Thank you, Hero. Assassin's Creed is one of the most unique games ever made, and I often say that it unfortunately never received a sequel that genuinely followed-up on its essence and the creative things it was actually trying to do. I feel like a lot of players who give it an honest try today, be open to its nuances and weird idiosyncrasies would find something really special that's like no other videogame -- in both narrative and mechanics. (And the crazy-interesting merger of both that results.)
I find it particularly worthy in our era of endless sequels & remakes. Often aspects of an original work get dropped or downplayed in later titles, and the teams behind such titles completely change. There's that lingering question of "what if" the sequels went a different direction, emphasising a different part of the original work.
The entire game being a computer simulation also is like Prince of Persia. That game also uses a framing device of the titular Prince telling a tale. Pretty clever way of contextualising game overs and such.
When guards react to a takedown, one of them chosen at random will do something special that sets his animation apart from everyone else. There are a bunch of different options the game can choose from. This is your telegraph to switch weapons, because it means that specific guard is vulnerable to being assassinated with the hidden blade - yes, in the middle of combat. When they taunt you it also has the same effect. The trick is getting to your target fast enough before your window of opportunity closes. Quickstep can help, but if there's another guard or obstacle in the way you might bump into them. In the settings there's something called "hold to lock." Turn this on. You now have to keep left trigger held down to stay in combat stance, but it also makes it easier to break free from the movement restrictions and run circles around guards like Dark Souls speedrunners do with bosses. You can even break the game by exiting high profile just before you assassinate your target so you can exit the animation faster and reach the next cowering target, and the next one after that, and so on and so forth until they're all dead. If you're having trouble I have a playlist full of examples You can draw a blade to make beggars flee with minimal social consequence. Maniacs are always a risk to approach, but punching can pacify them Okay, so I wrote a whole section on intel and planning like I normally do with the assumption you didn't find the memory log, but in this case you did and still didn't find much strategy, so I'm not sure how to handle this. Most of the strategy in the main assassination missions comes from before they even begin. The idea is to plan out how you're *going* to do it, not to reference the intel by the time you're already compromised. Some of it does require additional context. Static guards you kill before triggering the intro cutscene stay dead for the duration of the mission so you'll know where you can safely go without getting swarmed. The allied crowds stay in the same place, so you can plan to meet them at a certain point. While I wish you could view multiple pieces of intel at once, the cross-referencing is part of your analysis skills the game is testing. Try taking screenshots of them to make things easier, especially since they sometimes need to be rotated to orient towards North. You may even want to visit the location ahead of time and practice any complex parkour your plan relies on. The trick to avoiding the city alert is either be blending inside a scholar group or eliminate every guard who could hear you assassinate the main target since you're otherwise locked to high profile. You can account for pretty much everything that could go wrong during an assassination before it even happens. Granted, this games gives you way too much HP to get away with bad planning, but if you're not finding strategy in these systems you're not trying hard enough, I don't know what else to tell you. There's a certain roleplaying aspect to the game allowing you to be this overprepared assassin, like how Batman has contingency plans for everything, except you're actually coming up with them yourself The side missions are especially rewarding if you seek them out using only diegetic information. You've already had your attention grabbed by some of them by accident, but you can reach that point intentionally without using map markers too. When the rafiq briefs you on your mission, he'll outline three points of interest by name and which direction they are from the bureau. Try using Wiktionary to help parse the Arabic. Once you head off in the right direction you should be able to see it by climbing a viewpoint and not synchronizing it - just use your eyes. Once you parkour doen to ground level that's where the noise of the streets and crowd behavior will narrow it down, like how one herald will be saying something different than all the rest. If you're not sure you can always just can the person of interest with Eagle Vision to see if they're an objective. AC1 was originally designed to be played with no HUD at all, and it takes many considerations to make that possible, like how you can identify the bureau by its green, onion-shaped tower, which viewpoints you haven't synchronized by the eagles circling them, when you're at low health by the flashing red VFX, and even which weapon you have equipped by pressing the button to select it again so Altaïr draws it. Map markers, mission reminders, detection indicators, wallhacks - these are artificial assists we've come to rely on in place of organic information that immerses you in the world and requires strategizing how you obtain it, but many games that have these things such as Marvel's Spider-Man can absolutely be explored naturally if you train yourself to reject them. The "Ubisoft formula" of scouting a district's side content and then robotically collecting it is not mandated by the game, it's not a design philosophy, it's a player philosophy. AC1 is the perfect game to start you on this journey that makes open worlds so fresh to engage with again As established, the hidden blade is required to kill cowering guards, but the same restriction applies to floored guards, otherwise you'll just hack away at them with your sword or short blade. Ground stabs with the hidden blade are considered a takedown and will make an enemy cower. Counters with the hidden blade are also guarunteed kills, but they're very risky since they have such a tight timing window. The short blade will throw a knife at any out of range guard, killing them instantly (except Templars and main targets). The main way I like to use this is as a followup to a counter throw since that move will almost always put the target out of melee range, but you can also use it for sort of a pursuit combat style by jumping away to create space or even just backing off from guarding enemies since they move very slowly. Finally the sword has the widest counter window, making it your primary defensive tool. It will automatically draw when you lock back on so you have the best chance of saving yourself from an unexpected attack while repositioning Yep, not consistently mandating good combo timing is a huge issue with this game's combat. You can also do heavy combos to reduce the number of consecutive inputs required to earn a finisher by holding attack, then releasing it just as the blades connect and holding it again. Technically you can even mix any combination of light and heavy attacks into your combo as long as you time the beginning of each strike correctly While waiting for enemies to attack, they can grab you or break your defense, robbing you of your counter opportunity. If you don't have the counter throw or dodge unlocked respectively, you may not even be able to deal with this. If you mess it up, they can even do combos on you! Anything you can do with the sword, they can do too. That's the risk you take by relying on defensive moves and only one weapon. The only way to get an advantage is by using weapons they don't have and are unprepared for You can get extra leg breaks by mashing legs during those really long counters where the enemy slowly falls over (I didn't notice any pictured in your footage). This will give you both a cowering enemy *and* a ground stab opportunity so you can really capitalize with the hidden blade afterwards. Alternatively you can mash attack to turn it into a special kill, which is mostly useful near the end of a fight to make the whole group flee Finally it's hard to tell where you're at with parkour. Most of your clips have constant fishtailing, overshooting, and accidental ejects, but there was one that looked very deliberate and even a clean air vault, so maybe you figured it out later. As always, I recommend Leo K [Rogue]'s "[Rogue Academy] Classic Assassin's Creed | Movement Guide." He's currently the top commenter, so his channel is hard to miss. The idea is to minimize the use of free climbing because it's so agonizingly slow, that's just the glue to hold together the acontextual platforming you can do from any altititude and any position. Uncontrolled jumps are a result of having the extremely dangerous sprint button held down at all times. The way you get down from things safely is by letting go. If you've got it down already we also have Ultimate Parkour Mod now, which can inject a ton of depth and a whole new learning curve into a replay
One of my favourite aspects of AC1 was its use of the chase theme Access The Animus. The rest of the OST feels very fitting for the environment Altair explores but when you assassinate a target, you get this haunting almost tech-y sounding tune that plays while you're incognito until suddenly BAM. You get caught my favourite part of the tune when you're caught by a guard or fleeing after an assassination and it shifts to this high octane adrenaline filled tune that does not fit the era but in a good way. Coupled with the noise of the bells ringing when you've assassinated and it sells the tension, you've assassinated not only your templar target but a public figure high in the food chain and the entire city guard is on your ass, especially if you've done the sidequests (Which, due to being part of getting 100% synchronization means that Altair DID indeed help out the civilians of the cities.) where you help out civilians who in turn will grab and hold off guards chasing you. It's like the mere act of assassinating your target while you flee to the Bureau to hide out till the heat dies off has ignited a full scale war between the civilians and the corrupt guard and YOU were the catalyst. I like the chase themes in later games but I remember as a kid during a second playthrough of AC2 I got to the target after you get your hidden gun and out of curiosity I muted the game and played the main chase part of Access The Animus and lo and behold it was just as effective as it was in AC1, goes to show just how good and atmospheric the OST for AC1 was.
