Assassin's Creed Unity Review

This is my first review I've ever written. I'm not a professional at this stuff, but I'll try and do my best to give my opinion about the videogames I play. I hope you'll enjoy reading this. :)

For years I've been a big big big HUGE fan of the Assassin's Creed series. I've played and finished them all, except the ones on PSP, cause I dont own a PSP anymore. I've played 1, 2/Brotherhood and Revelations on XBOX360, Black Flag and now also Unity on PS4. 
So, the moment was finally there again in November. A new Assassin's Creed game. I must admit I haven't watched a lot of trailers, maybe 1 or 2, but I was excited as ever. Unfortunately I had to work A LOT in December and with all the holidays and other crap, I didn't have much time to play. I was halfway through the story in January, but I finally had time to play more! Time to finish this game!

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED AC: UNITY YET.
Click the Read More link to continue reading.

My first impression wasn't so good. There were horrible framedropes, I saw people walking through eachother, I saw a man stuck in a wall and a man with feathers on his head. Just feathers, no hat or anything. 'Sloppy', was my first thought (although I did have a laugh with the feather-man). Thank god, Ubisoft did something about that and a patch was released soon. Haven't had any framedrops or weird glitches/bugs after that :).
Overall this games looks fantastic. The graphics are great and the voice-acting feels natural. I absolutely loved the way Arno climbes, he's fast and smooth and holy mother of god, there is a way to climb down which works amazing! Such an improvement!

Yay!

Storywise this wasn't the strongest one of the bunch. It's not that I didn't like the story at all, I just.. didn't really care a lot? Arno basically became an assassin overnight, he was taught things by guy named Bellec who calls everyone 'pisspot'. No ingame training whatsoever. A little training would've been appreciated, even though every AC player knows the basics, but still. I must admit that I was glad that I wasn't a protege for half of the game (Assassins Creed III, ugh). The fact that he learned everything overnight (apparently it took 2 months..), but had to unlock a skill to sit on a fucking bench to blend in is just beyond ridiculous. 
Also, Arno was way too protective about Elise, even though she did prove multiple times that she's a badass motherfucker. What bothered me is that it was the same thing all over again. Arno wants to protect and save her, she says she doesnt need to be saved, does things on her own, Arno does his tricks, everything works out. This x 10. We get it. 
Arno gets kicked out of the Brotherhood eventually. This came as a shock to me and I thought this was gonna be a major part of his story. But nope. After a month of bing drinking, he decides to pick up his assassin stuff again and just go on. It had no consequences whatsoever. You were still an assassin. But no word about the Brotherhood again. It was that easy. It doesn't feel like you actually got kicked out.

I caught myself a few times thinking: Who am I killing again? What was his part in this story? I kinda felt no connection with the people I needed to assassinate. But oh well, I did like the missions.

Something else that bothered me was the crazy amount of chests and other collectible stuff. I like collecting things. What I dont like it the fact that I run all over the city finding chests which I cant open because I haven't got lockpick skill number 3. Which you can only unlock after saving up 930485 skillpoints (after unlocking lockpick skill 1 and 2 first btw), which you do not get that easily just by playing the mainstory (Want to earn skillpoints fast? Play online.) So, after a while I discovered the whole city and my map was just CLUTTERED in chests, cockades and other stuff. I spend a few hours clearing up my map by collecting things, just because I couldnt see shit anymore..

Halp.

One thing I absolutely did love is the fact that you can now play online with your friends (or total strangers)! It really is a lot of fun and I hope there will be a lot of new missions available any time soon. The Club Competition is a nice add as well, cause it really does give me that boost to score those extra points and end up first place. Lucky me for having a teammate who's as determined as I am about winning. I love the Companion app as well, although I kinda forget about it sometimes..

But then. After fighting myself through 12 sequences, it was here: the final boss fight. I was looking forward to the end of the game, not because I just wanted to finish it, but AC endings are exciting and they take forever and your eyes are stuck at the tv because what if you miss something?! Except for Unity. The bossfight with Germain wasn't hard at all and after you killed him, you just take his sword and you get a nice suit and thats it. That literally is it. No explanation that the sword is a Piece of Eden. If you haven't played other AC games, you would just think that its a pretty sword with cool powers, but nothing else. That sword is a fucking big deal. But no one tells you that. Just go around and be pretty with your cool sword. The fact that Elise dies wasn't a shock or surprise at all. After being so overprotective it was obvious she was gonna die. It did nothing to me.

Okay, so Germain dies, Elise dies.. Bring on some new information about whats happening in the present! Who are you actually? Who is the person in the Animus that you're playing? Who's the girl that talks to you every now and then (I mean, you probably know Shaun is there with her, using an other name, but come on, you know its him. Anyway, the girl doesn't sound like Rebecca..)? Whats going on with the first civilization? Whats up with those rifts? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? WHAT IS ABSTERGO DOING? YOU WANT NEW QUESTIONS? YOU WANT NEW THEORIES? YOU WANT SOME ANSWERS? WELL, YOU GET NOthing.. Credits roll down, the girl says they'll work with you again in the future and thats all you get. You know that feeling when you're thirsty and you grab your drink, expecting a nice big sip of refreshment but instead there was just a tiiiny drop left? Thats how this end feels. I was dissapointed. Seriously. I started the last memory part at 1 AM, even though I knew I had to go to bed at 2 AM and I was worrying if I would have enough time to finish it or that it would take an allnighter, because the other endings took so long. It took 30 min to finish it and I had to start over one time because I accidentaly jumped off a building and died. 30 minutes. The dissapointment was real.

This was exactly how I felt after finishing this game.

Short summary about Assassin's Creed Unity: This whole game feels like a filler. The story isn't strong, the characters aren't strong, there was no story outside the Animus, there are no new theories or information about the First Civ, Pieces of Eden, Abstergo or who the fuck you even are. Black Flag didn't explain it, but Unity didn't even mention it. The most interesting story basically stopped after AC III, when Desmond died. And I fucking miss that story. This game feels rushed and not finished properly. 
Seriously, I hope Assassin's Creed Victory will be better. I truely hope they're gonna pay attention to all those things I just mentioned. This was just a game about an assassin, but that's all there is. I did have a lot of fun playing it, but it doesn't satisfy me at all and thats really a shame. Now I have a lot of side missions and the DLC left, so there's still a lot to do, but ugh. I will forever remember the bland aftertaste that this game left me.

6,5/10