Assassin's Creed 3 Thoughts

[rainwaterspark]

Some bullet-point thoughts, first:

- Worst ending ever. The ending of Connor's story was pretty unsatisfying, I thought; the ending of Desmond's story was abysmal.

- Why was the ending of Desmond's story awful? Because it didn't resolve the whole damned conflict between the Assassins and the Templars, which was supposed to be the point of the series!!

- I'm also not satisfied with the way the game handled Native Americans. It wasn't terrible--from what I can tell, it was pretty respectful, and the use of spoken Mohawk language was amazing--but it also didn't come to any sort of thoughtful conclusion about the antagonism between the colonists and the Native Americans. They also felt pretty tangential to the story after Connor becomes an Assassin.

I've noticed the AC games gradually become more and more linear as time goes on (as well as becoming more and more character-focused/biographical). The first AC focused on a 20-something Altaïr and had a structure of: get mission, go out into the world, explore, and do whatever you want until you complete the mission, then rinse and repeat. The second AC focused more on following Ezio through a decade or so of his life. And now we come to the third AC, which begins before Connor/Ratonhnhaké:ton's life (yes, you read that right), through his childhood/adolescence until his 20s/early 30s.

This is not to say that the first AC was perfect, because it had its own issues, but there's something that's lost when the more open-world/sandbox structure of AC I is sacrificed for a more linear, character-driven narrative.

I haven't played AC III; I've only watched it. It might be a game that's more fun to play than to watch. But I could imagine myself growing tired of certain segments during the game. The whole opening 1/4-1/3 section, featuring Haytham instead of Connor--just, why? We don't need an extended introduction to the protagonist's father. If they wanted to show the Templars in a more sympathetic light: first, they don't need to make the player play as a Templar, all they need to do is have a sympathetic side character as a Templar or throw out a few reasonable arguments for the Templar's side; second, they could have shortened the Haytham section considerably. It could have ended after the opera house incident and skipped forward to Connor's story, and maybe even have Connor figuring out how his parents met and that his father was a Templar as part of some interwoven side story/Dramatic Reveal. (As I was watching the beginning, my reaction was: "So when does Connor show up? Does he show up now? Oh, nope, more Haytham. How about now??")

Some people have said they didn't like Connor's character, that he seemed rather angry/self-righteous. I don't have a problem with his character, but I do think some potential was squandered. He had little to no angst about his biracial status, even though it was advertised and hinted early on to be an integral part of his inner struggle/character development. He also seems rather Woobiefied in the game (Badass Woobie? Is that even a trope?) considering the number of times he's injured/beaten in cutscenes, which I *think* is more than in AC I & II put together. (Also, can I say that his "adult" face is ugly compared to his adolescent face? I didn't think people's faces could change that much over a span of 5-10 years.)

There are some tired clichés in AC III: the best friend who betrays you, the Doomed Hometown/obligatory parent death, etc. Which is rather disappointing. There are also some plot holes; for example, I really have no clue how Connor realized Haytham was his father, and vice-versa, because it's never addressed in the game. I heard that some of the original script was axed that would have helped to flesh out the story. Apparently, there was an extended talk between Haytham and Connor before Haytham's death that showed more conflict/gray area than what was given in the game; there was also a scene in which Ziio drives Haytham away because of his Templar ideas. I have no idea why these scenes were cut, because they would have helped enormously to make the story more nuanced and compelling. Also, why the $%&# did Charles Lee not die after he was shot? And instead, he and Connor have a drink in a pub before Connor slices his throat? It makes no sense to me.

The script wasn't all bad. Ziio was awesome, and some parts were cute (like Haytham struggling to pronounce Ziio's full name--"godz-zio?"--or Ratonhnhaké:ton breaking Achilles's chair and some of the other funny banter between him and Achilles). It just could have been so much more.

On the modern side, Daniel Cross seemed like a wasted antagonist (he went down so easily, it wasn't even funny), and as I said earlier, Desmond's ending is really horrible. It resolved absolutely nothing. (Aside from Cross and some poor security mooks, the modern-day Templars never even show up. Vidic never even appears on screen except during a videotaped section. And I thought the Templars were trying to enslave the minds the entire human population or something? Unless I totally made that up, what happened to that plot??)

