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theyvegotsomuchtowhisperabout · 1 year ago

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Okay, so I know I said 2 hours, but I have a lot of feelings about Assassin’s Creed so I ended up writing a five page document. Oops. Theres a TL;DR at the end but below the read more cut is spoilers for all games after AC:3.

The short answer is, for AC:BF to AC:S, no, it doesn’t really matter what order you play them in.

Black Flag and Rogue have “employee for Abstergo” modern timelines which don’t really add anything to the modern storyline. Unity doesn’t have a playable modern time, its all cut scenes but I haven’t actually finished Unity so whether it adds anything to the story, I’m not sure (but I doubt it). Syndicate also has cut scenes for the modern story, and despite the fact that I love the Frye twins and have finished the game numerous times, I have no idea what it actually adds to the modern story, its that unimportant.

Basically after Desmond died in AC:3, the modern story went off the rails and didn’t really seem to have a point anymore.

However! AC:O to AC:V, yes it does matter (if you still care about the modern storyline, which I don’t). There is a new modern character to follow. More info on her under the spoiler cut.

Now I’m gonna rant about each game (after AC:3 because Connor and Desmond are my beloveds and I have nothing bad to say about them) and how I went from loving Assassin’s Creed to basically becoming a dog returning to it’s vomit every time Ubisoft releases a new AC game.

(Yes, I will buy Mirage. Yes, I will play it immediately. Yes, I will hate myself for it.)

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Honestly? I don’t mind this one. I love Edward, I love his growth. The huge map is awesome and I love exploring it. I really don’t have anything negative to say about the past timeline. This was also the only Assassin’s Creed game that did navel battle well, which is good because could you imagine a pirate game with shit navel mechanics? That would just be embarrassing.

What I do hate, is the modern storyline. And the sudden change of POV. Its a personal preference but I hate 1st person.

Why the fuck did Ubisoft think players would want to go from fighting against the Templars with Desmond, to working as an employee for Absertgo – aka, the Templars? Once I’m kicked out of the animus, I play the modern story as quickly as possible and play on my phone until after the cut scenes are over. The modern story adds NOTHING. If you do feel like exploring, then you can find out what happened to Desmond’s body, which breaks my heart. Desmond deserved better. Ubisoft could beg at my feet and I’d never forgive what they did to him.

8/10, will play again while completely ignoring the modern timeline.

Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

Shay my beloved. Despite the bad reception Rogue got, I loved the twist. The good guys are not always the good guys, and the bad guys are not always the bad guys. I find it refreshing that after centuries, the Creed done gone fucked up.

Once again, what I do hate is the modern storyline.

Despite actually agreeing with the (past timeline) Templars, I still hate “working” for the modern timeline Templars. I also think the “join us or die” at the end is literally the stupidest moment any all the AC games combined. The employee, who’s only impression of the Creed is the betrayal Shay experienced, should 100% be all for working for the Templars, and their go to move was the threaten the employee's life? That was a choice. Not that the choice matters because you never see them again.

10/10, will play again while completely ignoring the modern timeline.

Assassin's Creed: Unity

Arno my beloved. But also not my beloved because I never finished the game. Also, this game is so forgettable I almost forgot to rant about it.

Look, I love Arno, his sass is something I live for but Unity is a bad game. “Why is it bad?” I hear you ask. I don’t know. I have no idea but I hate it. I think its a bunch of little things; the map is small but packed with shit that I feel like I need to collect to clear the map. The catacombs made me actually want to kill myself. The dependence on multiplayer and micro transactions to get upgrades. The fighting was slow and shit, unless you used a sword, but using a sword was still shit. If you wanted plain, non neon coloured clothing then you had to collected a bunch of collectables to unlock the colour schemes. Lock picking, Jesus fucking Christ the lock picking, which is a consumable and comes in three difficulties.

I tried playing Unity with WeMod cheats (unlimited health, unlimited money, and unlimited consumables) and I still gave up.

I don’t really know anything about the modern storyline except that its done in cut scenes. But considering I don’t know anything, and the next game still made sense, I guess that tells you what you need to know about it.

0/10 can’t even finish it once.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate

Jacob my beloved. Look, this this going to be a theme. I have many beloveds, but Connor will always be number 1.

Anyway.

Personally love the story, love the characters. I love liberating London despite how repetitive it is.