The chase is one of the most important parts of the franchise imo. It really goes to show that assassins weren't these warriors they portray them as. It showcases how much of an insect you are. Also I loved the fact that to the crowd, they weren't seen as knights in shining armor, but as killers. You see people scared and panicking in the trailer, and in game. Also, the mpact of killing a target is so great. When that stab happens, you're left fending for your life with high adrenaline. When you're finally safe and in hiding mode, as the music simmers down, you're sort of left with the guilt of killing someone. What I love about the themes of the original game was how death wasn't treated as some comedic gag, it was treated seriously, uncomfortable even. The music slowing down and ringing bells leaves you to rethink the actions you did when assasinating a target. Especially after the target just previously gave their thoughts, beliefs, and inputs.
After having played most AC games (as an adult), I can confidently say that the Ezio Saga (even though it is a lot of fun) completely ruined the essence of the first game. The tonal differences between AC1 and AC2/B/R are SO GREAT that they are essentially in different genres altogether imo. And it all boils down to the protagonist of each game, and his relationship WITH the story. As in the story contained within the life of the protagonists, if that makes any sense. AC1 is a spy thriller, where the MC, Altair, is an inducted member to a shadowy organization that hides throughout history and uses assassinations to influence politics against ANOTHER equally shadowy organization who attempts to do the exact same thing but usually through politics itself, rather than exclusively through assassination. All because both groups cannot agree on the fundamental values that they both hold to higher standards. The Templars are active, they manipulate and coerce through industry, commerce, politics, religion, etc, whatever the cost, so they can maintain "control" on mankind, as they believe the greatest danger to their ideals is freedom. The Assassins are reactive, they kill the Templars as a way to stop their plans and schemes. They believe a life under the thumb of the Templars to be an insult to mankind. AC2/B/R is a Hollywood spy movie, where the MC, Ezio, is a cunning, smooth talking, and dressed to kill type of assassin, who comes into a dying organization to revitalize it, as a means to fulfill a vendetta against the death of his family. Eventually it becomes about revitalizing the Brotherhood, and making you into a god amongst men and assassins, turning you into a living legend. Do you get the difference? Yes, Ezio's quest is a much more personal one, but it sheds the complexity of the first game. It's no longer shades of gray, it's just evil vs good. In AC1 Altair kills his marks and ANYONE who stands between him and them, because it is what Assassins do. Yes, they won't kill the "innocent", but you can see Altair kill guards who are doing nothing but their jobs, and you kill those who are indirectly connected to the Templars even IF they didn't even knew about it before meeting Altair. In AC2/B/R Ezio kills his marks as well, and he kills the guards, but the game always tries to show all these people as being evil. The guard are ALWAYS corrupt, killing them is cool. They aren't people, they are "eViL" because they stand against you, Ezio. The hero. The Templars are purposefully hiring evil guards across Italy and that makes it okay to kill them. They are mooks for the bad guys always. The success of Ezio's saga made EVERY. SINGLE. AC GAME. Into the same game genre, where the Templars are evil and the Assassin's the good guys. When both should be much more complex than that.
You can blame Ubislop for demanding the change in the story's tone for Ezio's trilogy. Seeing things in black and white seems more comfortable to them than seeing them in grey.
First off, been following you since the old days, so welcome back! Second, this game is shat on unnecessarily by so many people because AC2's mechanical improvements but the narrative & philosophy of AC1 cannot be beat. Thank you so much for doing this.
To this day it's my favorite entry in the series. Stealth was more important, the game as a whole was way more atmospheric. I swear it was the best looking game in the series until Unity. The climbing to lookout point stuff hadn't been done to death. Assassin's Creed was pretty fresh for its time and I feel it still holds up rather well. More so than it's sequels because it's not so ingrained in today's standard Ubisoft formula
This is quite a step up from the usual assasins creed content i find since no one talks about the original. Its is might i even dare to say it 00:05 a leap of faith
I've been really big on the idea that AC1 is probably the best in the franchise for a while. Fundamentally I think it is a cool and gritty game, that has an amazing plot. The slow unravelling of the conspiracy in the past and present is genuinely a treat and we will never get anything like that in an AC game ever again. The "leap of faith" dialogue you put in the start is such a cool line, and it makes me appreciate how serious the game takes itself without being self indulgent. I think a lot of work went into creating such a sinister and oppressive atmosphere.
My boi Altair redeemed himself, worked his way back to a Master Assassin, had to kill his Mentor, took over the Assassin's, exhiled asfter a coup, lost his oldest son, returned to the Assassin's, then led them again until he was 92. And people skipped his game.
I dig these types of videos you make highlighting how underrated the first game in it's insert franchise is. Most people will tell you how bad they are and "tough them out" just to rush their sequels without respecting or understanding the evolution of a franchise starting from its core root that started it all
I will get around to watching this but I'm happy to see someone championing this idea. The original AC felt like a cross between Prince of Persia and Hitman, with a methodical slow pace and heavy sci-fi and historical elements. The sequel was great, but in restrospect was the blueprint for nearly every single open world Ubisoft games to follow (and wear out their welcome). Something was missed along the way. I remember being a generation behind on consoles and going round a friends house who owned this and a PS3, I was geniunely blown away by how it looked and handled. Edit: Watched and agreed on everything. Also god damn is that how the game looked? I think the ACII remaster sullied the original vision in my head because from the footage you're showing it still looks great and not far at all from what I remember.
I always loved the way you articulated your thoughts on games. It’s funny cuz we share so many similar favorite games, your takes really challenge yet educate my knowledge of this medium. Great job man.
After this first game, AC lost almost everything that made the first game special. The compelling writing, the atmosphere, the social stealth, and anything worthwhile at all happening in the Desmond storyline. Ubisoft refined parts of the experience for 2 and beyond, like having more compelling mission structures, but this remains my favorite. Even after, god knows how many other entries, there's still never been an Assassin's Creed quite like the first, and that's not something you can say about any of the other AC games.
