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icyschreviews · 1 year

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A Review of Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands

The One You Should Have Remembered

Well isn’t this awkward? Allow me to hype you up for a game no one ever gave a shit about. Don’t worry, we’re so late to the party, the game’s server support has long been dead. Now you can enjoy it without having to worry that Ezio skin is going to steal 5 bucks from your wallet. So allow me to introduce you two. Forgotten Sands, here’s another misguided reader. Dear reader, this is Forgotten Sands, an incredibly polished piece of fast-paced action and an essential entry in the catalogue of every true Prince of Persia fan. Don’t you now feel silly for not having played it? I mean, neither have I, but we can rectify that mistake together.

Forgotten Sands is simultaneously an inevitability as well as a defiance of fate - a movie tie-in produced solely for cash that somehow managed to be a darn good game on its own merits. I know it gets a bad rep, even when it is seldom mentioned, yet most of the criticism I heard is inextricable from the movie. Ah yes, the Hollywood Prince of Persia. Eye-rolls ensue. Yet another shoddy video game adaptation that not even Jake Gyllenhaal could rescue.

I can’t say I blame the cynics, but if you asked the people who actually played the game (and not the ones who came out of the theater jaded, only to realize they were being sold a video game along with the movie ticket), they would have told you that Forgotten Sands has nothing to do with the movie. No, FS let the adaptation do whatever the fuck it was doing, while trying to snuggle itself somewhere between Sands of Time and Warrior Within.

You heard me right, this is another installment in the Sands of Time trilogy. Same old Prince, same old Yuri Lowenthal doing the voice work. The promise of yet another adventure with our beloved protagonist might make your heart flutter, but I’d strongly advise caution in this particular case. FS’ story reeks of cheap action movie screenplays, something an underpaid writer must have slapped together over a drunk weekend. It’s so astoundingly bland, I don’t even have the desire to ridicule it. Even the movie adaptation outperforms it by miles.

Some of you might be scrolling back to the first passage right now. Didn’t you say this game was good? How can that be true if the story is shit? Aren’t Prince of Persia games all about time travel shenanigans and the allure of Arabian Nights? Normally I’d agree with you, but with FS I’m willing to make an exception. What this game strives for is gameplay excellence, and since it came so close to peaking, I decided to turn a blind eye towards its less flattering sides. You’re more than welcome to make your own judgement.

I wonder, did the game snatch this shot from the movie or vice versa?

Since we’re definitely not talking about the story, there are two avenues along which we can further this discussion. Platforming is the more straightforward path, but let’s leave it for later and jump straight to the controversy. Let’s talk about the combat. You with me? You listening? Good, cause Forgotten Sands might have the best combat out of any Prince of Persia game.

You still there? Has the disbelief turned into outrage yet? Forgotten Sands? Best combat? Excuse me, but what? Why, I swear on my copy of Warrior Within there’s no other PoP game that comes close. What is this hack ‘n’ slash garbage and how dare you compare it to a true hardcore experience like WW? I played through Forgotten Sands and hadn’t died once! You call that a game? Are you some filthy casual who always plays on easy? Have you even finished Warrior Within? I beat it like twenty times on the hardest difficulty with one of my hands tied behind—

Shut up. Shut it. Yeah, I’m talking to you. I don’t care for the blind admiration you’ve been dragging around since you were 13. Why don’t you find a place for it somewhere up your ass? Yes, WW’s combat can be exceptional. Emphasis on can be. If Jupiter and Saturn align and Mercury is not in retrograde, Warrior Within can make you feel like a god. Or it can make you smash your gamepad against your desk.

I went over the damn thing in another review (shameless self-promotion here), but it all boils down to one thing. Half of WW’s difficulty comes from poor design choices, making the other half much harder to enjoy. Each time you enter a room you have to make a blood sacrifice to the camera gods lest it misbehaves itself, and then roll a perception check in case some mother fucker is coming at you from a dead angle. What FS offers me in turn is consistency. Being the fifth major PoP title released by Ubisoft, FS had the privilege of looking back on its predecessors and ironing out the creases. And you bet it did its homework.

The lock-on system is gone. Finally I can move in any direction I want and aim my attacks wherever I want. No more moving to the left only for the game to decide it should reroute my inputs towards a foe on the right. I understand that FS is a hack ‘n’ slash and that removing the lock-on must have been a necessity. If there are 30 enemies in the room, you don’t want the camera whip-lashing the player. However this change feels so liberating, I can’t help but wish it was part of the previous games as well. I despise soft lock-on systems in general and have yet to play a game that employs them successfully.

On top of that, I can cancel out of animations that don’t have iframes, and vice versa, I have iframes for the animations I can’t cancel out of. I cannot overstate the importance of these features and how sorely they were needed in the previous games. Further on, the arenas are spacious and the camera never gets stuck on anything. Couple that with smooth and responsive animations, a clean and comprehensive presentation, and you get yourself a combat system that flows like butter.

Did I hear anyone complain about Warrior Within just now?

This might be a good place to stop and take a step back. While FS introduced a bunch of quality of life improvements, which would have worked wonders in WW, it’s important to note that the nature of its combat is completely different. As I mentioned a few times by now, FS is definitively a hack ‘n’ slash.

Making your way through the tutorial, you won’t really notice any differences. You can still roll, swing your sword and jump over befuddled enemies. Then a few minutes in, a siege tower will open its doors and spew out 15 enemies at you. From then on FS just keeps adding to the deck. "More" is not a word that has a negative connotation in its vocabulary.

In itself I find this change to be neither good nor bad. Rather I’m much more interested in the side effects brought on by this design decision. As I said, looking at your basic arsenal, not much has changed. However a bit further down the line the game introduces you to the kick and the heavy attack.

The kick is there to facilitate the rock-paper-scissors nature of the combat. Way back in Sands of Time you could employ the jump attack against certain types of enemies, but would have to resort to wall bouncing against other types who were immune to the jump. Likewise the kick is there to deal with enemies hiding behind a shield, but can also be utilized as a powerful weapon against regular foes.

The heavy attack, which is undoubtedly my favorite, needs to be charged up and released. This sounds pretty basic, but the devil’s in the details as they say. First off, the attack can be cancelled at any time. Enemies can swarm you pretty quickly, so the game lets you abort and scurry off to safety instantly. Second, it doesn’t matter what direction the Prince is facing when stopping to charge up. You can tilt the stick any way you want and the Prince will launch himself there upon release. Third, the attack can be chained together from one successful hit to another. Mwah!

I know what you’re thinking right now: wow, what cool new additions. I wonder what kinds of combos you can build from them? Well, none.

As I’m sure you remember, both WW and the 2008 reboot had extensive combo trees. I liked how versatile and dynamic they were. You had numerous options for creating your own combat style. However they were shoehorned into the games at best. You’d expect them to be introduced gradually through gameplay, but no. The designers just dumped the entire combo sheet on your head and expected you to read through it. Even if you put in the time to try them all out, you’d eventually settle into using only a handful.

FS doesn’t bother with this. The closest it ever gets to a combo system are the variations of the jump attack. Besides simply vaulting over an enemy or smacking it over the head, the dedicated kick button also lets you tackle them to the ground. If you try to jump over an enemy with a shield, it’ll just knock you off with it. Furthermore the animation changes based on the enemy’s health. If it’s close to dying, the Prince will perform somewhat of a finisher. These special animations can also be triggered when driving an exhausted enemy up a wall or close to a banister.

Say hi to the movie’s ratings when you get down to the bottom.

As neatly packaged as it is, the combat system would certainly have felt barren without any further additions. Luckily FS decided to adorn it with more features. There are 4 brand new elemental powers for you to play with. No, they don’t make any sense within the narrative, so don’t bother frying your brain cells.

The Ice Blast is the most straightforward one, sending waves of ice along the trajectory of your attack. It’s great for mowing down entire rows of enemies, much further than your heavy attack can reach, and especially if you’re trying to get to those bothersome summoners. The Trail of Flame is somewhat of a passive, useful if you’re playing defensively of just like hit-and-run tactics. The Whirlwind is your obligatory AOE, considering the genre. Its logical counterpart, the Stone Armour, is perfect if you don’t want to be interrupted while going after a single target, like a stunned charger, or just want to shield yourself from those annoying scarabs.

Overall I feel the powers are decently rounded. They are specifically designed to be effective against the game’s main challenge - the ever increasing hordes of enemies. The only one I tend to question is the Trail of Flame, since it’s a rather passive ability in a combat system that favors aggressive play.

It took me some time to come to that last conclusion. The first thing I realized is that blocking is not a thing any more. The designers just made off with it and I didn’t even notice. Later I began thinking about how you obtain health and energy in this game. While it’s perfectly possible to dodge each and every attack, it’s not a realistic expectation to have. The staggering amount of enemies means you’ll get hit eventually, especially if you’re one for rushing into crowds. The game accounts for this by making fallen enemies drop health and energy. That way it creates a system akin to the one Bloodborne popularized a few years down the line - a closed loop of hitting and getting hit, an incentive to get in there and tap some ass instead of standing on the sidelines.

I do find it funny how the elemental powers are introduced to you. At some point the game tells you that you’ve gained enough XP and should open up a level-up menu. Level-up menu? There, among the obvious improvements to your health and energy, you’ll find the elemental powers just waiting for you without any further explanations. FS, you didn’t tell me this was a buffet. In a way this is the same transgression committed by the combo sheets from the previous games, although it is much more concise and comprehensive. For starters, the level-up menu fits on half a screen.

All of you need to chill out.

Well I guess it’s time to start nitpicking now. What? I said FS might have the best combat out of any PoP game, and I’ll emphasize that might again in case you missed it. While I think it polished much of what its predecessors got wrong, it made quite a few blunders on its own. God forbid there isn’t anything to bicker about.

Let’s start off with the minor stuff. Finishing off knocked-down enemies doesn’t quite work. You’re supposed to approach them and press the attack button, but it takes a while for the Prince to realize what he should be doing. Likewise, jumping on top of enemies is pretty imprecise. The Prince’s jump is ridiculously long and in most cases he’ll just leap past an enemy instead of engaging them.

Other than the 4 elemental powers, there’s another special ability I failed to mention. The Power Of Flight, or the dash as I’m sure it’s colloquially called, is a platforming ability that also made its way into the combat. It allows you to knock down enemies like bowling pins or quickly distance yourself from tricky situations. It’s devilishly fun, in both combat and platforming, but I worry it’s too powerful without the restraint of a cooldown bar. Then again, restricting it because of the combat would break some of the platforming challenges, but more on that later.

Boss-wise, there are only two types in the entire game: the chargers and the giants (or whatever class Ratash is supposed to represent). Timing the dodge on the former is completely broken. I could not for the life of me pinpoint the precise moment when you needed to leap out of the way. Its attack pattern is rather simple, though I do like how it’s expanded with crowd control. You can use the boss to clear out whole packs of minions, but then have to keep watch for those same minions not to overwhelm you while you’re chipping away at the boss. I wonder how this fight would evolve if they threw in a summoner…

Ratash, in his first two appearances, is perfectly serviceable, if not a bit too lenient. He also makes use of crowd control to add an extra layer to the fight, though it's not as effective as with the Chargers. Ratash shoots lightning bolts which can be used to kill minions, but he’s much less imposing and allows you to clear out all other enemies before engaging him.

The bosses that really get me going though are the trolls. Their move-set is more or less the same as Ratash’s, with one notable exception. They are the only enemy type in the entire game which forces you into a soft lock-on. Guys, what the hell happened here? The trolls are the perfect example that the lock-on does not work, especially not in this genre of combat. As if this doesn’t tamper with your ability to tackle smaller enemies, the trolls are also the only boss type which gets mixed in with summoners. Oh, now you remember to put them in! Watch as I get stunned-locked into oblivion while the camera stubbornly refuses to move away from the troll.

Overall, all of the boss types are severely overused, even for an 8 hour game. There’s also Ratash’s final form, I guess, but that fight is too short and too easy to make any impressions. If this were any other franchise, I’d be much more critical, but other PoP games set such a low bar with their bosses that I find it hard to complain.

I was also let down by the arena modes. I feel FS laid down the basis for a good combat system that could have been pushed much harder than it was. There are two arena modes in total and once you beat them, which won’t take you more than 15 min, there’s really no reason to go back to them. This could have been an opportunity to try out new and more challenging enemy combinations, to let you tweak the difficulty and measure your performance in various ways. It’s sad thinking of other games that have much more complex arena modes, but not nearly as polished a combat system as Forgotten Sands (The Witcher 2 and Alan Wake ffs).

Now you see me, now you don’t.

