I posted earlier my game impressions for Assassin's Creed III about halfway through the game. I've now completed it so here's my final impressions.
The game isn't bad. I enjoyed it until the ending which, like every other Asscreed game, fizzles completely. Like the writers aren't talentless hacks, maybe not the greatest in the industry but for the genre of "fun action games" they give solid stories, but they cannot write endings. I should probably say this now, SPOILERS.
Connor as a character: I didn't mind him, I thought he was fine. He has motivations, he has depth to him. He's not incredibly in-depth but he's like Ezio. A good action hero character. People argue that he makes "stupid decisions" but that's kinda the point. He's brash, he's young, and he's reckless. He doesn't live by the Creed like Altair or Ezio, he simply fell into it as a means for revenge. Kinda like Ezio but Ezio really adopted their ideals eventually. Most of my complaints on Connor aren't really as a character, but his piss poor finale.
The finales: Since there's technically one for Connor and one for Desmond, some bullets:
The game isn't bad. I enjoyed it until the ending which, like every other Asscreed game, fizzles completely. Like the writers aren't talentless hacks, maybe not the greatest in the industry but for the genre of "fun action games" they give solid stories, but they cannot write endings. I should probably say this now, SPOILERS.
Connor as a character: I didn't mind him, I thought he was fine. He has motivations, he has depth to him. He's not incredibly in-depth but he's like Ezio. A good action hero character. People argue that he makes "stupid decisions" but that's kinda the point. He's brash, he's young, and he's reckless. He doesn't live by the Creed like Altair or Ezio, he simply fell into it as a means for revenge. Kinda like Ezio but Ezio really adopted their ideals eventually. Most of my complaints on Connor aren't really as a character, but his piss poor finale.
The finales: Since there's technically one for Connor and one for Desmond, some bullets:
- Connor: So dreadfully anticlimactic. I liked his dynamic with Haytham. It's gonna sound like a terrible comparison but they almost drew a Luke-to-Darth Vadar type of relationship between them. At the core they're mortal enemies, but Haytham seemed redeemable. But Connor has this really boring fight with him, kills him, and then he's gone. They make him out to be the bad guy and switch it with, yes, a bad guy you were anticipating but not a good one. Just someone whose generically evil. Even that finale is bad. So you kill Haytham and then go "Well better go kill Charles Lee." So you walk up to him and get yourself captured, then break free like a minute after that happens, then chase him. Why not kill him there? Why not shoot him or run up and kill him. Why go through all this mess? Also the chase scene is just... ugh. Must've taken me fifty times to get it full sync. Plus the scripting would consistently mess up so things would just be slightly off. Sometimes the first two guards would stand too close together so you can't jump through them. One time the last row of guards just started marching towards me and blocked my entrance. And then the burning ship... I was completely fucking lost to the point that I looked up a walkthrough. But yeah, you chase him down, you both fall through a floor and get injured. You're impaled by some big wooden bit, Lee comes up to you, you shoot him, and then you stumble aboard a ship to follow him, follow him to some tavern in the Frontier, stab him, and that's about it. So boring, so anticlimactic. No heartpounding chase or battle. And through all this, Connor gets the shit end of the stick. His village gets sent off their land so he's just kinda there maintaining the homestead. Feels like a terribly unfitting end to him.
- Desmond: Well you probably know by now I give exactly less than two shits about Desmond. He's a boring everyman character. His ending is also pretty bad. So you find that the key was just outside in Achilles grave. Seems a bit silly. Altair hid the Apple deep inside an assassin library/vault/whatever that was basically impenetrable. Connor throws the key to saving the world in some guy's grave. Okay. But anyway, so Desmond gets the key, opens the alien vault or whatever, and Minerva appears to tell him that Juno really had some elaborate master plot to save humanity but also enslave it. Desmond is told this and given two choices basically. He can let the world "end" but him and others will survive. He'll basically become Jesus. Not making this shit up. Minerva tells him this will happen. But since they need to shoehorn in some religious criticism they say that his words and vision will be twisted to justify wars and shit HURR HURR. Juno says "I'll save humanity but also rule it." But also Desmond will die because why the fuck not. So I was thinking "are they gonna give me multiple endings?" but no, Desmond chooses Juno, he fries, the world is saved from the solar event, and Juno says "Time to go to work." It was a lousy ending but it at least laid a decent framework for new games that don't involve the Animus... Like an Assassin's Creed game set in a dystopic future ruled by Juno? But who am I kidding, let's get pirates!
