History YMMV / AssassinsCreedRevelations

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Unlike the previous games, the button for Eagle Vision and Synchronization has been changed from the Y on the Xbox controller to the left stick button. A first time player who's used to ''Assassin's Creed II'' and/or ''Brotherhood'' most likely will end up wasting a knife trying to sync at the top of the tower, or even throw a grenade at an enemy when he's only trying to observe the surroundings.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Unlike the previous games, the button for Eagle Vision and Synchronization has been changed from the Y on the Xbox controller to the left stick button. A first time player most likely will end up wasting a knife trying to sync at the top of the tower, or even throw a grenade at an enemy when he's only trying to observe the surroundings.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Every one of them, but the most prominient is the BigBad who comes close to being a CutsceneBoss. The closest you get to having a boss fight with him is when you chase him on a carriage and punch him ''while falling off a cliff''.

** Creator/UbiSoft is in some kind of competition with NaughtyDog over chase sequences; Sequence 8, Memory 3; End Of The Road has Ezio ''parasailing'' behind a runaway carriage, dive-bombing like an attack falcon to dispatch mooks!

* GameBreaker: [[spoiler: Piri Reis]] sells you bomb equipment with a 15% discount, and will buy it back at the full retail value. Six figures for fifteen minutes work, anyone?

* EarWorm: "Iron"
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Yusuf Tazim

*** Well, to be frank, Ezio had already [[spoiler: killed most of Ahmet's Templar Agents, including vizier Damat Ali Pasha, who was historically a great supporter of Ahmet for next sultan, and his murder of Tarik Barleti did a great, albeit unintended smear job on Ahmet's reputation. Sultans and princes from Constantinople were known to hold grudges and deal harsh punishments, and in Ahmet's case, Ezio's actions cost him the crown.]]

* NightmareFuel: Being able to hear the Assassins talk while on Animus Island is pretty creepy. What with them talking like Desmond's not there, and being totally unaware of what he's going through really cements the coma feeling.

** [[spoiler: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95G44qE089M "And then the world ended..."]]]]

** Suicide by way of [[spoiler:a ballpoint pen]]. ''Slow'' suicide that spilled enough blood to [[RoomFullOfCrazy paint the walls]]. Using [[spoiler:a ''pen'']].
* PlayerPunch: [[spoiler:Finding Yusuf dead. Bonus points for sending Ezio into an UnstoppableRage.]]
** In ''The Lost Archive'', [[spoiler:finding out that Lucy is a traitor is tough enough. But Ubisoft gets some serious kudos for revealing it just before Clay's breakdown -- because you realize that he would have been ''fine'' if Lucy hadn't turned on the Assassins, because if she'd remained loyal, she would have gotten him out before the Bleeding Effect could have done any permanent damage. He'd have suffered no breakdown. No insanity. No suicide. She didn't just destroy his life, she destroyed ''who he was''. She stood back and let Vidic break him to the point that killing himself with a ''ballpoint pen'' and painting desperate messages on the walls and floor in his own blood was a better option than living. She did that to him]]. To me, that simple, understated scene carried more weight than any dramatized [[TheReveal Reveal]].
*** Also has the distinct honor of retroactively making the player punch of the last game a SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome.
** Worst of all is probably [[spoiler: playing Altair's last moments of life, and ''knowing'' it. The game really hits you hard when it tells you to "Sit a moment and rest...", directing you to the very chair that Ezio finds Altair's remains in over 250 years later.]] Doubles as a TearJerker.

* AlternativeCharacterInterprtation: Did Clay want to die? He seems rather excited when the Animus begins to delete Animus Island and an earlier talk with Desmond reveals he has no desire to linger on as a VirtualGhost.

* SoCoolItsAwesome: Hookblade zipling across Istanbul ''never'' gets old. Istanbul as a city qualifies, since its great colours, distinct locations and cornucopia of monuments means that there's always something new to see.

* ThatOneLevel: The first carriage chase, in Masyaf. Nothing else in the entire game compares to the sheer frustration of a LuckBasedMission that is required to proceed.

* MoralEventHorizon: Where do you begin with Abbas Sofian? [[spoiler:Having Altaïr's son Sef killed and telling him that Altaïr ordered the execution? Or framing Malik for said murder, having him imprisoned, then after he gets saved by Altaïr, has him decapitated to make the other Assassins doubt Altaïr's motives. According to ''[[AllThereInTheManual Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade]]'', he did all this because [[DisproportionateRetribution Altaïr told him his father committed suicide when they were young]].]]

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OZgvDQbFCo On The Attack]] is really badass. Similar to AC1's post-assassination theme, in that it has a techno-ish feel to it and feels pretty damn intense, except this time, there is an epic distortion guitar and various other instruments at play as well.

* MoralEventHorizon: Where do you begin with Abbas Sofian? [[spoiler:Having Altaïr's son Sef killed and telling him that Altaïr ordered the execution? Or framing Malik for said murder, having him imprisoned, then after he gets saved by Altaïr, has him decapitated to make the other Assassins doubt Altaïr's motives.[[note]]According to ''[[AllThereInTheManual Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade]]''[[/note]]? All this because [[spoiler:[[DisproportionateRetribution Altaïr told him his father committed suicide when they were young]].]]

* BetterThanCanon: [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10171181/1/AC-Revelations-Novelization AC Revelations Novelization]] by [https://www.fanfiction.net/u/763713/Mirror-and-Image [Mirror and Image]]. They thought that the whole thing was a kitchen sink plot and did their best to tie it together. They also developed more characterization for ComicRelief Yusuf and LoveInterest Sofia.