I think we can let the combat rest for a while and finally talk about the platforming in this game. Unlike the combat, the core of the platforming stayed the same as it was in the Sands of Time trilogy, with numerous improvements and additions further expanding on the original formula. This allows FS to deliver some of the best challenges the series has seen so far.

A number of tweaks have been made to the basic move-set, a lot of them inspired by the 2008 reboot, no less. This is rather surprising considering that FS leans heavily in WW’s direction, with its complex control scheme and relentless late-game sections, while the reboot made its mission to use as little buttons as possible. First off, you can now jump off pillars instantaneously by pointing the stick in the desired direction and pressing the jump button, regardless of where the Prince is facing. Next, you don’t have to press the jump button to pull yourself up a platform, but just tilt the stick forward without breaking the momentum. Last but not least, you can run up a wall after jumping towards it from any other obstacle, significantly increasing the potential of wall-to-wall scenarios.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how they revamped the control scheme for polls. Previously you had to hold down the special action button to initiate a swing and then press the jump button to launch yourself off the poll. Changing the Prince’s direction on a poll was particularly frustrating, as you had to keep twiddling the left stick like a mad man until the game decided to oblige. Now swinging is initiated by holding down the left stick in the direction perpendicular to the poll, while the direction parallel to the poll moves the Prince along it. Switching the perpendicular direction also neatly switches the Prince around the poll, removing any ambiguity from the mechanic. I appreciated this the most when tackling timed obstacles, such as doors, where being able to switch direction without breaking momentum is necessary for completing the challenge.

One new addition, which I’m positively blown away by, is the ability to initiate a wall run while holding on to a ledge, both horizontally and vertically. To give you my favorite example, you’ll come across a familiar trap when you first start descending into the underground city: a ledge and a spinning saw. However this saw is spinning right under the ledge, able to cut through the Prince if he were hanging on. At first I was confused. What is this setup? Then I realized what the game wanted me do. You have to grab onto the ledge when the saw moves away from you and run up the wall to let it pass beneath you on its way back. Then you have to slide down and move quickly along the ledge before the saw comes back to get you. My mind was positively blown. The game is full of little reinventions like this which make you view old obstacles in completely new ways.

Characteristic of a PoP game, all of FS’ animations are fluid and seasoned with little details to further enhance the experience. E.g. if you jump towards a hanging pillar just beneath its lower tip, the Prince will grab onto it with his arms and yank himself up until he’s encircled it with his legs. This comes off much more naturally than simply snapping you into place. Another good example, when you jump from one poll to another at a lower elevation, the Prince performs a different animation. He’ll grab onto it with only one arm, as if to signify that this is not a clean landing, perform a spin and then settle into the default position. All of this adds nicely to one of the most polished platforming experiences in the entire franchise.

Booby trapped corridor, my favorite.

The game wouldn’t be much fun if it only stuck with the basic move-set. There are three new platforming abilities tied to the Djinn: the Power of Flow, the Power of Flight and the Power of Memory. The Power of Flight, aka the dash, I already mentioned. What I didn’t go into is how it’s used exactly. See, another change made to the basic move-set is the separation of the jump from the roll. In previous installments, these were mapped to the same button and triggered contextually. In FS they occupy different buttons, clearly signifying the player’s intent.

To be honest, I don’t really understand this decision, neither in combat nor in platforming. To add to the confusion, the jump almost makes the roll obsolete. There are two reasons for this. First, the jump is ridiculously long. Rolling used to be king when it came to overcoming timed obstacles, but now it sits in the shadow of its far superior counterpart. Second, the camera feels weird when rolling, like it crashes into the Prince from the behind and squeals to a halt. It makes the already modest distance crossed by the roll seem even shorter.

To go back to the Power of Flight, the only reason I can justify the divorce between the jump and the roll is that their button combination is used to dash. As mentioned, the dash is recklessly unleashed during combat, but much more tuned to my liking during platforming. The camera work is exquisite. There is a genuine sense of exhilaration when swishing ahead, and an even greater satisfaction upon smashing onto your destination. The only thing I worry is that it over-saturates the game with yet another move for crossing distance, threatening to retire the other two mechanics whose buttons it makes use of.

The Power of Flow, i.e. freezing water for a specified amount of time, is an absolute banger. The game uses it to string together some insane challenges, which push your platforming skills to new heights. You’re asked to perform your usual assortment of moves while also rapidly switching the state of the water, freezing it to give the Prince new obstacles to interact with and unfreezing it to allow him through. This all culminates during the game’s final stretch where you’re tasked with hopping your way past multiple rows of waterfalls.

The Power of Memory, or level reconstruction, is yet another surprising inspiration provided by the reboot, specifically the phantom walls found in the Epilogue. On its own, it’s much lower stake then the other powers, requiring only the quick engagement of one button to successfully pull off. Never the less, it can be thrilling jumping off one solid surface, letting its safety disappear behind you, and then watching anxiously as another one forms in front of you in the nick of time. Coupled with the other two powers, it creates another layer of complexity around FS’ platforming mechanics.

The game introduces each of these powers in separate sections, allowing you to get used to them on their own terms. Soon though, it starts mixing them together to form some of the franchise’s most intricate platforming sections. You’ll find yourself splashing through waterfalls, landing on freshly reconstructed walls, bolting to unsuspecting birds, and then back swinging around bars of ice, all in the matter of seconds.

Come here, birdie, birdie.

Come to think of it, there are actually 4 powers of the Djinn, aren’t they? The poor Power of Time somehow got lost in the process. If I were to take a closer look at it, what’s the point of having it in the game at all? No, I don’t mean because of the lore implications. I couldn’t care less about that, not to mention that the other powers aren’t tied by some narrative thread either. What I’m aiming at is gameplay. Isn’t the rewind kinda pointless in FS?

I mean, just think about it. Auto-saves are so frequent, you’re basically being restarted on the last solid surface you were standing on. Minus Elika, it is functionally the same system as in the reboot. Why would you waste your rewind on that? Likewise, slain foes drop health, meaning the mechanic is equally useless during combat.

I only found two applications for it in the entire game. The first one is for poorly timed dodges on incoming Chargers. The second is for misinterpreting directional inputs (more on that in a sec). So, yeah, you could say I used the power rather frequently, but both of these instances were for correcting the game’s busted mechanics and not some intended design choice.

Furthermore, why on earth is the rewind power using the same energy bar as the combat abilities!? The Power of Flow has its own cooldown meter, the Power of Memory can be triggered at any time (as long as you like having a floor beneath your feet), and the dash has some (barely noticeable) downtime between bursts. It’s like they added the rewind just so they could have another reason to lodge the game within the SoT trilogy, without considering if the power even had anything to add to the gameplay.

Don’t you dare slip.

If I could add more complaints to the pile, I have some serious gripes with the camera. For the most part, it performs its job rather competently, but problems quickly start to arise. The first one that became apparent to me was its restrictiveness. The camera is fixed during most platforming challenges, giving you only a little wiggle room to look around. On one hand, I like this. You are constantly being pointed in the direction you need to go in. There is no ambiguity about what stunt to perform next, allowing the action to flow uninterrupted.

On the other hand, I felt like I was stuck on rails. The previous games let you explore their worlds without much hand-holding, emulating a sense of freedom which the open worlds in Warrior Within and the 2008 reboot made real use of. Sure, the camera would occasionally point to a specific direction, but only when necessary for clarity’s sake. I think that restricting the camera as much as it did, FS inadvertently created a sense of artifice, like its world is no more than a set of static scenes going by a carnival ride.

But enough about the camera angles. What really gets me about FS’ platforming is how directional inputs are handled. For some obstacles, moving the Prince forward requires pointing the stick in the direction relative to the camera. For others, you just have to push the stick forward. This is insanely confusing to say the least.

I don’t remember the previous games having this issue, at least not often enough to notice. In FS it is a constant recurrence. I wish the designers decided on one approach and kept it throughout. The camera is at its absolute worst when the game strings together two obstacles which don’t apply the same movement principles. It adds and unwelcome layer of uncertainty to platforming challenges which require quick decision making. The problem is further magnified by the fact that the game insists on using cinematic camera angles to frame the action. Yes, I know, it looks a lot cooler than your standard bird’s eye perspective, but it’s also much harder to tell what constitutes as "moving forward" when you’re viewing the Prince from some weird angle.

Those Warrior Within drapes will never go out of style.

Although FS is more than capable of chaining together some exhilarating platforming sequences, the levels the action takes place in are often quite forgettable. Whether from a lack of inspiration or pressure from higher-ups, the designers seem to have dug up SoT’s art book somewhere in the back of the office, and just blown the dust off it. The line between homage and rip-off dangerously leans towards the latter. You’ve got your baths, your gardens, your astronomy chambers, etc. They even reprise the palace’s defense systems.

Each time you enter a new area, the game swirls around the camera to give you a sense of the room and display its name in bold letters across the screen. Unfortunately, they all have a terrible case of the cookie-cutter syndrome. Each room is square-shaped. Each is entered from a balcony up above. The obstacles are placed circularly around the walls. There’s always an indistinguishable hallway leading from one room to another. On and on like that.

SoT was linear, but its levels were much more spatially complex than simple cubic environments. For some reason FS’ designers skipped that lesson while screening the predecessors for inspiration. Instead they just slapped over some SoT-looking textures. As a result, Malik’s palace feels like a temporary movie set, like a bunch of fake walls hastily propped up just before the player enters the room.

To give the game some credit, the levels do start to improve once you’ve made it past the halfway mark. My favorite sections are those adjacent to the Terraces. There the game finally stops leading you from one box to another and lets you scale spires and hop over balconies. The visuals are crisp, selling the opulence and magnitude of the palace’s rooftops. The featured content is also varied, giving you a pretty good puzzle section in the observatory and a chase sequence with Ratash, an unexpected throwback to all those fun times with the Dahaka.

Good old crank puzzles.

Ok, you know what, I lied. I said we wouldn’t talk about the story, but we absolutely must. I can’t believe they slammed some random door between the Prince and Malik just to stop them from settling their argument. It’s one of the main contrivances the plot keeps recycling to justify its existence. The brothers are like: could we toss over this amulet and fix everything? Yes, we could, bro. Ok, you do it first. No, you do it. No, you. No, bro, you do it!

Hold on, game, wasn’t the Prince’s biggest mistake in SoT not trusting Farrah with the dagger? Then why on earth is he not handing in the freaking amulet!? Also why do the brothers not trust each other in the first place? Did I miss something? What is their relationship made out of anyway? It wouldn’t have hurt to flesh that out more, especially if you’re going to make it the focal point of the story.

What’s worse, here’s the Prince, a couple of years past the most significant event in his entire life, still bearing fresh scars from letting his arrogance get the best of him. And does he talk about it with Malik? No. Does he share some insight regarding this strikingly similar situation? No. Does he try to appeal to his brother instead of succumbing to the same childish stubbornness? No! They could have had an honest to god interesting story about strained family relationships, the abuse of power and the difficulty of speaking up about one’s issue. But that would have required some actual effort, wouldn’t it?

The game culminates with the laziest Hollywood ending I might have ever seen in a video game. To my utter amusement, Malik died in the Prince’s arms as the camera zoomed out and the Prince screamed into the heavens. I was hoping they would squeeze in the Dahaka’s appearance somewhere in the post-credits, but I wasn’t even rewarded with that much.

Bro, we’re meeting up at the baths, right?

It’s really quite sad how often the game relies on SoT’s branding, but tosses aside everything that could have been drawn from its story. Instead, it desperately copy-pastes whatever it can get its paws on. Here’s yet another army attacking yet another desert city. Which army/city, you ask? Who cares. Why don’t you chew up SoT’s tutorial section - we nearly identically transplanted into FS, down to the specific camera angles.

Someone must have flipped through SoT’s glossary at this point. What are we missing? But Farrah, of course! Here’s her knock-off counterpart, what’s her name? Razia? (I had to Google that, just so you know.) She and the Prince share as much chemistry as Godsmack and a glass of lukewarm water. Most of her time on-screen is spent blabbering out exposition - I didn’t listen to a single word she said.

Yuri Lowenthal is back, and while I’d love if he narrated my life, could the Prince please keep his mouth shut unless he has something substantial to say? Yes, how dare I, but the dialogue is so poor it’s barely listenable even with the stellar performance. The only remarks the writers could come up with are so inconsequential, they could have had the Prince comment on the weather. They reuse the same joke about a collapsed staircase three times!

And could we take a minute to talk about the Prince’s face? I know technology evolves over time and new models need to be created to present the same characters. It’s not uncommon to have someone’s appearance change between installments, especially if there have been longer breaks between releases or if the in-game context justifies it. So for example, I can get on board with the transition from SoT to WW, where the 7 year in-game gap, as well as the Prince’s move from adolescence to adulthood, more that justify our protagonist’s altered visage.

