Weird experience

[RockyRan]

I might seriously start documenting my experiences with Assassin's Creed 1, because this game is just fascinating. And I'm not just talking about the traditional sense of "fascinating", I'm talking this weird force of nature type of thing. Never before have I seen a game riddled with mechanics that are so flat out confusing, and I'm not saying that in a bad way. Take, for instance, the "parkour" in the game. The fact that you can do all these crazy stunt-like moves, running, jumping, climbing, balancing, etc., without absolutely any skill required from the player can be easily considered something bad, but once you realize the fact that you use this movement so much that making it skill-based would easily make the entire game tedious throws a doubt on that. Everything about the game is like this. There are so many things about it that I can't even make up my mind as to whether I agree or disagree with their decision, and for me it hasn't happened this much on any one game.

 

The biggest one by far, though, is the decision I've encountered most recently, and it was the decision to give the player the option to teleport to the city of your choice after a few missions into the game, and not only do they allow you to teleport to the city, they allow you to teleport to the assassin's bureau inside said city. Obviously the reasoning behind this was the fact that the devs thought some people wouldn't like the constant-back-and-forth between the cities, but for me that was actually the most enjoyable part of the game. Going by horse to small, peaceful towns and hearing the quiet ruffling of leaves in the wind, the mild ambient chatter of people and the gentle sound of a town bell in the distance really went a long way into making the game and its environment that much more immersive for me. I know it's a relatively old game from 2007, but I kept just losing myself walking along these villages and abandoned ruins, grabbing the flags I saw for no reason other than to take in the breathtaking environments the devs pulled off.

 

Then like 3 missions into it the game literally tells me "well this shit's useless, wanna get to the GOOD PARTS!?!" I'm like, "really guys? Thanks. Way to cast a doubt into my own enjoyment". I know it's an option and I know it sounds a little silly. I mean, I COULD just say "no" to the prompts and go there by horse and be immersed to my heart's desire, but the very existence of that option just cast a doubt as to whether I REALLY wanted to keep doing that. The fact that the game gives me option tells me that nothing important is in here and I won't ever have to go back to these areas. They are, for all intents and purposes, pointless. The fact that this game flat out labels these areas as "pointless" makes me uneasy, and I know nothing really meaningful to the gameplay is going to come out of this. It's not like I missed anything important on my way there because the game literally just said there's nothing important there. So now I don't even know what to do. I've done two more missions since the choice came up and both times I've chosen to spawn in the assassin's bureau because, hell, the game just said these things are a waste of time, so why waste my time? But at the same time, these were my favorite parts of the game. I became really annoyed that the game refused to incorporate this travelling into the game, instead letting you essentially skip this part of the game just to get to the cities.

 

The "country" parts of the game were easily my favorite, but given the choice, I don't really want to go OUT of my way to get to these parts. They're a side thing that's really nice, but when the game tells me that this stuff's pointless and if I want to skip it, I don't really want to go out of my way to do something that's entirely pointless. And this has never really happened before, because no other game developer would be this stupid to openly admit that huge chunks of their gameworld are pointless (unless said dev was doing a parody). So this type of thing is really just fascinating to me, and I'm honestly torn about this thing. I really DID enjoy those parts in the game, and I probably will choose to run through the countryside in future missions, but the mere fact that they gave me a choice really cast a doubt on it. Should I like them for giving me a time-saving option, or hate them for admitting my favorite part of the game is pointless filler even they didn't think was significant in any way? Games are meant to have fun, of course, but when I do something in a game that I perceive is entirely pointless to the experience, I tend to not do it. However, never before has a game presented me with something I enjoy, then pour a bucket of cold water on me and say "THIS IS BORING AND POINTLESS". Now I don't want to do it because I know it'll be pointless, but I still want to do it because I liked it.

 

Anyway, that's my rant for tonight. I do have to say Assassin's Creed 1 is really bending my mind in this way. I mean, these things are just rookie mistakes that objectively should just be "bad", and I know the game is known for being a good concept filled to the brim with rookie mistakes, but it's these mistakes that genuinely confuse me. I can't tell if they're good or bad, and they cast doubts on whether or not I like certain things and I just can't let it go. If only the game had crappy voice acting or shitty gameplay I would've been able to say "such and such makes the game worse", but this stuff? The flaws are like, deeply intertwined and homogenized with the good parts and I can't seem to separate them. If you guys want I can write about the other things in the game that confuse me, but I'll just leave it at this and see if you want me to keep writing instead of just plopping unsolicited walls of text

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Think about it on a more meta level. Those in between areas ARE pointless to Desmond. He has a goal. A mission. Altair does not (in the same sense anyways.) You're playing as a character who's playing as a character.

[MasterDex]

You're playing as a character who's playing as a character.

 

Who does the same stuff 4 times over.

 

AC1 was enjoyable for the first half at most. Once I get on to the 3rd quarter of the game, I was just like "meh". It was just far too repetitive to enjoy.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I thought that the 1st quarter was fine, middle 2 quarters were bleh, and then it got exciting again in the last quarter as you hit big name targets.