Even if it's the most repetitive AC in the franchise, Its still my favorite. The mistery in the past and present time , the different ambient and color palette between each city making it very unique, how fun and realistic the parkour felt back in the day and even now, etc. Even if AC2 is considered the better game, I still prefeer the setting and novelty of AC1.
Ubisoft, give the rights to Patrice Desilets. I honestly don't care about any new AC game Ubisoft releases at this point. Patrice was one of creatives, him and his team helped make the AC franchise. Now after being fired/quitting Ubiosft, he has his own developers team called Panache Digital Games, under the publisher Private Division.
Another cool implication of trading the traditional health bar for a synchronization bar implies that Altair never took damage in combat, as taking damage causes de-synchronization.
Today people like to hate the 1st AC saying it was just a tech demo but it was really something special. The series peaked with Ezio's storyline and then lost its originality, focus and charm. Now it's really just a cash grab, just another Ubisoft open world game.
@@RedLegend13 maybe in your bizzaro world. because you can't separate players, critics, and one time consumers. look up critics of the time everyone hated it. like even start with your favourite yahtzee. video, the actual evidence of the time. search the forums the boards the blogs. it became "the template" because ubi paid to gamesjournospros, who were always literally working for the publishers on direct cash transactions. nintendo power has nintendo in the name. and it was sold to people who never played games before it. it's literally on the watershed of 2008 yankee crisis when gaming has died and was replaced with fastfood serving people who don't care about games the same hamburger for 20 years. literally since 2008 yankee crisis we have all these copypasted same games every year. only children who have never lived in a world without yearly releases and mobile gacha lootboxes think this is how the things should be. on release everyone hated it.
Ubisoft games are (or at-least were) almost always worthwhile just for their unparalleled art direction and aesthetic sensibilities especially with their premiere franchises like assassins creed and far cry inspite of the often lacking fun and video gamey elements. When they eventually sell ubisoft i hope the art team stays intact and rehabilitated to a more worthy studio or company because they are hands down one of the best in the industry. Love to see some nuanced takes on their games.
True dat. It’s actually the best one in terms of a raw stealth game. I’m still mad Ubisoft got rid of the multiplayer from Brotherhood to Unity, though.
As a kid I was always pretty intrigued by the modern day aspects of AC, I remember spending a lot of time just walking around the lab to find whatever tidbits I could and spent a decent amount of time thinking about the potential of a fully modern day game. Glad I'm not the only one who found that stuff interesting.
Maaaaan, I haven't finished the video yet, but thank you for this. People look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them AC1 was my favorite (followed closely by Black Flag, but let's be real, that's because it looks like Sid Meier's Pirates! looks in my childhood memories).
FINALLY someone respecting the og AC, this is the only one in the franchise that has true intentionality in every aspect of it's design. Never has such a promising game been ruined so quickly by it's own developers, 2 was already extremely confused and uncohissive
I remember me and my cousin playing this around launch and getting mindblown at the whole modern day twist. The PS360 era really is the last time I remember being impressed by tech getting better in gaming, it feels like devs used the power of the new consoles to try and actually make gameplay systems that you couldn't realistically pull of on the PS2/GC/Xbox but by the PS4/Xbone generation most of the gameplay trends where already just re-threading ground from the end of the PS360 era.
Apparently he wanted to do a Persian voice for him in that game to make it sound more authentic but the voice directors wanted him to just do his normal voice.
@@TheMockingjay74 I remember he came back and did one for assassins creed revelations but they replaced before release for some reason. You can find cut dialogue by him on UA-cam.
I got into Assassin's Creed relatively late, and I remember picking up the first game out of curiosity one day and being so affected by the cliffhanger at the end that I IMMEDIATELY drove to GameStop to buy the second game.
The first Assassin's Creed still holds up as a fantastic action adventure game with a fun pulp narrative and exquisite gameplay. And apparently, Assassin's Creed II is meant to be even better, so once I get off my butt and finish the story of Altair unearthing a Templar conspiracy involving the Apple of Eden, I'll happily wash it down with Ezio's coming of age journey.
I feel like AC1 needed a follow up so badly that kept the stealth focus it had while ironing out so, so many issues like the insane repetition. I feel like there's such a great framework here for a masterpiece of stealth games. Just need to make the assasinations more open ended, integrate the parkour with the stealth better, give a wider toolset, make it so you dont have to do the pre mission 30 minute grind every time you want to replay a mission, etc. Bloodlines on the PSP is the closest we got to a proper follow up to AC1, including the same cold nihilistic digital feel. But that's a handheld side game and doesn't fix much of the issues (plus is even worse with the repetition and pre mission grind) that AC1 had.
Insane! my AC1 thoughts more than 10 years ago are laid out exactly as a remembered (written and narrated well) - SciFi conspiracy adding to the lore, UI design, creed rules, assassination sequences. You even suggested AC games to be more like Hitman, which I thought AC1 to be a proto-Hitman. Would add that the historical angle helped creating intrigue in the era, so when I read about the actual Hashashin order, made the game (and most AC sequels even more special)
If you don't like Desmond, you aren't an Assassin's Creed fan. I hate that people basically memed Desmond into irrelevance and now Ezio is the face of the series.
They actually explain why Desmond looked like both Altair and Ezio in AC 1-Revelations. Basically it's because the Animus was originally programmed to just copy paste the subject's head and face, and it wasn't until later Animus iterations where it recreates the ancestor's actual appearance.
I've never played an Assassin's Creed game and I had no idea that the setting is simulated. That said, this game is fascinating. I had no idea the white HUD/UI elements started here, and the fact that a game from 2007 looks that good really goes to show how much the PS3/360 generation is slept on.
i played through 2 a while back recently after remembering it as a pretty good sequel and literally once you get to the point where you can perform parries/counters on enemies it like literally completely breaks the combat - you have to be paying such little attention to take literally like any damage at all in an encounter lol. i also remember in brotherhood and onward they specifically seemed to build into your ability to just counter-one shot enemies by making it possible to chain them together which on one hand makes for an almost interesting kind of arcadey power fantasy gameloop, but also showed a point where 3 games in they'd already drifted too far from keeping stealth as the focus. i think a lot of people shared your theory about desmond and a lot of people assumed a third game would be all modern day stealth action. we're like a dozen titles in at this point and its clear thats never happening and if anything, ubisoft regret the whole abstergo-sim framing and much rather the series sticks to really just being a historical action-adventure sim with light stealth elements at this point - which i think is a real shame. 1 isnt a perfect game by any means, but you highlight a lot of the ways they were trying out some really interesting things that would've been fertile ground to expand on properly in a sequel. it's frustrating to see how visibly derailed the series became between all the spinoffs and sequels and how much of the core identity has been lost at this point. even if altairs white hooded robes made the most sense specifically in 1, it was a really cool visual trademark for all the player characters from that point onward, and felt like something way too iconic to the series to be disgarded - but now your "assassin" just looks like a stereotypical roman soldier or viking. i legitimately do not know if they still even have the hidden blades in there anymore.
They should've narrowed the parry time by a lot or kept it as a late game unlock. I remember the first few hours of combat felt difficult and more dynamic when you couldn't just spam parry. And from what I remember the 2nd game has it given to the player immediately which makes 2 feel so much easier.