On the other hand, Forgotten Sands, what the actual fuck? Who is this person? How does this Prince fit in between SoT and WW!? If it weren’t for those bangs and that signature goatee, I wouldn’t have recognized him to begin with. I’m becoming more aware with each new installment that our blue eyed Persian is a genetic abomination. At least we’re all in agreement that Warrior Within’s armor is the best armor.

Wait a minute… You’re not Farrah!

Here comes the obligatory section where I shit all over the publisher. So let’s see, Ubisoft, what have you done this time? Did the game have a troubled development? Hmm, I don’t think so. I can’t remember any such reports from back in the day, nor could I dig up ones now. Were there any egregious online features? Not really, just some inconsequential skins.

Wait, I remember now! Uplay! Let it perish in the deepest depths of hell where it came from! Uplay was what you had in store back in early 2021 when I first gave this game a try (yes, I know, late to the party). What I had to go through to get the game up and running on Steam was ridiculous.

At first, I didn’t have Uplay installed, so the game was trying to boot itself up using some archaic Ubisoft launcher I had leftover on my PC. After I installed it, it still wouldn’t run because the cache files created by the old launcher were causing issues. After clearing the cache, it couldn’t sync non-existing save files, so I restarted it in offline mode. Then, the cherry on top, it kept crashing silently whenever I tried to boot the game. Why, you ask? Because you can’t have your gamepad connected before the game itself starts. Don’t even ask how I got to that conclusion. It took me more time to get to the title screen than to download and install the damn thing!

At the time of writing this, early 2023 to be precise, Uplay is dead and gone, replaced by some other infernal construct called Ubisoft Connect. I flinched when I realized the game would put me through more launcher torment, but fortunately this time the effort was minimal. Except I had to launch a separate EXE to change the display settings. Ok, whatever. Now the new launcher tracks my in-game achievements. Cool, I’ll still be sure never to use it.

Ubisoft, don’t you keep pushing me.

To be honest, there’s not much here I can blame Ubisoft for specifically. Well, except for one thing. It’s clear as day why they ran back to the SoT trilogy. The earnings of the 2008 reboot were supposedly disappointing, leading Ubisoft to cancel the game’s sequel - a grudge I plan to take to my grave. Even so, I don’t mind they took that as a reason to revisit the old formula. FS shows just how much room there is to build upon the original mechanics. What I do mind is that the game’s creative wings have been clipped from having to stick so close to SoT. FS doesn’t lack polish, nor fun gameplay twists. It lacks an identity.

Just who talks about this game any more? People who’ve actually played it cannot come here in good faith and slander its quality. However, I doubt the game has many fierce defenders. I’ve looked through old reviews and couldn’t find critics being unfair with it. When you comb through them all, it comes down to the same thing. What good gameplay, what bad story. I can’t say I disagree. FS is notably better than any movie tie-in has the right of being, but is still a soulless husk despite its shredded body.

In a way, Ubisoft got exactly what they wanted, the polar opposite of the 2008 reboot. A game that tries to stick to everything a diligent marketer identified as the franchise’s strong suits. A venture that must have been pulled down each time it flew a little too close to the sun. Even so, I’m amazed it managed to get away with as many gameplay innovations as it did. There were clearly some incredibly talented people on the PoP team, who fought for every inch of creative freedom they could get there hands on.

Despite all that effort, the game failed the test of time miserably. True to the irony in its name, Forgotten Sands slips my mind way too easily. This review sat in my virtual drawer for two years until some twist of faith brought it back to my attention. I daydream about Sands of Time, I pull my hair over Warrior Within, I cry in my pillow thinking of the reboot, but I barely contemplate FS unless it somehow plants itself right in front of me. It never managed to carve itself a piece of anyone’s adoration, so it was left behind in the dustbin of gaming history.

Ezio would have jumped, you pussy.

#game review #review #prince of persia #forgotten sands

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lyranova · 3 years

Text

Children of the Future:

Chapter 16: Ezio

Hi guys! I’m so sorry this chapter took so long 😭, i swear IRL has been crazy! But luckily the next chapters won’t take too long since i have them partially written already hehe. Anyway this is the last child that will be appearing and the next ones we’ll finally get some answers hehe. I hope you all enjoy~!

Taglist: @eme-eleff @simpingforthisonedeer @flow3rbudz @crazyclownthanos @thoughtfullyrainynightmare @melissa-novachrono @ckjwnnbc @bowandcurtsey @elysianluv (i’m sorry if i forgot anyone! I lost my taglist 😭)

Word Count: 2,781

Warnings: None

———

Finral and Vanessa slowly made their way to the Wizard Kings office, the two of them had been pretty surprised when the Wizard Kings assistant Marx had contacted them directly and told them that the Wizard King would like to see them. The two had been confused at first, especially since Captain Yami wasn’t there, but they knew better than to refuse an order such as this. So, the two followed the guard silently as they made their way to the Wizard King's office.

“ Hey Vanessa,” Finral started sheepishly. “ Why do you think the Wizard King asked to see us instead of asking for Captain Yami?” Finral had a gut feeling he knew why, but he didn’t want to say it out loud and jinx it.

“ Hm, I’m not 100% sure but I have a feeling it has to do with the kids suddenly appearing and, if I were to go off what's been happening the past week, then I would guess that what’s behind that door is our future child.” Vanessa explained in a hushed voice, as though she didn’t want to say it too loudly. Finral frowned a bit.

“ Scared if you say it too loudly it’ll come true?” He asked her with a sheepish laugh, Vanessa turned to look at him and gave a small laugh.

“ Yeah a little bit.” She admitted, Finral laughed a bit as well.

“ Same here.”

Soon the two were standing in front of the Wizard Kings office, neither one could remember ever being here before so they were very nervous. Finral let out an audible gulp, not only was he nervous about who was beyond that door but he was also nervous as to what Captain Yami would say when he found out. Just the thought of it made Finral pale.

“ Y-Y’know what? I think I left the stove on back at the Hideout. I'll just go back home and check.” Finral said as he opened up a portal to led back to the Hideout, but before he could even think of walking through it Vanessa grabbed the back of his cloak.

“ Yeah you’re not getting out of this one that easily, besides I’m with you so there’s nothing to be afraid of or nervous about.” Vanessa told him with a warm and confident smile, Finral groaned and reluctantly closed the portal. He had to admit whenever he was with Vanessa it did make him a bit braver and more confident.

The guard opened the Wizard Kings office doors and announced the Black Bulls had arrived before exiting the room. Vanessa and Finral looked at each other briefly before turning to look at the Wizard King, his Aide Marx, and a pink haired boy who stood slightly off to the side.

“ Finral, Vanessa, welcome! I apologize we called you here without Captain Yami but we figured he would like a small break from all of this.” Julius said with a small laugh, Finral and Vanessa nodded almost robotically as they just stared at the pink haired boy. He couldn’t be any older then 15, his pink hair was shoulder length and partially tied into a ponytail, he wore a Black Bulls robe and underneath was a wine red suit and boots with a black shirt. He also wore a pair of dark red earrings. His purple eyes finally looked to meet theirs.

“ A-Are you,” Finral stammered slightly, he looked as white as a sheet as he turned to face Julius and Marx. “ Are you sure he isn’t just Vanessa’s kid? I-I mean, he looks almost identical to her.” Finral added, maybe they had the wrong guy for his father?

“ Oh no he’s definitely your son.” Julius said with a small laugh, causing Finral to frown. What did that mean? Suddenly Finral and Vanessa felt themselves being hugged tightly by the young man.

“ Mom, dad, thank the gods you came to rescue me!” The boy cried as he held them tightly. “ I don’t know what they would have done to me if you hadn’t shown up! I think I even saw my life flash before my eyes!” He continued to cry before pulling back to look his ‘parents’ in the face.

“ W-Wait,” he said suddenly as his eyes widened in surprise, he looked back and forth between Vanessa and Finral. “ What the hell?!” He shouted as he sprang back and landed flat on his butt, he pointed a finger as he looked at them.

“ W-Who the heck are you?! You look like my parents but you’re way too young to actually be my parents!” Ezio said, his voice steadily getting higher. Finral looked over at Vanessa and he could see the complete surprise on her face.

“ I thought you had a feeling this is why we were brought here?!” Finral asked her incredulously, his voice suddenly being high pitched as well, Vanessa blinked and looked over at him.

“ I did. But it’s one thing to think it and another to actually see it.” Vanessa pointed out as she shook her head, trying to clear the surprised look off her face. Finral opened his mouth to argue but quickly closed it as he realized she was right, there was a difference.

“ As we already explained to you,” Marx said, addressing the pink haired boy. “ you are in the past so your parents are younger now than they were in your original time. Didn’t they explain this to you already?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

“ Not really. They pretty much told me to just go through the portal, that they didn’t have much time to explain.” He said as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Julius placed a thoughtful hand under his chin, that was another common theme between the children, that their parents were rushing to send them through a portal and didn’t have time to explain. As he thought about it he noticed the boy had stood up and Vanessa had walked over to him.

“ Y’know, you really are a cutie.” She said with a small laugh, causing the boy to blush a deep shade of red.

“ C-C-Cutie?!” He stammered in surprise before she continued and wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, you could tell by the look in her eyes that she was teasing him.

“ I bet you’re a real hit with the ladies, and maybe some of the guys too.” She told him before she thought about it for a moment. “ Unless you inherited your flirting skills from your father.”

“ What’s that supposed to mean?!” Finral shouted before Vanessa turned to look at him.

“ That means your flirting sucks.” She told him deadpan, causing an almost outrageously surprised look to appear of Finral’s face.

“ Excuse me?! I’ll have you know I’m an absolute hit with the ladies!” Finral began shouting in a high pitched and almost disbelieving voice, as Julius watched the interactions between them he noticed the pink haired boy began to relax and saw the slow realization that these were in fact his parents, just younger.

“ Don’t you think it’s about time you introduced yourself?” Julius asked the boy after a few minutes, the pink haired boy blushed a bit in embarrassment as he realized he hadn’t told them his name.

“ Ah yes, sorry about that.” He laughed before clearing his throat. “ My name’s Ezio Roulacase, it’s nice to meet you!” He added, giving a bit of a dramatic bow. Vanessa and Finral frowned a bit before placing thoughtful hands under their chins as they looked at him.

“ Hm, I think Ezio fits you perfectly, don’t you think Finral?” Vanessa asked as she turned to look at him, who nodded in agreement.

“ Yeah it really does fit him I think. Well, it’s nice to officially meet you, Ezio!” Finral said with a cheerful smile.

“ Now that introductions are out of the way, here are the directions to the temporary house you’ll be staying at with the others.” Marx told them before he began to explain where the house was that the others were staying at.

———

Yami pinched the bridge of his nose as he watched all the ‘families’ talk, mingle, and get to know each other outside. He had been a bit surprised when Noelle and Asta showed up with three kids and a devil, he had a small feeling that Noelle had a crush on Asta but he figured the kid was too dense to ever realize it. But as he watched Asta talking and doing a workout with his eldest daughter, while Noelle sat and talked with the two younger ones, he realized that they actually made a cute family. But then again, as he looked around at the other Black Bulls, he realized they all made cute families. Except for Zora, he and Nebra still couldn’t seem to get along. Not even for their kids sake.

“ What are you thinking about?” Yami turned at the sound of a familiar voice and smirked a bit when he saw it was Charlotte.

“ Eh nothing much, just thinking about how weird it is to see all of these kids with kids of their own.” He told her, nodding towards the younger squad members. Charlotte nodded in agreement.

“ True, it is a bit jarring to see kids with, well, kids of their own. Especially considering how some of the kids are around the same age as them.” Charlotte said, Yami nodded in agreement before the two fell into a comfortable silence for a moment.

“ Y’know,” Yami said suddenly, causing Charlotte to look at him. “ As weird as it is to see them with kids of their own and seeing how happy the mini knuckleheads are, it kind of makes me feel like I must’ve done something right as their Captain.” Yami finished as he rubbed the back of his head.

“ You’ve done a lot right as their Captain,” Charlotte told him firmly. “ I may not always agree with your methods, but I think you’re an excellent Captain. You gave those kids someone to look up too and admire, you gave them a home when they needed one, you gave them a family and friends that they can lean on and support. That’s my honest opinion.” Charlotte finished with a firm nod and a bit of a blush on her face, she couldn’t believe she said all of that too Yami!

“ Aw the Prickly Princess does have a soft side.” Yami joked, causing her to turn an even deeper shade of red.