Other potentially tedious bits: the hand-holding in this game is, in general, pretty long and explicit. Arguably the first 1/3 of this game is a giant tutorial. A very redundant tutorial, when you add the Haytham and Young Connor bits together. The Haytham section teaches you how to move, how to fight, and how to steer a ship; the Young Connor sections teach you how to analyze objects (the hide-and-seek game), run through trees (collecting eagle feathers), hunt, fight again, steer a ship again, and lower notoriety in a town (getting ditched by Connor's mentor in Boston). I swear some parts of the game exist solely as a tutorial, and together the "tutorial" sections take several hours to play through. Was this really necessary? I think recent games often have a hard time striking a balance between enough tutorial so that players aren't totally lost and fast-paced action at the beginning. I personally prefer "optional" tutorials in a game; that is, a more action-oriented/in media res-style opening, but there are characters to talk to and/or help menus and/or text prompts on the screen in case you get stuck. (Which also makes the game a lot more replayable, because people who already know the controls can skip the tutorials or just breeze through them, instead of being stuck listening to the same explanations over and over again.)

[Incidentally, AC I, in my opinion, did the opening tutorials fairly well, by having a short section that teaches you how to move around, optional fighting lessons, and a pretty brief mini-mission that teaches you how to eavesdrop/pickpocket/interrogate/etc. before sending you on your merry way out into the world.]

[Proposal for streamlining the game: Only have the Haytham section in the opera house, because that was pretty interesting, then do the Templar reveal still in London. Skip the apparently pointless journey across the Atlantic and the Haytham missions in Colonial America. Skip to Ratonhnhaké:ton's youth (which then sets up an interesting side question about where Haytham is now), skip the find-the-children game (seriously, who needs a tutorial on analyzing objects? All you have to do is walk up to the glowing thing on the ground and press ANALYZE OBJECT) and have him run into the Templars right away. Maybe have Ziio survive the fire, because c'mon, Ziio was pretty awesome and I'm sick of having a mother/wife/sister/girlfriend killed as The Hero's motivation to go on a Quest For Justice (Women in Fridges, bleh). Having your village burned down is traumatic and motivating enough. Skip the eagle-feather-collecting shenanigans (just have a character tell Ratonhnhaké:ton "By the way, you probably know this already, but you can run through trees!" or something), maybe have Ratonhnhaké:ton go off to find Davenport because he's old enough, not because he talked to Juno, because I found that section really contrived. If he's supposed to be motivated by justice, have him be motivated by justice, not by a weird vision of a golden glowing woman who says a lot of things he doesn't and isn't supposed to understand. If Achilles ditches Connor in Boston, rather than having Sam Adams tell Connor "Do X" and after you do X "Do Y" and after that "Do Z" so you can "learn" how to lower your notoriety, have Sam Adams say to Connor "Lower your notoriety" and have the option of talking to him again if you have no idea what he's babbling about. Okay, I'm done rewriting this game for the day...that was a lot longer than I intended...]

I worry that this game might be a glorified fetch quest/string of linear missions; the IGN review even says that at some points Connor feels more like an errand boy. On the plus side, the environments are totally gorgeous and the naval battles seem fun.

[Confused postscript: Pre-release demos of the game featured a mission in which Connor assassinates some dude named Silas. I'm wondering whether that section was taken out entirely or whether only the target was swapped, since I noticed that Haytham now has an "assassinate some dude named Silas" mission. I haven't seen this mission for Connor so far, and I'd be perplexed if they took it out, because it seemed like a pretty well put-together mission.]

Comments

[yuanfang.livejournal.com]

I watched my friend play it for about five or six hours, and I also was really confused by Haytham - we were like, when do we get to be Connor? (Though they put it "when is Haytham going to bang the native lady? Ugh.) Though I also missed the big reveal, haha. And then the scene where Achilles and Connor see the hierarchy of the templars and Connor's just like "especially my father." That was really... sudden. Also, everyone in the room kept asking me "do you know where that is? What about that?" and I was like "I DON'T KNOW THIS IS 1700s BOSTON" but I was able to recognize the state house, king's chapel, and king's chapel cemetery, haha!

I don't know if you've ever seen this video, but it addresses the hand holding issue you were talking about really well! http://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM