Final Fantasy 7 Remake - An interesting Reimagining, for better and for worse.

 

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a remake of the first 6 hours of 1997's Final Fantasy 7. Or more accurately, it's more of a reimagining as instead of being a direct translation of the source material for current hardware, it rearranges, changes and adds a lot of material, making something that's not quite a modern replacement for the original.

Firstly and briefly- The presentation - The game looks and sounds gorgeous. But it does come at a cost. In addition to taking up 80GB on your Hard Drive, expect a lot of slowing down the player's movement to give the game more time to load and only being able to play in Midgar. I suspect if the game wasn't aiming for such high graphical detail it would be easier for the game to create more and varied content.

Now onto Gameplay:

-Combat- The recent FF games have had a bit of rough time picking how they wanted their combat system to be. They didn't want to be fully turn-based like the older FF games nor do they want to be fully action based. FF15 tried to be something in between and didn't quite stick the landing with how it was too automated to be a fun action game and too easy to cheese to allow some strategic decisions of a turn based system. The FF7 remake nails this aspect. When you enter combat, you fight normally with basic attacks, blocks and dodges like an action game. Damage dealth fills up an ATB meter which allows the use of more powerful attacks, spells and items. You can assign these actions to a hot-key or use a menu which slows down time to a crawl allowing you to make decisions with more space to breath. You can also swap characters with the D-pad or use L2/R2 to issue commands to other characters without swapping. In fights, the main tactic is to fill up an enemy's stagger meter by exploiting their weakness, either by using specific attacks or spells. And since enemies have different patterns and ways to exploit weaknesses, it keeps encounters varied. Filling up a stagger meter renders an enemy stunned for a short while and increases the damage an enemy takes while stunned (starting from 60% extra damage and can be increased).

There are 4 playable characters- Cloud, who has a basic and balanced offense set and counter-attack stance. Tifa - who specializes in close range damage and stagger bonuses. Barret - who specializes in long range and is the tank of the group. And finally Aerith - who has the highest magic pool and ability but the lowest health.

The combat system does a lot right. Unlike FF15, it's not fully automated and requires the player to consider positioning and their regular attacks. Using items and spells are balanced by the ATB system preventing the player from just spamming their way through challenges. And the tactical side is preserved by having to swap between and use the abilities of different characters. You need to choose where and when to use certain spells or abilities as they can be interrupted, wasting the resources that were used to charge them up. It can be rush to co-ordiante 3 characters to use their abilities in spells in the perfect way or get one character to draw attention to allow the others to function. It's great. I especially love using Lifesaver on Barret to allow him to soak all damage for the party allowing Cloud and Tifa to wail on enemies without worry and letting Barret stand by and heal himself. I do have a few issues. Firstly, they can be a lot of particle effects and other visual effects when the hits and spells start flying which can make it a little hard to see certain attacks. The game does try and tell you the name of enemy attacks beforehand which does help alleviate this somewhat. Aerial Enemies are a pain to deal with using melee characters. Audio barks are also repeated a lot which gets annoying.

Secondly, against less threatening foes, your teammates don't really get a chance to shine. There are a lot of weak filler monsters in between the major ones that often barely pose a threat. And there's no way to customize each character's AI when not being controlled. I can't command Tifa from a distance to suddenly ignore all self-preservation and go all out on a measly were-rat that doesn't pose much threat to her, especially if she doesn't have any ATB. I can't tell my crew to play defensively or avoid getting in close for a while so they can be healed. This can make some fights feel more like babysitting the AI. There are some ways to tweak the AI with Materia but it's not really a good substitute. I'd like if there was an option in the command menu to assign a few AI commands like balanced (the current system), aggressive (get more hits in and take more risks), defensive (only go in for attacks if safe), Priotize Healing (if a party member gets weakened, use a healing spell on them) etc. I'd argue these would work fine for the game rather than automate everything as the player would have to choose beforehand when to assign what AI to work. An Aggressive AI may be a bad fit for a fight or phase of a fight where aggressive play is punished. Prioitize Healing may seem broken until you realize that some enemies can knock you out of a heal attempt if you're not careful and you may end up wasting MP.

Speaking of Materia, this is the game's spell system. They are specific items you can equip onto gear to gain their effects. For example, equipping a fire materia on Cloud's wristwear lets him use fire spells. Same for healing, ice, wind etc. Spells require MP to cast which some characters don't have a lot of. Some Materia can amplify other materia. For example, magnify Materia can be linked with Fire Materia to hit multiple targets with a single blast. Or Maginfy can be linked with Cure to heal multiple party members at once. Some Materia instead use just abilities so no MP usage but require more set up and time to use. Materia can also gain experience and level up. Levelled up materia allows the user to choose a different version of the spell or increases its potency depending on the materia. For example, A Level 1 Fire Materia only lets you use a Fire Spell for 4 MP and a quick charge time. A Level 2 Fire Materia gives you the option to use Fire or the much stronger Fira for 12 MP and a longer charge time. A level 3 gives you the choice between Fire, Fira and the even stronger Firaga for 24 MP and even longer charge time. Some Materia like Pray which restores 10% of all party member's HP at level 1 just increases a higher percent at higher levels.

This system is great and gives a lot to experiment with. It also keeps weaker spells somewhat relevant later on. You may want to use a quick Fire Spell to interrupt an enemy's attack or to help stagger them rather rely on just Firaga. It also affects equipment choice and some pieces of gear may have worse stats but make up with more Materia slots or better synergy between slots.

Sadly, while combat is great, everything outside of it is more mixed.

Most levels are basically corridors with very little room to explore or deviate. Navigation is even automated with Cloud and co automatically jumping or climbing as needed and slowly shimmying. I disliked it in God of War 2018 and FF13 and I dislike it here. It makes the game feel dull outside of combat. So much time is wasted slowly walking around. If this is because the game is having a hard time loading all this stuff then I'd rather there be an option to knock down texture and lighting quality significantly just to speed the game up or something.

The only time I felt the loop of exploration and combat worked well was in chapter 4 in the sun lamps level. Here, Cloud and Co must disable 4 sun lamps over Sector 4 to allow them to power an elevator. The level is divided up into many criss-crossing platforms with branching paths to explore, a few puzzles and other challenges to solve and only a few healing benches with some somewhat tough enemies which requires some resource management. You can see the lamps early and need to find the routes to navigate to them. This is the only point in the game that I felt it used its limitations to its advantage and made a good game around them (despite technically being filler with regards to the story). I wish there were more segments like this because as the game currently is, I feel that you could replace everything outside of combat with a cutscene/movie and swap over to combat when the time comes and have the same result. I understand the original FF7 wasn't exactly much for gameplay in these sections but at least those were far more brief.

Some chapters like 3 and 6 take place in a Hub-World where you can do side quests. On paper this makes sense. Since Midgar is now 30-40 hours instead of the 5-7 it was in the original, it makes sense to expand the areas in the original to give the player more of an attachment to it and to tell more stories in it. However, the execution is lacklustre. Most of the hubs aren't that interesting to explore, being boring corridors next to each other. There's not much to interact with regards to civilians or characters. The side quests here are also generally not that interesting, being basic kill or fetch quests with NPCs with not much of a story. Plus, you already fight many of these enemies as part of the main story anyway so them being side quests hardly makes them novel or interesting. I understand that for games like this, there aren't many mechanics that a side quest has to play around with. It's not like, say, an Elder Scrolls game where there can be 10 different ways of solving a quest based on your build and dialogue choices. A Game like FF7R only really has going to a place and combat as the mechanics a side quest has to work with. For the "going to a place" side, the game could either take some cues from chapter 4 and test the player with having to navigate an area or introduce some puzzles. But the game does still demonstrate a few neat ideas that shows it can work. I'd argue the best way to make combat focussed side quests interesting from a gameplay perspective is to twist the rules or enemy the player is fighting. This is why Chadley's VR Bosses and the Collesium are good. The bosses are a great test of your combat skills and the colosseum is a gauntlet of somewhat distinct foes that require you to manage your resources well. One Side quest in Chapter 9 has the squad going to a place in Sector 5 to stop Corneo's goons and they bring out this single Frog thing that walks really slowly but can 1 shot you with a single knife strike. If you try to fight it from range, it can freeze you in place and slowly waddle towards you. It's great because of how much it twists a regular encounter while still being fun and novel to fight. If there were more enemies or encounters like this, the side quests would be more interesting. Of the 27 side quests, I'd gladly cut most of them if there were like 7 good ones. The mini-games like darts and squats are decent fun though but take too long to restart if you want to 100% them. The motorcycle levels go on for too long. They could be shortened by half.

Regarding the story - a big aspect I've seen online is the decision to set the game entirely in Midgar. There are issues as a result of this: Much of the game is padded much more compared to the original. Levels like the Trainyard, the second return to the sewers, Hojo's place are much, much longer which can be boring to play and halt the momentum of the story. I've seen many proposed solutions like "set the ending after Midgar or up until the end of the first disc. However, I feel those have their issues.

After Midgar, the original FF7 essentially became a full open world game and the story also slowed down considerably to allow the squad to slowly pick up clues on Sephiroth. From a game development standpoint- how do you deal with that? The remake already took 5+ years and a huge budget just to develop Midgar in 3D and higher fidelity than as it takes 80GB. In order to end where disc 1 ended, the remake would need to develop a massive open world but also have minimal story development for much of chapters 19-22 minimum before ending. So ending where it currently does is the best option out of all possible ones. Setting it after Midgar is likey too much to develop in the timeframe, but setting it before isn't enough. But it's easier to pad something smaller out than it is to make more first.

As an aside, If it were up to me and if the game had to be set in Midgar no matter what, I'd propose the game be 15-20 hours with bonus challenge modes and the like. I'd rather have a short and sweet game that feels padded. But I imagine doing that would get backlash as well from players.

As for the story itself, I'm mixed on it. I love the characterizations of the main characters. Some side characters are expanded considerably like Jessie or have more screentime (with limited character development in the case of Biggs). The presentation and cinematography of many sections look and feel incredible. And many aspects of the story like corporate monopolies, class inequality and environmentalism are just as important now as in 1997. But much of the execution has some issues.

The big new aspects is the Whispers, The "arbiters of fate through the will of the planet" that keep the events of this story in line with the original. For example, when Cloud is about to kill Reno, something that doesn't happen in the original, these ghost things appear and knock him and Aerith away. When Cloud and Tifa prepare to sit out the second bombing mission, The Ghosts show up to injure Jessie so Cloud and Tifa have to come along like they did in the original. I've heard the reason for their inclusion is two-fold, the first is to offer a meta-commentary on fans of the original FF7 who refuse to have any changes. The second is how it canonizes the remake and any changes coming forward. That since the Whispers are gone by the end of the game, the "gloves are off" as it were going forward. Anything can potentially happen in the story. Maybe the player, upon realizing this, tries to save Aerith in FF7R Part 2 and Tifa dies instead. Or some other wacky thing. The ending implies Sephiroth knows he lost in the original timeline (i.e The 1997 FF7) so he's trying to change fate to let him possibly win. That's honestly quite cool.

I have a few issues with this. Firstly, in-universe, it doesn't really make much sense. The characters don't seem to think or care much about the Whispers until they show up. They also are inconsistent when they do show up. Which makes whenever they show up feel closer to an in-universe Deus Ex Machina. In Chapter 18, Aerith gives this whole speech about how Sephiroth is now the bad guy and is trying to use the Whispers and the whole squad follows along and it feels so out of character for them all. Why now are they caring about Sephiroth or how do they know what's even going on or stopping the Whispers or facing Destiny? Especially Barret who gives his "I Spit in the face of Destiny" line despite literally only being alive because of Destiny. The characters shift from being quite grounded in the world to feeling like they are in a Kingdom Hearts game for an entire chapter. Even thematically, this is odd because our heroes are supposed to be on the side of the planet yet they are fighting the literal will of the planet.

Secondly, even from a meta-sense, I'd argue it's too messy. It makes an already somewhat convoluted story even more so since you now have to factor time-travel and alternate realities as part of the story itself. A new player would be even more confused by what's going on and would probably need to be told the full story of the original to grasp what's going on which potentially spoils the story for them. If the goal was to deviate from the original game and show that would be a thing, I'd argue it would be cleaner to just deviate from it and use that as the primer for the audience. The story already has characters like Biggs and Wedge survive when they didn't in the original so that aspect was already placed. This would already indicate to returning fans that the story would be different while still being easier to follow for new players while still keeping the original FF7 intact and parallel should they ever want another take on this story.

The story also feels somewhat sanitized if that's the correct word? Like, in the original FF7, when the Sector 7 Plate fell, it was this sombre and depressing moment. The cutscene itself was quite silent except for the screams of people. And of course, there were no known survivors. In FF7R, the scene is made much more bombastic with Cloud and Co escaping with intense music. The named side characters from prior chapters all survive which does somewhat limit the story. Even Biggs and Wedge survive which, while helping with that idea from earlier that the game is free to tell whatever story it wants, does somewhat lessen the idea of loss and consequence that FF7 was about. Also, what are Biggs and Wedge even going to do in Parts 2 onwards? They're in Midgar when the rest of the crew are elsewhere.

The story is also expanded and padded in some areas. Some feel worthwhile like Jessie's backstory or climbing Shinra since they either explain more about the characters and world or build up anticipation for what's coming next while still fitting in and continuing the story. But some feel like they got the wrong set of priorities. Like in Chapter 9 when the squad need to get info from Corneo and have to travel the sewers with Leslie and thus learn more about him. Ignoring that the sewers are already reused from a prior chapter, complete with the same boss as last time, why spend time on Leslie? He's not important to the overall story going forward and the whole ordeal gets us grappling hooks. Hell, I'd rather the story reuse Wedge or someone who had more screen-time so at least his survival gets more used here (it's also odd how he gets into Shinra HQ when it was so difficult for the squad).

In Closing, I'm quite mixed on FF7R. The game looks fantastic and the combat is great and some parts of the story are good. But the rather boring navigation, padded nature and messy new stuff drag it down. Still, since the Whispers are gone now, I'm looking forward to how Parts 2 onwards handle the game. Will they be open world and address the rather boring navigation? How will more party members affect the gameplay? How will the story change going forward? I just hope more severe improvements are made even if I have to wait 6 more years for it and on a console that finally comes in stock by then.

Next up for me is either Battles of Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation. See you then.

The Last of Us: Left Behind

 

The Last of Us Left Behind is the only major Singleplayer DLC for 2013's The Last of Us. Left Behind was released in 2014. The DLC is divided into 2 sections. A "past" section with Ellie and Riley that takes place around 3 weeks before the start of the main game where they explore a mall in Boston. This section is mostly story focused with very few gameplay challenges and obstacles the player has to overcome. There's not even a health meter for most of this. The second section is set "in the present" between the Fall and Winter Chapters of the main game where Ellie must search a Colorado Mall to find medical supplies to treat Joel. This section is more gameplay focussed given the player must fight more enemies and manage resources and has to retry segments if they fail or die. It plays like Ellie's sections from the Main game. The story here is much more minimal.

I'm going to discuss the Present Section first. The thing about its gameplay is that it's exactly like Ellie's sections from the main game. I wasn't that fond of playing Ellie's sections in the main game for a couple reasons. For one, TLOU's gameplay loop works by having the player spend some time collecting supplies, then having to do their best to manage them going forward. But Ellie's sections in both the main game and Left Behind are so brief that the loop doesn't really get a chance to shine. You already have most of the resources you'll have a short while in and it's not long enough to really test the player in being careful in managing those resources. Even on Grounded Mode, it's much easier than the main game because of this. The second issue is that Ellie lacks the moves and abilities Joel has in the main game. I understand it doesn't make sense for Ellie to be able to grab enemies and move them since she's not an adult but it does make the gameplay less interesting as a result. And add in that Ellie's switchblade can be an easy 1 hit kill even on Clickers and there's not a lot to really sink your teeth into. The one new gimmick is that Infected and Hunters will now interact with each other. In the main game, these 2 enemy types never came into contact. In Left Behind, the player, in certain rooms, can throw a bottle to get both groups into fighting each other to be able to make progress. It's a neat idea but really shallow. And it wouldn't be until TLOU2 where this concept really gets its due with how you can dynamically get humans and infected together in different ways, how you can grab a human/infected and feed them to another. Normally, I prefer it when DLC provide an experience I can't just get a better version of in the main game and Left Behind doesn't do that.

I understand this DLC probably was made on a deadline and not given a massive amount of resources. But in a hypothetical and magical example where that wasn't a problem, I think it would have been more interesting if this section was more of an open world/metroidvania type game. One of the Metro Last Light DLCs did something like this. Like, the player is dropped into this small mall map with a scant few resources. They need to find medical supplies. There can be a few different places where these supplies can be and the player just needs to reach 1 and then get back to the start and there are puzzles and enemies along the way. The Map is open in the sense the player can explore and it's not linear but still roughly the same size as the current mall. There are hunters and infected wandering around the player can either avoid or play around by having them fight each other. There can even be a time limit system where if the player takes too long or attracts too much attention to themselves, the enemy, be they Hunters or Infected, could find Joel and result in a game over. Now all of the negatives I listed about Left Behind turn into positives. The short runtime and map works as a way to put pressure on the player to move quickly but still be careful without becoming unmanageable like in a longer game. The shallow mechanics get more of a novelty on them as the player has to weigh the pros and cons of their actions. I understand this would certainly be a difficult undertaking for a DLC that came out a couple months after the main game with less than half the staff working on it that requires some significant tweaks that TLOU2 would eventually end up implementing. But it would still be an improvement over this current section and make it worth playing.

In terms of story, the current section is quite minimalist. Ellie explores this mall, gets the medical supplies from a military chopper that crashed into the place, fights a comical amount of hunters and infected and then treats Joel and prepares to set out. It's not a lot and there's not a lot of story beats in between that make it very interesting. The story with the military chopper and its crew is the same kind of fare that's already in the main game so it's not very novel. Ellie is 100% focussed on her mission so there's no nice character interactions. We know what happens next given so there's no real tension. It's very to the point. Which isn't why the main game's story is so adored. This also makes many of the combat sections with Hunters feel like padding when a comically large amount of guys come in to kill Ellie.