“ O-Of course I do! Just because I don’t tend to show it very often doesn’t mean I don’t have a softer side!” She told him as she glared at him slightly.

“ Sheesh sorry I was just teasing you.” Yami said as he held his hands up in surrender, he smiled a bit before bringing one of his hands down and placing it gently onto her shoulder. “ But thank you for the compliment Princess, you’re not a bad Captain yourself.”

Charlotte blinked in surprise at Yami’s compliment, she smiled a bit as she looked down at her lap somewhat shyly. She wasn’t used to compliments let alone ones from Yami, but she had to admit it made her heart skip a beat when he acknowledged she was a good Captain too.

“ By the way,” Charlotte said after they fell into silence once again. “ you’ve been sitting here watching Alistar and Hikari for a while. What do you think of Alistar?” She added curiously as she noticed the two talking by the side of the house. She heard Yami make a disapproving grunt and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“ I think he’s hiding something, his Ki and body language prove that. He’s been trying his best to hide, or at least mask, it from me and Hikari. But I can still tell.” Yami said as he pulled out a cigarette, Charlotte tilted her head.

“ Do you think Hikari’s noticed?”

“ Probably,” Yami said with a small nod before taking a drag of his cigarette. “ whether she’s acknowledging it or not is a different story. But I’m sure she’s noticed.” He added as he let the smoke from the cigarette out of his mouth, she noticed a protective look on his face and began to laugh softly.

“ You’re very protective of her,” she said as her soft laughter began to stop. “ but I think she’ll be fine Yami, I trust her and her judgement.” She began to laugh again when Yami blushed a bit and just grumbled under his breath.

“ It’s not just him I’m suspicious of though, I’m also suspicious of Princess Brooding Pants over there.” Yami said as he nodded towards the dark haired girl, Miku Charlotte believed her name was, and she frowned a bit as well.

The girl had completely separated herself from everyone else, even her ‘parents’. She sat underneath a tree with a book and just kept to herself. Charlotte wasn’t too surprised seeing as her parents could be the same way, but it was still a bit odd, especially when the other kids had asked her to play or train with them and she outright refused without even looking up from her book.

“ Do you think she’s hiding something as well?”

“ Oh I know she is, but it’s not like Golden Boy, while he’s actively trying to hide his Ki, she isn’t.” Yami said as he took another drag of his cigarette, Charlotte went to open her mouth when Gauche suddenly yelled.

“ Hey heads up! Incoming!” When the Captains turned and saw three people on brooms flying towards them. As they began to get into a defensive position Yami realized he recognized at least two of them.

“ It’s alright, it’s just Vanessa and Finral.” Yami said with a sigh of relief as the three people landed safely on the ground and began to walk towards them.

“ Hey Captain Yami!” Vanessa shouted happily as she waved at him and the others. “ Looks like this is where everyone ran off too huh?” She added as she looked around at all the familiar, and some unfamiliar, faces.

“ Who’s the kid?” Yami asked as he pointed at Ezio, who almost instantly paled as Yami directed his attention his way.

“ Oh, well, this is our son Ezio. Apparently he came from the future as well.” Finral explained sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“ You all need to stop having kids.” Yami muttered as he seemed to age instantly at Finral’s words. Charlotte smiled sympathetically as she patted him on the back in a vain attempt to comfort him.

“ Josslyn! My love!” Ezio suddenly shouted as his eyes landed on the pink haired girl that came walking towards him, without hesitation he ran and tried to capture her in his arms. Without missing a beat she dodged him easily, causing him to land flat on his face.

“ And here I thought I would finally get a break from you.” Josslyn said with a disappointed sigh and a shake of her head.

“ You’re so mean Joss.” Ezio cried dramatically before he turned to see Hikari walking towards him. “ Hikari! You’re here too!”

“ Hey Ezio,” She said as the pink haired boy wrapped her in a hug.

“ At least someone’s happy to see me.” He muttered as he glared at Josslyn, who only ‘hmphed’ in response.

Alistar looked around at the group of people that had gathered from his spot by the house. He began to count the children one by one, there was only meant to be 10 total but Miku suddenly showing up gave them a total of 11. He still couldn’t quite figure out how, or why, she was here. Even after speaking with her privately he didn’t get a clear answer. He let out a soft sigh before pushing himself off the side of the house and began walking towards the others. Since everyone was gathered now, it was finally time to tell them everything. As he opened his mouth suddenly a small portal opened up, a portal he recognized to be Marx’s.

“ Sorry for the sudden intrusion, and I’m sure Finral, Vanessa, and Ezio just arrived there, but we need all of you to come back to the Castle for an urgent matter.” Marx explained quickly.

“ Why? What’s going on now? I swear if you tell me it’s another kid-.” Yami growled before Marx quickly cut him off.

“ It isn’t another child! But it is someone’s parent, well, I think it’s their parent.” Marx muttered before he was suddenly pushed out of frame by someone.

“ Hello Vanessa, it’s been a while.” The Witch Queen said with a small smirk as she watched the surprise flash across everyone’s faces.

———

Thank you for reading! I hope you all have a good day 🥰!

#children of the future #oc; alistar #oc; hikari #oc; ezio #vanessa enoteca #finral roulacase #finral x vanessa #oc; josslyn #josslyn is not my oc #yami sukehiro #charlotte roselei #black clover #black clover fanfiction

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straight-into-the-animus · 3 years

Text

In The Rain (Ezio x F!Reader)

For that dear anon who asked for Ezio fluff, I hope this helps and your day gets better/tomorrow is better dear! I went with Brotherhood Ezio, I hope you don’t mind!

“Dear Mentore…” You purred, coming behind Ezio with soft step as he tried to wake up and get dressed. You knew that he wanted that as much as you did, considering last night, but business waited for no one, and your love was not no one. Still, he glanced back and dutifully stopped in going for his robe.

“Yes, mio caro?”

“I had been thinking… You’ve been away so long,” You stood on your toes, leaning your head on his broad shoulder and wrapping your arms around his chest, “we should go out and take the day to ourselves. I miss your attention on me.”

“Have I been unattentive?” He turned and grinned just a bit knowingly, but did gently move a few strands of hair out of your face.

“Just a bit.”

“Mi dispiace, my love.” He kissed your cheek. “If you want to go out today to train, then we can. I’m certain the headquarters will be fine today if I am gone for a few hours.”

With a smile and one more kiss on his lips, you let go of him and hurried to get dressed in your training robes.

----------

Going out to train had been a good idea when you and Ezio had started out that day. It had been lovely and with the way the sun had been shining over the rooftops of Rome, you had a clear day to do what you pleased.

But that was before the rain started up with a vengeance, coming out of nowhere and soaking through everyone’s clothes as they ran to try and escape it. You both had been no exception, and you shivered in miserable anger as you swore vengeance at the sky.

“I don’t think the sky is going to listen to you, bella.”

“It should.” You pushed your soaked hair out of your face and glared up at him, though there was absolutely no heat to the look… even if he looked much too amused. What helped was the towel he held in his hands, offering it freely. You began to wring out your hair as he took care of himself, the white fabric of his robes turned a nice gray from the moisture.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Ezio looked back as he shook off his boots, examining the leather of them with a cursory glance. “You didn’t start the rain. Unless you can stop it and just refuse to.”

“Not that.” You sighed, beginning to undress yourself from the armor onwards. “I had thought that today would be rather… Nice out. We would be able to spend more time together.”

“We can spend time together that isn’t running on rooftops.” Ezio said, coming to kneel in front of you on the cushion where you sat. He still seemed amused, but it was a gentle thing.

“I know… But you enjoy it. And it helps me to be closer to you.”

Growing up, you had never been able to go more than up the staircase if you wanted to get off the ground, your family never having allowed it. And when you met Ezio, it had been exactly what you always pictured flying and running and jumping through the air would be; free and wonderful.

“How can we be closer than right now with you right here with me?” He asked, voice soft as his touch on your cheek, making your cheeks pink even as you tried to stop it. “I will say, the rain does help to flatter you.”

“Flatter me?” You were barely able to ask before realizing what he meant in how the rain had made your robes and underclothes look. They weren’t as grand as Ezio’s, the same as any initiate or lower-grade Assassin would have, but there was no mistaking the way they clung to your frame and the curves. And despite the fact that you always enjoyed his attention -- wanted it, more like, this was the whole reason you were in this mess -- you definitely couldn’t help the flush on your face now. “Ezio, you can’t speak like that.”

“And why can’t I?”

“We do have some propriety. You’re not even completely dry, either.” You thought quickly about something to finally put Ezio off his game, and smirked just a bit. “Besides, you should get yourself warm, Ezio. This isn’t the kind of weather to leave men your age feeling well. Your poor joints-”

With a small shout of surprise escaping your lips, Ezio quickly stood and picked you up, clearly showing what he thought about his age as he grinned.

“Would you like to try that again, Y/N?” He asked softly, and you smiled back before leaning down and kissing him deeply, wrapping your arms around his neck. The smell of rain was soft, but sweet as he kissed back with gentle passion and his beard leaving just the slightest burn.

“I’ll take it back soon. But I think I still need to be warmed, Mentore.” You said against his lips, looking at him through barely open eyes. “May we move this to our bed where you can hold me?”

“We absolutely will. But first…” He gave one more quick peck to your lips, soft as anything, and put you down to help you finish undressed out of anything that seemed wet, care in everything he did.

Soon enough you were in rough, warm old clothes that smelled like Ezio. It warmed you more than anything as he picked you up again and took you to bed where you curled up together, your back to him. His hand was like an iron bar around your stomach, unable or willing to let you leave, and how could you say no to that? Your hand rested on top of his and the both of you listened to the soft, barely there drum of rain pounding against the stone of the headquarters.

My first Ezio x Reader! I hope you enjoyed! If you do I have a Masterpost here and more ideas for writings and prompts here, so feel free to request! If you’d like to support me, I have a ko-fi here! Safety and peace!

#assassin's creed #ezio auditore #ezio x reader #my writings #assassin's creed brotherhood

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nienna-talks-asscreed · 2 years

Text

We deserve a return to the writing of The Kenway Saga

I was in the mood for a bit of a ramble on Assassin's Creed, so here, have some thoughts I wrote out in one sugar-fueled sitting:

I have a theory. When it comes to big franchises with a bunch of entries spanning a decent period of time, peoples’ opinions are largely affected by when they first interacted with it. So, when it comes to Assassin’s Creed, you can separate things out into eras, and I wouldn’t be surprised if peoples’ favorite parts of the franchise line up with how they first started playing. The Desmond Story (or the Ezio Trilogy, if you want to separate further), the Kenway Saga, the Initiate Duology (Unity and Syndicate), and the RPG era/Layla Trilogy. Or, to be more general, Old School vs. New School. Personally? I started out (in 2020, mind you, just so there’s no confusion, because yes, I started this franchise as something to do between pandemic and post-college panic) with the Ezio Trilogy, and that’s got a very special place in my heart. Honestly, I’ve yet to have another Video Game Moment that matches up with the ending of Revelations – that shit is magical, let me tell you. Those games are always going to mean a lot to me.

But maybe the actual title of this post just got really confusing, right there. After all, wasn’t I gonna talk about the Kenway Saga? That intro sounds like it’s pushing towards the Ezio Trilogy, right? Well, I mean, yes, it definitely does. But here’s the thing. While I’ll always hold a lot of love for the Ezio games, the longer I’ve sat on this franchise and thought about it, the more I truly, genuinely appreciate the Kenway Saga for what it did. Which is to say, it became the most interesting part of the franchise, full stop.

Now, backstory time, I played these games wrong. Rogue was the fourth game in the franchise I played, right after finishing the Ezio Trilogy, and it’s remained my favorite game of the bunch to this day. Then I played a few more things before working back to Black Flag (and Freedom Cry), which I would personally consider the best game of the franchise. Then there was a bit more puttering around before I finally made my way back to Assassin’s Creed III, about which I had more complex (albeit, still largely positive – don’t misquote me) thoughts. But after sitting on these particular games for a while – a time that included playing both Origins and Odyssey (not Valhalla, because boy do I wish I was more excited about that one) – and letting the connections finally form, given I 100% did not play them chronologically, the more I wish Ubisoft actually returned to that era of the franchise. And not just for the mechanics (personally, I don’t see the problem with RPG skill trees) or the storytelling (granted, see my Odyssey review for my thoughts on that), but for what the franchise was actually trying to do. The way, I think, at least, it was trying to reinvent itself.