The map isn’t as full of shit that I don’t really want but feel a Great Need to collect. Ubisoft did a better job with the upgrade system in this game, but there are still micro transactions (but, to be fair, micro transactions stay for the rest of the games so I guess I should move on).

The modern storyline is cut scenes once again, and I ignore them. I don’t even know what the modern story actually is, its that unimportant. Seeing Rebecca and Shaun again was nice – I’m assuming they were in Unity, but I never got that far.

Okay, I Googled it, they are in Unity.

7/10, will play again while completely ignoring the modern timeline.

Assassin's Creed: Origin

I’m going to be completely honest, I’m a massive slut for Egyptian mythology and that has 100% affected my opinion on Origin.

I love Origin, Bayak – you guessed it – is my beloved. His story is sad, but he remains a pure person to those who don’t deserve his anger.

Ubisoft did a really good job of revamping the series with Origin. I love that you can actually chose your own fight style (subtle vs brutal). I loved the introduction of Senu and the ability to scout an area from the sky; it makes my gameplay style so much easier.

I personally don’t really understand why the story follows Bayak when it was actually Aya that started the Creed, but I guess Bayak’s story was more interesting (I also hated the navel missions, I fucking hate navel missions).

I will admit, Ubisoft started losing it with the weird God/magic/non realistic aspects. But, as far as I’m aware, those are DLC based or events, and are not really part of the base game (minis the giant snake mission, but Bayak was high as fuck for that mission so I don’t really count it).

But... dum dum dum... this is the game that introduces Layla, the new modern timeline character. This is where, if you still care about the modern storyline, you need to start paying attention again.

Layla is an ex-Abstergo employee looking for Aya’s remains in a cave in Egypt. She has also upgraded the animus so that you no longer need to be a descendent to access someone’s DNA memories. Thats right, Layla is not Aya or Bayak’s decedent. I personally had this upgrade, but to each their own I guess.

Now, Layla has an important past, that isn’t mentioned in Origin gameplay. The first time you get kicked out of the animus, Layla is already on the run from Abstergo. But why is she on the run? Fucked if I know, apparently the answer is in Layla’s files, which I’m assuming is accessible on her computer when you’re playing as her.

Now, one of the things I liked about Desmond, is that you learnt about his past as you played his games and you don’t need to go running around accessing computers and lore. But you don’t get that as Layla (at least in Origin). Most of what I learnt about her, I learn from the Assassin’s Creed fandom wiki.

Basically, Layla’s story actually starts half way through her story, and you’re expected to figure it out yourself. Ubisoft wants you to care about a character they’ve given you no reason to care about. And I’m still salty about Desmond, which doesn’t help.

10/10, will play again while completely ignoring the modern timeline.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey

I haven’t finished Odyssey. I’m not sure why, I don’t hate the game, I think maybe I just find it drags a bit. The map is huge and it feels like takes forever to uncover it (but its fucking pretty) and there is so much side stuff to do. The fight style leant a lot more toward brutal fighting, which makes sense because Kassandra is a mercenary so subtly isn’t exactly her forte. I liked the idea of introducing romances, but felt it fell pretty short because they weren’t romances, they were basically one night stands. And thats about where my opinions end, so for this game, I’m going to defer to my roommate (and best friend) because she is a massive slut for Ancient Greek mythology and that has 100% affected her opinion on Odyssey.

First of all, Odyssey shouldn’t have had the choice to play as Kassandra or Alexois. Kassandra is the canonical character in Odyssey. Its almost like Ubisoft wanted her to be the main character, but backed out because of all the incels who would whinge about having to play as a woman. It was cowardly pandering.

The past timeline has some side missions that actually contain very important information, that is relevant to the continuation of the modern storyline. In short, during an easily overlooked side mission, Kassandra gets a staff that grants her immortality. She then pops up in the modern storyline and gives it to Layla. So, if you don’t get the staff then staff just turns up out of no where and Layla is immortal from a staff she got from... somewhere?

But, speaking of the immortality staff, Kassandra is prophesied to basically hold on to the staff until the actual prophesied person appears. Shockingly enough, Layla is this person. Now, just a quick note that this staff can cause insanity and Kassandra holds it for 3,000 years. She meets Layla, hands it over, and dies. Layla instantly goes insane, murders a Templar – now I know this doesn’t sound that bad, but he wasn’t actually doing anything at the time, him and Layla were just talking – and then also murders her best friend, which is never brought up again, and she’s suddenly less insane.