Initially, I was expecting this section to be more of a parallel of the past. Like there's a sequence in the past where Ellie and Riley have to power on the mall and a sequence in the present where Ellie needs to power on a gate. I was expecting the present to have more of this as a way of showing how far she's come and how much of a contrast there is. Like, Ellie in the present would need to chuck bricks at a car or ride a Merry-Go-Round or even turn on a bunch of TVs in different contexts from the past as a better way to connect the 2 sections. But no. Aside from Ellie being in a mall and needing to find power initially, the 2 sections are pretty much disconnected which I feel doesn't help the DLC.

Switching over the Past, this section is mostly story focussed. The banter between Ellie and Riley is quite charming, Seeing a younger Ellie that still has her innocence is a neat contrast. The way the girls see different parts of the old world can be quite funny. It even works as a prequel since the audience is aware that Ellie and Riley may not have a good ending so that builds anticipation and tension. It's good stuff. And the few gameplay sections that reframe existing mechanics, like the brick throwing race and the water gun fight, are neat but can feel boring on second playthroughs. Oh, and LGBTQ rep is good. Especially back in 2014 of all things.

But to be negative for a second, part of me wonders why the DLC is structured like this? You have a good story half with some arguably not that interesting gameplay. And you have a lacklustre gameplay half with no story backing it up. It seems more logical to double down on the story half since you'd have a DLC doing one thing right the entire time for longer. My main guess was that since this DLC was originally sold for around $15 upon release, Naughty Dog had to add something to justify it which resulted in the present section that feels more like padding. So I wonder, why make Left Behind a DLC instead of a movie? developing a 2 hour game is still harder than making a 2 hour movie given all the complexities that have to go into modelling and debugging areas, cutscenes etc whereas a movie just needs to have enough made that can be shown. I feel that the story of Left Behind would be better served with even a 40-60 minute movie of just the Past Section. You wouldn't have the expectation of gameplay bringing the experience down. A DLC generally needs to be released close to the original game in order to main interest but a movie can be released whenever.

To conclude, Ellie and Riley's story in Left Behind felt like it was worth my time. Everything else didn't. To the point where I feel a short film focussing on just the Ellie and Riley stuff would improve the experience. The gameplay is done better in the main game which makes an entire half of this DLC feel like filler at best. If this was 2014 and you asked if I'd recommend buying this DLC, I'd say no. Watch it on Youtube. There's not enough going on to make it worth buying as an interactive experience. If you have the remastered or complete edition of TLOU where Left Behind is bundled in, I'd say it's worth a playthrough then since it's already there and quite short.

 

Next up for me is probably the Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Battles of Prince of Persia. See you then

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines: Assassin's Creed 1.5, for better and for worse

 

Assassin's Creed Bloodlines is a PSP exclusive spin off of the Assassin's Creed franchise developed by Gryptonite Games and released at the same time as Assassin's Creed 2 in 2009. What's most notable about this game is that it is a faithful translation of Assassin's Creed 1's gameplay and systems into PSP form with a bit of 2's mission design. You continue Altair's story 1 month after the events of AC1 in Cyprus. You have an open world (well, small segmented locations with missions separated by a loading screen but nonetheless impressive), the same combat, stealth and parkour AC1 is known for. The one major difference is the mission design. Instead of 1's rather repetitive information-gathering approach, Bloodlines opts for an approach closer to 2 where you go from linear mission to linear mission in the open world that progresses the story. Some elements from 1's information gathering missions are still translated into these missions, like having to eavesdrop which triggers a skippable cutscene or interrogations which are simple missions. So yeah, the best way to summarize this game is as "Assassin's Creed 1.5" and if you're a fan of AC1 or 2 and want to get a handheld version of it, Bloodlines is the way to go. That is the game's biggest praise but also its worst aspect.

The major issue with the game is that it inherits the issues of AC1 and 2 which is what makes it a tough recommendation nowadays, especially if you aren't a fan of the series or AC1 and 2 especially. For example, since combat is so broken in the player's favour, and the player can just parkour out of any trouble, there's no reason to ever stealth. Very few missions require the player to actually be sneaky so you can just bum rush through most of the game and be fine. Hell, it's actually the fastest and easiest way to play since stealth just isn't really that satisfying. Which is a shame because some of the level design in the linear castle areas is quite good. It gives the players many different routes and options which in another game would be satisfying to use, but there's no reason or incentive to.

