https://mieckfram.blogspot.com/2018/11/critique-and-analysis-of-ezio-trilogy.html
I still make an attempt to explain things throughout the piece for those who haven't played in a while or are unfamiliar. But I may still gloss over certain details and get straight to analysis.
So let's begin:
After beating AC2 and booting up Brotherhood, I felt this was going to be better. Right from the beginning, the models and characters were more visually detailed. Desmond and Friends were going somewhere, Ezio had something to grapple with. It was all looking well. AC Brotherhood was shaping up to be AC2 done right......
Sadly, once we got to Rome and the game started rolling, the cracks started to show. AC Brotherhood, while having better gameplay than 2, has a story with not much in it. Honestly, this whole game could have been scaled down to a DLC and have the same impact.
Let's start with the story
-The Story-
The Story in Brotherhood has 3 main problems, Desmond and crew barely do anything for 90% of it despite the premise, Ezio doesn't grow or have any interesting development and the villains have no threat or presence or place.
Firstly, Desmond does nothing of value or on his own agency for 90% of the game. He helps out to get into Monteriggioni in the beginning, sees visions and hints of the future. But then helps set up the animus and go out restoring power. I ask you, how do these develop Desmond? He isn't challenged physically or emotionally by these tasks. We learn nothing new about him. When he is about to go into the animus, he makes a racist remark to Altair's statue, which I guess is something (it is dropped immediately so it never even informs on his character)? And during the next 80% of the game, the game might as well be set in a warehouse like 2's because the game does nothing with the premise or Desmond (at this point, why set the modern day in a refurbished Montergionni if you aren’t going to use it? That’s a lot of time, manpower and resources dedicated that could have been used elsewhere. If it’s just for fanservice, then that is just insulting. Did the devs think that pandering a small town is somehow so special on its own that it excludes anything? How can people defend that? Even the Abstergo offices in Rogue and 4 are better utilized with secrets, rewards for exploration and actually being relevant to the setting and story.) Desmond can't explore and discover many relevant or interesting hidden secrets (most of his friend's emails are guarded and their eventual secrets aren't interesting or tell you much about them). You can't go out and do missions and Desmond where he grows into a hero role, or learns character stuff etc. In other words, Desmond's time in Brotherhood is mostly a waste. The game finally makes use of Desmond at the end when he uses Eagle Vision to discover the Apple's password, and gets into the temple and becomes Juno's pawn and is visibly affected by having to stab Lucy.
So finally the AC Games give Desmond an important moment where he acts like a normal person instead of just "following around" he contributes both in his actions, personality and knowledge and has agency in his actions. We only had to wait, oh I don't know all of AC2 and Brotherhood to finally get it! Even the stakes rise but are not fully followed through. In all honesty, we could have basically condensed everything he did in Brotherhood and given it to AC2 and Rev because it isn't substantial or used enough to warrant its own game. You can skip Brotherhood and miss nothing of value even that doesn't happen because Rev recaps the important stuff (and as expected, completely glosses over Montergionni because of how superficial it was). When a recap one game later only needs to summarize your whole role in the game despite being a main character and doesn't even need a paragraph for most of it, you don't have a lot of substantial material.
In Peace Walker, Snake starts his own military group. They grow as he undertakes contracts. The story of the game has him managing the implications of having a nuclear-equipped PMC, and how the evolution of threats against them makes him truly commit to being Big Boss. He makes mistakes, he hurts people, and is forced to come against His old feelings of The Boss which makes him commit to his (interpretation) of his ideology.
Even the Dark Knight Trilogy nails this and Batman doesn’t even change much as a character.
The Dark Knight begins with a Batman who’s set up. He has his methods, morals, and approaches. He even has his “criminals are predictable”. And the Joker shows up as someone who turns Batman’s strengths into weaknesses. His strength and resources? He can’t really hurt or bully Joker into submission. His morals? His refusal to kill and reveal his identity is exploited by Joker.
Bruce even says “I’ve found the one thing Batman can’t do”.
There is nothing even remotely close to these 2 approaches In Brotherhood. When the antagonist and his forces are so distances and unaware of the protagonist, they cease to even provide a feeling of tension.
Brotherhood as it currently is, would be lacklustre as an actual DLC story. It has no business being the main story of a full sequel. This is a story more concerned with making its main character look cool rather than actually tell or explore a story.
Now normally, if your protagonist is silent or whatever, it falls to the supporting cast to pick up the slack. And again, AC2 and Bro fall here.
Shaun, Lucy and Rebecca are 1 note in these games. You rarely learn much about them other than what you already knew when you first met them. They have the same snappy conversations.