Now, unlike me, my friend isn’t salty about what Ubisoft did to Desmond, but she did feel kinda meh about Layla. But the modern story in Odyssey made her actively hate her and want her to die so she didn’t need to keep playing as her.

But despite everything above, my friend actually fucking loves Odyssey and will absolutely 10/10 play it again, while completely ignoring the modern storyline.

My friends last words on this matter are, and I quote, “Fuck Layla.”

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla

Now, I know that you originally asked about the modern timeline, but I am about to let lose all my opinions on Valhalla so hold on tight because they aren’t good ones.

Oh dear sweet baby Jesus, where do I start with Valhalla?

First of all, in an opposite stand from Odyssey, who made it semi clear that Kassandra is the canonical character, Valhalla made no effort at all to make it clear that female Eivor is the canonical character – all the advertising, etc, is all male Evior. I found out this out by chance.

When I first found out this one was going to be about Vikings, I was like “FUCK YEAH!” And then I got the game and my excitement ended about 10 minutes after finishing the prologue. Eivor and his buddies leave for England and it goes downhill from there.

The game is repetitive; you need to make allies with the surrounding leaders, which for the first 3 times isn’t that bad. You have to do it 13 times. I completed like 8 or something and was like, “hell yeah, I’m done, thats all thats on the alliance map!” Then 5 more unlocked and I wanted to see how far I could frisbee my laptop out a window.

The only fight style is brute force. Now, they’re Vikings, I get it. But there is little to no way to play subtly, and that is 100% my fight style. Origin did an amazing job of balancing the choice, Odyssey leant more into brute force but it was still okay to play subtly, but Valhalla just doesn’t have that option and it make playing it horrible for me.

The map is HUGE but its so empty, you run for miles and there is just nothing. The world events (aka the side missions) are unguided so if you weren’t paying attention, good luck because you aren’t allowed to ask again. Sýnin is fucking useless, unlike Senu in Origin, you can’t mark enemies or use any of the other useful stuff from Origin or Odyssey. I ended up never using Sýnin and ended up being a wasted feature.

We also can’t forget the weird ass introduction of reborn Norse Gods. Because the main guy, his brother, and the main bad guy (Basim) are Odin, Tyr, and Loki. Because Ubisoft went from “oops, we removed the crossbow from AC1 because it was time period inappropriate” to “YOU’RE A GOD, HE’S A GOD, EVERYONE’S A GOD!”

This was the first Assassin’s Creed game I actually used mods to cheat in, purely because I wanted to finish the game and I wasn’t gonna do it by playing properly (but also, I paid $100+NZD for this game, if I want to cheat then I’m fucking going to). It took a while but I eventually found WeMod (that I later used to try finish Unity) and completely OP’d myself, I’m talking teleportation and unlimited health, stamina, money, and resources. And it still took me several weeks to drag my sorry ass through the main plot.

Now, for the part you actually asked about: the modern timeline.

Yeah, its still Layla but she’s immortal. Oh, and at some point Rebecca and Shaun popped up, they’re married now. They also haven’t been seen since Syndicate.

I don’t really remember much about the modern story at this point because I cared so little about the modern timeline that I was just going through the motions to finish the game. At some point Layla is sent into an underground precursor(?) site where she finds the body of the main bad guy that has been held in stasis for several thousand years by a precursor life tree(?). Layla is somehow then hung up by the tree, and I mean literally by the tree, I think it stabs her and lifts her up? Anyway, inside the precursor tree she meets someone called “The Reader” (who, just FYI, has the same voice actor as Desmond, and if this is a Doctor Who Bad Wolf situation I will fucking riot).

But, while her body is hung up, she drops the immortality staff and the room is filled with something deadly, I think it might be gas? But anyway, Layla now has a choice: stay in the life tree with The Reader and die, or return to her body and die.

Basically, Layla is dead now. She had the immorality staff, that Kassandra carried and sacrificed herself for for 3,000 years, for 2 years. So that was a waste of time. But also, the bad guy hanging in stasis? He’s awake now and has the staff. Only good things can come from that, but we��ll see if I’m right when Mirage comes out later this year.

Basically, Layla’s story was a waste of time. She was a cocky, know it all, who didn’t actually seem to achieve much except murdering two people and then accidentality giving the bad guy the opportunity it become immortal.