See, most of the franchise tends to feel fairly black and white, maybe even more so due to the popularity of the Ezio Trilogy. As much as I do love those three games, their philosophy… isn’t the most interesting. They’re still fantastic, but they are carried entirely by the strength of their lead character, and supported by a cast of frankly iconic side characters. That is not a criticism at all – these games have stood the test of time – it’s just how I see it. That said, in comparison, the original Assassin’s Creed is more interesting on the philosophical front; hell, Unity has more shades of it, even if, personally, I think it fails to stick the landing on that front.

The Kenway Saga, though, takes the morally gray aspects of the franchise and sticks them front and center. They aren’t a side part of the story, implied as part of the journey of the main character; they are the story. And in a franchise that’s so heavily leaned on the whole “Templars bad, Assassins good” form of moving plot, this ends up being a fascinating study of this world and the people who inhabit it. No one here is purely good or bad. Everyone is just a person, trying to navigate this complicated world and the complicated decisions it throws at them.

And the funny thing is that the Kenway Saga games all do this in different ways.

Black Flag gives us Edward Kenway, someone who is entirely outside of this Assassin and Templar structure, and even when he gets pulled into that world, he has no intention to interact with it the way every other protagonist does. He’s, objectively, not a good person (which, to be fair, is what makes him an interesting character), and over the course of his story, the Assassins and Templars aren’t ever the main plot. They’re more like set dressing, a way to further Edward’s arc as he realizes what he’s done. And that’s “they” plural, because it’s not really just the Assassins that do it. Yes, he does join them in the end, and they’re instrumental to him looking for redemption, but then there are characters like Hornigold, Templars who make strong points to support their allegiance, and who force Edward to reconsider what he’s doing. Or Torres, someone with honor and dignity who recognizes and respects Edward’s decision to join the Assassins, even if he doesn’t personally agree. Far from mustache-twirling villains. Or, for that matter, there are people entirely outside of that conflict who have major effects on Edward and his shifting perspectives: Thatch and Bonnet, for example. It’s a purely character-based narrative, and one where the Assassins and Templars really take a hard backseat.

Freedom Cry feels like it takes us closer to the old narrative, given that Adewale is a character defined much more by his strong morals, especially in contrast to Edward. He feels more like what you’d expect from this franchise and how it works. And then that’s immediately challenged. What looked like a story with these bad Templars turns into a narrative where Adewale works with the Templars instead and sees that, really, these two groups can share many of the same goals. It’s not about deciding who’s in the right, but putting that aside so that the world can be a better place for everyone involved. And, really, maybe things would be better off if both sides could forget that conflict entirely. (So, basically, it’s kind of doing what Unity maybe intended, but better. And without the romance to muddle things.)

Then Rogue goes a completely different route by flipping the script. Shay is very much an Assassin’s Creed protagonist, but one who is presented with very different choices. Because, while it might seem like this game is still black and white, just in the other direction, I have to argue that it isn’t quite that simple. Really, Rogue is kind of the slap in the face that this franchise needed. The Assassins aren’t always just the good guys; they are fallible, just like anyone else. They can fall victim to dogma and put on the horse blinders so effectively that they lose sight of the bad effects their good intentions are having; they want to protect the world from the control of the Templars, but become destructive puppetmasters in their own way. Shay doesn’t really ascribe to these high-minded ideals in general (whether that’s with the Assassins or the Templars, I would argue) and is much more intent on just doing right, and making things noticeably better for the people. He sits a little bit outside of that big philosophical debate, which really gives us a very different perspective on what it all means: what’s the point of starting a war between your ideals when innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire? (Believe me, I have many, many more thoughts on this game and the Irish boy, but I’ll save that for a more appropriate time and place.)

(Admittedly, I haven’t played Liberation yet, so feel free to imagine I added something insightful here about that game.)

Then there’s Assassin’s Creed III, where it all started. This game is very much a case where the message is the story, and while that’s usually not my cup of tea, it’s presented through the lens of excellent characters. Connor is young and idealistic and wants to believe that the Assassins and the promise of freedom will fix everything – the way the Assassins kind of function in general. Haytham is more cynical, but has a much more nuanced view of the nature of this whole conflict. Freedom isn’t just dangerous to those in charge, but dangerous in general. He explains the Templar ideology in a way that suddenly makes sense. And so Connor’s view becomes more nuanced in response, on top of simply being tragic. The people he helps in the pursuit of freedom – of the Assassin ideal – eventually become much more interested in only their own problems. Those post-credits cutscenes make that starkly clear, giving us nods to the continuation of the slave trade, as well as the treatment of Native Americans at the hands of the US government. And despite that, he chooses to hope for a happy ending he knows he may never see. It’s just sad, to put it simply, and the way forward is clearly complicated. Even if you fight for something that’s just, there’s no guarantee things will turn out for the better.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the entire opening segment: playing as Haytham and then suddenly realizing he was a Templar all along? Honestly, just that part sums up what makes Assassin’s Creed III so interesting. The lines blur to the point you start forgetting there was even a line there to begin with.

Taken all together, the Kenway Saga embraces the moral grayness in a way that the franchise never has – arguably before, but especially since. And while all of the other games have their merits – many of them being excellent games in their own rights – there’s food for thought here that keeps me thinking, and in the long term. While I love Assassin’s Creed II and Origins, I don’t end up thinking about them and the morals that they present. At least, not like I do with the Kenway games.

I want those morally gray spots back. I want to be forced to think, especially in this franchise with its basis in this philosophical conflict. There’s just so much room to do things that are truly interesting. Of course, I have my doubts whether this will happen; it does seem more likely we’ll just be getting big action-adventure RPGs. If nothing else, I know we’ll never be returning to this point in history (even if the lack of a Connor/Shay/Arno crossover story is an absolute crime). But hey, this is the internet, so I can make my opinion known.

#assassins creed #analysis #ac rogue #ac3 #ac black flag

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teecupangel · 29 days

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I am not sure how the assassins mental health would be affected by a Pacific Drive into the Olympic Exclusion Zone, but it would certainly be /interesting/

We can try and base it on how much Isu BS they had to deal with since Isu BS can have a mental and psychological event on people in general.

This means Bayek would have an alright time, especially if this is after he walked pass his desire to avenge the death of his son.

Basim would depend on which Basim we’re talking about. Mirage Basim would have a hard time but he’d fair better in the beginning than the others. Once he starts ‘hallucinating’ Nehal though, all bets are off. Valhalla Basim will be fine. He’ll actually be able to explain a lot of shit that’s happening in the zone because Loki’s memories would have an idea of how the zone came to be (especially if we mix it up and the zone is related to a failed Isu experiment of some kind to create an isolated piece of land that will not be affected by the Solar Flare)

Altaïr would also be fine, especially if he’s been using the Apple to research some things. Hell, the Apple might become his cheat code to survive in the zone.

Ezio would be alright but it will take a toll on him later down the line (especially if he stays in the zone for a long period of time without any support system).

Ratonhnhaké:ton would be alright, not because he has a lot of experience with Isu BS but because he’s more adaptable.

Desmond will freak out in the beginning but, later on, he'd be the chillest of them all. It's not that he's not freaking out. He just in that state of "I am so freaked out that I have reached zen" and he'd just accept whatever comes his way.

Arno would be alright… in the beginning. Later on, it will definitely hit him.

Evie and Jacob would be in the similar boat. Evie actually has a chance of getting her mental health have a nosedive if she starts researching the zone and trying to understand it since it’s not like she has a cheat code like Altaïr. Jacob would fare better if he has his own ‘group’ but he’ll definitely take any death or betrayal hard and that strange place they’re in is not going to help.

#assassin's creed #ask and answer #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #desmond miles #altaïr ibn la'ahad #ezio auditore #ratonhnhaké:ton #connor kenway #arno dorian #jacob frye #evie frye #bayek of siwa #basim ibn ishaq

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caernua · 3 years

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🌠 (none of us will escape from the mortifying ordeal of being percieved) /ms ezioauditore-s/

NAT ♡♡♡

i associate you with:

short king m!eivor, because i think your gifs were the moment i realised oh no he’s cute...😳

cozily cupping a mug of tea and thinking about getting railed by basim ibn ishaq (starring darby mcdevitt as the narrator)

BEAUTIFUL content, you put so much effort into your gifs and it really, really shows!

ezio... you had no idea how painful it would all be sorry queen ♡ but your enjoyment of ac1 and the ezio games gives me LIFE i am obsessed with all your text posts, i can’t wait for you to play brotherhood and revelations as well and see your reactions bc you’re so funny!!

and that ties into the memes you make dkfjgfkd if i see a funny post about ac valhalla my first thought is ‘oh nat must have made this’ and i am usually right because i am in fact never wrong. you truly make this deranged little corner of fandom feel like a united community and i can only thank you for it 🥺♡

also i eagerly await to see your tags everytime i post something, because you’re not just hilarious but so supportive! and i appreciate it sosooso much, you have no idea! when i post something, you’re definitely one of the people that get me thinking ‘oh i hope they like this’ 🥺♡♡♡

#SORRY THIS IS SO LATE ly ♡♡♡#asks #everdeneoak

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spartan-officer-brasidas · 4 years

Text

It seems like a few of you agreed that Ubisoft mishandled the Gods in more than a few ways, and I’m still mad about it so I just want to go through and explain how they were so poorly represented. I will concede that there are more than a few ‘right’ ways to represent a God and it all comes down to your own interpretation of the Gods and their myths, but I think in general, Ubisoft really fell short. My personal interpretations come from my major in Classics and my worship of the Greek and Roman pantheons, so my opinions on this will reflect those interpretations but feel free to have and share your own!

Let’s start simple. Juno. Juno is a really interesting Goddess, both in religion and in the games. I, personally, don’t do anything special for Hera/Juno/Uni, but I know that she is an incredibly loving Goddess and is remarkably loyal to her husband and those she holds dearly. Now, I think Ubisoft did Juno okay, only because her loving and loyal nature can make her a fierce enemy, and I think Ubisoft showed that well. She, from my knowledge, is a main antagonist in the series, and given that “modern” Rome is a part in Ezio’s story, that makes sense. Juno was NOT a supporter of the foundation of Ancient Rome. She made several attempts to keep Aeneas from getting to Italy and she is openly not a fan of Aeneas, given his Trojan heritage and his role in Rome’s founding. Basically, her being an antagonist makes sense and I don’t think it really devalues her as a Goddess at all.

This is, unfortunately, where the praise ends. I’ll just go in order, so Persephone is next. Persephone is, perhaps, the biggest victim in this mess Ubisoft created. I would like to first clarify a few things regarding Persephone as a Goddess. How you choose to view her relationship with Hades doesn’t really matter to me—that’s something only you can decide, but there are a few aspects that are important to consider. First of all, beyond the initial kidnapping and drama with that, there’s not too much suggesting they had a rocky relationship. There were a few minor hiccups, but nothing major. And two, going on Ancient Greek standards, Hades did nothing wrong. Now, kidnapping is bad, we know this. Except, Hades didn’t really kidnap her, per se. He asked Zeus for her hand in marriage and Zeus agreed. Hades actually did the “right” thing, though in a twisted way that really isn’t acceptable in today’s standards. All that said and done...all I can say is what was Ubisoft thinking? I mean, Persephone is routinely a benefactor for heroes *who come to her* and she is mostly portrayed as incredibly benevolent. The fact that Ubisoft made her a borderline tyrant with a unreasonable desire for total order and control and made her relationship with Hades one of the worst depictions I’ve ever seen is upsetting. It’s tragic, really. I almost feel like I have to personally apologize to Her whenever I think about what they did to her.

I’ll keep Hermes and Hekate short and sweet because they got off a bit easier than Persephone did. All I have to say is both Gods are insultingly shallow in the dlc. Hermes is blinded by his love for Persephone, and while he definitely did pursue her in the myths, he didn’t dwell on the unrequited feelings—he is a powerful God of many things, he doesn’t need to dwell on it. And Hekate was given the short end of the stick between the two and she became the backstabbing friend. We honestly don’t learn much about her at all and she’s made to be extremely unlikable, which is not the aura given from the Goddes Herself. It’s a shame what happened to these two.

Now we will move to Hades. My biggest issue with Hades is actually the whole issue with continuity between Jupiter/Zeus/Tinia being the same but Pluto/Hades/Aita not being the same, but alas, Ubisoft totally butchered his character as well, so I can put aside my grievances about the continuity. Hades is portrayed as this chaotic antagonist who really only has his own benefit in mind which is...an extremely confusing interpretation. I mean, Hades is, IMO, the least chaotic God out there. And even more so, he isn’t a vicious leader like they make him out to be. Sure, he maintains order in the Underworld with an iron fist, but that’s just the issue. The Hades seen in Odyssey is...not that. He doesn’t maintain order at all, and yet he’s doing something with a very aggressive iron fist. He’s power hungry, angry, and violent, and all of that goes unchecked until Kassandra/Alexios rolls around to stop it for the time being. The Hades I worship isn’t like that at all, and I don’t think the Ancient Greeks viewed him that way either, though I can’t say for certain.

Charon is next and I don’t have too much to say about him. He’s just so forgettable in my opinion. Charon is the ferryman of the dead, so I suppose he’s not supposed to leave a lasting impression, but he takes on the role of maneuvering you through the Underworld—a job he, historically, doesn’t have. His job is to take you across the River Styx and then be done with you. It’s a relatively minor complaint really, but I would’ve liked to see his character fleshed out a bit more.

Down to the last three, and Poseidon is up. The issue I have with Poseidon is kind of a personal one. Poseidon, while not one of my primary deities, is one of those that I frequently turn to and worship more frequently, so naturally his rather bland portrayal was disappointing at best and insulting at worst. I personally don’t think he gets much character development at all, which is unfortunate because Poseidon, as a God and in the myths, is incredibly complex. He’s a great asset if he’s on your side, but he can also be a very formidable foe, and they seem to want to show those two sides but they really fall short on both. Now, this could be related to the fact that of the three dlcs, Atlantis truly felt the most rushed. You have hardly any time to really take in the story and the whole thing just seems like one big after thought, and Poseidon, unfortunately, took the hit with that. Also, he just passes judgement and in a way rule over Atlantis over to a mortal, which I get is important to the story, but why? That’s so not how things are done.

Now we have Aita. So for those of you who don’t know or haven’t figured it out by now, Aita is the Etruscan God of the Underworld. I’ve already explained my main issue with him, and how he and Hades should be the same, but honestly, that’s the least of the crimes committed against him. In my opinion, Ubisoft has completely striped Aita of his Godhood. All of the other shown deities have this natural feeling to them that Aita lacks. He seems so lackluster standing next to Juno and he’s reduced to this scientist role, which—don’t get me wrong—is neat and powerful and all, but this is the Etruscan god of the underworld! Why should he linger in the shadows of Juno when he could be an equal to her, all things considered! I know the Etruscan gods/pantheon are not as widely known, but that doesn’t make them less godly, and what they’ve done to him is upsetting to say the least. I would love to see some other Etruscan gods, like Tinia and Uni, and I would like for them to be treated with the respect they deserve. More people could know about this fascinating culture and religion! Is that too much to ask?

Finally, we get to Aletheia. Now, she is a bit different in that I don’t know of many myths surrounding the goddes of truth, and it’s totally possible that she may solely be a representation of truth more so than a character in the myths. Aletheia’s story was...anticlimactic. I honestly don’t think her story got resolved at all. Ubisoft left me feeling like there was more we needed to know about her, and they also implied that she isn’t exactly a good guy. I mostly just want more from her. I think if they play on Juno being related to her, they could really make a very good story, but as it is, Aletheia got put on the back burner, and that? That is unfortunate.

This is already a very long post, so I won’t continue, but I would like to mention that characters like Adonis, the Greek heroes, Elpis, and Atlas received similarly disappointing treatment from Ubisoft. Let me know if you want me to make a post about them! I encourage you guys to share your own thoughts on this! Different perspectives yield different reactions and I’d love to see y’alls, so feel free to share! I will remind you that these are living Gods. Part of why this was so upsetting is because I research these gods as part of my studies and because I actively worship many of Them. Seeing Them reduces to these characters was...not the greatest feeling in the world. It’s important to separate the characters from the myths and even the myths from the Gods themselves, but what Ubisoft did was make a character that loosely relates to the myths—not the Gods Themselves as well. Just as Zeus is so much more than his myths, Persephone is more than the character Ubisoft gave us, so think critically when absorbing content about religious figures. All Gods of all religions are deserving of respect, and Ubisoft did not do a great job with that. I can only hope they will do better for the Viking Gods.

#ac odyssey #fate of atlantis dlc #me talking #i tried to tone down my anger #hopefully it worked lol #i also tried to condense some of my grievances #for yalls sake #long post #please tell me if the keep reading didnt work

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kiatheinsomniac · 5 years

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Chapter II: New Faces

She gazed out of the window of the moving car while it passed the green scenery. Green was everywhere, seemingly every shade of it. The closest town had been passed well over forty minutes ago as they continued down the private road that led to the school.

Her parents weren't with her, of course. She'd been accompanied by the family driver as her parents were busy working. As per usual.

Trees drowned out everything else, the road twisted around them and roots began reclaiming the edges of the concrete, taking back their land where their brothers and sisters had been torn down to allow room for the human passage.

Occasionally, her (e/c) eyes would catch a glimpse of a rabbit or a deer — birds were common too but far from being as interesting. A sigh left her lips as she twisted the cap of her water bottle, throwing her head back to finish off the last of the refreshing liquid, leaving behind only a few stubborn drops that never seemed to leave the bottle.

The road began to open up and there was a definite clearing up ahead. (Y/n) swerved her head to get a better look at the grand gates which fenced off the school's grounds. The road became a wide gravel path and there were well-kept trees, hedges and flower beds decorating the field at the front of the building.

The building itself was magnificent. A grand château with such intricate detail that (Y/n) was unsure whether she'd be able to memorise it all despite how long she would be staying inside for.

When she stepped inside, the foyer put the outer decor to shame. An exquisite chandelier hung high before the split staircase which wound upwards towards the upper floor that was separated by a series of balconies, giving the foyer a tremendously high ceiling of four floors.

The deep green wallpaper was decorated with intricate designs as was the dark brown wood that was polished to perfection.

(Y/n) marvelled, suitcase in hand, spinning slowly on the spot as she looked upwards, watching the chandelier sparkle, flaunting its own worth. It looked old but kept too; yet another factor to add to the value of it.

The few boxes of her belongings were wheeled in on a trolley by the driver who placed them beside the staircase, giving his employers' daughter a quick nod of the head before leaving.

"Miss (L/n)!" A vaguely familiar voice greeted. (Y/n) lowered her gaze to see Miss Attaway descending the left staircase that curved inwards gradually to meet the base of the right staircase in a singular platform, two steps high. Between these two cases was a tall and very large marble pillar. "We're delighted to have you here!" Her smile faltered a little as she reached the final step, looking around. "Where are your parents?"

"Oh, they didn't come." She replied simply. She caught onto the pity in the vice principal's eyes but was bothered very little by it. She was used to her parents not being around after all.

"Not to see you off?" The teacher questioned, looking somewhat upset.

"Nope," (Y/n) replied simply. There was nothing else to say regarding the subject.

"Well alright then. . ." She composed herself quickly, smoothing down her skirt and straightening her back. "Welcome to Vermere Lake Grammar School. We're delighted to have you studying here alongside other hand-picked students." Her hand swept around the room. "I hope you find yourself comfortable enough here, I've been told by a few students here that they may take time to adjust to such luxuries but I believe a young lady like yourself shouldn't find that too difficult. It's simple to be at ease among such finery."

"I've been looking for a change in routine for a while. It's not a problem at all, the unfamiliarity is quite the comfort really." The (e/c)-eyed female assured her.

"Good, good." Pearl clapped her hands together, "Now, before I give you your room number and key (for privacy from other students) I have to tell you that you'll be sharing with some other students. We advise not unpacking for a while just to make sure you get along with everyone — if not, then we'll rearrange the room plans." She paused for a moment. "The girls' wing is to the left, the boys' is to the right. You're allowed to visit each other's rooms but not after curfew. Your uniform is already in your room. However, there's one rule that I'm sure you won't be particularly happy with: we don't allow phones here. You can use the school's phone to make calls home but mobiles are only allowed at the end of each term."

(Y/n)'s face had noticeably dropped at this. She depended on her phone for many aspects of her studies and was not about to hand it over.

"That's alright, I didn't bring it anyway." She lied.

"You didn't?" Miss Attaway looked shocked.

"No, I don't really have any friends to message and I figured that I would just use the school's phone to call my parents anyway." She prayed that she wouldn't get a notification or call of any kind during the conversation.

"Fair enough." Pearl seemed to believe the lie, after all, the logic made sense to (Y/n)'s character. "Well, you're in room one with three other girls." She held out her hand, "Here's your key."

(Y/n) took the small piece of metal that was attached to a blue plastic tag. Pearl left and she looked down at her bag and boxes of belongings before glancing up to the flight of stairs, sighing. But, it had to be done so she hefted her large suitcase up with great effort and set it by the banister at the top before jogging down to grab one of her boxes. A pair of heavier footsteps matched hers from the other side of the pillar. When she reached the base of the stairs, she was met by an incredibly tall, bronze-skinned boy who looked to be only slightly older than herself.

"Hi." He greeted in an American accent. It was heavy and yet there was something different to it, something about the tone in his voice that implied English wasn't his first language and yet he had mastered it to the point that the accent of his mother tongue was utterly hidden, "I'm Connor." He flashed a quick yet soft smile before glancing down at (Y/n)'s belongings. "Would you like a hand?"

"If you don't mind?" She replied, somewhat guiltily yet not wanting to deny a helping hand. They both reached for a box each. "I'm (Y/n) by the way."

"Nice to meet you." He spoke as they carefully made their way upwards, being sure to not trip seeing as the boxes blocked their view. (Y/n) found herself struggling a little but judging by the look of ease on Connor's face and the size of his arms, this was a simple task to him.

"So, have you managed to have a look around yet?" (Y/n) prompted a conversation as they descended to stairs to fetch the last two boxes.

"Just my room." The American answered, "Two of my roommates are here already: a British guy called Jacob and an Italian called Ezio — it seems like a really diverse school." He pointed out.

"Indeed." (Y/n) agreed as she hefted up the box in her hands, almost dropping it as her fingers slipped and she lost her grip. However, Connor quickly reached forward and caught it. Panic over.

"Careful." He warned gently, allowing (Y/n) to reclaim the box in her arms while uttering out a 'thank you'. She thanked him properly at the top of the stairs before the two of them parted. (Y/n) was on her own in carrying her belongings to her room now.

She hefted one of the heavier cardboard boxes in her arms, supporting the bottom out of fear it may rip, before proceeding to room one.

She pushed the door open with her foot and was greeted by an unfamiliar face. The girl was brown-haired, green-eyed and pale-skinned. She styled her tresses into two Dutch braids and a low bun with a few pieces falling in front of her face (which was splashed with freckles) she was slim with a few soft curves here and there. She wore some messy (yet sophisticated) eye makeup.

"Hey, I'm Evie Frye." She greeted with a beaming smile. (Y/n) returned the friendly gesture and dropped her box carefully at the side of a bed which was tucked into the far-right corner side-on against a window.

There were three windows in the room, two small ones that stretched up tall on the left and right-hand sides of the room and a large one that ran along the middle of the room, leaving a metre gap between the smaller windows — this large one also stretched high up.

There was another bed in the left corner in front of the door with the foot of the bed facing whoever walked in. A third bed was lined up against the large window in the middle of the room, hugging the wall side-on while the fourth bed was hugging the wall that held the door with the foot of the bed facing whoever walked in. The beds themselves were twin-sized, not too big nor too small.

An armoire was built into the close right corner of the room, forming an 'L' shape. Each bed had an old-styled container chest at the foot of it for the belongings of whoever slept there.

(Y/n) took in the old-fashioned blood red rug that ran along the length of the room down the middle, standing out against the polished wooden floorboards.

Evie had chosen the bed on the south wall to the right of the door when one walked in judging by the box that rested on the mattress. A bookshelf ran along the wall beside Evie's bed but was mostly empty bar a small collection on the middle shelf. (Y/n) assumed they belonged to her roommate.

There were two chaise lounges in the room: one in front of the bookcase and the other between (Y/n)'s bed and the one that rested against the wider window.

"(Y/n) (L/n)." She introduced.

"So, do you know anyone here?" The Brit prompted a conversation as she began unpacking her clothes, walking behind the changing screen in front of the armoire to begin filling it with her clothing.

"No. No one else from my school was requested to attend here. What about you?" She spoke as she began making her way back across the spacious room to collect the rest of her things from the top of the stairs.

"I'm here with my little twin brother Jacob and my boyfriend Henry." The freckled female replied.

"Oh, the guy that helped me to get my things upstairs (Connor) mentioned he was sharing a room with Jacob. Wait, you're a twin?" (Y/n) highlighted.

Evie turned around with a cheeky grin. "The older twin of us and I'm never going to let him forget it." She giggled, (Y/n) joined in the little moment of laughter.