This is highlighted in Bro where you can discover through emails that the crew is starting to crack under the pressure. Yet you can’t ever follow up on it as Desmond and see sides to your crew that they keep hidden. You do have only 1 conversation with a stressed out Lucy where Desmond comforts her and that's it.
In addition, Bro also does nothing in Montergionni.
Rev addresses this by showing Rebecca being torn and Shaun being antagonistic about the ordeal. 3 has scenes where Desmond and William come to blows and where Des and Shaun discuss different sides to the American Revolution. That’s amazing because you see characters interact in ways that aren’t snappy comebacks.
Let's move onto the villains. Ceasre is not a well-written main villain.
Firstly, despite a really strong intro where he establishes his motive, shows his threat level and paints himself as a dick, the game drops all the momentum the very next sequence.
Ceasre is absent for most of the game as he's on a campaign. And his people (who are your targets) don't seem to be the most aware. This means that killing his men doesn't feel like you're taking down a warlord. You're just killing targets until the story progresses. Ceasre doesn't even realize his men are dead until he comes back near the end of the game. AC Syndicate had solution for this. The main villain, Starrick, was shown at the end of every sequence reacting to the deaths and preparing a response. It kept his influence present despite his distance and kept him threatening. That doesn't happen in Brotherhood so it doesn't feel like the Borgia are a constant threat the heroes need to watch out for.
Which is another thing, despite being in the heart of enemy territory, Ezio and friends seldom have to worry about the Borgia presence until specific mission sometimes say so. It makes it hard to take the Borgia as credible villains.
Secondly, what thematic or narrative angle is Ceasre supposed to represent? Al Mualim showed Altair what being the top Templar was like. Hatyam was the opposite of Connor. Achilles acted as a foil to Shay. None of that applies to Ceasre. There isn't any moral or emotional obstacle he has over Ezio that he needs to over come. He's just an evil ruler. Imagine an alternate AC Brotherhood where Ceasre presented an alternate means of rule. He was taking power by force and it was working. Where Ezio's troops made by trusting the people were legitimately struggling. Ezio using the particular strengths of his way was able to beat Ceasre. Ceasre, by looking like some twisted version of what Ezio could have become had he gone down the wrong path, That would be more cohesive than what we got.
Most of the other targets are not developed past their initial stage. What you see is what you get. Goes doubly for the multiplayer characters you kill.
Finally, we get to Ezio and his flaws.
Look at Brotherhood in proper detail. What does Ezio really learn or grow to in the game? Sure, he loses Monrergionni, but after that..... nothing.
He almost effortlessly rescues Christina from the Castello. He solves Volpe’s and Bartholomew’s problems without really struggling or making a difficult choice. He hardly ever confronts or is ever threatened by Ceasere or his forces. His assassin Brotherhood is seldom in danger.
He doesn’t even properly lead his own faction. Machiavelli does all the real running and Ezio just pops in, makes a decision and everything works out. Their only disagreement is whether to trust the people, which Ezio immediately goes off on and it works out instantly. There is no back and forth or Ezio going out his way behind Nicolo's back to make his plan work.
In short, Ezio is practically a Mary Sue in Brotherhood. He makes no mistakes. His enemies never get the upper hand on him. His friends instantly trust him and his judgments are always correct. The closest thing to a disagreement between factions he has is when he forbids Claudia from fighting, and then at the end of the game she kills some soldiers so he instantly recruits her. How is that a conflict or ways for him to grow? You could swap Ezio from the beginning of the game with the start and the result would be the same. The character of Machiavelli seals the deal here. He starts Brotherhood angry at Ezio because he let Rodrigo live. Pretty in character with the real life version of the
He almost effortlessly rescues Christina from the Castello. He solves Volpe’s and Bartholomew’s problems without really struggling or making a difficult choice. He hardly ever confronts or is ever threatened by Ceasere or his forces. His assassin Brotherhood is seldom in danger.
He doesn’t even properly lead his own faction. Machiavelli does all the real running and Ezio just pops in, makes a decision and everything works out. Their only disagreement is whether to trust the people, which Ezio immediately goes off on and it works out instantly. There is no back and forth or Ezio going out his way behind Nicolo's back to make his plan work.