Let's go through the mechanics of the game. Combat is mostly the same as AC1. You can attack, grab and throw enemies and counterattack. However, there are some tweaks. Bloodlines uses an idea AC3 would later use that all attacks, even if blocked, still do damage to regular enemies. So you don't have to stand around and wait for counters as you can just keep attacking (albeit with a bit of timing) to kill all enemies around you with very little trouble. In addition, you can instakill any downed enemy (and you can down any enemy with a simple grab or regular counter with a sword), something that 2 added. All this, while speeding up combat, completely removes any challenge or worthwhile choice. Back in AC1, yeah, you had to rely on counters which was boring but there was 1 somewhat interesting mechanic. If you use a sword you can sometimes strike a weakened enemy and block attacks but your counters weren't guaranteed to be lethal and enemies could sometimes break your block. While using the hidden blade meant you couldn't attack or block but your counters were guaranteed to be lethal. Granted, it wasn't a great system seeing as countering was too easy but at least the premise had something in a risk/reward system. Bloodlines removes all that. Yeah, you can still counter with the hidden blade for guaranteed lethal counters which can be faster, but using a sword and either striking or countering has no downsides. Enemies can't even break your block. The one positive about this combat system compared to 2 is at least you don't have health potions so any damage sustained can't be easily healed nor can you gain such an absurd amount of health that it would take longer to die than it would to play poorly.

Parkour is similar to AC1s. However there are 2 issues that make it less fun to use. Firstly, Vaulting is made less effective. Instead of being able to grasp or manually stick to something, vaulting is more of a coin flip since it's the game that has to decide if Altair will actually grab that beam he's next to or just fall down. The second issue is that Leap of Faiths doesn't happen when you Press R + X + Stick forward. If you try that you'll just jump off the building. Instead you have to get into a select position and press X to do it. While normally this isn't an issue, it makes the player's actions feel less interesting. Instead of seeing a haystack from above and dynamically picking a good spot to leap into it, you have to be in the perfect spot which means you might as well just drop down. Most buildings are also quite short so the value of parkour is also somewhat lessened.

Stealth is similar to AC1. You can hold X to "blend" so you pretend to be a scholar and make yourself less conspicuous at the cost of super slow speed. And that's it. There are no moving groups of scholars to blend with (then again, that's not a huge loss anyway). And unlike later AC games that would add more tools, abilities and moves to spice up stealth, Bloodlines (and by extension 1) is quite basic so stealth isn't even that interesting even if you choose to engage with it. Bloodlines even removes the air assassinate move from 1. So stealth is even less interesting. Ok, I lied, there is one new move Altair has. He can pull enemies off ledges kinda like in AC2. Unlike 2 though, Altair doesn't use his hidden blade when doing the move. He just pulls them down. Which means enemies can often survive the fall and be quite confused after the fact requiring you to awkwardly maneuver around to finish the enemy or avoid ledge assassinating them. The best part of the move is that enemies sometimes do a Willheim Scream when they fall. Also, you can pick up thrown knives and Eagle Vision is removed (not that you'd need it anyway given the minimap).

Now, I know all this seems harsh. After all, this is just a PSP spin-off. There's not a lot the platform can do and being able to translate such massive games is impressive. And fair, compared to the PSP's library, Bloodlines is quite the novelty and much more impressive. But I don't know, I feel the system is capable of more. Games like Tenchu and Splinter Cell show the PSP can do decent to good stealth. Games like GTA LCS and VCS and Gun show the PSP can do open world games well. I wonder how Bloodlines would have turned out if it took more cues from games like Altair Chronicles and Discovery and tried more to do its own thing or remix existing systems instead of try and replicate them so much. But then again, perhaps this alone is what most players wanted. Bloodlines being so close to AC1 was its main selling point which likely was much more impressive upon its release.

The controls are done well for a PSP game, even without a second analogue stick or fewer buttons. The camera is controlled with the L+Face buttons. Double tapping L centers the camera behind you. With this system, you can move and control the camera at the same time which is neat. I never had any major issues here. The remaining buttons aren't a problem. Sure, you no longer have a "zoom out camera" button or first person camera since buttons for that are gone but it's not an issue.

As for the open world, it consists of multiple districts separated by a loading screen. Each District is quite small and compact. Honestly, I kinda prefer it this way. It means more content can be packed much more closely and there is less filler. There are the odd side quests in districts which consist of killing targets or delivering an item and these are ok. I feel more could have done like needing to do races across the district or killing many targets in a time limit. Funnily, I feel it's AC Brotherhood's VR missions where this basic style of gameplay really shines. Like, yeah it is easy to get to a target and kill them, so challenge the player on doing it fast and planning a route and suddenly it all works a lot better.

