Assassin’s Creed Unity (beaten)

Assassin’s Creed Unity can be summed up in one sentence. Great game, so-so mechanics. At first I was disappointed by the game, but as I played I began to enjoy it more and more. It does, however, deserve some of the criticism it gets. A lot of things that people originally complained about have been fixed or gotten rid of (for example you don’t need the iPhone app anymore, and microtransactions are there but not pushed on you).

The story is actually pretty decent, and I enjoyed it a lot. unfortunately there really isn’t much I can say about the story without spoiling something. Arno is a reasonably well written character (his character development happens far too late in the game), and the side characters are the best part of the game’s story. Elise, a templar and Arno’s girlfriend (but she isn’t just a love interest, don’t worry), is easily one of the best characters to come out of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I honestly would have preferred it if she had been the protagonist, and Arno the side character. Assassinations are very unique and done well. I feel as if there were a few too many, but they were a great part of the story missions. My biggest issue with the story is the fact that even though it takes place in the French Revolution, the story has basically nothing to do with it. It’s as if Arno cares more about his goals than the goals of the people of France. Other than that, the story isn’t nearly as bad as some make it out to be.

This game is also by far the most beautiful game I’ve ever played. The graphics are incredible and the Paris map is almost the size of the real Paris, and about a quarter of the buildings have interiors to explore. The new engine allows for a massive amount of people to be on the map all at one, and as you explore random events pop up that let you help the citizens of France. All of these things add up to make an amazing open world experience. The city actually feels alive. All this comes at a cost though. Despite efforts being made to make the game run better, it’s still not a well optimized game, however I would argue that it’s much better optimized than Black Flag. I was happy with its performance, I got on average 60 FPS at max settings, but in some areas it would dip as low as 40, or go as high as 90. However just because the game ran well for me doesn’t necessarily mean it will run well for you. Keep in mind this game is heavily reliant on your CPU, so if you don’t have a good processor you’re going to have a bad time.

Just like how the game now has better performance, most of the glitches have been patched out. While I’m sure there are a few major bugs still out there, I didn’t experience a single glitch or bug.

As far as side content goes, the game is bloated. I only say this because there are only 15-20 hours of main story content, but 50 or 60 hours of side content. I think that’s a bad ratio, and I actually love collectibles and side missions.There are upwards of 500 collectibles, and some aren’t available until late-game, which I find to be annoying because they clog up the map. Co-op missions are fun, but can be borderline impossible if you play them solo. I enjoy difficulty but the missions are built for 4 people. Sometimes the challenge is fun, and sometimes it’s like hell. For that reason I didn’t complete about 3 co-op missions. Side missions (called Paris Stories) are great, in fact the murder mysteries were my favorite parts of the game. Instead of focusing on collectibles, I wish they had made more Paris Stories as they really were fun, and immersed you in the city of Paris.

And here’s where it gets shitty. With some big exceptions, the gameplay is not the best. There are so many new things in Unity and I can’t talk about them all, so I’ll just focus on the main mechanics.

1. What I’m most pissed about is the stealth. It had so much potential to be amazing, but ultimately ended up being functional, but bit broken. The cover system only works about 1/3 of the time, and cover kills usually draw a lot of attention, which shouldn’t happen because they’re quick and quiet. You can no longer lure guards by whistling, which makes hiding spots basically useless. The only lure/distraction item in the game are cherry bombs, which are about as reliable as the cover system. Despite this, playing stealthily is still fun and would’ve been amazing if it didn’t have such major issues

2. The combat is both good and bad. it’s been overhauled, and you can no longer kill entire armies of people without dying. The largest amount of people I was able to kill in this game was about 17, and even then I was chugging the medicine. I actually like this, the difficulty in the combat is a welcome addition. Plus, guards don’t attack you one at a time anymore, which is exactly why it’s easy to get overwhelmed. The problem is the combat sucks. It’s mind numbingly slow and sluggish, and it feels like master assassin Arno has never picked up a sword in his life. For whatever reason, human shields are gone. Bullets do a huge amount of damage (as they should), but now the only thing you can do is dodge them. Like that’s more realistic. You can only dodge bullets in combat, so if you’re running away there’s nothing you can do to avoid getting shot. And for some reason every guard in the game is like a world class sniper because they rarely miss. On that subject, actual snipers are great. Depending on how much health you have, they can pretty much one-shot kill you. Snipers were a threat in the other ACs, but now they’re very dangerous and it’s a nice feature. It’s worth noting that once you upgrade combat skills and get a top of the line weapon, the combat doesn’t change much but it is more fun and Arno seems more skillful.

3. Ranged weapons are great. The guns are useful and the phantom and berserk blades are lifesaving, especially if you’re trying to be stealthy. I also like how you’re encouraged to go for headshots because most enemies take 2 or 3 shots to go down otherwise. I ended up using ranged weapons a lot, which isn’t something I usually do, just because it’s so fun and very convenient when trying to avoid a fight.

4. One thing I really liked was the addition of RPG-like mechanics. You can customize Arno based on your playstyle, and you have levels, which adds further challenge to the game. If you are level one and try a level 5 mission, you’re in for a big challenge. However there was also a lot of unnecessary stuff added. You get skill points, and you buy skills with them. For some skills this makes sense, but for some, it seems a bit ridiculous that Arno doesn’t know how to do them already. For example, in order to be able to blend, you need to buy that skill. If you want a gun, you have to buy the ranged skill. If you want to double assassinate, you have to buy that skill. I could go on. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but is still not a great feature. This is a minor complaint, but one that affected my gameplay a lot. Most of the outfits are ugly as all hell. Want to be stealthy? Well you can be, but you have to buy puffy pajama pants to do so. Because the game has varying levels of difficulty, it’s not the best idea to stay in Arno’s nice looking, original assassin robes, so you have to look really hard for a combination of clothes that actually look okay. I eventually found a balance between what helped my skills and what looked nice, but it took a lot of time and (in game) money. Luckily money is not hard to come by.

5. This is an edit because I somehow forgot to even mention the freerunning in the game. It’s very good, but imprecise. Running across the buildings of Paris is quick and seamless, but the flaws in the freerunning come out when you have to jump or mover somewhere with precision. Other than that, climbing and running is near perfect. You can now free run downwards, which is one of the best features in Unity, and you can slide under and over things in order to keep your momentum. The parkour is extremely unrealistic, however. Arno is basically spiderman. It bothered me at first, but it’s clearly made unrealistic because Paris is so big and the buildings are far apart, so Arno needs to be able to move faster and further than previous assassins, otherwise the frerunning would just be frustrating and slow. Freerunning is one of the most refined aspects of the game and is miles better than previous AC’s parkour systems.

I won’t say much about the Dead Kings DLC, but it was fun and in my opinion, worth playing.

So overall, Unity was a good game that I liked a lot. It’s something that I would maybe replay, but not anytime soon. It’s also the only Assassin’s Creed game I didn’t fully complete (because of those co-op missions and stupid optional objectives I didn’t mention), and I don’t plan on ever completing it. I think it’s my least favorite Assassin’s Creed game, but it redeemed itself a bit with the beautiful environment, good story and characters, and some nice new features.

If anyone is interested, this is what my Arno looked like when I finished the game. It doesn’t look the best from the front, but from the back it looks great.

Would I recommend this game? Yes, but it’s certainly not the best in the franchise. If you want a challenging Assassin’s Creed, this is your game