In short, Ezio is practically a Mary Sue in Brotherhood. He makes no mistakes. His enemies never get the upper hand on him. His friends instantly trust him and his judgments are always correct. The closest thing to a disagreement between factions he has is when he forbids Claudia from fighting, and then at the end of the game she kills some soldiers so he instantly recruits her. How is that a conflict or ways for him to grow? You could swap Ezio from the beginning of the game with the start and the result would be the same. The character of Machiavelli seals the deal here. He starts Brotherhood angry at Ezio because he let Rodrigo live. Pretty in character with the real life version of the
character. He then storms off to Rome. Later when Ezio joins up, he seems to forget his initial anger, and instantly gives Ezio a position of power, takes orders from him, treats him with respect and more. This guy wrote the Fucking Prince in real life. He should be the last person to ever give Ezio any power. And the icing on the cake, the game implies it’s Ezio who Nicole “The best leaders are those who are feared rather than loved by the people” Maciavelli wrote his books on. Like, you can’t get more Mary Sue than actual historical characters changing their core beliefs on a dime because you’re just so gosh darn “likeable”.
In contrast, Revelations actually develops Ezio. We see how he’s more cautious in his older age, we see how he actually leads some of the recruits in cutscenes with actual guidance. We see there is reasonable consequences to his actions (the inexperience recruit he brings kills the wrong person. He kills the wrong person on faulty info and his a little upset and mature about it. The base gets ransacked and Ezio takes proper care to strike back. Even his final choice of “I’ve seen enough” is a result of internalizing Altair’s memories. Actual character development).
Assassin’s Creed 3 and Rogue also did it much better with how the protagonist interacts with his targets. They aren’t just people to kill. They are people who’ve played a huge role in the protagonists' life. Even challenging them necessitates emotional and change and hard choices from all parties. In contrast, Brotherhood hardly dwells on that.
I'm going to compare the Ezio trilogy now to Big Boss’s Metal Gear Games 3, Peace Walker (no surprise here as Kojima and the AC team were good friends and shared mechanics, Easter eggs and ideas).
In Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake starts out as an inexperienced and naive soldier and ends up more mature but also hurt inside. He sets out to realize the world his mentor wants.
In contrast, Revelations actually develops Ezio. We see how he’s more cautious in his older age, we see how he actually leads some of the recruits in cutscenes with actual guidance. We see there is reasonable consequences to his actions (the inexperience recruit he brings kills the wrong person. He kills the wrong person on faulty info and his a little upset and mature about it. The base gets ransacked and Ezio takes proper care to strike back. Even his final choice of “I’ve seen enough” is a result of internalizing Altair’s memories. Actual character development).
Assassin’s Creed 3 and Rogue also did it much better with how the protagonist interacts with his targets. They aren’t just people to kill. They are people who’ve played a huge role in the protagonists' life. Even challenging them necessitates emotional and change and hard choices from all parties. In contrast, Brotherhood hardly dwells on that.
I'm going to compare the Ezio trilogy now to Big Boss’s Metal Gear Games 3, Peace Walker (no surprise here as Kojima and the AC team were good friends and shared mechanics, Easter eggs and ideas).
In Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake starts out as an inexperienced and naive soldier and ends up more mature but also hurt inside. He sets out to realize the world his mentor wants.
In Peace Walker, Snake starts his own military group. They grow as he undertakes contracts. The story of the game has him managing the implications of having a nuclear-equipped PMC, and how the evolution of threats against them makes him truly commit to being Big Boss. He makes mistakes, he hurts people, and is forced to come against His old feelings of The Boss which makes him commit to his (interpretation) of his ideology.
Even the Dark Knight Trilogy nails this and Batman doesn’t even change much as a character.
The Dark Knight begins with a Batman who’s set up. He has his methods, morals, and approaches. He even has his “criminals are predictable”. And the Joker shows up as someone who turns Batman’s strengths into weaknesses. His strength and resources? He can’t really hurt or bully Joker into submission. His morals? His refusal to kill and reveal his identity is exploited by Joker.
Bruce even says “I’ve found the one thing Batman can’t do”.
There is nothing even remotely close to these 2 approaches In Brotherhood. When the antagonist and his forces are so distances and unaware of the protagonist, they cease to even provide a feeling of tension.
Brotherhood as it currently is, would be lacklustre as an actual DLC story. It has no business being the main story of a full sequel. This is a story more concerned with making its main character look cool rather than actually tell or explore a story.
The sad part is that it could have been improved immensely and really justify the merits of a trilogy.
If Ezio had something to emotionally grapple with throughout the game (Ceasre attacked the Villa. Ezio could be torn between his need for revenge and needing to prove Nicolo wrong by become a real leader. Or he could be made extra defensive to prevent any more loss of life and his arc is to learn to trust people and grow. The next step from AC2.), consistent and believable conflicts, mistakes and characters rather than 1 dimensional cutouts there to make Ezio look cool (like, make it so Volpe and Nicolo don’t trust Ezio and he needs to work around his superiors. Make it so his struggles mirror that of Claudia so when he promotes her, it feels like it was something he learned.) and make it so the villains are actually present (Make it so that the Borgia forces start to adapt to the Assassins. Make it Ceasre is aware and we see him planning counter-responses. I can’t take a villain seriously when he doesn’t even know his own forces and closet allies are being hit until he finds out through some idiots. Ceasre should be someone who represents a twisted version of who Ezio would have become if his character development went down the wrong path.).”
-Let's move onto Gameplay.
As per my post on AC2, The gameplay is pretty much the same so you can refer back to it where needed. I'll be talking about what's different.
--Combat
Combat is still the same as last time. There are a few minor tweaks and 1 big addition.
Firstly, you have a few animations particularly with the sword as can you use the hidden gun alongside the sword.
Now, the big new addition is the chain kill system. When you perform an execution or a counter-attack, pressing square while pointing to a target while make Ezio perform an instant takedown on that enemy. You can use this to take down groups of enemies one at a time.
This doesn't fix my gripes with the combat system in AC2, namely that it was tedious and too easy and simplistic. Bro attempts to sidestep this by allowing you to speed through combat by chain killing. In essence, it destroys the already laughable difficulty by turning you into an unstoppable 1 man army by letting you tear through groups of enemies with no challenge. The game does have elite Borgia troops that present some resistance to this but aren't strong enough to really counteract this. Not that any enemy could. At this point, the combat system has all of its functions tied to countering or setting up for an execution so you can't have any depth or variance or challenge. This really becomes an issue during boss fights like the one with Cesare where you can't counter but you can just use your strikes to get through him with no real difficulty, only tedium.
Sadly, we would have this system until Origins finally makes an interesting combat system where you have distinct choices and approaches.
--Stealth.
Largely the same. But level design and mission design is now more flexible making these missions more enjoyable.
Your big new tool is the crossbow, which only ends up making parts of your arsenal redundant. It has good range and damage, can be used from most places and is silent. So it makes using throwing knives useless as they have small range and damage, and the hidden gun a liability as it is loud.
I guess I understand why the team cut the crossbow from AC1 if it would have ended up being like this.
Social Stealth is the same "line of sight but with a social stealth" theme as AC2. No real changes here. Except it is harder to use in the Eastern and Southern parts of the map due to the more rural nature of the map.
But overall, Stealth is more enjoyable this time around.
Interestingly, where I feel the gameplay of AC Bro is at it's best is during the VR missions. Here, since you're on a timer and need to navigate fast, the simplistic parkour (with vaulting being able to add some depth), the simple stealth and the fast combat end up working well during hectic assassination missions.
Now that is all the pieces together but even in isolation, the pieces can be enjoyable.
The Parkour challenges are enjoyable since you can vault to move faster or cut through some areas.
The Chain Kill challenges are interesting since you can only use executions to kill everyone rather than also be able to use counters to cover for targeting an enemy that isn't attacking. This ended up making these sections pretty tense. But ultimately, these suffered because there aren't any tells for knowing when which enemy is going to strike aside from a flashing indicator on an enemy. That isn't helpful when you have to go for an enemy and their indicator didn't go yet so you have to make a guess on who's going to attack. So RNG hurts this challenge.
But still, I enjoyed these challenges and would really like a future AC game to include them with the better gameplay of the recent games with the vaulting of this game.
--Rebuilding Rome
In AC2, you can rebuild Monteriggioni. It was limited (and doesn't really help progression that much) but it was kinda cool seeing your town progress. Bro spreads that out to the entire city of Rome. You can renovate businesses, fast travel points, buildings and landmarks (after you destroy the nearby Borgia tower) allowing businesses to exist so you can buy items from them and collect a small bit of revenue from all investments. You can also buy buildings which can house a faction like courtesans, thieves and mercenaries.
On the positive end, it does fix AC2's unbalanced economy by ensuring you always have something to buy until you 100% the game. Rebuilding Rome lets you earn more income which can be used to buy more things and many paintings and buildings are pretty expensive.
On the negative end, there isn't much reason to make many investments. Aside from Fast Travel Points and the odd business or building, the only benefit you get is extra cash (you can renovate the collesium and side from a cool camera view, it's not like it changes much or you can do more things with it). And just like in AC2, much of the progression doesn't benefit much from cash due to how powerful you already are. Medicine is plentiful, you hardly take damage and can tear through enemies with starting weapons. So that limits the usefulness of doctors and blacksmiths to the odd poison or ammo refill or the odd purchase like a crossbow. Tailors with the pouch upgrade stop being useful once you get most pouches so you won't visit them much unless you like changing your colours. Painters just sell paintings you can view in your base and all that does is increase the revenue coming in slightly. So all these don't really add that much to the game.
Interestingly there is 1 cool idea the game has with this that ends up being really disappointing. There is a chest in a reservoir you can't reach unless you renovate all of the aqueducts which fills it with water you can use to reach it. It's disappointing because this is the only instance of renovating having an effect on the world and the payoff is so weak.
Imagine if renovations unlocked side quests in areas, or got people to start supporting you over the Borgia or whatever. The current system is just not fun to bother with.
--The Assassin Faction.
As per the title, you can manage your own Brotherhood group. You can recruit people with a grudge against the Borgia into your ranks and level them up to make them better.
You can level them up by using them alongside you or sending them on dispatch missions all over Europe like the Combat Ops in Metal Gear Peace Walker. Recruits will earn XP until they hit level 10 whereupon they become master assassins and have the best armour and offence they can.
As for using them, the dispatch missions work by finding a station and selecting where you want to send them and how many with a chance of success. More difficult missions have more rewards. However, XP is divided when multiple assassins join so choosing how many to send is something to consider. In addition, you can have a max of 12 assassins in your faction and can only have 6 in the field. Any assassin sent out on dispatch will be unavailable to help you in the field.
As for how they can help you in the field, there are 3 main uses. You can summon them to help you assassinate a single target, summon them during a fight to back you up or, if you have 6 assassins ready, release a volley of arrows that kills all enemies nearby. The first 2 uses only take up a single charge (or 2 assassins each) so you can use 3 in succession if you want to call in 6 assassins to fight. The last one uses all your charges and you have wait for them to recharge.
Assassins can die in the field from losing all their health or on dispatch missions so it's wise to watch out for them.
So what are my thoughts on all this? It's alright.
It doesn't make narrative sense how you can have multiple master assassins in less than a month of in-game time meaning they outrank Ezio. Even the Animus excuse is stretching it. In addition, they have a really small role in the actual story since only 1 mission actually requires you to use your assassins. The Actual Brotherhood in the story is the other factions.
The assassins themselves aren't really that interesting. Being procedurally generated limits their character. Revelations fixed this by giving missions to Level 10 recruits you promoted to leaders that tested them on a particular aspect and let their character shine as well as select side quests for certain recruits. Which was pretty interesting. AC3 went another way and made all recruits established characters you can interact with and have proper missions on with the change that "death" simply meant out of action for a while.
Their uses are fine. It's cool to see them in action and some of their abilities let you end certain fights early. However, they don't add that much. Like I said in the economy section, the benefits you gain from them on missions are pretty small. So you can neglect this aspect and miss little, which is a shame given the title of the game.
Also, Rev and 3 had much better flavour texts for the dispatch missions and more things to consider as you had to "take over towns", requiring you to whittle down resistances and maintain assassin influence. Brotherhood doesn't do much with this.
AC3 changed how the assassins worked by blending the other factions into the assassins. So you can summon a group of assassins to distract, for cover or for combat. I personally prefer this as it gives me more options for stealth from the outset.
-The Map.
Rome as a map isn't that interesting or fun map to explore in an early AC game. The northern and Western parts are great because they have a lot of cool and different architecture and atmosphere and more of your parkour works here. However, the southern and eastern parts aren't that interesting because unlike AC3 onwards, parkour in non-urban environments is limited.
Many parts of these areas can't be accessed through direct parkour and require navigating around to find a ruined column or whatever that you can use to climb up and around because there are a lot of cliffs and hills you can't climb normally. It's not interesting or fun and brings exploration and movement to a crawl. There are pockets of towns or areas where stealth and parkour have places to shine but these are limited.
--Side content.
A massive improvement over AC2. In addition to tombs, puzzles and the like, we have Da Vinci's missions, which are great fun and really shake things up. A few more assassination missions that take the new and improved level design into account. And a rare side quest that involves a character. You also have Borgia towers, heavily guarded areas where you must kill the captain and then destroy the tower to free the area (unlike Revelations, guards will make no attempt to retake the area). It's enjoyable if a little repetitive
By 2010 standards, it's alright. By 2019 standards it's passable at best. So stick to just the good stuff if you plan on playing it. No reason to do everything.
--Multiplayer
I haven't played much of Brotherhood's multiplayer. But what little I played, I really liked. I loved that the mode had managed to do social stealth properly here by making the focus be identifying discrepancies in behaviour (gamepad players had a bit of an advantage of keyboard players due to the analogue control) and you had abilities that toy with that. Hunting other players while pretending to be an NPC was great.
