and it is by far the weakest. It begins really well, you don't really know who the main threat is for the MAJORITY of the story, for a second I thought the writers were actually cooking up a half-decent plot twist that a bad guy was very efficiently using Ezio... but no. The guy who was obviously bad from the start turns out... to be the bad man of the game, riveting stuff, truly, congratulations Darby McDevitt, you should have been kept away from the stove in this case. The finale to this plotline is some of the worst-paced stuff I have ever seen in games. A guy literally shows up and says 'yeah, the game is done now' and steals the final kill on the main antagonist from you. Lmao. Then there's the Istanbul Assassins story which was cool, Yusuf is a great character and the finale of his story was quite something. And the finale of Ezio/Altair's story is actually really powerful.
I should write something about the gameplay but honestly, who cares? It's literally the same combat and movement as previous titles but you can throw bombs now, great. You have so many ways to one-shot everything that ever looks at you it's kind of a joke at this point (it always was because of the counter anyway), people say that Janissaries are annoying/tough. My brother in Christ, you can one-shot them by throwing a heavy weapon at them, pick it up, and do it again. Or just poison dart them. Or arrow rain them. Or just call in an assassin to air-assassinate them. But the movement, collectibles, and getting around the city are all S-tier. This is the only Assassin I have 100% synch on so far, and I did it in the time it took me to beat AC2 and Brotherhood each.
I know why people back in the day took out their frustrations on this title, but now, after 13 years, I have to say. This was way more of a pleasant experience than Brotherhood or the first game. Onto 3 I guess!
This is mostly spoiler free but no promises. Okay, it breaks down like this: Desmond does nothing but get a cheap story reveal that's only meant to sequel bait in the last 10 minutes unlike Brotherhood where he did the most out of the 4 games so far. UNLESS you start getting the only real collectible Revelations has to offer, then if you also bear the worst fucking first-person puzzle game I have ever played in my life, you get to hear more about his origin, relations to other important characters, and such. You know, all the stuff incompetent Ubi writers forgot to give him more in the MAIN, FUCKING, STORY.
Ezio is doing something interesting, unlike in Brotherhood which his part in might as well have been filler. He's tracking down the Assassin stronghold where the first game took place to finally get some answers. This is where I have to point out, that the marketing material sorta implied there would be more Altair? But he only shows up for like 4 short missions. It's still cool, you get to find out what happened to him from the end of 1 to pretty much the end of his life. His character gets more fleshed out, he actually feels like a person and not a robot unlike 1 (but his, and ESPECIALLY his son's voice acting is... I would barely call it acting. They are just reading lines man. Altair always sounds the same even though he ages significantly between some scenes). This is only part of the story though, and the main plot focuses on Ezio interacting with Istanbul's Assassin's Brotherhood and getting involved in a power struggle between two candidates to become the next sultan of the Ottoman empire. The power struggle is the major part of the game, and it is by far the weakest. It begins really well, you don't really know who the main threat is for the MAJORITY of the story, for a second I thought the writers were actually cooking up a half-decent plot twist that a bad guy was very efficiently using Ezio... but no. The guy who was obviously bad from the start turns out... to be the bad man of the game, riveting stuff, truly, congratulations Darby McDevitt, you should have been kept away from the stove in this case. The finale to this plotline is some of the worst-paced stuff I have ever seen in games. A guy literally shows up and says 'yeah, the game is done now' and steals the final kill on the main antagonist from you. Lmao. Then there's the Istanbul Assassins story which was cool, Yusuf is a great character and the finale of his story was quite something. And the finale of Ezio/Altair's story is actually really powerful.
I should write something about the gameplay but honestly, who cares? It's literally the same combat and movement as previous titles but you can throw bombs now, great. You have so many ways to one-shot everything that ever looks at you it's kind of a joke at this point (it always was because of the counter anyway), people say that Janissaries are annoying/tough. My brother in Christ, you can one-shot them by throwing a heavy weapon at them, pick it up, and do it again. Or just poison dart them. Or arrow rain them. Or just call in an assassin to air-assassinate them. But the movement, collectibles, and getting around the city are all S-tier. This is the only Assassin I have 100% synch on so far, and I did it in the time it took me to beat AC2 and Brotherhood each.
I know why people back in the day took out their frustrations on this title, but now, after 13 years, I have to say. This was way more of a pleasant experience than Brotherhood or the first game. Onto 3 I guess!