The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I've been a long time lurker, and figured it was about time to register and introduce myself.

Like many people, I picked up Black Flag when it came out, and I had an absolute blast with it. I 100%ed the game (even the legendary ships!). After doing that, I was inspired to go back to all the games in the series that were available for the PC. I decided I wanted to 100% all of them (not including Achievements or multiplayer, since I care nothing about either of those).

Now, I've played nearly all of them before (all except Liberation), some I finished, some I didn't (Revelations and III I never finished originally). Some I finished but didn't 100%. But my goal here was to 100% them, pretty much in order, all seven games (I may not replay Black Flag since I JUST played that, we will see). And it didn't hurt that by a complete coincidence, Steam had an "Ubisoft" weekend sale, so I got all 6 games off of steam for a pretty decent discount (I already had Black Flag, but all the other ones I didn't have installed, so instead of digging the disks out of the box in the garage, I just bought them digitally). Plus I bought the "super delux" version of all of them so I'd be able to do all the DLCs and whatnot (I really wanted to do EVERYTHING these games had to offer)

So far I have finished through Revelations, and have just started Liberation. And in general I'm having a great time (I have a few nits to pick, but these are GREAT games, there is no denying that).

I will say, I used the map here for AC1 to get all the flags and Templars (ugg!!). I think I used it for AC2 as well for something (the animus fragments?), but after that, I haven't used any outside source to finish the games (other than a couple of minor things for Revelations).

If you guys are interested in stats, I wrote my hours down off of Steam. Sadly, I don't have a number for Black Flag (I didn't get it off of steam, I have a physical copy, and I can't at the moment fire it up to look at it in-game). But these are my hours so far to 100% the entire game, with all DLCs. Now, I'm no speed demon, and I wasn't going for any world records here, I play through pretty slowly, and not at all efficiently. I like to wander around and do whatever catches my fancy at the time

AC1: 29 hours
AC2: 45 hours
AC2:B: 76 hours
AC2:R: 64 hours
AC:L ?
AC3: ?
AC4: ?

Okay, here is the tricky bit of the introduction, I'm going to rate the relative enjoyment I had with each game. This is only my opinion, so don't take it badly if I didn't put your favorite game at the top of this list. YMMV.

AC:R < AC1 < AC:B < AC3 < AC2 < ACIV

I'm not listing AC:L because I only JUST started it, and I've never before played it (I am, however, having a good time with it so far, and playing a female assassin for a change is fun), so I don't feel like I can yet fit it into this list.

I put AC:R at the bottom of this list for a couple of reasons. One, the whole Mediterranean defense meta-game was a HUGE chore. 72 assassins to recruit and train, uggg! If I never have to recruit another assassin again, it will be too soon. And micromanaging them all so the templars don't attack the cities got annoying as well. And finally, Den Defense. Jeez. The first non-tutorial Den Defense I did, I was doing fine until the templars brought in the greek fire thing. It tore through my barricades like they weren't even there and I could do NO damage to it (the only thing that worked was cannon fire, and I just didn't have enough to destroy it). It just ripped through my defenses and straight to my den, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. So I said heck with that and just made sure I never got attacked again (played the tutorial memory 3 times to fulfill the challenge). Also, AC:R is the buggiest of the bunch, by far! Challenges that wouldn't pop when they should, bank stopped collecting money randomly, etc. All the games have glitches, but this one is the only one (so far) where those glitches actually affected gameplay (I had to lookup how to finish the two bomb challenges because they are glitched). Which is too bad, because the actual story was pretty good (I quite liked the Altair sequences). But I can honestly say, having finished it now, I will likely never play Revelations again.

AC1 I liked fine. For a first game in an IP it was very good. But compared to the others it just wasn't great for me. Repetitive gameplay, the flags and templars that you cannot finish without looking them up, Altair's lack of abilities compared with Ezio (ugg, learn to swim, dude!). It's a fine game, but it suffers in comparison with the others, in my opinion.

AC:B and AC3 are pretty much tied for me (we will see if I revise that opinion when I replay and finish ACIII). Unlike most people, I never had issues with AC3, it seemed a fine game to me (but then, I enjoy that period of history, so maybe that had something to do with it). Connor didn't annoy me like he does some people. I remember the encyclopedia being a PITA. We will see when I get back to that part how it is. As for Brotherhood, it was a lot of fun. Yes it had assassin recruits, but only a few of them. It was much less a chore than it was in AC:R.

AC2 was the best of the bunch until Black Flag came along. The story is good, the levels are fun, the character had some cool new abilities (compared to the first game). What can I say, I had a blast with AC2. And of course AC4, which was an amazing game in all aspects (if I had to pick a nit, it was the grabbing of the chests in the open world area, that was a chore! But otherwise it's a great game).

Long intro post, I know! Thanks for reading, I hope it was interesting. If I have more to add as I continue my quest through the last 2 games (or 3 if I decide to replay Black Flag again), I will post here, if anyone cares

-Ron