For a long time now I've wanted to do a series replay of the Assassin's Creed games, so I figured why not do that now! I've played all the main series games as they have came out and they have been coming out since 2007! Some of the early games I've only played once so ya know, you kind forget some things about a game when you go over 10 years without a replay! I'm one of the people that likes the direction the games have gone recently with them focusing more on an open world action-RPG style. I actually really like all the AC games and consider it to be one of my favorite franchises! The early games really focused on the over arching Desmond story and on the assassinations of targets, especially the first game. I had a feeling that these games have aged well but wanted to see for myself. Doing things like this can sometimes be a mistake and just remembering games as they were when you first played them is the way to go. Like going back to Zelda Ocarina of Time on the N64 now you may realize it looks very blurry and controlling the game can be a nightmare. Same with the PS1 Final Fantasy games. The gameplay of those holds up but man they are not pretty to look at. I don't think I'll think any less of these game by doing this but we'll see. So having all that said let's talk the first Assassin's Creed in 2021!
I played this game on the Xbox Series X cause surprisingly the 360 game got an Xbox One X update and runs in 4K! I did this version cause the first game is the only older game without a remaster. So right out of the gate this game looked incredible and is definitely noticeable that it's in 4K! I wish it had auto HDR on the Series X but it unfortunately didn't.
Alright, I want to start with saying that I am a defender of this game and I'll say that this game is very important regardless what you think about it. The way this game does open world would be copied for so many years after it and is still used in some games today. Climbing towers to reveal the map is still something that I love even today and going back to the game that started it was great. This game is divided up into 4 areas that you can explore and do assassination missions. You have: The Kingdom that is the area that you go to that connects all the areas, Damascus, Acre, and Jerusalem. Outside of The Kingdom all the areas look very similar but all that different big structures that are ripped from history look great and stand out. Cause a thing about these early games was the importance of trying to do a 1-for-1 replica of how these places looked and how the iconic buildings looked. This game does all those things very well and all the locations still look great and unique to this game.
The story here is hit or miss. The stories have always been a tad confusing and that's no different here, especially with the current day stuff. I love the history surrounding the Crusades and they handle that ok but it's all done in a smaller scope. The way they tie the villains into the Crusades is cool but they only touch on it. The main story surrounds a thing called the Apple of Eden and what it is and what it does. It also focuses on Desmond and the current day Assassin's and Templars. The thing about the story in this game is that it's very much the first game in what was clearly being made into at least a trilogy at the time. It ends with a huge cliffhanger and the credits just kind of roll all of sudden. It does what it needs to do to get people interested but seeing a bit more of a conclusion would've been nice.
Let's get into gameplay bit here. Climbing things and jumping from building to building still feels really good! You can tell that this is an early AC game because some buildings have a certain way to climb it or you'll just fall. The later games give you the freedom to climb anything in pretty much any way you want so going back to this was an adjustment. It does make sense that you need to climb a certain way but it's more fun to just climb the damn building in the fastest way possible and it's pretty slow in this game. Now the combat is...fine. It's all about counter attacking and can be a whole thing. It's also crazy that you play the game a certain way for 90% of it and then the last 10% you are in constant fights with like 10-15 dudes! It works really well when you are being cool and sneaking around, throwing knives, and stabbing dudes with the hidden blade but not so much when you are asked to be in a ton of open combat.
I want to touch on the big thing that people say about this game when defending it and that is how you prepare for each assassination. Before each target can be revealed you have to do some investigations that tell you some about each person learning about them and why they are being targeted. I think the idea of this is awesome and some of the actual investigations are good but most are pretty meh. The argument people make is that you feel like and actual assassin doing this stuff but I don't feel like much of one when I need to collect some stupid flags in a given time limit. Spying on people from a bench and pickpocketing is very cool and can be tough to pull off sometimes. Now when it comes to the actual assassinations that can vary. It depends on how patient you are and how you approach if you get into conflict or not. At least with most it depends on you, some force open combat. I think the assassinations are handled well and all feel good to pull off. Even the one that forces combat makes sense for the story. I love the touches of the cutscenes introducing these people giving them this larger than life persona. I also love the face to face you get with them in a dream like area before you make the final stab.
For the most part I enjoyed my play though but man, there are a few things in this game that annoyed me so much. So there isn't a mini map. There is a mini map equivalent in the lower right corner but it just shows symbols and how many meters away you are from the objective. I'm so used to mini maps just being a thing in games like this that it really sticks out and is inconvenient when you don't have one. Now this bleeds into my next thing and that is how post assassinations are done. So after you kill your target you are on high alert and if you are anywhere near a guard they go ape shit! All the games do this and I think it's a cool thing but it's annoying in this game. The guards chase you hardcore and because you don't have a damn mini map I ran into so many dead ends! You have to get back to the Assassin's Bureau after each kill and that means going to rooftops and guards are all over the rooftops after the halfway point of the game! The more recent games are true open world and you can get away so much easier! I just got really annoyed with that after each kill that I got to the point that I just ended up killing a lot of guards by the last few targets.
Another thing that got old was the lack of true fast travel. You do get fast travel of sorts but it's very limited. Once you go to all the areas once you can fast travel there instead of going through The Kingdom each time. You may be like well that sounds good to me and you'd be right, I did like that part. The part I didn't like was that there's no fast travel in any of the ares. All the current AC games let you fast travel to viewpoints once you climb it and sync, not this game. The viewpoint vanishes from the map once you sync with it. I totally forgot that and was pretty bummed when I remembered that was a thing. Only one more thing I want to complain about is the fog of war thing they do. So you have to go to the Assassin's Bureau once you get to each place to hear about your target. Once you go to them they reveal the investigations you need to pick from to do. Well once you go to an area the second time the area you need to go to is greyed out on the pause menu map. So you have to listen to where the Assassin tells you to go and go to that area and look for viewpoints that aren't marked, you have to just know what is and isn't a viewpoint. Now this wasn't as big of a deal as it sounds but it was very annoying! But it did make the game feel more real and that's also part of it's charm with what it was going for.
I want to give my take on going for 100% and all the achievements real quick. Going for 100% sync is something that is very doable and like 80% of the achievements are the same. The stuff that is a bit much is that each area has like 100 flags to collect and there are 60 random Templars to kill. I didn't go for that stuff cause I just wasn't in the mood and I wouldn't recommend you do either. It just becomes tedious and the game can be pretty buggy when it comes to getting all the flags. I had the game crash once so even in 2021 the game still has some glitches and crashes.
As I wrap part one up I want to say that may opinion on this game hasn't really changed all that much. I knew it had some bullshit in it and it def does, but it's the kind of bullshit that makes sense for what they were going for. They were going for a grounded take in this first game and you can very much see that. The final boss is the only thing that seems science fiction. It's also a very bad final boss fight just to mention that real quick. Not bad in a sense of who you fight, cause it makes sense, but the actual mechanics of it. I can understand why people never clicked with this first game but I very much did and still do. I think it's one of the most important games ever made and set a standard that people still follow today. I definitely recommend checking it out if you never have cause it still holds up and is worth going back to. I think Altair is an interesting character and one that is referenced A LOT in the other games so it would be good to know who he is for those.
Next up is Assassin's Creed II and I'll be starting it soon and I'll do part two once I am fully done with it. Thanks for reading this and I hope you have a good one!
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