** The game itself is also criticized gameplay wise for basically being ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]]'' again in a different city, and with the few new additions (tower defense, bomb crafting) hard to get excited for.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: Has the shortest main quest out of all the ''Assassin's Creed'' games. The sharp reduction in the number of faction side quests as well as the removal of Assassination Contracts doesn't help much.

* UnfortunateImplications: Unlike the Christians and Muslims in ''Assassin's Creed'', the Italians in ''Assassin's Creed 2'' and ''Brotherhood'', and the Ottomans in ''Revelations'', the Byzantines are pretty much the only faction treated as being AlwaysChaoticEvil with ''all'' of them being Templars and treated as enemies. Also, the Byzantines' attempts to retake Constantinople are treated as evil or wrongful despite the fact the around 60 years prior, they had been living there for over a 1000 years. And to rub salt on the wounds, [[TheHero Ezio]] commits his only ever act of killing innocent civilians when he visits the Byzantine underground city of Cappadocia and starts a fire there despite knowing it could kill its inhabitants. What's worse is that [[MoralDissonance Ezio doesn't seem to mind any of this]].
** One may wonder whether Selim knew of this when he expelled Ezio from Constantinople... or whether Ezio admitted any of this to Sofia, much less the Assassins, when he abdicated as Mentor in the novel.

** Suicide by way of [[spoiler:a ballpoint pen]]. ''Slow'' suicide that spilled enough blood to [[RoomFullOfCrazy paint the walls]]. Using [[spoiler:a ''pen'']]. Never going to get over how horrifically painful that must have been.

* ArcFatigue: Note that this isn't an indictment of the game as a whole; Constantinople is a great setting idea, bomb-crafting is neat, and there are some really good moments...but some players and critics felt that Ezio's story was kinda played out by this point, having already completed his Hero's Journey ''and'' a post-Hero's Journey.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Every one of them, but the most prominient is the BigBad who comes close to being a CutsceneBoss.The closest you get to having a boss fight with him is when you chase him on a carriage and punch him ''while falling off a cliff''.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic/: The music from the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo6Q14vBB1c E3 2011 trailer]], the triumphant and sorrowful "Iron" (by Woodkid) seems almost written for this purpose. You feel what Ezio must be feeling, from finally reaching his destination, to fighting for his life and experiencing hallucinations, to being dragged to his supposed death. It sums up perfectly the finality and closure the game will bring.

* AnticlimaxBoss: Every one of them, but the most prominient is the BigBad who comes close to being a CutsceneBoss.The closest you get to having a boss fight with him is when you chase him on a carriage and punch him ''while falling off a cliff''.

* BestLevelEver:
** UbiSoft is in some kind of competition with NaughtyDog over chase sequences; Sequence 8, Memory 3; End Of The Road has Ezio ''parasailing'' behind a runaway carriage, dive-bombing like an attack falcon to dispatch mooks!
** The Hagia Sofia level might just be the best Hidden Tomb in the entire Ezio trilogy.
** The Minstrel level, ''which asks you to beat up the annoying bastards,'' and then lets you pretend to be one, is the '''[[Funny/AssassinsCreedRevelations Funniest]]''' Level Ever!
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The music from the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo6Q14vBB1c E3 2011 trailer]], the triumphant and sorrowful "Iron" (by Woodkid) seems almost written for this purpose. You feel what Ezio must be feeling, from finally reaching his destination, to fighting for his life and experiencing hallucinations, to being dragged to his supposed death. It sums up perfectly the finality and closure the game will bring.

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbnc0gO1TFk Den Defense]]. Say what you will about the minigame, but the music is amazing.

* GeniusBonus: There is a hypothesis that suggests that the human population was reduced to around 10k-15k around 70,000 years ago. Look up "Toba Catastrophe Theory". Sure, it wasn't caused by [[spoiler:a solar flare, but you know - AlternateHistory.]]

* ItsTheSameSoItSucks: Oliver Bowden's novelization of the game is rather dry, sticking heavily to the source material of the game and adapting the Altair scenes again (Bowden had earlier in 2011 done a novelization of the first game and included what would become Altair's flashback scenes). It's commonly considered the weakest of his novels, largely just for adding nothing the game doesn't give you (Unless once doesn't get ''Assassin's Creed Embers'', which ties up Ezio's story).
* [[HolyShitQuotient HSQ]]: Some of the sound files found on the disk of the PC version are [[WhamLine very revealing.]]

*** Also has the distinct honor of retroactively making the player punch of the last game a CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: We finally get to see [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95G44qE089M what destroyed the First Civilization.]] One of the most terrifying yet beautiful visuals we've seen in the series thus far.

* UnfortunateImplications: Unlike the Christians and Muslims in ''Assassin's Creed'', the Italians in ''Assassin's Creed 2'' and ''Brotherhood'', and the Ottomans in ''Revelations'', the Byzantines are pretty much the only faction treated as being AlwaysChaoticEvil with ''all'' of them being Templars and treated as enemies. Also, the Byzantines' attempts to retake Constantinople are treated as evil or wrongful despite the fact the around 60 years prior, they had been living there for over a 1000 years. And to rub salt on the wounds, [[TheHero Ezio]] commits his only ever act of killing innocent civilians when he visits the Byzantine underground city of Cappadocia and starts a fire there despite knowing it could kill its inhabitants. What's worse is that [[MoralDissonance Ezio doesn't seem to mind any of this]].