Assassin's Creed Unity Gameplay Walkthrough Part 10-KJS
0This review may be extremely late in the proverbial game but I figure that it would be useful to take a honest look at the title now that a good amount of time has passed, Ubisoft has had time to release fixes, and gamers have had time to upgrade to relatively recent hardware.
The first thing I want to talk about is the question that a lot of folks will ask when taking a glance at the store page during a sale. It is pretty standard to see folks asking something to the effect of "Is it fixed?" and to that, I will say that with the patches that Ubisoft released and the better hardware of today, it generally runs and plays smoothly. I have recently started replaying it and have been rather impressed by how well it runs and I have yet to encounter any serious bugs. I am sure that some gaming youtuber somewhere will cite some montage video of wierd NPC glitches or something but when you are actually playing the game (and not just watching aforementioned montage), those issues don't really impact the experience a whole lot. Besides, such things happen in too many (often well regarded) games for it to be a serious issue anyway.
Does Unity still have issues? Yes. Are those issues going to hurt the experience? Probably not as much as you might think.
Now on to the game itself.
Unity was Ubisoft's attempt to refocus the franchise and kinda go "back to basics" (for lack of a better phrase). Like the original Assassin's Creed, Unity puts a lot of emphasis on the assassination aspect with the player character (Arno) doing the bidding of the Assassin leadership in revolutionary Paris. It is not as focused on the main character as the Ezio or Kenway titles and instead gives you some insight into the organizational structure of the Asssassins and their war with the Templars.
That "back to basics" approach also applies to the gameplay. After years of Ezio and Kenway titles where combat with huge groups of enemies is rather simple and only a matter of hitting the counter button and attacking at the right time, Unity makes the player more vulnerable and even smaller groups of enemies more powerful and dangerous. Combat feels a bit more "hands on" than it did in prior titles with counters only doing so much and retreat often being the smartest option when you get in a big fight. It is a refreshing change and one that I wish Ubisoft had kept going forward with.
Parkour also recieved something of a make-over. It still works roughly like it has in prior titles but in Unity, it feels a bit faster, a lot smoother, and easier to manage (the E button forcing your character to climb/jump down is a wonderful thing). Moving about the city is satisfying and seeing some slick animations only adds to the experience.
The stealth mechanics are a big thing in Unity. Older AC titles (and ones that came after) played it a bit fast and loose with stealth with a streamlined (and generally rather good) system. Unity adds some very specific parts in the game that require you to put a bit more effort into it. You have to very deliberately sneak around with a crouch button and good use of corners and other obstacles to block line of sight. This is yet another aspect that sadly did not really get pushed forward into later titles when it really did add a good layer to missions.
There are some downsides. I think it is safe to say that while Arno is a likeable character, his story is not the best in the franchise. It is not bad and it is still entertaining but those who are expecting Ezio or Kenway are probably not going to get the larger than life character that they are hoping for. Arno's story is more focused on (like the original AC) his targets and the intrigue that connects everything together. I personally enjoy the story but I can also see that it is not as strong as it should have been.
Another downside is the way Ubisoft did the map. The location and how that location is presented is fantastic but when you go into the map screen, you will be greeted by a MASSIVE amount of clutter from various icons, collectables, and the like. The presence of these collectables is not a big problem but they should have handled how they show up on the map a bit better. As it stands, it is actually rather difficult to even find your objective marker when it is buried by locations for chests, co-op missions, and other collectables.
While on the topic of the map, I am sad to say that the whole tower/viewpoint thing is in place and while I understand why Ubisoft really likes this system, I think that they should have scaled it back a whole heck of a lot. There are too many viewpoints to climb and it kinda hurts the pace of the game.
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