Ey look! It’s the French Revolution! People are mad. A crap ton of people are dying. People’s heads are on spikes… Ok, I’m leaving. I’M OUT! But I have to stay and get revenge for being accused of my foster father’s death. Welcome to the big city of Paris in Assassin’s Creed: Unity.
This game got a lot of hype back during its promotional days. Unity offered players co-op missions and a huge city to run around in but all of that kind of fell short cause nightmare faces. Needless to say, the game was too overhyped and it fell only a little bit on its face. But that’s okay, all games have their issues and now it can be solved with a patch. A patch that takes too freakin’ long to download.
Assassin’s Creed: Unity takes place in the 18th century during the French Revolution. You control Arno Dorian (dubbed the new Ezio by many (something I disagree with after playing the game)) as he gets revenge for his fallen foster father and helps the girl he loves. Oh, and also kind of help France along the way but not by much.
The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the last installment in the series. If I remember correctly, Ubi bragged a bit about how good the jumping and parkouring will be compared to previous games in the series. To me, it felt about the same or clunkier than before. I still got angry over how Arno wouldn’t go to where I wanted him to go. Needless to say, AC will always be frustrating when it comes to parkouring. PARKOUR!
Unity brings a new element to enemies: health bars. Nice. Now I know how much damage I am doing with my stupid, crappy sword. With the health bars being present, it is easier to know when the enemies will strike. When they plan to strike, they will do a pose and then as they are about to hit Arno, their health bar will flash gold and that is when you counter.
In every new AC game, we welcome a new weapon. Here in Unity we welcome the Phantom Blade, a mini crossbow on the hidden blade. Neat! The controls for the Phantom Blade are the same as if you are using the pistol. The Phantom Blade uses two types of ammo: Phantom and Berserk. Unity has completely throw away with the Sleep ammo and it will be very much missed (I effin’ loved that ammo…). Along with the Phantom Blade, please welcome Stun Bomb, Poison Gas, Money Throw, and our favorite Smoke Bombs. I only used Stun and Smoke Bombs (Poison Gas and Money Throw are unlockable skills). Stun Bombs stuns enemies for a very short period of time and I mean very short. I found them useless but I used them whenever I ran out of Smoke Bombs.
I would like to say thank you Ubi for bringing back medicine. Thank you so much. I loved the idea in AC2 and it was great to see it back. Speaking of AC2, Unity reminded me of it with the medicine and armor upgrades. In Unity, they brought back the upgrades to armor (all the armor). You will be able to upgrade the hood, chest, forearms, waist, and legs. Yeah, that seems like a lot. And don’t forget about upgrading your weapons. Yeah… Money is scarce too…
Unity took out the selling option that was present in a few of the past games. Scattered throughout Paris there are treasure chests. There are three different types: normal, nomad, and locked. Oh, and there are the initiate chests. Some of them hold robes of the previous assassins of the series. Some of the chest are guarded but never the nomad ones (that I am aware of). The locked chests range from levels 1-3. In order to open the high level locked chests, you will need to unlock that skill.
Unity introduces skills. Instead of buying a long ranged weapon and immediately using it, you will need to unlock that skill. To unlock skills, you will need skills points which you earn from the main storyline missions (that I know of at this point). You have four categories of skills: Melee, Ranged, Stealth, and Health. Each category has about 5-7 skills to unlock. I haven’t unlocked all of the skills yet but there is a trophy/achievement I can get once I have done so.
Along with the main story missions, there are single player and co-op missions to do. I have only done a few single player and none of the co-op so I can’t be much help.
If you remember your villa in AC2 and your hideout in AC4 and having to upgrade the place, here it is once again in Unity in the form of a social club/theatre. Along with the main social club, there are about five more in Paris for you to open. When you renovate those five, you will get more income (more money!). But to really increase your income, you will need to do five social club missions. They are not that hard albeit the last one…
All in all, Assassin’s Creed: Unity is a pretty good game. The parkour is still your typical AC clunky parkour and you still have big playground to run around and explore in. The only thing I truly disliked about the game was when you killed your target and they told you everything and then you said, “Rest in peace”… Unity takes that out completely… You can’t do that, Ubi. That is AC tradition and you got rid of it. I’m glad you got rid of eavesdropping (NO EAVESDROPPING! YAY) but you shouldn’t have taken out the “Rest in peace” bit…
Assassin’s Creed: Unity
3.5-4/5
The game has some good points but I can’t call it a 3.5 or a 4 as it falls inbetween those points.