It's funny, because a lot of Ubisoft other games in the stealth category had these elements you suggested they added, splinter cell had the sound and lighting part where depending on ambient light and sound you could move more or less quickly, you could open doors quietly or violently, the rainbow six (the first few) asked you to plan for a quick fight because you were as fragile as your opponents, watch dogs (the first one, I haven't played the others) was a really cool potential partial template for AC had it reached modern day with guns and hacking, ghost recon wildlands (I think?) had some interesting stealth that felt like an appropriate evolution on what watch dogs had done but with fewer gadjet, far cry 3 and 4 were pretty cool twists on the AC formula in a way... Okay I might not have a very good memory of Ubisoft catalogue of games but you get the idea, it's like they spread all of these ideas across different games and never thought they should bring them together.
Excellent look back at an underappreciated game! Crazy to say that about the first entry in a franchise as big as AC but most people seem to start with AC2. Personally, I only ever really gelled with the first entry. Something about AC2 just didn't impress me in the same way and I haven't given the franchise another shot since. AC1 is a little underbaked but it was a novel, ambitious stealth title for its time and was arguably the end of Ubisoft at their peak creativity and prestige.
Yes!! Thank you for saying this. Assassins creed 1 has a hidden genius behind it and is the only game in the series where you feel like you're an actual assassin. It's also the only one that lets you choose how to approach a target with the hints and maps you're given, while later games started becoming more linear. Altair is also a cool character. The modern day story also has some interesting stuff in it. I can tell kojima liked those since they go for some of the same ideas the mgs games do, peace walker even has a funny leap of faith Easter egg. And for better or worse it was probably the most influential of its time aside from call of duty 4. I like to call assassins creed the "lost" of video games if anyones ever watched that, how it started off with a really good premise but eventually started to decline hard in quality. You can see the series gets hijacked by brotherhood.
It was a great concept game/tech demo done right. Too bad Ubisoft lost they faith and eventually lost sight of what really was great and good about Assassins Creed. Great video, Hero man! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I wasn't aware of the meaning behind altair's name and the bird like aspects of his design, but that kinda makes me appreciate how unique his design was. I never was super into the other designs other assassin's in the series had as they just felt sorta gimmicky and not quite as inspired. Assassins'creed 1 really stands as one of the defining games of that generation and a stand out game in the stealth genre and I think you summed it pretty well. While I liked the second back then, the first one was the more interesting and inspired game by comparison. It works well enough as a stand alone game and experience that games just lost the magic and doubled down in frankly more idiotic directions. That original idea for what desmond was gonna be would've been really great to see pan out and it sucks ubisoft dropped that. Conceptually it sounded like a new way of progressing in a game and series both in narrative and in gameplay. Assassin's Creed like many series of the 7th gen started off with promise and really had a strong foundation that was never realized or followed up on and is probably one of the bigger offenders of that, next to Mass effect. This and your infamous vs prototype vids I think are your best material and subject in a while.
I forget not everyone played this game when it came out, great video to bring context for people that dont know edit I never knew about this cutscene glitch mechanic. holy crap 😮
I didn't quite appreciate AC1 that much when I played it as a child but I do hope I can find an opportunity to play it now that I'm an adult. And also play AC2 with that cool parkour mod on top though, it's been so long since I played that and playing it differently wojld be fun.
Kind of funny you mention Metal Gear Solid maybe taking the horse stealth mechanic from AC and mention Shadow of the Colossus right after. I think it's more likely Kojima or someone on the team took that particular mechanic of bending to the side of the horse from Shadow of the Colossus since that's something you can do in that game.
I always felt that InFamous could cross over with AC, specially earlier trilogy. Kessler designs feels like he went back and learned from the Hidden Ones and brought that to the FS, least to me. Also, the Ray Sphere looks like the artifacts.
So much is lost with the newer games. Assassins creed odyssey didnt even have social stealth. The modern day portion which although confusing was really interesting is a shell of its former self. The focus on historical accuracy and authenticity is gone. They didnt even add the crossbow in the first game bc it wasnt accurate.
Repetitive quests aside, AssCreed 1 is the game I have sole respect for in this franchise. There was an awesome idea behind it, and unlike the rest of the inferior sequels afterwards you actually had more freedom to complete the game in ways you could figure out without being wheeled around like a 5 year-old. Unpopular opinion but the ancient aliens stuff was stupid and I wish AC stuck to just the grounded historical stuff as was the original intention.
nope desmond,and the isu are like the main point. you in the present use the past to fight for a future where people aren't controlled by ancient civilization technology
To be honest I’ve always felt that Ac1 was a true assassins creed game, not because it was the first. Mainly because it made you feel like assassin going through day to day tasks. I do like ac2 but it’s more of an action-paced experience, but it Kept going towards more action with each new game instead of being assassin with an interesting plot.
Thank you, Hero. Assassin's Creed is one of the most unique games ever made, and I often say that it unfortunately never received a sequel that genuinely followed-up on its essence and the creative things it was actually trying to do. I feel like a lot of players who give it an honest try today, be open to its nuances and weird idiosyncrasies would find something really special that's like no other videogame -- in both narrative and mechanics. (And the crazy-interesting merger of both that results.)
i always hated how people hated the Desmond storyline, to me it was always essential to the entire point of assassin's creed
I approve of this "respect the original X" format returning
I find it particularly worthy in our era of endless sequels & remakes. Often aspects of an original work get dropped or downplayed in later titles, and the teams behind such titles completely change.
There's that lingering question of "what if" the sequels went a different direction, emphasising a different part of the original work.
The entire game being a computer simulation also is like Prince of Persia. That game also uses a framing device of the titular Prince telling a tale. Pretty clever way of contextualising game overs and such.
