J Manna

Ubisoft waxed poetic on how this was a return to the 'original' gameplay that players asked for. So, I wonder, which one of you was nostalgic for boring linear quests, little to no world building, a hateable main character, lots of bugs and a flat ending that seems like a middle finger to the player after suffering through the rest of it. So, details. The no-jump climbing mechanics have always been janky. That /is/ part of the game. But some how, between Valhalla and Mirage, it got worse. The character regularly get stuck and I was unable to get them to continue the climb or jump. The number of times my high skilled assassin got caught because he was perched on a wall, spinning in place, and I could /not/ get him to continue the action was...a lot. NPCs would regularly pop up from a lying position then lay down again as my view swept left and right. At one point Ali was spinning in place until the cut scene started. There's a few collection quests but they are bare and felt like an uninspired fetch quests. The puzzles, one of my favorite parts, are wildly dumbed down except for a few. There are little to no side quests and the world building seems almost belligerent, like a kid putting out a C grade essay on Bagdad during the Golden Age using crib notes from Wikipedia. The map is huge empty spaces with nothing to find and seeming to exist just to make it seem bigger. I'm fine with a smaller map if the map that does exist has things worth exploring in it. And the writing. The dialogue was cringe worthy. The character decisions were non-sensical. The main character, far as I can tell, was an ass and an idiot. At least that is how he is written. The plot twist isn't really a plot twist. There's no building on the story Future story. Even the original trilogy had that. I don't know what 'return to form' they were aiming for but in the Post-Skyrim gaming era this game doesn't era any A, much less three. I bought it on sale for cheap and it gave me something to do for a couple days. Only reason it got more then one star.