After finishing Tunic as much as I was prepared to (I only got one of the two endings and will do no more because the rest of the stuff is seriously hidden too much if you ask me) I have been trying to figure out another game to move onto. People talk about Assassin's Creed games constantly but despite the fact that there are so many of them, and it is a type of game that I tend to enjoy, I have NEVER played any of them.
For whatever reason Sony decided to offer up nearly the entire back-library of AC games on PS-Plus Extra so I randomly chose one of them to get involved in.
So far it is reasonably entertaining but I can see that I am going to get annoyed at the repetitive gameplay pretty rapidly because I am an asshole who over-scrutinizes anything in relation to gaming.
Now you have to keep in mind that when I talk about this game I have no frame of reference because I have never played any of the myriad of titles in this franchise. It functions in a very similar fashion to a bunch of other semi-open-world games that function linearly if you want them to, with a ton of optional side missions. It is entirely up to you how you want to progress but as I have learned in many games in the past, trying to do everything that the map has to offer turns this into something that someone like me is going to be working on for a year. Therefore, I mostly stick to the main story until it becomes evident that I am too underpowered to proceed.
You've seen it in Horizon, you've seen it in the later God of War games, you've seen it in Ghost of Tsushima, you've seen it is Witcher. These games are all fundamentally the same but just have different mechanics and stories (of course.) I tend to enjoy this type of game but with all of them except for probably GoW, I tended to get tired of how all missions start to seem the same after a while.
In this one you are able to scope out any area that you are considering attacking with your falcon friend who does recon for you and then you are constantly able to keep tabs on where the defenders of the area are standing at all times. This opens up what I presume, after just a few hours of gameplay, is the meat and potatoes of the game: Luring them out one at a time to perform an stealth kill execution on them.
This is entertaining to me to a certain degree and I really enjoyed it the first 50 times or so that I performed a kill of this sort. Now though, and I hate to be complaining so early, it has become something that at times kind of annoys me that I have to spend a ton of time trying to find the position in the bushes where I can lure a hapless soldier in with a whistle. I will admit that I do enjoy the dialogue from these soldiers when they say things like "stop doing that!" or "it must be a bird, I'll check it out." I also find it amusing that they just walk towards a bush area that has 3 of their compatriot's corpses in it already and yet are kind of clueless to the fact that they might be walking into a bit of a dangerous situation.
So far, this is how a majority of my kills have taken form.
I do enjoy the archery side of things as well but it can get a bit annoying when you are backpedaling trying to get a few shots in before the enemy is upon you.
Ok, whine part over!
Despite the fact that this game is several years old, the graphics are still pretty good. The AI isn't the best but honestly, what else are they going to do? There are plenty of optional objectives to perform and I like the idea behind weakening an area's control so that the Spartans, who you are aligned with, can take over that portion of the map. I have no idea what this means in terms of what is going to happen later in the game, but this sort of progression appeals to me because it is, at least up to this point, completely up to you if you even want to do it or not.
The map can be a bit overwhelming because there are so many things to do. If you want to upgrade your equipment you can even just go hunting for animal skins for a while and this can be a fun diversion away from the main quest although I will say, as a noob, I don't really have a strategy for taking on a pack of wolves yet. At this point I feel like what we referred to as children as a "mad button masher." Dying doesn't have dire consequences so if you want to run in with swords swinging wildly, go ahead and go for it.
I've already discovered a "cheese tactic" of dispatching enemies that would clean my clock if I was to face them in a fair fight and this happened by accident. I was being pursued by two Mercenaries at once and taking on just one of them would have been tough for me to accomplish because they were 2 or 3 levels above me. I was able to outrun them though but they kept pursuing me in the region that I was trying to get stuff done in. I climbed up a high tower and popped an arrow at one of them and eventually he discovered my location and climbed up the ladder to get me. When he was near the top I did a kick on him and he fell to the ground doing a huge amount of damage which killed him. This was a fun surprise so I did it to the other guy as well. I fully plan to use this tactic well into the future.
I haven't really been in a boss fight thus far as I only just got off the main island after defeating "Cyclops" and this was a very easy fight by design. I would imagine that this same procedure is repeated many times over throughout the entire playing of the game.
So thus far, just after a couple of hours I can say that yes, I kind of enjoy this game but I don't know if it is really good enough to completely hold my interest. I do know one thing though, it takes so fucking long to load the game up from the main menu that I am actually hesitant to play other games. I really don't understand why this happens but I think that since it is constantly checking for new material that it probably has something to do with the microtransaction store that plagues so many AAA titles these days. I don't know who the fools are that are spending real world money on what is as far as I can tell a 1-player game, but they must exist!
I will continue to play this game for a few more hours I would imagine but honestly, I can already tell that this is a game that I am quite unlikely to 100% complete. To do so would likely take around 80-100 hours. For some reason, I enjoyed finishing both Horizon games as well as Ghost of Tsushima, but legendary titles like Witcher 3 failed to hold my interest. I can't even say exactly why that is but it is just a fact.
Time will tell!
by the way if you have a favorite AC game please let me know what it is because at the moment the PS-Plus Extra membership has given me access to around 10 of their titles.