When guards react to a takedown, one of them chosen at random will do something special that sets his animation apart from everyone else. There are a bunch of different options the game can choose from. This is your telegraph to switch weapons, because it means that specific guard is vulnerable to being assassinated with the hidden blade - yes, in the middle of combat. When they taunt you it also has the same effect. The trick is getting to your target fast enough before your window of opportunity closes. Quickstep can help, but if there's another guard or obstacle in the way you might bump into them. In the settings there's something called "hold to lock." Turn this on. You now have to keep left trigger held down to stay in combat stance, but it also makes it easier to break free from the movement restrictions and run circles around guards like Dark Souls speedrunners do with bosses. You can even break the game by exiting high profile just before you assassinate your target so you can exit the animation faster and reach the next cowering target, and the next one after that, and so on and so forth until they're all dead. If you're having trouble I have a playlist full of examples
You can draw a blade to make beggars flee with minimal social consequence. Maniacs are always a risk to approach, but punching can pacify them
Okay, so I wrote a whole section on intel and planning like I normally do with the assumption you didn't find the memory log, but in this case you did and still didn't find much strategy, so I'm not sure how to handle this. Most of the strategy in the main assassination missions comes from before they even begin. The idea is to plan out how you're *going* to do it, not to reference the intel by the time you're already compromised. Some of it does require additional context. Static guards you kill before triggering the intro cutscene stay dead for the duration of the mission so you'll know where you can safely go without getting swarmed. The allied crowds stay in the same place, so you can plan to meet them at a certain point. While I wish you could view multiple pieces of intel at once, the cross-referencing is part of your analysis skills the game is testing. Try taking screenshots of them to make things easier, especially since they sometimes need to be rotated to orient towards North. You may even want to visit the location ahead of time and practice any complex parkour your plan relies on. The trick to avoiding the city alert is either be blending inside a scholar group or eliminate every guard who could hear you assassinate the main target since you're otherwise locked to high profile. You can account for pretty much everything that could go wrong during an assassination before it even happens. Granted, this games gives you way too much HP to get away with bad planning, but if you're not finding strategy in these systems you're not trying hard enough, I don't know what else to tell you. There's a certain roleplaying aspect to the game allowing you to be this overprepared assassin, like how Batman has contingency plans for everything, except you're actually coming up with them yourself
The side missions are especially rewarding if you seek them out using only diegetic information. You've already had your attention grabbed by some of them by accident, but you can reach that point intentionally without using map markers too. When the rafiq briefs you on your mission, he'll outline three points of interest by name and which direction they are from the bureau. Try using Wiktionary to help parse the Arabic. Once you head off in the right direction you should be able to see it by climbing a viewpoint and not synchronizing it - just use your eyes. Once you parkour doen to ground level that's where the noise of the streets and crowd behavior will narrow it down, like how one herald will be saying something different than all the rest. If you're not sure you can always just can the person of interest with Eagle Vision to see if they're an objective. AC1 was originally designed to be played with no HUD at all, and it takes many considerations to make that possible, like how you can identify the bureau by its green, onion-shaped tower, which viewpoints you haven't synchronized by the eagles circling them, when you're at low health by the flashing red VFX, and even which weapon you have equipped by pressing the button to select it again so Altaïr draws it. Map markers, mission reminders, detection indicators, wallhacks - these are artificial assists we've come to rely on in place of organic information that immerses you in the world and requires strategizing how you obtain it, but many games that have these things such as Marvel's Spider-Man can absolutely be explored naturally if you train yourself to reject them. The "Ubisoft formula" of scouting a district's side content and then robotically collecting it is not mandated by the game, it's not a design philosophy, it's a player philosophy. AC1 is the perfect game to start you on this journey that makes open worlds so fresh to engage with again
As established, the hidden blade is required to kill cowering guards, but the same restriction applies to floored guards, otherwise you'll just hack away at them with your sword or short blade. Ground stabs with the hidden blade are considered a takedown and will make an enemy cower. Counters with the hidden blade are also guarunteed kills, but they're very risky since they have such a tight timing window. The short blade will throw a knife at any out of range guard, killing them instantly (except Templars and main targets). The main way I like to use this is as a followup to a counter throw since that move will almost always put the target out of melee range, but you can also use it for sort of a pursuit combat style by jumping away to create space or even just backing off from guarding enemies since they move very slowly. Finally the sword has the widest counter window, making it your primary defensive tool. It will automatically draw when you lock back on so you have the best chance of saving yourself from an unexpected attack while repositioning
Yep, not consistently mandating good combo timing is a huge issue with this game's combat. You can also do heavy combos to reduce the number of consecutive inputs required to earn a finisher by holding attack, then releasing it just as the blades connect and holding it again. Technically you can even mix any combination of light and heavy attacks into your combo as long as you time the beginning of each strike correctly
While waiting for enemies to attack, they can grab you or break your defense, robbing you of your counter opportunity. If you don't have the counter throw or dodge unlocked respectively, you may not even be able to deal with this. If you mess it up, they can even do combos on you! Anything you can do with the sword, they can do too. That's the risk you take by relying on defensive moves and only one weapon. The only way to get an advantage is by using weapons they don't have and are unprepared for
You can get extra leg breaks by mashing legs during those really long counters where the enemy slowly falls over (I didn't notice any pictured in your footage). This will give you both a cowering enemy *and* a ground stab opportunity so you can really capitalize with the hidden blade afterwards. Alternatively you can mash attack to turn it into a special kill, which is mostly useful near the end of a fight to make the whole group flee
Finally it's hard to tell where you're at with parkour. Most of your clips have constant fishtailing, overshooting, and accidental ejects, but there was one that looked very deliberate and even a clean air vault, so maybe you figured it out later. As always, I recommend Leo K [Rogue]'s "[Rogue Academy] Classic Assassin's Creed | Movement Guide." He's currently the top commenter, so his channel is hard to miss. The idea is to minimize the use of free climbing because it's so agonizingly slow, that's just the glue to hold together the acontextual platforming you can do from any altititude and any position. Uncontrolled jumps are a result of having the extremely dangerous sprint button held down at all times. The way you get down from things safely is by letting go. If you've got it down already we also have Ultimate Parkour Mod now, which can inject a ton of depth and a whole new learning curve into a replay
It's like 2016 all over again, HyperBitHero rolling out hit after hit.
One of my favourite aspects of AC1 was its use of the chase theme Access The Animus. The rest of the OST feels very fitting for the environment Altair explores but when you assassinate a target, you get this haunting almost tech-y sounding tune that plays while you're incognito until suddenly BAM. You get caught my favourite part of the tune when you're caught by a guard or fleeing after an assassination and it shifts to this high octane adrenaline filled tune that does not fit the era but in a good way.
Coupled with the noise of the bells ringing when you've assassinated and it sells the tension, you've assassinated not only your templar target but a public figure high in the food chain and the entire city guard is on your ass, especially if you've done the sidequests (Which, due to being part of getting 100% synchronization means that Altair DID indeed help out the civilians of the cities.) where you help out civilians who in turn will grab and hold off guards chasing you. It's like the mere act of assassinating your target while you flee to the Bureau to hide out till the heat dies off has ignited a full scale war between the civilians and the corrupt guard and YOU were the catalyst.
I like the chase themes in later games but I remember as a kid during a second playthrough of AC2 I got to the target after you get your hidden gun and out of curiosity I muted the game and played the main chase part of Access The Animus and lo and behold it was just as effective as it was in AC1, goes to show just how good and atmospheric the OST for AC1 was.
The chase is one of the most important parts of the franchise imo. It really goes to show that assassins weren't these warriors they portray them as. It showcases how much of an insect you are. Also I loved the fact that to the crowd, they weren't seen as knights in shining armor, but as killers. You see people scared and panicking in the trailer, and in game.
Also, the mpact of killing a target is so great. When that stab happens, you're left fending for your life with high adrenaline. When you're finally safe and in hiding mode, as the music simmers down, you're sort of left with the guilt of killing someone. What I love about the themes of the original game was how death wasn't treated as some comedic gag, it was treated seriously, uncomfortable even. The music slowing down and ringing bells leaves you to rethink the actions you did when assasinating a target. Especially after the target just previously gave their thoughts, beliefs, and inputs.
After having played most AC games (as an adult), I can confidently say that the Ezio Saga (even though it is a lot of fun) completely ruined the essence of the first game.
The tonal differences between AC1 and AC2/B/R are SO GREAT that they are essentially in different genres altogether imo.
And it all boils down to the protagonist of each game, and his relationship WITH the story. As in the story contained within the life of the protagonists, if that makes any sense.
