I'll start with some context for anyone in need. AC1 was created by a young indie studio called Ubisoft in 2007. It was revolutionary for its time because it appeared in contrast to the shovelware filling its console, like GTA4. Assassin's Creed has a shocking variety of voice lines, rivaling titans like Postal 3. I still get shivers when Rescuable Peasant #31 says "another minute and they would have made off with me." The protagonist's character arc from rebellious killer to rebellious killer is unmatched for this game's time, and the lack of a romantic interest is revolutionary.
The famous stealth of Assassin's Creed was a wonder to experience for myself. As a blade in the crowd, I frequently used my long blade to kill crowds of a dozen guards. Stealth is reinforced by the difficulty of running after being detected. Every guard in the city is as nimble as the assassin, so no rooftop is safe. With dozens of archer patrolling the roofs in later sections, many of whom can detect assassination attempts with the eyes in the backs of their heads, being adept at countering is a must. The best moments of stealth however happen at street level, where the mountain of guard corpses produced by normal gameplay attract the attention of more guard mobs, who instantly recognize the killer despite there being no witnesses and become hostile if you still have business in the area. Just stealthily stab the crowd with your long blade and it'll be fine.
Mission variety is another point in AC's favor. There are a shocking 10 missions, at least! Collecting korok seeds might be the only thing that compares to saving every single citizen in peril. In addition to saving women from being made off with, you can rescue monks in order for them to tell their many sons how brave you were. You can pick the pockets of various quest designated parties (with a different hitbox every time!), or you could beat someone up in front of the guards with no consequences. Personally, I enjoyed the stealth archer missions the most, primarily because they were untimed.
There are so many ways to check the names off your list of important targets, but there are also many cheese prevention mechanisms. For instance, when a certain enemy is giving a long speech about order as he kills people, the game prevents you from throwing away the developers' hard work by simply throwing a knife into his back and ending it prematurely. You can simply charge in (after a late point in the speech) and fight a dozen guards, but that differs so much from typical gameplay that I can't imagine anyone doing such a thing. Well, I suppose I can, because one of the madmen who liter the later levels happens to wander next to me during the speech and lob me straight into the wall of guards. There do seem to be two immortal bosses, however, and I can't support that. As far as I could tell, the only way to kill them was to counter and knock them down, then switch to hidden blade and stab them that way (or counter with hidden blade, but that's harder to pull off reliably).
Pathing is like nothing else I've experienced. Pressing up several times in hopes that a wall that looks climbable really is is very immersive. The assassin himself would have probably looked up at an obvious ledge and wondered whether it was real or a simple graphical anomaly. Jumping off of roofs during free run while trying to hit something nearly straight ahead was painful, but I guess the computer character can't read our inputs. Fortunately, there's next to nothing in Assassin's Creed that can't be solved by whacking a bunch of guys with a big sword.
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this game. It's broken. More than 90% of attempt to start it through Steam failed, so I just used the .exe, which is why my play time is so short. I don't know how long it took to play through as a result, and in order to write a review I had to grind startups to cross however much time it demands. Aside from that, the keyboard controls are vile and I was effectively forced to use a controller to avoid strange and uncomfortable combinations of buttons. At some point, AC1 decided to stop recognizing my controller (which worked perfectly until then), forcing me to spend a couple of hours messing with mods and troubleshooting. For a game DESIGNED for controller, having it break is unacceptable.
If you want to play this game, if you can find it elsewhere, play it there. This version is terrible. Or maybe watch someone online playing it for you. You might enjoy it more.