"Alright, I'll be back in a minute, I'm going to get another box of my things." (Y/n) did as such and, trip after trip, brought all of her belongings into her room. She jumped onto the silver sheets of her bed, exhausted from lifting all those heavy boxes. By this time, Evie was almost completely unpacked and had begun to place her last few belongings into the chest at the end of her bed when someone else walked in.

She had straightened blonde hair and striking red lips along with an irritated and bitchy look on her expression. Most of her outfit was designer and the clothing seemed a little off for the overcast weather in the countryside, like she was more accustomed to hotter weather. She had a suitcase in one hand and a male with dark hair and a little stubble to match held a large crate of belongings in his arms.

(Y/n) sat up to inspect them.

"And you two are?" She asked in a rude tone with a Latin-rooted accent accompanying her voice. Was that Italian or Spanish?

"Evie Frye." The Brit spoke up, giving the blonde a weary look before gesturing over to (Y/n), "(Y/n) (L/n)."

"I'm Lucrezia Borgia but I'm sure you've already heard that I'm attending." She smirked as she stepped into the room, inspecting her red acrylic nails while the olive-skinned male behind her dropped her other belongings on the floor beside her.

"Actually, we don't exactly have reputations here yet." (Y/n) contributed, sitting up cross-legged on the bed. The blonde narrowed her eyes at this.

"Well here's mine: I'm at the top here. No-one undermines me, understood?"

"Look, I don't know who you are and frankly I couldn't care less about all this big talk and trying to flex by wearing every designer item you have on your first day." (Y/n) spoke bluntly. She came from a wealthy family too and easily could have done the same to flaunt such but had chosen not to; it simply wasn't in her nature, "I'm here to learn, not to play High School Musical fantasies, alright?" Neither of the two newcomers seemed to like this.

"You'll learn how it works one way or another." The man spoke up.

"And you are?" (Y/n) asked.

"Cesare Borgia." He spoke with a flirtatious smile, something about his presentation was unsettling. He radiated arrogance and self-destructive ambition.

"I'm not staying here. I'm going to switch." Lucrezia huffed as she wheeled her suitcase out the door, her brother following with the crate of her other belongings.

Evie watched them leave with an exhausted look. "What a handful." She muttered, "I'm glad o see that you don't take rubbish from anyone."

"I'll never understand people like that," (Y/n) added, sliding off her bed, "I don't really know any other way to react, really. I've never seen the point in all these social expectations, not to get too philosophical, I'm just used to my own company." It was clear now that this was her room and if there were any disagreements, the other party would be leaving, therefore, she began to unpack her things, beginning with dumping all her books out onto the bed to get them out of the way.

" 'A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself'." Evie quoted, eyeing her copy of Wuthering Heights.

"You know, I've always been keen on that line." (Y/n) smiled, glad to know they were very like-minded.

LOADING ANIMUS DATA...

██████████████]99%

While (Y/n) was filling the bookshelf with her own selection of fiction, historical biographies and Victorian literature, two other girls entered the room.

One was a dark-skinned woman with equally dark and alluring hazel eyes framed by thick lashes and paired with full lips. She had medium-length hair in beautiful thick box braids. She seemed to have a friendly and approachable manner. She wore a loose yellow jumper with ripped denim jeans and a thick black belt.

The other was a short olive-toned female with shimmering grey-brown eyes and curly dark brown hair with rose-tinted lips and an air of confidence around her. Her fashion was rebellious — striking red plaid trousers with a black leather belt and a black band hoodie with red detailing.

"Hi, Lucrezia and Anne were supposed to be in here but we spoke it over with the two of them so we're going to be staying here instead." The darker female spoke up in a western French accent. "I'm Aveline de Grandpre and this is-" She let her friend finish.

"-Claudia Auditore." She spoke with a confident smile, she tossed her red rucksack onto the bed opposite the door, leaving Aveline with the bed by the widest window. "Do you two know each other already?" She gestured between (Y/n) and Evie.

"Oh, no, we just met." Evie answered, "What about you two?"

"Again, we only just met but I think we're all going to get along well." The Italian replied, "I know a few people here already: Ezio (he's my older brother) and Cesare and Lucrezia (believe me, they make snakes seem like better friends)."

"Oh, we briefly spoke to them." (Y/n) contributed, dropping onto the chaise between hers and Aveline's bed, "We caught onto that much soon enough."

"I know Connor, we were friends when we were little," Aveline added.

"Oh, I met Connor earlier." (Y/n) smiled, "He seems really sweet, he helped me to carry my things upstairs." Aveline smiled at this, recalling his soft and kind behaviour.

"My twin brother goes here too." Evie joined in, "His name's Jacob."

"Oh, I think Ezio was talking to him earlier." Claudia piped up, "Scar on his eyebrow, short hair?"

"Yep, that's him," Evie confirmed.

"The boys have had an argument already," Aveline spoke up. "Three of them kicked Cesare out of their room so now he has a spare room all to himself." She chuckled.

"Not surprised at all," Claudia spoke up, flopping onto the bed before groaning. "I want my phone back!"

(Y/n) considered telling them that she still had hers but decided against it. She would wait to see if she could trust them first. Until then, it would remain hidden in her bag on do not disturb.

"Yeah, I met a few people in Claudia's brother's room." Aveline continued, "Ezio, Jacob and Arno (he says he's from France but you wouldn't think it at hearing his voice) — Connor's in there with them in room one. They all seem to get along well."

"Perhaps the number's a blessing." (Y/n) joked, "If you're in room one, you all get on."

There was shouting down the hall, the girls all look to one another before poking their heads out of the door rather comically with one head above another.

"Maláka! That girl is insufferable!" A girl with an odd accent exclaimed while Lucrezia huffed and returned to her room at the end of the corridor. She'd most likely just given her 'queen bee' speech again.

The one who yelled had tanned skin, decorated with scars, that stretched over defined muscles. Her hair was pulled into a fishtail over her shoulder and decorated with a cord wrapped around it.

"She's a bitch, don't give her any attention." Claudia piped up, snagging her attention. The woman smiled.

"I'll keep that in mind." She grinned, glad that the blonde didn't have an army of pestering followers seeing as she acted as such. "I'm Kassandra."

"Claudia." The social butterfly of an Italian replied, "This is: Aveline, Evie and (Y/n)." She pointed to each girl in turn who all waved.

"Nice to meet you all." She smiled. Another girl walked out of her room. She was dark-skinned with honey brown eyes and box braids that were tied over her shoulder.

"Hey, I'm Aya." She spoke in a lilted tone. She still had her coat on.

"Cold?" Evie prompted, pointing to the clothing.

"I'm from Egypt, it's colder than winter here." She sighed.

"Tell me about it, I'm from Italy," Claudia spoke, walking out into the corridor.

"Greece." Kassandra contributed.

"England. I'm used to it." Evie shrugged.

"(Y/o)," (Y/n) added.

"America." Aveline finished. That was a lot of diversity.

"It's nice that we're getting along." Aya said, "I was expecting more bitchy girls like her." She gestured to the room that Lucrezia was in.

"I can hear you!" The blonde yelled from inside her room.

"That's the point!" Kassandra called back. The girls all laughed at this.

"To the year ahead of us." Kassandra smiled as she walked back into her room, all the others doing the same.

(Y/n) felt her lips tug up in a smile at all the friendly new faces around her and the obvious shift in her life. It unnerved yet excited her all at once and, for the first time ever, she was eager to meet all these new people and get to know them.

This really was the change that she had been needing.

Stay safe and social distance to protect your loved ones, everyone <3 -Kia C.

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chamiryokuroi · 4 years

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So I was thinking about your chibi Desmond Miles for AC Rebellion and wondered: What role do you think he’d be? My first thought was Assassin like Ezio and Altaïr, but Rebellion already has /so fucking many/ of them that I want to fill out other roles. Freerunner like Edward? Support because of the multiple ancestral lives he’s lived through? I figure one of his skills would definitely be Eagle Vision, though. Maybe something Isu-related, as much as he would hate it?

Ohhhh I definitely see him more like a free running kind of character instead of Assassin, after all we have that one mission in where he climbs a skyscraper, so definitely agree on that one.

So give him a high level free running, maybe a middle level assassination skill, we never saw him use an air assassination so he should def not have that.

I kinda want him to have the lock picking skill tho.

He def need to have the eagle vision... or maybe for a special skill, something more support. Remember that scene on his last mission when he goes to save his dad? Where he uses the apple and the enemies around him drop dead? Something like that but not that OP.

Either he uses the apple and the HP of the enemies drops down relatively to his own XP and lvl? Or maybe it can be used before entering a room and all enemies are “frozen” for a determinate amount of attacks?

#assassin’s creed #ac rebellion #desmond miles

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jasontoddiefor · 5 years

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Title: When in Gotham, do as Batman does

Summary: Desmond Miles, the mentor of Gotham, and Batman have a serious discussion. (Meanwhile, Robin shows the little Novice accompanying their local Assassin how to do the coolest flips.)

AN: AssCreed/Batman Crossover for the 2nd day of AssCreed Week - Assassin Brotherhood.

Desmond loved Gotham. It was like Florence or Venice or Rome, except better because it was his city. You could tell that it had been built on the bodies of Templars and Assassins alike, particularly the Assassin influence was hard to miss if you had their training. Every corner was easy to disappear into, the buildings were high and the houses crammed into each other to create one fast-paced track for rooftop chasers. Not to mention the abandoned underground railroad tracks or the catacombs sleeping even deeper below. Gotham was built for its shadowy protectors and took good care to hide them all away.

Shaun and Becca had declared him officially mad for settling in this city. He could have gone everywhere in the world. Assassins as skilled as Desmond were hard to come by and currently needed all around the globe.

But Desmond had died for their cause once already (and then been fished out of terror-filled green pits of screaming nails on blackboards) and so they had allowed him to pick.

And Desmond had chosen Gotham.

Or maybe the city had chosen him.

People didn’t really move to Gotham, Desmond had noticed. Nor did they ever leave despite having the funds or the motivation. They cursed and screeched and begged, but they never went further than a vacation away.

And some people didn’t leave at all.

It was a moderately warm September night still. They had been blessed with a warm summer, and its remnants were still chasing through the winds, rolling in-between the skyscrapers. Gotham’s chaos had been calm lately. It was only a question of time until the first Rogue broke out of Arkham again, but right now everything was still. It was one of those nights in which they actually had time to look out for the candles and the flashlights asking for their help. Desmond had sent most of his recruits out for training, errands and information gathering. Maybe also a little blackmail depending on how they brave they got tonight. Instead of supervising from their headquarters, Desmond had chosen to take their youngest recruit out. Though Jason, by all means, wasn’t really a recruit as much as he was a kid that had realized the city’s Thief guild might support him on the streets, but the Brotherhood could get him away from them.

Or as away from them as Jason wanted to be.

He’d seen Desmond teach the Novices how to do a Leap of Faith and that was it. He hadn’t stopped pestering Desmond about teaching him, even at the bar where minors definitely weren’t allowed in, until Desmond had agreed. Jason wouldn’t stop arguing that Robin couldn’t have been much older than Jason either when he had started tailing the Bat. However, Jason also didn’t know that Robin had been trained to be an acrobat (and unknowingly an assassin) from birth.

Desmond knew because he had made it his business to know what was going on in his city.

The identities of its brightest protectors were simply a part of that. Batman had been here before Desmond, had bled for this city. Sure, Desmond could argue he had died for the whole world, but at sixteen he had run away from it all, unlike Bruce Wayne, who had already known his destiny then.

This was also the reason why Desmond’s Brotherhood didn’t kill. He respected Batman’s code as the superior rule. Even law enforcement worked with him while they certainly didn’t know about the Brotherhood.

(Well, they did to an extent. You couldn’t miss the spray-painted As that had shown up all over the city, but the police thought those belonged to a random tagger or, at worst, a gang.)

It was another matter that had his out of town Assassin contacts roll their eyes and bite their cheeks at. Desmond had no problems with assassinations. He was freakishly alright with them so much that he wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out the Isu had engineered him that way.

However, their Brotherhood’s no-kill rule was the only reason the Bat tolerated their presence. Maybe the fact that they had quietly gotten rid of the Court of Owls had contributed as well. It wasn’t murder if you cryogenically froze them to be picked up by the Justice League later on.

The Gotham Brotherhood didn’t kill. It made them child-friendly enough that Desmond had given in to Jason’s demands and let the eleven-year-old become his protégé.

And so here they were, standing on a rooftop and waiting for the Bat to drop in.

“How much longer do we gotta wait?” Jason asked.

After tonight, Desmond would work on the boy’s situational awareness. He remembered a few games Ezio used to play with his recruits and their children to teach them how to observe. They also had the neat side-effect of detecting whether someone was predisposed for eagle vision. Desmond thought he had seen Jason’s eyes flash gold once or twice, the speed at which he managed to track down people certainly spoke for it, but he couldn’t be sure.