AC1 is a spy thriller, where the MC, Altair, is an inducted member to a shadowy organization that hides throughout history and uses assassinations to influence politics against ANOTHER equally shadowy organization who attempts to do the exact same thing but usually through politics itself, rather than exclusively through assassination.
All because both groups cannot agree on the fundamental values that they both hold to higher standards.
The Templars are active, they manipulate and coerce through industry, commerce, politics, religion, etc, whatever the cost, so they can maintain "control" on mankind, as they believe the greatest danger to their ideals is freedom.
The Assassins are reactive, they kill the Templars as a way to stop their plans and schemes. They believe a life under the thumb of the Templars to be an insult to mankind.
AC2/B/R is a Hollywood spy movie, where the MC, Ezio, is a cunning, smooth talking, and dressed to kill type of assassin, who comes into a dying organization to revitalize it, as a means to fulfill a vendetta against the death of his family. Eventually it becomes about revitalizing the Brotherhood, and making you into a god amongst men and assassins, turning you into a living legend.
Do you get the difference?
Yes, Ezio's quest is a much more personal one, but it sheds the complexity of the first game.
It's no longer shades of gray, it's just evil vs good.
In AC1 Altair kills his marks and ANYONE who stands between him and them, because it is what Assassins do. Yes, they won't kill the "innocent", but you can see Altair kill guards who are doing nothing but their jobs, and you kill those who are indirectly connected to the Templars even IF they didn't even knew about it before meeting Altair.
In AC2/B/R Ezio kills his marks as well, and he kills the guards, but the game always tries to show all these people as being evil. The guard are ALWAYS corrupt, killing them is cool.
They aren't people, they are "eViL" because they stand against you, Ezio. The hero. The Templars are purposefully hiring evil guards across Italy and that makes it okay to kill them. They are mooks for the bad guys always.
The success of Ezio's saga made EVERY. SINGLE. AC GAME. Into the same game genre, where the Templars are evil and the Assassin's the good guys. When both should be much more complex than that.
You can blame Ubislop for demanding the change in the story's tone for Ezio's trilogy. Seeing things in black and white seems more comfortable to them than seeing them in grey.
yeah but ac2 is actually a fun game
First off, been following you since the old days, so welcome back! Second, this game is shat on unnecessarily by so many people because AC2's mechanical improvements but the narrative & philosophy of AC1 cannot be beat. Thank you so much for doing this.
To this day it's my favorite entry in the series. Stealth was more important, the game as a whole was way more atmospheric. I swear it was the best looking game in the series until Unity.
The climbing to lookout point stuff hadn't been done to death. Assassin's Creed was pretty fresh for its time and I feel it still holds up rather well. More so than it's sequels because it's not so ingrained in today's standard Ubisoft formula
This is quite a step up from the usual assasins creed content i find since no one talks about the original. Its is might i even dare to say it 00:05 a leap of faith
"They'll beg for money that Altair doesnt carry"
*Cut just before decking a poor woman.
Great bit
I've been really big on the idea that AC1 is probably the best in the franchise for a while. Fundamentally I think it is a cool and gritty game, that has an amazing plot. The slow unravelling of the conspiracy in the past and present is genuinely a treat and we will never get anything like that in an AC game ever again. The "leap of faith" dialogue you put in the start is such a cool line, and it makes me appreciate how serious the game takes itself without being self indulgent. I think a lot of work went into creating such a sinister and oppressive atmosphere.
My boi Altair redeemed himself, worked his way back to a Master Assassin, had to kill his Mentor, took over the Assassin's, exhiled asfter a coup, lost his oldest son, returned to the Assassin's, then led them again until he was 92.
And people skipped his game.
I dig these types of videos you make highlighting how underrated the first game in it's insert franchise is. Most people will tell you how bad they are and "tough them out" just to rush their sequels without respecting or understanding the evolution of a franchise starting from its core root that started it all
I will get around to watching this but I'm happy to see someone championing this idea. The original AC felt like a cross between Prince of Persia and Hitman, with a methodical slow pace and heavy sci-fi and historical elements. The sequel was great, but in restrospect was the blueprint for nearly every single open world Ubisoft games to follow (and wear out their welcome). Something was missed along the way.
I remember being a generation behind on consoles and going round a friends house who owned this and a PS3, I was geniunely blown away by how it looked and handled.
Edit: Watched and agreed on everything. Also god damn is that how the game looked? I think the ACII remaster sullied the original vision in my head because from the footage you're showing it still looks great and not far at all from what I remember.
Altair my beloved
I always loved the way you articulated your thoughts on games. It’s funny cuz we share so many similar favorite games, your takes really challenge yet educate my knowledge of this medium. Great job man.
I had no idea about the glitches. I am really loving this analysis. Really making me appreciate this game!
After this first game, AC lost almost everything that made the first game special. The compelling writing, the atmosphere, the social stealth, and anything worthwhile at all happening in the Desmond storyline. Ubisoft refined parts of the experience for 2 and beyond, like having more compelling mission structures, but this remains my favorite. Even after, god knows how many other entries, there's still never been an Assassin's Creed quite like the first, and that's not something you can say about any of the other AC games.
Two videos in less than a month?!
ikr, we're getting spoiled
end of the yakuza 1 kiryu pfp era
The writing is certainly better in this game than every other game in the franchise.
Even if it's the most repetitive AC in the franchise, Its still my favorite. The mistery in the past and present time , the different ambient and color palette between each city making it very unique, how fun and realistic the parkour felt back in the day and even now, etc. Even if AC2 is considered the better game, I still prefeer the setting and novelty of AC1.
Ppl say this but will do 50 different side quests 20 times to get a different colored cape 😂
@@finalrambobino I rather have different cape than NOTHING at all after collecting buttload of flags
Ubisoft, give the rights to Patrice Desilets. I honestly don't care about any new AC game Ubisoft releases at this point.
Patrice was one of creatives, him and his team helped make the AC franchise. Now after being fired/quitting Ubiosft, he has his own developers team called Panache Digital Games, under the publisher Private Division.
Another cool implication of trading the traditional health bar for a synchronization bar implies that Altair never took damage in combat, as taking damage causes de-synchronization.
Today people like to hate the 1st AC saying it was just a tech demo but it was really something special. The series peaked with Ezio's storyline and then lost its originality, focus and charm. Now it's really just a cash grab, just another Ubisoft open world game.
you just got old to the point of nostalgia
it was not just terrible on release, it was also critically panned and hated by the audience
@@tsartomatonah i plaied ac 3 and 4 a couple years aftwr the first 1 and i didn't like them as much.
Not everyone plays games day 1
@@tsartomato
Maybe in the bizarro world you live in, but in the real world it was so successful it became the template for Ubi games going forward.