My only real criticism was that you don't start out with abilities (later AC games did) which made matches against more experienced players more one-sided. In any case, I'd love to see a standalone version of this one day that really pushes this to the limit. A shame even Brotherhood and Rev's version was removed in the remaster.
-DLC
Nothing special. But we do learn that Da Vinci is gay (which was hinted in his AC2's bio). Making this, I believe the 2nd gay character in the franchise and first who's not evil.
-Misc
Most of my complaints from my last piece carry over like the UI, health, weapons etc. But there is also a bug on the PS4 version where the trophy for parachuting off the Castello does not pop and requires a reinstall. Also, don't get the Mac OS version.
I also had a bug where Ezio's clothes weren't properly removed during his sex scene with Caterina so it was kinda funny seeing his clothes be all triangular and constantly clipping during the act.
I'm not a fan of the way the opening has Ezio seducing girls because it seems more like the game is trying to make him likable but it comes across as something 15-year-olds make you think is cool.
-Conclusion.
Brotherhood is a game that probably doesn't need to exist for any non-business reason. And it likely would have been DLC had it been released today. The story is lacklustre and doesn't have the meat to support it. The gameplay is an improvement but it takes until Revelations for most of the improvements to find their footing. If this game never existed, not much would have changed aside no multiplayer and about 10+ million in sales for Ubisoft. Maybe this game was necessary to develop the ideas and engine that resulted in better sequels so maybe I am being too harsh on this game. But in a vacuum, this game is just that, filler at most.
The sad thing here is that, this is a pretty cool concept. I have outlined ways the story could have been better. And if the gameplay was as good as Revelations, this would have been probably one of the best AC games for a long time. As it stands, the game is pretty average at best.
If you want to play it, I recommend blasting through the main story and doing the odd side quests. Don't worry too much about the factions or other stuff.
As for me, I don't think I'll do part 3 of this for a while. My next posts will be Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and War and the PSP Need for Speed Titles.
If Ezio had something to emotionally grapple with throughout the game (Ceasre attacked the Villa. Ezio could be torn between his need for revenge and needing to prove Nicolo wrong by become a real leader. Or he could be made extra defensive to prevent any more loss of life and his arc is to learn to trust people and grow. The next step from AC2.), consistent and believable conflicts, mistakes and characters rather than 1 dimensional cutouts there to make Ezio look cool (like, make it so Volpe and Nicolo don’t trust Ezio and he needs to work around his superiors. Make it so his struggles mirror that of Claudia so when he promotes her, it feels like it was something he learned.) and make it so the villains are actually present (Make it so that the Borgia forces start to adapt to the Assassins. Make it Ceasre is aware and we see him planning counter-responses. I can’t take a villain seriously when he doesn’t even know his own forces and closet allies are being hit until he finds out through some idiots. Ceasre should be someone who represents a twisted version of who Ezio would have become if his character development went down the wrong path.).”
-Let's move onto Gameplay.
As per my post on AC2, The gameplay is pretty much the same so you can refer back to it where needed. I'll be talking about what's different.
--Combat
Combat is still the same as last time. There are a few minor tweaks and 1 big addition.
Firstly, you have a few animations particularly with the sword as can you use the hidden gun alongside the sword.
Now, the big new addition is the chain kill system. When you perform an execution or a counter-attack, pressing square while pointing to a target while make Ezio perform an instant takedown on that enemy. You can use this to take down groups of enemies one at a time.
This doesn't fix my gripes with the combat system in AC2, namely that it was tedious and too easy and simplistic. Bro attempts to sidestep this by allowing you to speed through combat by chain killing. In essence, it destroys the already laughable difficulty by turning you into an unstoppable 1 man army by letting you tear through groups of enemies with no challenge. The game does have elite Borgia troops that present some resistance to this but aren't strong enough to really counteract this. Not that any enemy could. At this point, the combat system has all of its functions tied to countering or setting up for an execution so you can't have any depth or variance or challenge. This really becomes an issue during boss fights like the one with Cesare where you can't counter but you can just use your strikes to get through him with no real difficulty, only tedium.
Sadly, we would have this system until Origins finally makes an interesting combat system where you have distinct choices and approaches.
--Stealth.
Largely the same. But level design and mission design is now more flexible making these missions more enjoyable.
Your big new tool is the crossbow, which only ends up making parts of your arsenal redundant. It has good range and damage, can be used from most places and is silent. So it makes using throwing knives useless as they have small range and damage, and the hidden gun a liability as it is loud.
