Assassin's Creed

What was wrong with Jack?

I'm a big Victorian London buff and know a lot of Jack the Ripper facts and the idea of solving the murder mystery seemed cool. The result just felt... cliche and kinda dumb. I could have explained better ages ago (and probably did somewhere in this thread?) but its been a few years since I played it so forgive me for having a lack of clear details.

I hated Jack going on massacres every 5 seconds when they were known for a handful victims and one at a time. I hated the unfortunate implications of them even being playable. I didn't like his motivation at all and felt it was a square peg fit into a round hole to fit Jack into the series narrative and ignoring other details of the Ripper murders. I think they wasted the potential character arc of Aberline considering he was a real person who also retired halfway through the murders BECAUSE of that case.

Which is an issue I kinda keep having with most of the series. I feel like I keep loving the potential the series has more than what is actually delivered. And maybe that's a bit of my history buff speaking but when this is a series that tries to pride itself on historical accuracy to the point of virtual history museums in the last two games, it feels limp and lazy to ignore details that could create a far more compelling narrative.

Edited by InkDagger on Mar 22nd 2020 at 7:52:28 AM

Siwa was probably picked for its historical significance, especially the Alexander the Great connection. That made it a great location to tie in the Isu fiction, and also provides a good way to get Bayek involved in Plot.

Yes, it seems weird to me that they suddenly shy away from showing homosexuality, similar to how slavery is pretty much glossed over. I suspect they were simply afraid of stirring controversy or upsetting the "fans".

I found the siege of Alexandria rather confusing too. There's a sudden surge of characters and events, and it gets a bit hard to follow. And the game also suffers from underplaying its villains, reducing a lot of them to names on a checklist and little more. This got much worse in Odyssey, too.

That's why I thought we were still early in the game. Most of the map hadn't been touched yet and I assumed they were 'starter' villains before we could have Cleopatra and Caesar steal the stage later.

But... no, they were the legit assassin targets. :/

For what I see AC kinda got more bland in that respect, I play revelation and like the page said, the game never coment on the fact that Ottoman empire is.....well, and empire who take over and cast the old greek nobility as bad.

That was weird as hell.

I was also bummed that half the targets were killed by Aya, off screen.

And it's really obvious from how that went that they were thinking about doing two playable characters again, but for whatever reason, that was abandoned.

I'm not far enough into Unity yet, but I'm pretty sure Arno is going to replace the Eagle Bearer as my least favorite protagonist. Guy doesn't react to the world around him at all.

I think a French historian quoted in a review sums up my opinion best, "Arno is a Frenchman during the Revolution who has no opinion on the Revolution. Which is a bit like a New Yorker with no opinion on 9/11."

That's really it. Arno's quest is completely personal and has no real interaction with the things going on around him, making him look incredibly selfish and spoiled.

Yeah, Arno being completely about his personal quest was presumably an attempt to replicate Ezio and be apolitical it just comes off as selfish and unheroic. He had an interesting set up, of being raised by a templar but still being an Assassin, and having the hots for Elise who is a templar but it's all wasted.

Speaking off, i do find it strange that the Assassin's are supporting the corrupt nobility and Templar's are supporting the people, would anyone mind giving me a refresher on what happened?

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 23rd 2020 at 9:57:46 AM

I mostly remember the Assassins being holed up in their underground palace of a hideout, and basically spending their time in indecision and inaction.

Assassin Council member 1: We should do something!

Assassin Council member 2: Should we do something?

Assassin Council Member 3: We should do something!

Pierre Bellec: I should do something!

Edited by RedHunter543 on Mar 23rd 2020 at 10:08:15 AM

Unity tries to do something interesting with the Assassin vs. Templar conflict by reversing the morality of the sides to some extent, but since the A story isn't actually about that, it ends up falling flat and going nowhere. Arno is a failure as an Assassin and Elise is a failure as a Templar, so...

III, on the other hand, presents a compelling argument that the Templars are acting in people's best interests and puts that argument in the words of a character we actually give a shit about: Haytham Kenway. It sets up an interesting moral conflict and follows through on it, up until Connor kills him and the opportunity is lost, but we are meant to understand that it is lost in-universe, not merely at the bottom of a pile of notes on a writer's desk.

Edited by Fighteer on Mar 23rd 2020 at 1:17:14 PM

The Assassins opposing the Revolution once the Jacobins hijack it and start a bloodbath (a major Creed violation) would make sense. As would the Templars playing both sides.

As is, it just doesn't seem coherent.

Paris is amazing to play in though, but that level of detail came at a high price.

Another issue is that I played (and enjoyed) Syndicate back when Origins came out. Syndicate solves a lot of the issues I'm having with Unity (co-op existing in the main campaign, the gear system and skills feeling a bit clunky, no way to attract guards from stealth).

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Mar 23rd 2020 at 2:23:34 PM

When Unity was announced I thought the obvious play would be to have the Assassins support the Revolution full-on from day one while the Templars flock full-on to the nobility, but when the Terror begins we have a Halfway Plot Switch as the Assassins realize the terror has spun out of control and both Assassins and Templars end up in the iron sights of the Terror and they have to figure out they might need to make common cause. That's what I thought even the title "Unity" meant.

This would even fit with Robespierre's reputation of being paranoid about conspiracies (i.e in-universe he's against two different conspiracies).

I had a similar pitch back in the day too. Though mine was more 'Assassins and Templars are BOTH within the nobility and lost sight of the citizens caught in the middle who rise up to overthrow both'. Now it's a bloody free for all and tense if the Assassins and Templars could trust each other while also having to face consequences to their actions and hubris. There could be a lot of great themes there and shake up a lot of the usual expected tropes of the franchise.

But... nope.

Remember that launch trailer for Unity featuring the storming of the Bastille with the Assassins taking point? Would have been cool if that had been featured in the game.

I'm still salty we never got any followup on Lafayette's inviting Connor to France. I would've been very interested to his reaction to the Revolution, even if only as an NPC; especially if Unity had actually gone the "Assassins and Templars unite to survive" route.

UNITY is basically the nadir of the series in terms of, "absolutely giving no shits about history save as a backdrop." This is ironic given there's a game where you fistfight the Pope and Revelations not really having any history to fall back on. It, like the Jack the Ripper DLC, is based entirely around its fictitious history rather than history-history. It's probably a reaction to the over-reliance on the Revolutionary War in 3.

(Strangely, I'd argue 4 is the absolute best of the series for historical incorporation)

They don't want to tell a story about the Revolution. They want to tell a story about Assassins vs. Templars. The problem is the French Revolution is not something you can push to the back. It gets doubly weird given that so much history is stuffed in the multiplayer missions.

If you play those you get:

• Napoleon's Romance
• Historical female assassins
• Nobility rescue
• Nobility killing
• Thwarting Royalist plots

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 23rd 2020 at 12:03:26 PM

To be fair, the Pope is a lousy fighter, which probably IS historical.

Unless he were fighting Julius II. Ezio would be screwed.

The stuff that Julius II achieved during his ten-year papacy could totally be due to a Piece of Eden, and his death in 1513 could have been an assassination in order to retrieve the Piece from him.

Nicknamed the Warrior Pope, apparently. Why couldn't he be in the games?

Anyone else remember when Napoleon had a British accent? No well alright.

Unity had a lot of stupid crap in but native Frenchmen & other such kinds of people speaking in British accents definitely ranks among the stupidest.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 26th 2020 at 9:31:54 AM

Technically, Napoleon should speak like Ezio.