The mission design, like I said earlier, is closer to 2's where you do a linear story mission one after the other instead of a non-linear set of investigation missions like in 1. Now, while 1's approach to this was quite boring (and somewhat not valuable given the other mechanics), it was somewhat novel. Doing investigations actually gave you relevant info on your target and you could act on it during the Assassination. Like learning where guards were posted or where were easy places to sneak into to get closer to the target. Bloodlines, and by extension 2, drop this approach so while the individual missions themselves may be less boring, they lose that sense of being an Assassin since you're just doing tasks for other people that don't necessarily correlate to getting better at taking on a target. Granted, I don't think Bloodlines would have benefitted much from this approach anyway seeing as target's castles are quite the linear affair with alternate paths to sneak around that are quite easy to spot and that targets have boss fights rather than be stealthily assassinated. So perhaps it was the right move in retrospect. Though, ironically, AC1's repetitive mission design is more common on handheld games anyway.

Speaking of which, Bloodlines is the first AC game to really focus on boss fights. Each of the 5 major bosses are somewhat built up beforehand and cannot be stealth killed. Even the game's manual lists them out which suggests they are major players. And they kinda are. They are mostly disconnected from the events of the story so fighting them feels like a bit of a detour for the plot. They're given a varying amount of buildup before the fight so investment in them is mixed. Actually fighting them isn't really exciting given the game's combat system. Granted you can't counter-attack some of them so the fight is more dodging their attacks and getting hits on them which can be somewhat fun. The best part of these bosses is more the spectacle the game tries to present. Like fighting an 8ft tall Sumo Wrestler with a chain, or 2 twins that flip around, or an oracle that uses a fog to hide herself and try to ambush the player. These can be cool to see but have little more than that.

Completing objectives and killing enemies awards the player coins they can use to buy upgrades in between sequences. The upgrades are mostly useless. Stuff like increased damage and health aren't ever necessary given how easy the game is already. Decreased detection time doesn't really help either since losing enemies is quite easy. The only worthwhile upgrades I found were increasing throwing knife capacity since those could kill enemies faster and from a distance and recovering lost knives during normal play isn't really feasible.

If you connect Bloodlines to a PS3 running Assassin's Creed 2 you get goodies in both games. In 2 you get all the weapons of Bloodline's bosses at once plus money from Bloodlines. In Bloodlines, you get special armour that lets you block with the hidden blade like in 2, and a Hidden Gun prototype that shoots knives as ammo. The rewards are underwhelming. In 2's case, the weapons aren't really useful because countering is so broken, you can beat the game with starting gear with no issue. So even though these new weapons have stats comparable to late game gear and you can get them by sequence 3, it hardly matters. Getting extra money isn't useful because 2's money economy is already skewed in the player's favour. On Bloodlines' side it's slightly more interesting. Yeah, like I said in the combat section, this removes what little challenge is left. But while the novelty itself is cool, it doesn't really change how the game is played. In any other game I expect being given armour that lets you block attacks when you normally couldn't and a ranged attack would be quite the significant change. Here in Bloodlines, it's business as usual.

I feel AC3 and Liberation did this concept a lot better. In those games, 3 gets extra money which is actually somewhat useful given that there's no passive income and some really expensive purchases. Liberation gets an entire extra mission with Connor which really adds that to that crossover feel.

Also, there's a weird aspect of the game. Altair doesn't have a sheath for the short blade like he did in 1, yet can still use a short blade. It just disappears when Altair sheaths it. It's quite odd. This game marks the last time Altair would actually have a Short blade to use seeing as 2 and Revelations just give him an empty sheath.

The actual story is....something. Here's a summary of it:

https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed:_Bloodlines#Plot

The quickest thing to talk about is Desmond. Technically, the game takes place in the animus sometime after the events of AC1 but before 2. But Desmond himself is never seen, only mentioned as Subject 17 in the tutorial. This is odd because 1- Desmond doesn't really have reason to poke around Altair's memories after the events of AC1 even if he has a bit of free reign of his room. Seeing as, well the Templars are done with him and prepared to kill him. And 2- Desmond doesn't initially recognize Maria in AC2. Which makes sense if we ignore Bloodlines since he'd have only seen Maria briefly in AC1. But Seeing as Maria is a major character in Bloodlines, well it's odd to say the least. But seeing as this game is looking to be a translation of AC1 onto the PSP, it seems fair to include the animus even if it kinda doesn't make sense for it. I won't knock off any points here.