I guess I understand why the team cut the crossbow from AC1 if it would have ended up being like this.
Social Stealth is the same "line of sight but with a social stealth" theme as AC2. No real changes here. Except it is harder to use in the Eastern and Southern parts of the map due to the more rural nature of the map.
But overall, Stealth is more enjoyable this time around.
Interestingly, where I feel the gameplay of AC Bro is at it's best is during the VR missions. Here, since you're on a timer and need to navigate fast, the simplistic parkour (with vaulting being able to add some depth), the simple stealth and the fast combat end up working well during hectic assassination missions.
Now that is all the pieces together but even in isolation, the pieces can be enjoyable.
The Parkour challenges are enjoyable since you can vault to move faster or cut through some areas.
The Chain Kill challenges are interesting since you can only use executions to kill everyone rather than also be able to use counters to cover for targeting an enemy that isn't attacking. This ended up making these sections pretty tense. But ultimately, these suffered because there aren't any tells for knowing when which enemy is going to strike aside from a flashing indicator on an enemy. That isn't helpful when you have to go for an enemy and their indicator didn't go yet so you have to make a guess on who's going to attack. So RNG hurts this challenge.
But still, I enjoyed these challenges and would really like a future AC game to include them with the better gameplay of the recent games with the vaulting of this game.
--Rebuilding Rome
In AC2, you can rebuild Monteriggioni. It was limited (and doesn't really help progression that much) but it was kinda cool seeing your town progress. Bro spreads that out to the entire city of Rome. You can renovate businesses, fast travel points, buildings and landmarks (after you destroy the nearby Borgia tower) allowing businesses to exist so you can buy items from them and collect a small bit of revenue from all investments. You can also buy buildings which can house a faction like courtesans, thieves and mercenaries.
On the positive end, it does fix AC2's unbalanced economy by ensuring you always have something to buy until you 100% the game. Rebuilding Rome lets you earn more income which can be used to buy more things and many paintings and buildings are pretty expensive.
On the negative end, there isn't much reason to make many investments. Aside from Fast Travel Points and the odd business or building, the only benefit you get is extra cash (you can renovate the collesium and side from a cool camera view, it's not like it changes much or you can do more things with it). And just like in AC2, much of the progression doesn't benefit much from cash due to how powerful you already are. Medicine is plentiful, you hardly take damage and can tear through enemies with starting weapons. So that limits the usefulness of doctors and blacksmiths to the odd poison or ammo refill or the odd purchase like a crossbow. Tailors with the pouch upgrade stop being useful once you get most pouches so you won't visit them much unless you like changing your colours. Painters just sell paintings you can view in your base and all that does is increase the revenue coming in slightly. So all these don't really add that much to the game.
Interestingly there is 1 cool idea the game has with this that ends up being really disappointing. There is a chest in a reservoir you can't reach unless you renovate all of the aqueducts which fills it with water you can use to reach it. It's disappointing because this is the only instance of renovating having an effect on the world and the payoff is so weak.
Imagine if renovations unlocked side quests in areas, or got people to start supporting you over the Borgia or whatever. The current system is just not fun to bother with.
--The Assassin Faction.
As per the title, you can manage your own Brotherhood group. You can recruit people with a grudge against the Borgia into your ranks and level them up to make them better.
You can level them up by using them alongside you or sending them on dispatch missions all over Europe like the Combat Ops in Metal Gear Peace Walker. Recruits will earn XP until they hit level 10 whereupon they become master assassins and have the best armour and offence they can.
As for using them, the dispatch missions work by finding a station and selecting where you want to send them and how many with a chance of success. More difficult missions have more rewards. However, XP is divided when multiple assassins join so choosing how many to send is something to consider. In addition, you can have a max of 12 assassins in your faction and can only have 6 in the field. Any assassin sent out on dispatch will be unavailable to help you in the field.
As for how they can help you in the field, there are 3 main uses. You can summon them to help you assassinate a single target, summon them during a fight to back you up or, if you have 6 assassins ready, release a volley of arrows that kills all enemies nearby. The first 2 uses only take up a single charge (or 2 assassins each) so you can use 3 in succession if you want to call in 6 assassins to fight. The last one uses all your charges and you have wait for them to recharge.
Assassins can die in the field from losing all their health or on dispatch missions so it's wise to watch out for them.
So what are my thoughts on all this? It's alright.
It doesn't make narrative sense how you can have multiple master assassins in less than a month of in-game time meaning they outrank Ezio. Even the Animus excuse is stretching it. In addition, they have a really small role in the actual story since only 1 mission actually requires you to use your assassins. The Actual Brotherhood in the story is the other factions.