@@RedLegend13
maybe in your bizzaro world.
because you can't separate players, critics, and one time consumers. look up critics of the time everyone hated it. like even start with your favourite yahtzee. video, the actual evidence of the time. search the forums the boards the blogs.
it became "the template" because ubi paid to gamesjournospros, who were always literally working for the publishers on direct cash transactions. nintendo power has nintendo in the name. and it was sold to people who never played games before it. it's literally on the watershed of 2008 yankee crisis when gaming has died and was replaced with fastfood serving people who don't care about games the same hamburger for 20 years. literally since 2008 yankee crisis we have all these copypasted same games every year. only children who have never lived in a world without yearly releases and mobile gacha lootboxes think this is how the things should be. on release everyone hated it.
@@RedLegend13 ASSASSIN'S CREED (Zero Punctuation)
AC 1 is my favorite game, even Ac 2 being the First game i've played, there's something about Altair and the atmosphere that are unique even now
Josh Brolin Old Boy Remake profile picture is kino ngl lmao
Ubisoft games are (or at-least were) almost always worthwhile just for their unparalleled art direction and aesthetic sensibilities especially with their premiere franchises like assassins creed and far cry inspite of the often lacking fun and video gamey elements. When they eventually sell ubisoft i hope the art team stays intact and rehabilitated to a more worthy studio or company because they are hands down one of the best in the industry. Love to see some nuanced takes on their games.
never were. the company never did anything good
@@tsartomato dimwit
@@tsartomato far cry 2 and 3, splinter cell chaos theory, AC2 and 4
@@riverblack123 why are you listing the worst garbage of eternity?
@@riverblack123 all bad
2 uploads within a week? We eating good this year
A man of culture
True dat. It’s actually the best one in terms of a raw stealth game. I’m still mad Ubisoft got rid of the multiplayer from Brotherhood to Unity, though.
I always forget how good the music was in the first game. Great video lad!
As a kid I was always pretty intrigued by the modern day aspects of AC, I remember spending a lot of time just walking around the lab to find whatever tidbits I could and spent a decent amount of time thinking about the potential of a fully modern day game. Glad I'm not the only one who found that stuff interesting.
I think of ACII as a parody of AC.
I get what you mean, but damn, that's an interesting take😂
Maaaaan, I haven't finished the video yet, but thank you for this. People look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them AC1 was my favorite (followed closely by Black Flag, but let's be real, that's because it looks like Sid Meier's Pirates! looks in my childhood memories).
The man who saved the Yakuza series himself has just uploaded two videos in one month 🙀
Wipe your mouth when you're done
Clean the tip once you're done
FINALLY someone respecting the og AC, this is the only one in the franchise that has true intentionality in every aspect of it's design. Never has such a promising game been ruined so quickly by it's own developers, 2 was already extremely confused and uncohissive
I remember me and my cousin playing this around launch and getting mindblown at the whole modern day twist. The PS360 era really is the last time I remember being impressed by tech getting better in gaming, it feels like devs used the power of the new consoles to try and actually make gameplay systems that you couldn't realistically pull of on the PS2/GC/Xbox but by the PS4/Xbone generation most of the gameplay trends where already just re-threading ground from the end of the PS360 era.
Desmond saved us all back in 2012
Nolan North would voice the Prince in the 2008 Prince of Persia game too. Guy really was ubiquitous at one point.
Apparently he wanted to do a Persian voice for him in that game to make it sound more authentic but the voice directors wanted him to just do his normal voice.
@@NomadMonkey396You are thinking Phillip Shabazz
@@TheMockingjay74 I remember he came back and did one for assassins creed revelations but they replaced before release for some reason. You can find cut dialogue by him on UA-cam.
@@NomadMonkey396 Yeah. Cas Anvar from Lost. I think for that very reason. Oddly I heard he got into drama years after the launch of ACR
@@TheMockingjay74 That's cool, good on him. I remember seeing him on 24 and the expanse aswell.
was literally just talking about how much I really liked Ass Creed 1 to my coworker the other day. We love to see it.
Intro made me remember 13 year old me choosing whether Altair should face towards or away from who he's talking to depending on what looks cooler.
I got into Assassin's Creed relatively late, and I remember picking up the first game out of curiosity one day and being so affected by the cliffhanger at the end that I IMMEDIATELY drove to GameStop to buy the second game.
Are you telling me the monologing to the camera was present from the very first game? Shit man, time to replay the trilogy again. This is amazing
The first Assassin's Creed still holds up as a fantastic action adventure game with a fun pulp narrative and exquisite gameplay. And apparently, Assassin's Creed II is meant to be even better, so once I get off my butt and finish the story of Altair unearthing a Templar conspiracy involving the Apple of Eden, I'll happily wash it down with Ezio's coming of age journey.
I'm really baffled by the amount of depth the first game has. It's deeper and more nuanced than most games.
AC1 has some of the best dialogue in any game I've ever played
AC2: it's a me uncle mario
I feel like AC1 needed a follow up so badly that kept the stealth focus it had while ironing out so, so many issues like the insane repetition. I feel like there's such a great framework here for a masterpiece of stealth games. Just need to make the assasinations more open ended, integrate the parkour with the stealth better, give a wider toolset, make it so you dont have to do the pre mission 30 minute grind every time you want to replay a mission, etc.
Bloodlines on the PSP is the closest we got to a proper follow up to AC1, including the same cold nihilistic digital feel. But that's a handheld side game and doesn't fix much of the issues (plus is even worse with the repetition and pre mission grind) that AC1 had.
2 videos within a week?
I still remember the first time I saw the parkour of this game, it blew my mind so hard.
Abstergo was always more interesting than the ancient locations. A lot more mysterious and foreign.
I love AC1 so much, but I learned some new things by watching this. Thank you so much.
Insane! my AC1 thoughts more than 10 years ago are laid out exactly as a remembered (written and narrated well)
- SciFi conspiracy adding to the lore, UI design, creed rules, assassination sequences. You even suggested AC games to be more like Hitman, which I thought AC1 to be a proto-Hitman.
Would add that the historical angle helped creating intrigue in the era, so when I read about the actual Hashashin order, made the game (and most AC sequels even more special)
If you don't like Desmond, you aren't an Assassin's Creed fan. I hate that people basically memed Desmond into irrelevance and now Ezio is the face of the series.
AC1 getting the recognition it deserves
They actually explain why Desmond looked like both Altair and Ezio in AC 1-Revelations. Basically it's because the Animus was originally programmed to just copy paste the subject's head and face, and it wasn't until later Animus iterations where it recreates the ancestor's actual appearance.
Man, now I really want that desmond ultimate assassin game
17:05 I love that perfectly cut punch lol
I've never played an Assassin's Creed game and I had no idea that the setting is simulated. That said, this game is fascinating. I had no idea the white HUD/UI elements started here, and the fact that a game from 2007 looks that good really goes to show how much the PS3/360 generation is slept on.
Are we back?