However, the actual story in the animus of Altair is.......there. It's not bad but there's not really anything standout or notable about it. It reminds me of like a cheap 2 hour DLC or one of those promotional comics games sometimes have that show a small self contained story that may have some things that tie into a wider story but are otherwise nothing special. I'm not going to say Bloodline's story is worthless or anything. It gets the job done in providing context to the missions and has some progression and twists, but lacks any strong driving force or investment or strong arcs nor any reason to go out of your way to experience it if you haven't already.

Altair's a stoic wise guy now. There are some entertaining moments like his philosophical musings and him pretending to be drunk to get info out of a sailor but he has no major arc or anything. At least back in AC1, his arc was learning not to be a dick and the targets he killed steered him there as he saw the same negative qualities he had reflected in them. The targets in Bloodlines rarely have a beef with Altair or much focus on the plot. You can remove them and very little would change. Other enemies like Fake Barnabas and Bouchard are absent from the game so long that when they came back I legitimately forgot about them. Bouchard is the main antagonist of the game but is even more generic and absent than Rodrigo from 2.

The only character that has something quite interesting going on is Maria. Her whole arc from no longer being able to be promoted in the Templar order because De Sable is dead, to being captured by Altair and taken to Cyprus as a prisoner, to frequently escaping to try and get back to the Templars only to find the Templars have all but abandoned and consider her to be helping the Assassins, to her taking matters into her own hands and using disguises to investigate her former allies and finding out they are practically enslaving people instead of protecting people, to her trying to take out her former allies and eventually teaming up with Altair is interesting. Honestly, the story of Bloodlines kinda feels like Altair is the side character who is doing odd jobs in the background while Maria is the main character progressing the main story.

If you have read my past reviews, especially on Altair's Chronicles and Discovery, you'll know that I would normally propose a fix or rewrite that would maintain the unique or interesting aspects of the original story while highlighting its positives and minimizing negatives while still being reasonable for the budget of the game. But I can't really do that here because there's not really much to play with or improve. Like, initially I was thinking Altair should be more like his Fan Novelization version by Mirror and Image, an anxious 25 year old who just became the head of the Assassins and learning to be a leader, but that wouldn't really be interesting seeing as there aren't even Assassins on Cyprus. The local resistance are just a local resistance who are opposing the Templars rather than Assassins so Altair isn't their boss so much as an ally they don't have to trust or listen to. The story even highlights this as local leaders tell Altair that he's become distrusted by the resistance (which doesn't really make a difference anyway as Altair rarely interacts with regular Resistance members). So the story is more that Altair co-exists with this resistance that he occasionally helps in optional side quests. The targets don't really complement this aspect like they did with Altair being a dick in AC1. You probably could focus the story more on Altair liberating parts of Cyprus he's in on his own but that doesn't really support this leadership theme plus the game has no real way of showing that like later AC games would implement. Even if it's changed that the resistance are actually Assassins, the story is too short to really tell a story of Altair coming into his own as a leader on a small scale nor is there anything in the gameplay to represent that. You can't have sections where the player plays as Maria as the stealth systems the game has aren't that interesting on their own. Maybe if Bloodlines ever gets a remake that's bigger and is able to incorporate aspects from newer AC games, there's more of a potentially interesting story possible.

So there you have it. While Bloodlines isn't a bad game, especially by PSP standards, there's very little reason to go out of this way to play this game unless you're curious or a massive AC1 and 2 fan. The story isn't anything that will hook you and the gameplay is something just about every other AC game already does if not better. And ignoring that, its gameplay is quite flawed. There's no reason to ever stealth or fully engage with any aspect of the game. Even if you self-impose challenges on yourself, it lacks challenge. If you self impose yourself to stealth through areas, it isn't satisfying as the stealth is so basic. If you self impose yourself to fight instead of running away, you'd win every fight easily due to the broken combat. If you self impose yourself to hide instead of fighting, it's easy to break line of sight and hide.

Even the novelty of having a portable Assassin's Creed game is no longer special as the Switch and iOS platforms have their own titles now. I'd personally recommend playing the DS AC games before this one since they are somewhat novel in their execution so the experience is somewhat different, or any of the other AC games over this first since you'd get a better experience. And it hurts me to be so negative on the game. I was hyped when it first came out and still enjoyed it then but was somewhat disappointed with it. I played it a ton when I was younger and it is quite the nostalgic experience but going back to it now is a sad reminder of how much the franchise has progressed in the years since. That's Bloodlines for you, it accomplishes its goal of replicating its source material to a fault. But those are some pretty big faults it has to replicate.