He knew Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson both had the gift though, and that Wayne was aware of it. You didn’t train with an old splinter group of the Brotherhood for years to be ignorant of eagle vision.

“Mask on, kiddo?” Desmond asked instead, studying the shadows to their right that had become just a little too dense.

He had felt ridiculous the first time he had put on a mask, he didn’t need one to obscure his face, but masks made people think of vigilantes, and it was better to be mistaken for those (and honestly in these times the border between Assassin and Vigilante had become thin) than be known as the Brotherhood. Gotham was mostly Templar free and Desmond would like to keep to this way. He didn’t need their attention, not when his people weren’t strong enough yet. Nowadays, Desmond was used to the weight of the mask covering his eyes. He had grown fond of the red and gold Venetian Rebecca had bought him as a joke.

“Never took it off.”

Desmond smiled. “Good.”

Then he turned back to the shadows. “Hello, Batman. Robin.”

Behind him he could feel Jason tense, looking around to spot the vigilantes Desmond had already identified.

“Mentor,” Batman greeted him and finally stepped forward, Robin following him easily, being just a step behind.

“Oooh, who is that?” The Boy Wonder asked, mustering Jason.

“My protégé. Don’t take him too far, please, he’s untrained still.”

“What do you mean ‘don’t take him too far’?” Jason asked, but Robin had already crossed the distance eagerly.

Desmond wasn’t sure whether Batman took Robin along to these meetings precisely to have him distract the companion Desmond had chosen to take with him or if Robin really was just that sociable. The Bat’s intentions were hard enough to read on the really good days and Desmond had better things to do than waste hours on that particular headache.

Within seconds Robin was talking with Jason, contributing most of the conversation, while Jason nodded at the right moments, his eyes never entirely leaving Desmond.

“He’s young.”

Batman too was observing the boys’ interaction. He had his arms crossed over his chest, suggesting a relaxed posture, but his shoulders were tensed.

“I have questions about Abstergo, Desmond Miles. And about those you call Isu.”

Desmond sighed. He had wondered how long it would take Batman to actually figure out his identity. They had pretty much erased Desmond Miles, or any other alias he had used before Abstergo had captured him, from history. By all means, Desmond was a ghost. But apparently, even death couldn’t keep the world’s greatest detective away.

“Alright, Mr. Wayne,” Desmond replied. “But does that mean I can take a look at the Piece of Eden you keep at your manor in turn? I don’t want to criticize, but these things really shouldn’t be handled by someone without experience.”

Batman fell silent. On the rooftop next to them, Jason was shouting in joy while Robin performed his quadruple flip for him. He should watch that jump. It was common knowledge, at least for those interested in acrobatics, that not many people could perform it – Gotham’s resident prince Dick Grayson being by far the youngest person. It was even on his Wikipedia page.

“And you have that experience?”

Desmond tugged at his hoodie’s right sleeve, revealing his black glove first, and then his burned arm beneath. The golden circuitry was shining brightly in the dark. Once he stopped using eagle vision, it would return to a muted yellow you could mistake for tattoo ink.

“You’re standing in front of the world’s expert on these cursed artifacts.”

His smile was weary, but there was no point in lying. Ever since his death, Desmond had been able to feel these remains of Eden if he got close enough to them. They didn’t make him uncomfortable, but he could almost tell what each piece had been crafted for, and the thought of letting them lie around left to their own devices was fear-inspiring.

“We have much to discuss. I’ll contact you. Robin.”

Across, Robin perked up and moved from his handstand into a bridge and then into a stand. Batman waited just long enough for Robin to plunge into a print and jump over the gaps between the rooftops before he too leaped away into the alley on their right.

Jason wasn’t far behind Robin, crossing the space between houses without hesitating. Whatever Robin had demonstrated or told him, its effects were already showing.

“You done already?” Jason asked.

“Mhm. Why are you asking?”

Jason clicked his tongue and shot Desmond an annoyed look. “Nothin’s true. I should ask questions.”

“I taught you that sentence,” Desmond replied and began to walk into the direction of tonight’s second destination. He’d drop Jason back home on the way. Sure, the kid had seen much already, experienced too much for his age, but Desmond wasn’t going to take a ten-year-old to the Foxglove. Not even for information gathering. “And I’m sure it definitely had nothing to do with Robin.”

“Oh, c’ mon, D. It’s Robin. He’s the coolest. So you gotta tell me what you talked about ’cause he was gonna teach me how to do the neat flip.”

“I’m sure you’ll get another chance to learn from him. Batman just asked for some credentials.”

“Credentials? That can’t be everythin’. Come oooon, tell me. Tell me, tell me, please. You know I can do this all night and day.”

Desmond didn’t doubt him, he knew better. Jason’s presence at his side was proof of that.

“I know. You showed me that you had endurance and now you’ll learn patience.”

“What? You can’t be serious! Des- hey!”

Desmond chose that moment to jump from the balcony into the dumpster beneath. The smell of these containers really made him miss the haystacks of his ancestors.

“Patience, Novice,” Desmond repeated.

Batman would tell him soon enough when he wanted to meet up. You couldn’t shake off Batman once you had his attention.

(And true enough, he got an invitation to Wayne manor a week later. He didn’t dwell on the fact that Batman knew where he lived. It was only fair.)

#dc #dc comics #batman #desmond miles #asscreed #bruce wayne #dick grayson #jason todd #fanfic #asscreedevents19

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thisyearingaming · 4 years

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2011 - This Year in Gaming

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - Nintendo DS, January 11th

A quirky adventure game where you are fucking dead, and you gotta work out who killed you. Ghost Trick is like Ace Attorney at first glance - it looks similar, and is made by effectively the same development team. Give it a shot on iOS.

Dead Space 2 - Multiplatform, January 25th

Dead Space 2 was the undisputed king of alien horror until Alien: Isolation released. Yeah, you battle massive acid-spitting aliens, but it’s the necromorph babies you’re gonna be shit-scared of. It isn’t quite as unique as it’s predecessor, but it’s definitely much better to play. Bring your brown pants.

The Nintendo 3DS Releases - March 27th

The 3DS was like magic when you first fired the 3D slider all the way up - then it became a gimmick you never used again. Releasing with a few decent launch titles and being able to boast Street Fighter IV as playable, the 3DS arguably didn’t really pick up much steam until a few months after launch. While more powerful than the original DS which was six years old at the time, I can’t remember being particularly interested in it at the time.

Portal 2 - Multiplatform, April 19th

Valve’s final single player experience until their jump into VR was a bloody good one - very funny and amusingly written with the best Steve Merchant performance since The Ricky Gervais Show, Portal 2′s puzzle solving adventure is rarely a chore to play through, and has thousands of custom maps courtesy of the Steam community.

L.A. Noire - Multiplatform, May 17th

Rockstar’s foray into adventure games has stood the test of time as an enjoyable and often startling journey nto the seedy underbelly of 1947 Los Angeles - as Cole Phelps you’ll threaten a Jewish man with the gas chamber, arrest a paedophile instead of a clearly guilty father, quote Hamlet to a prop skull at the scene of a car crash, destroy thousands of dollars of property, and yell at a child whose mother’s just been murdered. Great fun!

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The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Windows

CDPR hit it out of the park with a fantastically improved sequel to 2007′s Eurojank diamond in the rough The Witcher, and really introduce Geralt of Rivia to more people for the first time with this game. A branching story that sees Geralt hunting Letho, the killer of King Foltest, and allying either with smelly hippy elven leader Iorveth and his terrorists who don’t appear in the sequel or the very cool but quite racist Vernon Roche and his special forces group, who are supporting characters in the sequel.

Alice: Madness Returns - Multiplatform, June 14th

A surprisingly charming, unsettling dive into the fractured psyche of the Victorian equivalent of an actual goth gf, Alice is a sequel to American McGee’s Alice from 2000. Surreal as fuck and absolutely drowning in atmosphere. Just don’t look at any of the YouTube comments on videos of the soundtrack. Rather bizarre show...

Duke Nukem Forever - Multiplatform, June 14th

Sometimes it’s best NOT to bet on the Duke. I bought this game to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I did neither - DNF is fucking boring, and I blame it ALL on Randy Pitchford’s devotion to ruining things I like. DNF could’ve been brilliant - either embrace your heritage like Doom Eternal would eventually do, or make it into a “last hurrah” kind of thing where Duke realises he’s getting old and can’t kick ass forever. The greatest disappointment of the 2010s so far - but worse would follow with it. The King is dead - hail to the King, baby.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Multiplatform, August 23rd

The piss-tinted prequel to 2000′s excellent conspiracy RPG Deus Ex, Human Revolution is like smashing Robo-Cop into a world where Detroit is not a humanitarian disaster zone. Adam Jensen, the gravelly-voiced biomechanically enhanced security chief of David Sarif, is dragged into a world of American conspiracies involving FEMA death camps, the government enforcing martial law in US cities and massive Chinese conglomerates plotting to control the world. Just like real life! DXHR is my favourite in the series for its design, atmosphere and narrative.

Dead Island - Multiplatform, September 6th

Eh. Wasn’t that good. Notable for having the most misleading fucking trailer since Metal Gear Solid 2, but nowhere near as fulfilling upon release. An open world zombie survival game with a focus on melee weapons more fragile than your granny’s second hip. Oh great, now there’s a dead kid on my page. Thanks, Techland!

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Driver: San Francisco - Multiplatform, September 6th

A game you literally can’t buy anymore, DSF was incredible to play when it came out and has only really gotten better with time. It’s still so unique for a driving game that I’m surprised Ubisoft have had the good sense to just leave it and not go pants-on-head retarded with the franchise since. Nick Robinson had to buy Subway gift cards just to purchase this game.

Batman: Arkham City - Multiplatform, October 18th

Arkham City was so cool at launch and it still is today. A proper Batman epic with twists, turns, and the most addictive combat arena for years. This whole thing is gold from start to finish, except for the Harley Quinn DLC. I can’t even go into detail about it here, but I fucking LOVE this game.

Sonic Generations - Multiplatform, November 1st

Sonic Generations is the best Sonic game since 3 & Knuckles, but has now unfortunately convinced Sega that not only do people despise the Adventure games, they also really want to see Classic Sonic and Green Hill EVERY GODDAMN DAY. Generations is like a proper celebration of Sonic’s history, even including stuff from every reviewer’s favourite punching bag Sonic 2006 - I really like Generations and it has a stellar modding scene on PC.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception - Sony PlayStation 3, November 1st

The “finale” of the Uncharted series until Naughty Dog decided it wasn’t. Uncharted 3 may not be as tight as Among Thieves, but it’s just as enjoyable. As quipping invincible action hero Nathan Drake, you’ll ruin historical artifacts and “incapacitate” about 4000 guys in your quest to find Iram of the Pillars, chased by Cruella de Ville and her mercenary squad of a million faceless Englishmen.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Multiplatform, November 8th

God I was so excited for this. World War 3 never looked cooler, and then it came out - and it wasn’t that good. It didn’t feel as epic as MW2, not as well-written as MW, and not as interesting as World at War and Black Ops. Multiplayer was... fine? I think this is the point where most people realised that Call of Duty was basically downhill from here.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Multiplatform, November 11th

See this paragraph? You can read it. Another installment in Bethesda’s cross-franchise “Little Lies” series, Skyrim has been released more times than China’s created a pandemic. But it’s still really good and when you rub it the right way it comes all over your screen like a particularly excited storyteller, ready to point in the direction of adventure.

Super Mario 3D Land - Nintendo 3DS, November 13th

Yeah this was the point I decided I wanted a 3DS. It looked incredible and so fluid, and it really was! Playing this was great fun. That’s really all there is - I can’t be funny about it, nor overly critical. What do you want from me?

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations - Multiplatform, November 15th

I didn’t like this when it came out - I thought the new graphic style was bad, Constantinople was dull, and the music was too different. Ezio was angrier, older, and the complete lack of any supporting cast from Brotherhood had me thinking this was a game that nobody wanted to work on - but now that I’m older, I can see this for how good it really was. Revelations blends the Ezio and Altair stories together, culminating in a satisfying emotional climax.

Saints Row: The Third - Multiplatform, November 15

This video speaks for itself.

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Minecraft - Windows, November 18th

There’s something beautiful about those early builds of Minecraft. Quiet, unassuming, and riddled with potential for exploration. I could talk for hours about the first time I was thrown into Mojang’s survival experience, about how I still get a bit weepy hearing Wet Hands by C418, about how shit-scared I still am of the mines and caves. Minecraft is immortal, and always will be.

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