Board 8 > Question about the Assassin's Creed series

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've never played any of them, so I decided I wanted to get into the series and I started the first game.

Every mission seems to be preceded with these clearly super elite assassin tasks, like "Run around and collect these flags, and go break these merchant stands in broad daylight. Also time limits."

I'm sure these are ancient secret techniques to help one become an ultimate assassin, but I kinda just wanna assassinate people. So my question is does the entire series have stuff like this, or do they kinda phase them out at some point and/or make them less monotonous?

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there's a lot of collectibles on the maps in future games, but they're mostly optional

AC1 to AC2 though still remains one of the biggest leaps in quality between two games. AC1 you really should rush the story as fast as possible and be done with it.

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ninkendo posted...

AC1 you really should rush the story as fast as possible and be done with it.

Yeah, that's honestly what I was trying to do, but these little filler tasks aren't skippable and they're rather boring and monotonous, so I was hoping the series ditches this structure pretty quickly.

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As a resident lover of the AC series, I can safely say that you would be perfectly justified watching some YT videos and skipping AC1.

I'm actually in the middle of playing Odyssey and Valhalla right now and after being so down on the changes with Origins I might finally be embracing the newer style games. To the point where I might move Odyssey into my top 3.

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StealThisSheen posted...

Yeah, that's honestly what I was trying to do, but these little filler tasks aren't skippable and they're rather boring and monotonous, so I was hoping the series ditches this structure pretty quickly.

It does and for the better' reaching peak with the next 2 games imo. The last 3 games though heavily change things which you may or may not like.

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AC1 was repetitive but somewhat forgivable for its time. The main assassinations were big highlights. AC2 was a huge step up and if you could stomach a little repetition you had a pretty easy platinum. Wouldnt surprise me if its the most popular play trophy of that era.


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I think AC1 gets a little better as it goes along but i also think it's pretty safe to say that the game's best moments are only as good as some of the normal moments from the second game.

The step up in quality between games is really impressive.
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I think there are some things AC1 does that the series kinda misses even with 2, but yeah stick to the main objectives.

For example the combat gets a lot better, but that's actually kind of a weird thing when you're supposed to sneak around a lot? Future games end up enforcing this by just making you auto lose if you're caught during a particular mission or making it some optional objective, because you can actually just murder your way through legions of guards. Fun, but AC1 really makes you fear getting surrounded.

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I agree with that. AC1 had some unique stuff going for it that was lost in the transition, which is why in my book it's not that bad a game.

But the vast majority of the changes improved the game a huge amount, so it's hard to complain much

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Yeah combat in AC1 is something we don't really get again. Becomes a lot mpre simplified later but was satisfying to actually deal with a group of enemies cause you actually had to be good to do it. Not that combat in the others is necessarily bad. Was even fun in Brotherhood!

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neonreaper posted...

AC2 was a huge step up and if you could stomach a little repetition you had a pretty easy platinum. Wouldnt surprise me if its the most popular play trophy of that era.

Yeah I think it was the first game I ever 1000/1000 on 360.

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I played every mainline AC game up to Black Flag
They are all "Ubisoft Open World" type of games which means they are full of repetitive fetch quests
But IIRC from the second game they are optional and the main missions are quite fun

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Yeah I think it was the first game I ever 1000/1000 on 360.

I had to replay the whole thing because I didnt know in my initial playthrough that one of the Templars didnt always appear so I thought I had gotten him and couldnt figure out where I had missed one. Still have that 100% file though.

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As someone who's played a ton of the series, I'll just go and list my opinions on each.

AC1 - cool at the time, meh now.
AC2 - awesome
AC:B - awesome, though not much different than 2
AC: R - good, formula getting a bit tired though
AC3 - lame, skip
AC4:BF - Awesome, highly recommended
AC:U - skip
AC:S - skip
AC:Origins - decent, start of the RPG style
AC:Odyssey - really good, though it is a bit bloated. You might tire of it, I enjoyed it all the way through.
AC:V - haven't played yet.

Even the lamer games in the series aren't necessarily bad, because I love exploring virtual historical sites. They just typically have poor gameplay or story.

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Oh yeah, and the assassinations in 1 were really really good. That was something that was lost a little.

That said, they possibly stood out more because of the monotony of the setup.

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I do hate that later AC games did away with "assassinating in plain sight" stuff.

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Big Bob posted...

As someone who's played a ton of the series, I'll just go and list my opinions on each.

AC1 - cool at the time, meh now.
AC2 - awesome
AC:B - awesome, though not much different than 2
AC: R - good, formula getting a bit tired though
AC3 - lame, skip
AC4:BF - Awesome, highly recommended
AC:U - skip
AC:S - skip
AC:Origins - decent, start of the RPG style
AC:Odyssey - really good, though it is a bit bloated. You might tire of it, I enjoyed it all the way through.
AC:V - haven't played yet.

Even the lamer games in the series aren't necessarily bad, because I love exploring virtual historical sites. They just typically have poor gameplay or story.

Skipped Rogue?

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I will also repeat the sentiment of everyone else and say 1 is the worst in the series and improves drastically in 2.

