Assassin's Creed: Unity (Limited Edition)

aka: Assassin's Creed: Unity (Special Edition), Assassin's Creed: Unity - Chemical Revolution Mission

Moby ID: 71333

PlayStation 4 version

More refined history lessons, less refined gameplay

The Good
Graphics:

A huge graphical step on par with next-gen

Synchronization views look beautiful and even show small people from high above

Attention to details is rather astonishing, both indoor and outdoor

Tall buildings give much better feel than before, more realistic

Beautiful interiors and exteriors alike, seamless transition from one to another

Weather effects are nice, especially the rain, though it usually stops too soon

Next-gen characters in cutscenes look rather nice, Elise is really gorgeous

Equipping Arno has a nice screen which lets you rotate and view outfits and weapons you are currently carrying or are planning to purchase Controls:

Unobtrusive sliding or jumping over obstacles are nice to see and easier to perform than before (don't require quick button press at the right time) Music & SFX:

Ambiance can sometimes seem rather nice Story:

If you like lots of historical facts, then Ubisoft won't disappoint you, there's just as much, if not more, info about locations and characters, even newspapers Missions:

There are various mission types, unique ones so far are the murder mysteries which puts you in a role of an investigator trying to solve the crime and pinpoint the culprit

Time distortions that let you go through the subway or fight German fighter planes during WWII, while short, were pretty nice, and showing you how the game might look in a different setting, more futuristic one than 19th century France

**The Bad**
Graphics:

Too many same faces in the crowd and enemy soldiers

Finishing moves during combat make a slow-motion and graphics at that moment looks rather terrible

Population of Paris seems rather low-detail and their poses and gestures during conversation are just in some strange loop that 20-year old games used, too uptight and out of sync with their words Controls:

Clumsy window entering, you may find yourself circling around the open window until you reach the precise spot to properly enter

Climbing the building will often put you to a halt until you specifically press only the jump button, which so far was always usable in duet with running to make you move faster

Very often Arno won't climb properly or go toward the direction you're holding the analogue stick at first try, but then goes after a few attempts, and from the same position from which he didn't want to climb no less

Descent doesn't always work, and at certain points you cannot let go and fall down even if that wouldn't kill you but only took part of your health, which may prevent you from quickly following your target

Combat controls are worse than every, parrying and jumping around rarely saves you when surrounded, while in past games as long as you parry well, you could hold out against a horde of enemy soldiers

You can often find yourself stuck in some place which takes some jumping around to get unstuck

When fighting two enemies at once, killing one may make his still stutter about until he falls down, but during that time you cannot go through him or around him and strike at another one, but the other one doesn't have trouble reaching and hurting you critically at that point

Sometimes for no apparent reason, while there are still enemies present, Arno sheathes his sword and won't fight back, while the enemy soldiers will attack you, and only after a few seconds Arno realizes he's in the combat and draws back his sword, but unless you have some healing potions you may find yourself in a very dangerous situation for no apparent reason

Irrelevant tips are displayed all the time whenever you uncover something new, often blocking the text or information that you just acquired at that moment and would like to view without going to special menu for it Music & SFX:

Music is okay, but nothing memorable like in previous titles, not even the main theme... after spending hours on the game, I can honestly say I can't remember a single track from the game

Character dialogues may sometimes seem extremely bad, and sometimes are okay and fit with the events in the game... very unbalanced

Aside from cutscenes, all the characters talking to you don't seem to have their gestures and voice synchronized, they may as well be displayed as a static portraits with background voice-acting, it would make no difference

Some background dialogues are always identical, it seems like the thieves always steal the purse from the very same lady no matter the part of town... it also seems to be the very same thief all the town, even if you catch him 100 times Story:

As in the past, main storyline is so sill and boring, and you are just some initiate who's playing this for no apparent reason, both past and present stories are really no good and give no substance

Ending doesn't satisfy as to why you (the initiate in the present) played the game (simulation of Arno in the past), no reward whatsoever AI:

Often thieves run around in circles in a small confined place which makes no sense whatsoever and are very easy to catch

Guards rarely chase you, they seem to give up easily, and take a lot of time to even react on your presence, but when they are chasing you, you can't lose them by blending with the crowd or doing similar feats Missions:

Murder mysteries look promising, but are really badly executed and don't work well with the current gameplay style

Enigma missions don't give you any clue, just riddle to which even if you get what it's talking about, you don't know what to do with your answer

Assassination missions always put your target not far away from you, you can run there and kill your target with an ease in 30sec or so... I don't think it was intended that way, or if it was it doesn't make much sense Chemical Revolution:

A regular 20-min long Paris Story mission that doesn't validate this release being called the Limited Edition

No new cutscenes, poorly executed for a bonus DLC

**The Bottom Line**
More history, and then some more history, but where's an interesting story that should keep us going? What is it with Ubisoft? Yes, I keep on getting all those Assassin's Creed games, always hoping they will improve. AC1 and AC2 were rather disappointing, but Brotherhood and especially Revelations were amazing. Both story-driven, lots of side-things to do, interesting missions, locations, and refined gameplay with each new release. Then came the AC3... so promising story, so bad execution. AC4, while boring story-wise, had really smooth gameplay that worked great. Of course, with each new engine, all that refined gameplay is lost and we're back to square one, or minus one. I don't find this game buggy, or at least I didn't experience any bugs during my gameplay, but the gameplay is less than desirable. Aside from really nice graphics, this game doesn't have much to offer. But if you like the series, and are constantly hoping they'll turn better, at leave every now and then, then this is on par with your expectations. Just don't expect too much and you won't get disappointed. Expect what you've seen thus far with the series, and you'll get more of that. Also, the game really gets easier and more fun to play when you really buy better weapons and that won't happen until you're almost near the end, so unless you want to replay or just keep on playing, it's not implemented well.

by MAT (240793) on April 4, 2015

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