The assassins themselves aren't really that interesting. Being procedurally generated limits their character. Revelations fixed this by giving missions to Level 10 recruits you promoted to leaders that tested them on a particular aspect and let their character shine as well as select side quests for certain recruits. Which was pretty interesting. AC3 went another way and made all recruits established characters you can interact with and have proper missions on with the change that "death" simply meant out of action for a while.
Their uses are fine. It's cool to see them in action and some of their abilities let you end certain fights early. However, they don't add that much. Like I said in the economy section, the benefits you gain from them on missions are pretty small. So you can neglect this aspect and miss little, which is a shame given the title of the game.
Also, Rev and 3 had much better flavour texts for the dispatch missions and more things to consider as you had to "take over towns", requiring you to whittle down resistances and maintain assassin influence. Brotherhood doesn't do much with this.
AC3 changed how the assassins worked by blending the other factions into the assassins. So you can summon a group of assassins to distract, for cover or for combat. I personally prefer this as it gives me more options for stealth from the outset.
-The Map.
Rome as a map isn't that interesting or fun map to explore in an early AC game. The northern and Western parts are great because they have a lot of cool and different architecture and atmosphere and more of your parkour works here. However, the southern and eastern parts aren't that interesting because unlike AC3 onwards, parkour in non-urban environments is limited.
Many parts of these areas can't be accessed through direct parkour and require navigating around to find a ruined column or whatever that you can use to climb up and around because there are a lot of cliffs and hills you can't climb normally. It's not interesting or fun and brings exploration and movement to a crawl. There are pockets of towns or areas where stealth and parkour have places to shine but these are limited.
--Side content.
A massive improvement over AC2. In addition to tombs, puzzles and the like, we have Da Vinci's missions, which are great fun and really shake things up. A few more assassination missions that take the new and improved level design into account. And a rare side quest that involves a character. You also have Borgia towers, heavily guarded areas where you must kill the captain and then destroy the tower to free the area (unlike Revelations, guards will make no attempt to retake the area). It's enjoyable if a little repetitive
By 2010 standards, it's alright. By 2019 standards it's passable at best. So stick to just the good stuff if you plan on playing it. No reason to do everything.
--Multiplayer
I haven't played much of Brotherhood's multiplayer. But what little I played, I really liked. I loved that the mode had managed to do social stealth properly here by making the focus be identifying discrepancies in behaviour (gamepad players had a bit of an advantage of keyboard players due to the analogue control) and you had abilities that toy with that. Hunting other players while pretending to be an NPC was great.
My only real criticism was that you don't start out with abilities (later AC games did) which made matches against more experienced players more one-sided. In any case, I'd love to see a standalone version of this one day that really pushes this to the limit. A shame even Brotherhood and Rev's version was removed in the remaster.
-DLC
Nothing special. But we do learn that Da Vinci is gay (which was hinted in his AC2's bio). Making this, I believe the 2nd gay character in the franchise and first who's not evil.
-Misc
Most of my complaints from my last piece carry over like the UI, health, weapons etc. But there is also a bug on the PS4 version where the trophy for parachuting off the Castello does not pop and requires a reinstall. Also, don't get the Mac OS version.
I also had a bug where Ezio's clothes weren't properly removed during his sex scene with Caterina so it was kinda funny seeing his clothes be all triangular and constantly clipping during the act.
I'm not a fan of the way the opening has Ezio seducing girls because it seems more like the game is trying to make him likable but it comes across as something 15-year-olds make you think is cool.
-Conclusion.
Brotherhood is a game that probably doesn't need to exist for any non-business reason. And it likely would have been DLC had it been released today. The story is lacklustre and doesn't have the meat to support it. The gameplay is an improvement but it takes until Revelations for most of the improvements to find their footing. If this game never existed, not much would have changed aside no multiplayer and about 10+ million in sales for Ubisoft. Maybe this game was necessary to develop the ideas and engine that resulted in better sequels so maybe I am being too harsh on this game. But in a vacuum, this game is just that, filler at most.
The sad thing here is that, this is a pretty cool concept. I have outlined ways the story could have been better. And if the gameplay was as good as Revelations, this would have been probably one of the best AC games for a long time. As it stands, the game is pretty average at best.
If you want to play it, I recommend blasting through the main story and doing the odd side quests. Don't worry too much about the factions or other stuff.
As for me, I don't think I'll do part 3 of this for a while. My next posts will be Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and War and the PSP Need for Speed Titles.
