i am on a mission to play every assassins creed game in order after a decade of my younger self being exposed to the franchise and being a general fan but only now getting to experience everything in the correct timeline. this review contains spoilers if you care about that and also this review is mostly for myself so if you want an actual good review that isnt self indulgent or rambly look to a different person

i have beef with this game.
not only the game itself but the ubisoft connect client. im clenching my fist in rage just thinking about this now. okay. first of all, this games story is neat and i did enjoy it quite a bit. i like seeing characters interact and dialogue happening. everything about the story is splendid and thats basically all i have to say on the matter. no real complaints. now my real beef is with the gameplay, controls and mechanics. what evil meth did the people working on this game smoke when making it? why is the camera locked in place when climbing and parkouring? it wasnt like that in the previous game i checked to make sure i wasnt going insane. ezio losing his ability to climb well for most of the game was really annoying especially after having just beat the last game before playing this one. it might also just be me but i feel in general as if the places you could climb at were less free and more minipuzzles you had to figure out when you want to climb on anything. as of writing this i havent completed all the decoding minigame ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but man did it also just lose its charm in this game. it has way too much of the same type of puzzle with the number lock and it was my least favorite in the previous game to encounter. iunno call me stupid or something but trying to figure out what the numbers were wasnt fun so i just started looking up the answer after a certain point. the challenges in this game, while in theory are a great idea i think, most of the time fall completely flat and at worst theyre so frustrating it makes you wonder who thought it was a good idea to put them there. it would be one thing if only some missions had challenges, like maybe the especially important story ones, but having a challenge on nearly every single mission in the game makes you lose immersion and sometimes the challenge rule just straight up spoils whats gonna happen in the mission/story. relating to ubisoft now, its kind of unrelated to the game since its not really its fault, but my god! ubisoft is so ass! only this magical company would literally lock me out of playing their damn game (offline game mind you! the online features have been disabled on it permanantly!) because i had too many attempts logging in when literally it asks you to log in every single time you want to enter the game. there was a time where i couldnt play it for an entire day because of it which like yeah whatever its just a day but its actually unbelievable that i couldnt play the game that i bought on steam because what to me is a third party application i had to download with the game told me "nah". like its actually insane. anyway back to the game. i like the customization in this game just like the previous one, and i think equipping gear in this game is a lot more convenient than the previous one. i really like the designs of most of the characters, clearly a lot of thought was put into them to represent their role. ezio is still great. my beloved. i really like the first addition of side quests in this game and the closing of gaps in ezios story from before he left his home. even through all my complaints i dont have the heart in me to give this game a thumbs down because after all that i dont really think it deserves it. steam should have something in the middle between the thumbs up and down so i could go "ehh" with it

conclusion. have i enjoyed playing this? not as much as i wish i had. unforch
do i regret playing this game? definitely not even with all the gripes
would i recommend this game? only to people who care for ezio specifically

The best classic-era AC game, but bigger, better and brotherhooder. You don't really need this review to know it.

More refined from AC2, ending cliffhanger tho PEAK