There are three main differences in AC: Revelations: (1) Ezio, who is now about 50 and much more serious, (2) the locale has shifted to Constantinople, where the Ottoman Empire holds sway, and (3) there's more Altaïr, that dude from the original Assassin's Creed. Oh, and this time Ezio can craft bombs. They're...diverting.
Like AC: Brotherhood, AC: Revelations has a ton of sidequests to distract from its ludicrous plot, this time involving retrieving the Masyaf keys (Masyaf being the Assassin's ancient castle/headquarters) to unlock Altaïr's library, which he needs to do because reasons. So off he gallivants to Constantine the Great's old stomping grounds to find 'em. No less than Marco Polo's dad, Niccolò Polo, has hidden them throughout the city, because of course he would. Also, there is a young Italian lady with great big brains and cleavage who helps Ezio with his inquiries, which is what actually happens, rather than a euphemism.
While Ezio pursues his latest MacGuffin, players can recruit citizens to join the Assassins and send them out on missions to level them up. The missions are plentiful, repetitive, and not terribly interesting. What is fun is choosing one of your new Assassins to be a Den Master, meaning they get two extra tiny missions to push them over the edge. And speaking of edge, this time there isn't a cut scene every single time someone gets promoted to full Assassin and celebrates by leaping off a building. Nope, they just get the Assassin symbol next to their name. Nice and simple.
Ubisoft tried to spice it up this time by adding bomb crafting, which is pretty fun. You can make cherry bombs, smoke screen bombs, sticky bombs, and all sorts of other explosives to distract or kill. Ezio can also now use zip lines to speed across the sprawling city's rooftops. To compensate for all the new bomb-tossing, zipping, and Assassin training, the developers minimized the role of the factions (Thief, Mercenary, and Roma instead of courtesans). Did I miss them? Nope.
Alas, despite all the new features, much faster loading times, and smoother controls, AC: Revelations manages to be less fun and less beautiful than AC: Brotherhood. The den defense missions bugged a lot of players, but that wasn't true in my case. I only ever had to do one (the tutorial) because I regularly bribed heralds and killed officials to lower my notoriety. My beef was with the truly terrible side quests in the Animus where Desmond (Ezio's descendant)--or his consciousness, whatever--has to navigate through annoying puzzles while Desmond boringly recounts his boring life, which is boring. They were so bad that I, an obsessive completionist player, stopped in the middle of the second one (there are five) and moved on with my life.
I think the crux of the problem is that the entire time, while Ezio and Altaïr live their lives and fight fiercely for their Creed ("Nothing is true. Everything is permitted," which is actually a call for awareness and discipline), Desmond is apparently The One. Everything his ancestors went through was for the purpose of moving Desmond closer to The Truth. Except Desmond has the personality of a pancake. The game developers had three entire games to make him even mildly interesting, and they failed.
So while my three-part journey through various time periods and historical locations was entertaining, the payoff was disappointing. Especially since the "revelations" in AC: Revelations were cheesy. Here, let me spoil it for you: the First Civilization blah blah Apple of Eden la dee da solar flare munya munya (that's Japanese for "blah blah") planetary doom. Which begs the question: if our beloved star was the real villain all along, why focus on the unending battle between the Assassins and Templars? Will Desmond somehow unite the order-obsessed Templars with the freedom-loving Assassins so they can, I don't know, create sunblock for the earth or develop space shuttles so we can colonize other planets while ours fries? More importantly: do I care?
The answer is no. I really wish Assassin's Creed just stuck to the historical fiction genre. AC: Liberation on the PS Vita comes closest to that ideal, and yeah, it's light and fluffy, but I'll take that over convoluted and exasperating. Yeesh.
TL; DR: A disappointing end to an otherwise fun action/adventure trilogy.
This post brought to you by sweet lassi.
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