So, ah, this was longer than I was excepting. Its 2,800ish words. So TL;DR, the modern storyline from Black Flag to Syndicate can be ignored. The modern story from Origin to Valhalla is Layla’s story and you pay attention if you want. Whether the current story continues into Mirage is anyones guess, but Ubisoft seems to be going back to their AC roots so its all up in the air for now. However, because Valhalla heavily features the new modern character for Mirage, its probably important to learn what you can about him.

Basically, the modern story characters are:

AC1 – AC3: Desmond AC:BF – AC:S: No one?? AC:O – AC:V: Layla AC:M: Basim

does it matter what order you play the ac game in after ac3? Ive heard the modern day story kinda dies after that and from what i remember of playing syndicate that definitely seems to be true since iirc that was just some cutscenes between sequences plus the showdown cutscene at the end, so does it matter what one i play after ac3 or should it definitely be black flag?

#Assassins Creed #Assassins Creed 1 #Assassins Creed 2 #Assassins Creed Brotherhood #Assassins Creed Revelations #Assassins Creed III #Assassins Creed Black Flag #Assassins Creed Rogue #Assassins Creed Unity #Assassins Creed Syndicate #Assassins Creed Origins #Assassins Creed Odyssey #Assassins Creed Valhalla #I Said...

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imacingthis · 4 years ago

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Guess who replayed Syndicate for the Nth time?

For me, there’s so much to gush about with this game, but I’d like to take a little time to talk about Crawford Starrick, and how much I *hate* him, and how I love that I hate him

I haven’t truly and really hated an AC villain since Syndicate, because they’re all sort of... surprise villains, or a million little villains, and you don’t care enough to hate them. Yes, it’s cool to hunt all the Cultists in Odyssey (the latest game that I really liked), but I don’t *care* about them, and as fun as it was to have (Odyssey Spoiler, I guess?) the reveal that Aspasia was the “Big Bad” (for whatever it was worth, you mainly only get to see that after the actual game is over), it didn’t really impact me as much as it could’ve

Now Mr Starrick, that asshole. We get to see so much of him, after every sequence, there’s a cutscene, where we get an insight into his agenda and his opinions. We get to see him mourn his cousin and we get to see him act with his subordinates (both servants and the other assassination targets throughout the story - like Thorne and Cardigan). We get to know him, and we still *hate* him. Yes, he’s humanized, but overall you probably still hate his ideas and want him to lose.

It’s very... hard to truly care about hating a villain that you know next to nothing about - let’s take the Aspasia example again (bear with me, if I misremember, it’s been a little bit since I played Odyssey): we meet her a few times over the duration of the game, and we like her (and on replay, her conversations with Myrrine are a little suspicious, but it’s entirely missable, since you can just run off and not overhear), but we don’t know her enough for the Reveal(TM) that she’s the Leader of the Cult of Kosmos to care what happens - the Cult is OBJECTIVELY bad, but I didn’t care enough about this reveal to desperately want her to perish - and I don’t even know that it’s because I “agreed“ with her opinions (again, been a while since I made it to the end of the game), so I didn’t care enough to kill her and TRULY end the Cult (arguably, either way it’s over, but hypothetically, if she wanted to, she could regrow her followers). I can’t say that all this isn’t because in Odyssey, I was given an option to choose, and in Syndicate, I wasn’t, but I would’ve probably still wanted to murder Starrick if GIVEN the option (and I think that’s a symptom of them giving dialogue and options to Odyssey, that they had to make people seem sympathetic enough to warrant sparing some people, as opposed to earlier games, where the choice was made - whether this is good or bad can be discussed another time).

I guess my point is, that I miss *really* hating the villains in Assassin’s Creed, and feeling *very* satisfied when I get to end them (final battle in the vault is my fave ‘boss’ battle in the series, you can’t change my mind, it’s fun to switch between Evie and Jacob - tangent: the entire last sequence, where Jacob has to prioritize stealth, and Evie has to cut a little loose, after their blowout is just excellent).

Anyway, I guess I just hope that I can get a villain to *really* hate in Valhalla (seems promising, there’s a very obvious option for them to choose)

#Assassin's Creed #ac:s #ac: syndicate #i have opinions about this game series #i'm sorry for the thesis #i don't know if i should tag odyssey #it's not the focus of this post...

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