The side stuff never entirely goes away, but there's at least more variety and less monotony

I still consider AC2 among my all-time favorite games.

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Nanis23 posted...

Skipped Rogue?

Didn't everyone?

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Awesome, good to know. Definitely gonna continue the series, then.

I love the assassinations in 1, but everything else just feels so repetitive.

Go to city. Go to bureau. Get told to investigate. Investigate by doing dumb, repetitive shit. Go to bureau. Finally get to assassinate. Go to bureau. Go back to base. Repeat.

I'm honestly mostly okay with everything but the "Investigate by doing dumb, repetitive shit" step.

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Big Bob posted...

AC1 - cool at the time, meh now.
AC2 - awesome
AC:B - awesome, though not much different than 2
AC: R - good, formula getting a bit tired though
AC3 - lame, skip
AC4:BF - Awesome, highly recommended
AC:U - skip
AC:S - skip
AC:Origins - decent, start of the RPG style
AC:Odyssey - really good, though it is a bit bloated. You might tire of it, I enjoyed it all the way through.
AC:V - haven't played yet.

I agree with a lot of this except:

AC3 - had issues, but definitely don't skip. It's extremely essential to the overall story and attempted some really cool things
AC:U and AC:S - Don't skip. Unity you can basically run through, I liked the story plenty even if the overall world was less interesting. Syndicate is one of the better games in the series and honestly deserves more way love.
AC:V - follows the style of Origins and Odyssey, but is really goddamn bloated. Don't plan on finishing everything in the game unless you have 200 hours to drop on forgettable side missions.

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Johnbobb posted...

Syndicate is one of the better games in the series and honestly deserves more way love.

I havent finished it yet but in glad I'm not the only one that enjoys this game.

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I honestly hated the ship segments of Black Flag but I am probably in the minority on that one

Also play the Freedom Cry DLC

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Ghost of Tsushima is a good one.

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Big Bob posted...

AC:V - haven't played yet.

got a good tabletop game in it

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Johnbobb posted...

I agree with a lot of this except:

AC3 - had issues, but definitely don't skip. It's extremely essential to the overall story and attempted some really cool things
AC:U and AC:S - Don't skip. Unity you can basically run through, I liked the story plenty even if the overall world was less interesting. Syndicate is one of the better games in the series and honestly deserves more way love.
AC:V - follows the style of Origins and Odyssey, but is really goddamn bloated. Don't plan on finishing everything in the game unless you have 200 hours to drop on forgettable side missions.

Syndicate I think has the polish that Unity lacked....gameplay and assassinations feel fun! Fuck the newer AC games and the RPG shit though.

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LiquidOshawott posted...

I honestly hated the ship segments of Black Flag but I am probably in the minority on that one

Also play the Freedom Cry DLC

I liked the ship segments in Black Flag but I'm sick of them trying to shoehorn ship segments in every game after Black Flag.

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I really liked Valhalla but it was definitely more like an open world Viking action RPG than an assassination game.

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Johnbobb posted...

Didn't everyone?

I know, right?
When I played the AC games it was during a marathon, all the way up to Black Flag (And Freedom Cry)
And then they announced that two games are coming out at the same year. This is when I thought this is too much and I can't keep up with the series and didn't play it since

Well they changed it and now it's 1 game per 2-3 years but those games are so long, might as well be 1 game per year..

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Also I don't know if you are a fan but
IIRC the Assassin Creed II games had those mini dungeons that had Tomb Raider/Prince of Persia style puzzles
I really liked them

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The only bad games in the series IMO are 1 and Unity of the one's I've played (haven't played Origins or Rogue).

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I think the only bad ones (thru Syndicate, haven't played the 3 newest) are the original and 3. I played Unity a year or two ago and it isn't a bad game, it's just middle of the road for the franchise.

I really wouldn't recommend playing these games back to back though. You're going to burn out on them real quick as they're all pretty similar.

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Yeah I usually play two back to back, then take several years off

Next up for me is Black Flag

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ninkendo posted...

Yeah I usually play two back to back, then take several years off

Next up for me is Black Flag

this was my plan

it's been about ten years

last one I played was Revelations

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Yeah, I'm catching up on a lot of games I've missed over time, so there's buffer in between.

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Im only up to Unity but I did 100% all the achievements on 360 except a couple Black Flag multiplayer ones.

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I thought 3 was totally fine. It's certainly not as good as 2 or Brotherhood, but it's OK
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3 has amazing gameplay and a disappointing story.

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3 is kinda great but also kind of a mess. Buggy af for the series

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I replayed the Ezio games in the last couple of years. AC2 is a bit overrated, but in some respects it does improve over AC1. I missed being able to take an aggressive approach to combat (timing sword strikes to break through a soldier's guard), but as of AC Origins that became a moot point.

Nanis23 posted...

Also I don't know if you are a fan but
IIRC the Assassin Creed II games had those mini dungeons that had Tomb Raider/Prince of Persia style puzzles
I really liked them

Man I absolutely loved those underground segments and I hate that the rpg ones have mostly done away with them

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1, 3 and Unity all suck, the rest are good

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