Revelations?

I had a whole post written about Assassin's Creed: Revelations and its nitty gritty details but the more I tried to finish it, the more boring it seemed. Yes, I could have ranted on about the tower defence mini game and terrible horse & cart sections but these have all been picked apart elsewhere and there's not much more that I could add. There's good and bad in its gameplay but it's largely the same as it was in Brotherhood, with some tweaks here and there (mostly for the better I would say). What disappointed me most was probably the fact that it didn't really live up to its name.

I've mentioned before that I wasn't a huge fan of Brotherhood but you can't deny that it was better named. This however didn't really have anything interesting to reveal, especially if you've been carefully following the lore of the previous games (I hadn't really but there still didn't seem to be much new here). I'm not sure what I was hoping for really, it's not like there was much manoeuvring room to fit any explosive revelations into the story but you still hoped for it anyway. The only way it could possibly be worded is that they were revelations to the main character Ezio, but even then I was sure he knew a lot of the story too.

I think the series as a whole has struggled to focus on the characters that I have really been invested in. The first game is mostly based around Altair's boring textbook redemption storyline, when for the most part I wanted to know more about Desmond, whose past lives you were re-living. When that game ended with a conclusion to Altair's story but pretty much cut off Desmond's mid flow, it was pretty jarring and I was just glad that I already had Assassin's Creed 2 lined up to play. The sequel probably had the best mix of both timelines as you finally got to do some interesting stuff in the present day but also quickly formed an attachment to the new character Ezio. Your returns to the present day were also scripted regularly, which broke up the action nicely.

Brotherhood broke away from this approach and let you return to the present day whenever you wanted but despite there being some interesting present day sections at the start, there wasn't really much reason to come back otherwise. The same was true of this game, where there were a few vague interactions with Subject 16 - the previous occupant of the Animus device, whose puzzles you have been solving for 2 games and some abstract first person levels, that are supposed to give some insight into Desmond's past. Despite being largely optional, it seemed like the focus of the game as a whole was on Desmond and his need to accept the mistakes in his life, though to me it never felt like he had much to feel sorry for. The ending of the previous game, which was probably what you would most want to find out about was brushed over quickly and then barely touched again, which I found pretty disappointing. The game ends on Desmond stating that he knows what needs to be done, but the rest of us are still in the dark.

All that was left that really interested me was wrapping up Ezio's story and I don't really feel that this was done satisfactorily either. It starts off well, with the introduction of a number of new characters, including a likeable assassin called Yusuf. I felt that he and Ezio worked quite well together, with Yusuf having some similar qualities to Ezio in his youth and showing a fair degree of cheek to his 'mentor'. I was quite surprised that Ezio didn't just turn around and deck him at any point. While the portrayal of Ezio as an older man wasn't exactly realistic (though some of the sci-fi leanings go some way to justifying it), I thought it was nice to see older characters even attempted. On the whole he was a bit closer to the character I originally loved after being fairly unmemorable in Brotherhood.

There is also his love interest Sofia, a bookshop owner who is almost 20 years his younger. As digital romances go it wasn't too bad, you could say it was quite subtle as neither party seemed to be directly pursuing the other, it all seemed to flow along quite naturally. Ezio has finished his personal journey of revenge so it felt like the bulk of his story was about his pursuit of knowledge and whether he could let other people into his life while still being an assassin. While playing I couldn't exactly remember his previous romantic history, I got a little confused between his most recent love interest and his 'greatest love' who was pretty much retconned into Brotherhood through flashbacks. I guess that his relationship with Caterina Sforza was never going to reach a conclusion due to her being based on an actual historical figure but it felt a bit weird that this was just dropped without much explanation.

I felt a little short changed by where Sofia and Ezio's relationship is left at the end of the main storyline (my wife even more so). It hints heavily that they get together but it's not really confirmed - though I'm not saying I wanted a hot coffee mini game or anything like that. I've completed all of the additional challenges I can stomach so I'm pretty sure there's nothing more to be found out about them within the game. I was expecting something, even if it was just a flash forward scene of him and his kids after the credits (to paraphrase Mr. Plinkett: "Don't any of you f**kheads tell me that it was explained more in the novelisation or some animated short film, what matters is the game"). It just seems a bit disrespectful to discard the character who has been the best thing about the series for three games so easily. I'll still be watching out for Assassin's Creed 3 later this year and it could well benefit from the fresh start a new main character will allow. I'm just a little sad to see Ezio go out with such a limp conclusion and his own acceptance that he was only ever the caretaker of these Revelations.