Kaio's Revelations: ASS Creed

The story in this game is really stretched thin. There's 3 different threads going on. The search for the keys, Ezio's relationship with Sofia (somewht related to the keys), and then this whole other thing with the Constantinople royal family. Ezio made friends with the prince because the local assassins like him, and the prince thought this one guy was a traitor, and apparently Ezio takes orders from him now even though I'm not sure why he cares. But the guy turned out to be innocent (only found that out after I killed him).

So I thought the prince would be a bad guy, but it turns out he's just stupid and didn't know anything. So that was a big waste of time.

My current mission is just to buy some flowers for Sofia. There is no way it's going to be that simple. There isn't even a 100% requirement. I'll get back to her shop and she'll have been taken by the Templars.

Okay, the florist didn't have any white tulips, so he wandered off to get some. Ezio's impatient though so I just followed the florist to where he gets the flowers and now I have to pick them myself.

I collected the flowers, went to find Sofia, and wouldn't you know it, she and Ezio had a nice picnic.

Seriously.

<3 Old Man Ezio and Sofia

Yeah, I kinda like it. After 3 whole games I'm finally warming up to Ezio.

Exploring the little equipment bugs in this game can be fun. If you replay and complete sequence 1 memory 2, your armour resets to nothing so you can pick and choose what to wear. Unlike Brotherhood, choosing one piece doesn't automatically equip the whole set, so you can equip what combination you like.

If you replay sequence 6 memory 4 (the picnic), but turn down the mission, Ezio returns to freeroaming with his hood off. He looks pretty cool.

I don't like old Altair. In the 4th mission he used the gun and in the final mission he was just using the apple to massacre everything in his path. Got all 5 keys now though.

Surprise surprise, the guy that the surprise innocent guard I killed didn't trust turned out to be a Templar. And now they'r going after Sofia. So instead of going straight to the library with the keys Ezio is going back to Constantinople to rescue his girlfriend.

The final chase was ridiculous. It also demonstrated one of the perils of "cinematic" game, when it transitioned from a cutscene to gameplay so seamlessly that I didn't notice, and I died.

The ending was annoying, but for reasons I wasn't expecting. Somehow this game finally sold me on Ezio, and when it got to the end and he was making his speech and talking to Desmond, I really got into it. But then it was interupted by all the First Civilisation stuff and it pissed me off. I wanted to see more of Ezio and Sofia. This was the first AC game where I cares more about the historical story than the present one.

The utter nonsense that followed didn't help. The First Civilisation, which looked all nice and tidy in the cutscene, was wrecked by a solar flare. Luckily it only lasted a week or two. It seemed to totally ignore the whole Adam and Eve thing, the first two humans to break out of the Civilisation using the Apple. Breaking out being something they had to do because humanity was created as a slave class to work for The Ones Who Came Before, specifically designed to be controlled by artifacts like the Apple.

All that wasn't mentioned. Just "Giant solar flare, the humans and aliens that were left carried on together".

Subject 16 just vanished without doing anything useful too. He was the main mystery giver before. All the cool shit about the mythology of the AC world came through him. He left the symbols on the wall at the end of AC1. He revealed the very origins of the Assassin order in AC2. He... he was in Brotherhood, that much I remember. He was pushed so hard he regressed back to Adam and fucking Eve for Christ's sake! Yet in this game he was just an annoying twat.

The game made me like Ezio but fumbled everything else.

Now to collect all the animus data fragments and do all the Desmond memories.

lol AC3 literally ignores every story beat from the last games, while still desperately trying to make some sense out of things. It pissed me off.

Ezio's final story is in a 20 minute cgi movie which I forget the name of. You can probably download it somewhere. It's a pretty nice ending.

Weird Desmond Sequence: Part 2

More first person block-building platforming including an annoying falling part where you had to fall through small gaps without hitting the sides using platforms that sink through the scenery and begin to fall with you as soon as you make them, all while Desmond witters on about how he didn't like growing up as Assassin.

Weird Desmond Sequence: Part 3

A continuation of the theme of first person block-building platforming, including an annoying segment where I had to cross a gap quickly and could easily have done so myself, but halfway across a bunch of cubes, that were supposedly there to help me spawned right in my path and fucked everything up, all while Desmond blathers on about escaping from Assassin camp.

Weird Desmond Sequence: Part 4

A slight evolution of the idea of first person block-building platforming, in which laser grids are intoduced, including no particular annoying moments, unless you count the single giant continuous moment of Desmond babbling about The American Dream, working in a bar, and trying to forget his family.

Weird Desmond Sequence: Part 5

A recounting of Desmond's capture by Abstergo, told through the medium of first person block-building platforming, including a quite cool moment where you reach the room in which the entirety of the first game took place, and the mystical door which has so far signalled the end of these sequences is placed where the Animus was. "This is it" I thought, "I'll enter this door and the vague shapes that always fade away before I can reach them will remain, and I'll find out what all this has been leading to". Then they faded away and the sequence ended, but I did find out what it was all leading to.

A BIG FAT FUCKING NOTHING.

So, worth collecting all those animus data fragments?

After I got to about 80 I realised you only need 50 to unlock all the Desmond bits. I found more than 50 just roaming around while playing normally.

I've got about 3 so far and I'm up to Sequence 2 I think, maybe 3. Is it worth getting 50 or should I just ignore them?

If you beat all 5 Desmond sequences you unlock the Desmond skin to use whenever, and you get to hear about hearing Desmond's backstory. But you learn all the important bits of that before this game anyway. So unless you actually care about Desmond as a character and have been longing for some personal moments with him, there's no point to it.

If you just pick up a data fragment whenever you happen to see it though you'll easily get 50.

Seriously, the Desmond bits were always my favourite parts of the previous games, because they were literally the only parts that advanced the actual plot, and it was a plot I found quite interesting. Those and the glyph puzzles. All the modern conspiracy nonsense was entertaining, and a great way to do some world-building. The original reveal of the First Civilisation and Adam and Eve was nuts, but also quite exciting. This game really fucks it all up.

Oh, the game (unsurprisingly) wasn't hard with the limits I set myself. I ended up using the dagger for combat most of the time, because the new hookblade kills looked retarded and were too long. The dagger kills are very fast and just look the best. I had to use medicine quite a bit but I always had loads, and I never bought any. Never bought any throwing knives either, or the crossbow. Found everything I needed just by robbing dead guards. I used bombs for the couple of times it was required for 100% sync.

I used the poison darts quite a bit actually, but only for the Templar witnesses to get my alert status down. They always walk around with two guards, so I'd just stand on a roof and poison one of the guards, and watch him take his weapon out (for some reason) and flail around, killing the witness for me.

I've had to use loads of medicine from being an idiot and being too ambitious with my jumps, I generally just go hunting for guards though rather than buying it. There are more guards around than doctors.

Poison darts are the best though, really useful just about everywhere. Bombs are good too, but only as distractions so they're a bit situational.

Most of the really useful stuff just feels like cheating. Going through with just the blade, dagger and throwing knives was quite fun.