3.5/5 ★ – danieleinad's review of Assassin's Creed® Revelations.

STORY: Altair’s story was good, although I wish we spent more time with him as his sections felt really limited. I would’ve liked to see the Mongol armies and more of his family. Ezio’s story was alright. I get the thematic importance of it, but the search for the Masyaf keys and the vault felt more like the writers demanded it to happen rather than the story naturally going down that path. Sofia was a good character. Really liked her and Ezio’s dynamic. Constantinople’s story was boring. Yusuf had so much potential but we barely got anything of him. I really have no thoughts because I never felt engaged enough to bother following along with that story. Only other characters’ names I know are Suleiman because he looks like a guy from one of my classes. And Ahmet, only because I completely forgot who he was, if I even remembered, and was confused when he was the final ‘boss’. I did two of Desmond’s memory things which were super boring and badly written/exposition dumps so I didn’t do the rest. The present day story never interested me anyways. The action/set pieces also felt kind of out of place. That final sequence was way too over the top. ACII and Brotherhood had their moments of extravagance, but this game took it a bit too far imo. Ezio also makes some out of character choices too. Cappadocia, the riot, and the chain tower come to mind. Complete lack of regard for the safety of innocent civilians. Which I would be fine with if the game acknowledges these choices, but Ezio’s never questioned in any way not even from himself. MAP: The map was honestly disappointing. It lacked the visual flare of ACII, and the variety from Brotherhood. Super repetitive, and colorfully bland in a bad way. The landmarks were also extremely unimpressive, not even Hagia Sophia visually stands out that much and it’s probably the city’s most iconic thing. I remember getting a pop up of having discovered a landmark and I looked around because I couldn’t tell which building it was. Also impossible to navigate without using the map (my biggest issue with ACII). Never felt immersed, but was more immersed than in ACII. It also felt pretty small. Collectibles and rebuilding the city felt pointless and it didn’t play into the main story at all (unlike in Brotherhood where it’s all about rebuilding Rome and recruiting allies). GAMEPLAY: Bombs were an unnecessary inclusion. If it wasn’t for constantly finding chests with ingredients and bomb icons covering half the map I would’ve forgotten about them. But even then I never used them. The hook blade was cool. I liked that. Recruiting assassins was more interesting now that they have a mini quest to them. But sending them on missions was annoying. Yes, it was a bit boring in Brotherhood since there really weren’t any consequences. But adding a time management aspect while not expanding it into the game’s importance and overall experience was a bad choice. It just became an unnecessary side hurdle that I didn’t really bother with. At least your recruits level up pretty quickly. I also never felt the urge to do the master assassin missions. I started a few of them but they didn’t seem engaging at all. I like the idea but I would’ve liked them to have greater significance to the main story. Where was the den tower defense stuff? I mean, that tutorial was boring so I was fine not having to do any of them. But I’m also confused because it was treated like something big to keep track of. The ziplines were fun. But I feel this map wasn’t the best place to include them. They never really felt like they helped get around faster. Parkour was good, but not that crazy of an improvement/new experience. 69% synch. 33% Master Assassin. 73/100 Animus data fragments. 10/10 memoir pages. 103/106 Constantinople treasures. 14/15 hidden treasures.