Original Assassin's Creed, my beloved
This is so nice thank you ♥️
Ohhh he's at it again
i played through 2 a while back recently after remembering it as a pretty good sequel and literally once you get to the point where you can perform parries/counters on enemies it like literally completely breaks the combat - you have to be paying such little attention to take literally like any damage at all in an encounter lol. i also remember in brotherhood and onward they specifically seemed to build into your ability to just counter-one shot enemies by making it possible to chain them together which on one hand makes for an almost interesting kind of arcadey power fantasy gameloop, but also showed a point where 3 games in they'd already drifted too far from keeping stealth as the focus.
i think a lot of people shared your theory about desmond and a lot of people assumed a third game would be all modern day stealth action. we're like a dozen titles in at this point and its clear thats never happening and if anything, ubisoft regret the whole abstergo-sim framing and much rather the series sticks to really just being a historical action-adventure sim with light stealth elements at this point - which i think is a real shame. 1 isnt a perfect game by any means, but you highlight a lot of the ways they were trying out some really interesting things that would've been fertile ground to expand on properly in a sequel.
it's frustrating to see how visibly derailed the series became between all the spinoffs and sequels and how much of the core identity has been lost at this point. even if altairs white hooded robes made the most sense specifically in 1, it was a really cool visual trademark for all the player characters from that point onward, and felt like something way too iconic to the series to be disgarded - but now your "assassin" just looks like a stereotypical roman soldier or viking. i legitimately do not know if they still even have the hidden blades in there anymore.
They should've narrowed the parry time by a lot or kept it as a late game unlock. I remember the first few hours of combat felt difficult and more dynamic when you couldn't just spam parry. And from what I remember the 2nd game has it given to the player immediately which makes 2 feel so much easier.
I appreciate the nostalgia
It's funny, because a lot of Ubisoft other games in the stealth category had these elements you suggested they added, splinter cell had the sound and lighting part where depending on ambient light and sound you could move more or less quickly, you could open doors quietly or violently, the rainbow six (the first few) asked you to plan for a quick fight because you were as fragile as your opponents, watch dogs (the first one, I haven't played the others) was a really cool potential partial template for AC had it reached modern day with guns and hacking, ghost recon wildlands (I think?) had some interesting stealth that felt like an appropriate evolution on what watch dogs had done but with fewer gadjet, far cry 3 and 4 were pretty cool twists on the AC formula in a way...
Okay I might not have a very good memory of Ubisoft catalogue of games but you get the idea, it's like they spread all of these ideas across different games and never thought they should bring them together.
I'm liking this new HyperBitHero we have in 2025
Excellent look back at an underappreciated game! Crazy to say that about the first entry in a franchise as big as AC but most people seem to start with AC2. Personally, I only ever really gelled with the first entry. Something about AC2 just didn't impress me in the same way and I haven't given the franchise another shot since. AC1 is a little underbaked but it was a novel, ambitious stealth title for its time and was arguably the end of Ubisoft at their peak creativity and prestige.
That's such an AWESOME thumbnail!!
Yes!! Thank you for saying this. Assassins creed 1 has a hidden genius behind it and is the only game in the series where you feel like you're an actual assassin. It's also the only one that lets you choose how to approach a target with the hints and maps you're given, while later games started becoming more linear. Altair is also a cool character. The modern day story also has some interesting stuff in it. I can tell kojima liked those since they go for some of the same ideas the mgs games do, peace walker even has a funny leap of faith Easter egg. And for better or worse it was probably the most influential of its time aside from call of duty 4. I like to call assassins creed the "lost" of video games if anyones ever watched that, how it started off with a really good premise but eventually started to decline hard in quality. You can see the series gets hijacked by brotherhood.
guys I just started playing this game for the first time, this Lucy girl is so nice I hope she sticks with Desmond until Valhalla
:)
It’s not the best one but I still have a place in my heart for this one.
It was a great concept game/tech demo done right. Too bad Ubisoft lost they faith and eventually lost sight of what really was great and good about Assassins Creed. Great video, Hero man! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The cut at 17:08 had me rolling lol
"accompanied by the sign of a hawk" oh BOY
I've always held that AC1 was the best story.
If only Ubisoft cared more about creating something remarkable instead of investors and trends...
I wasn't aware of the meaning behind altair's name and the bird like aspects of his design, but that kinda makes me appreciate how unique his design was. I never was super into the other designs other assassin's in the series had as they just felt sorta gimmicky and not quite as inspired.
Assassins'creed 1 really stands as one of the defining games of that generation and a stand out game in the stealth genre and I think you summed it pretty well. While I liked the second back then, the first one was the more interesting and inspired game by comparison. It works well enough as a stand alone game and experience that games just lost the magic and doubled down in frankly more idiotic directions. That original idea for what desmond was gonna be would've been really great to see pan out and it sucks ubisoft dropped that.
Conceptually it sounded like a new way of progressing in a game and series both in narrative and in gameplay. Assassin's Creed like many series of the 7th gen started off with promise and really had a strong foundation that was never realized or followed up on and is probably one of the bigger offenders of that, next to Mass effect.
This and your infamous vs prototype vids I think are your best material and subject in a while.
Ezio also means "the eagle" as well.
Take note current Ubisoft devs
Good stuff, keep 'em coming
Would love to see a video on Prince of Persia or Onimusha brother!
I forget not everyone played this game when it came out, great video to bring context for people that dont know
edit
I never knew about this cutscene glitch mechanic.
holy crap 😮
Remember11 music??? Based HyperBitHero???
I respect AC1, i don't have as much fun playing through it as AC2, but it's still a cool time.
I didn't quite appreciate AC1 that much when I played it as a child but I do hope I can find an opportunity to play it now that I'm an adult.
And also play AC2 with that cool parkour mod on top though, it's been so long since I played that and playing it differently wojld be fun.
UBISOFT has gone Downhill 😥😥😥
Kind of funny you mention Metal Gear Solid maybe taking the horse stealth mechanic from AC and mention Shadow of the Colossus right after. I think it's more likely Kojima or someone on the team took that particular mechanic of bending to the side of the horse from Shadow of the Colossus since that's something you can do in that game.
Low key don't think the series ever escaped being quite bland
Right on!
LUDONARRATIVE RESONANCE GOES CRAZY IN THIS GAME 🔥🔥🔥
I always felt that InFamous could cross over with AC, specially earlier trilogy.
Kessler designs feels like he went back and learned from the Hidden Ones and brought that to the FS, least to me.
Also, the Ray Sphere looks like the artifacts.
So much is lost with the newer games. Assassins creed odyssey didnt even have social stealth. The modern day portion which although confusing was really interesting is a shell of its former self. The focus on historical accuracy and authenticity is gone. They didnt even add the crossbow in the first game bc it wasnt accurate.
10:58 Godaymn! xd
Ac1 is my top 3 most favorite ac games
Repetitive quests aside, AssCreed 1 is the game I have sole respect for in this franchise. There was an awesome idea behind it, and unlike the rest of the inferior sequels afterwards you actually had more freedom to complete the game in ways you could figure out without being wheeled around like a 5 year-old.
Unpopular opinion but the ancient aliens stuff was stupid and I wish AC stuck to just the grounded historical stuff as was the original intention.
nope desmond,and the isu are like the main point. you in the present use the past to fight for a future where people aren't controlled by ancient civilization technology
Based Remember11 ost
Devious Intent: Naoya Enomoto
To be honest I’ve always felt that Ac1 was a true assassins creed game, not because it was the first. Mainly because it made you feel like assassin going through day to day tasks. I do like ac2 but it’s more of an action-paced experience, but it Kept going towards more action with each new game instead of being assassin with an interesting plot.