Recent reviews by Darkcastalone

The Witness is a game about walking around an island surrounded by puzzles that disfigure rationality and logic. An encounter between various synchronizations. Elements that are often outside are inside. The veracity of the obvious lies in the veracity of V's voraciousness and its transformative goals in the veridical meanings of what does not appear to be. A unique experience that is tantamount to the submersion of the one who created it.

Synopsis: follows the Desmond/Ezio/Altair parallels where the total deconstruction of reality begins to bifurcate for them in a final and revelatory encounter.

Locations - between the animus - Desmond will awaken in a lost and isolated limbo of the Animus program where he will have some necessary encounters of history with subject 16 and optional portals that you can enter to learn more about Desmond's past. In these portals you will have levels with a Portal-like formula where you will have to use the environments designated in the bifurcations of the Animus/Desmond's subconscious in first person, while using geometric mechanisms to proceed around. Apart from these, the place has another portal where you are assigned to enter and continue with the last remnants of Ezio story.

Locations - inside the animus - the game takes place in the small areas of Constantinople and in some sequences ahead there will be a second region to explore called Cappadocia.

Brotherhood of Assassins - inside the animus - the brotherhood of assassins will return, this time with an existing shelter to store the items purchased in the armory and bookshop. The game has similar mechanics to Brotherhood, except that it will only be possible for 7 of the assassins to become masters of the appropriate areas of Constantinople and for this to happen certain submissions must be made.

Freedom for Constantinople - inside the animus - similar to Rome, the city has been taken over by the Templars and certain areas must be unblocked and rebuilt to achieve 100% cleanliness.

Collectibles - inside the animus
*Chests - scattered around Constantinople/Cappadocia can only be revealed if you buy the proper maps from the book store. Remember that some collectible chests will only be available in certain missions to explore catacombs.
*Fragments of the animus - located around Constantinople/Cappadocia, they don't have a map to buy and can only be seen once you've completed the total of 50 collected.
*Ishak Pasha's Pages - located around Constantinople and can only be fully revealed if you collect a certain number of fragments of the animus. Once collected, a map will be available in the book store.
* Keys of Masyaf - in order for Ezio to discover the truth of Altair's past, 5 keys were hidden in the outskirts of Constantinople, and it is part of the story to discover each of them.

Submissions - inside the animus
*Templar tombs - two submissions will be available as soon as you collect Ishak Pasha's pages to get his armor and sword.
*Brotherhood - in order to place the 7 assassins as masters, certain submissions will be made as soon as they reach a certain level.
*Lost books - once beloved Sofia has given us the locations, there will be an optional way to find certain lost books that will be stored in the assassins' shelter.
*Equipment, weapons and books - both items bought at the armory and books will be stored in the Brotherhood's shelter.

Guild actions and bomb system - inside the animus - the optional guild system will return in the same way as the brotherhood where thieves, mercenaries, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, assassins and bombs will have optional actions to perform around the city.
Just like the not-so-captain hook, the new and unique bomb method used in Revelations puts into practice a mix of items in the appropriate lockers located throughout the regions where these items can only be found by soldiers' bodies, chests and stores.

Dlc - Lost Archives - like Desmond's optional story, subject 16 will have a single one with the same geometric atmosphere to enter certain levels of the animus/subject 16's consciousness and discover his terrifying past.

Atmosphere and composition - vague, empty and emotionless is the definition I felt in the surroundings and in the synchronization of its composition, eliciting a short and not so elaborate concentration of the same attributes.

Conclusion - if i were to draw up one of the worst of the saga, this would be way down at the bottom. Its formula and story are interesting to appreciate, but as the same as it's atmosphere and composition, this all seem vague, short and lack that pure, symbolic feeling of its predecessors.

Synopsis: Follow-up to both Desmond/Ezio stories, this time alarmed by the incessant search for the fruit of Eden in the tyranny of the Templars in Rome.

Locations - Outside the animus
The game tries to return to the idea of the first game where you have a certain freedom to go out and read emails and talk to the characters Lucy, Shaw and Rebeca. Desmond will also be able to walk around the village of Monteriggioni for a while (where he will be hiding for the duration of the game) in search of certain optional hidden artifacts from Ezio's past.

Locations - inside the animus
The game will focus solely on the confines of Rome and its infamous corruptive possession. Some areas in particular will be available in certain submissions and in the last sequence of the game.

Tiberina Island Shelter - inside the animus
At one point in the game Ezio will be taken to the place where the brotherhood of assassins and their respective collectibles will remain. Unlike in the second game, purchases such as paintings and weapons will do nothing to improve the monetary value of the place.
On the island there are paint, sewing, medicine and weapons stores that have special items for Ezio's equipment. These items can only be unlocked by obtaining certain items. They can be found by robbing certain thieves on the run, thieves who tend to appear at night in dominated locations and also in certain missions, the wolves of Romulus and in chests surrounded by Rome and in the submissions of Da Vinci and the temples of Romulus. *Certain items can only be obtained from certain chests in Rome and the temples of Romulus.

Brotherhood of Assassins - the idealistic revolution of assassins created by Ezio and carried on for millions of years to come, will be given the opportunity to recruit 12 assassins in total and upgrade their rank and skills. Some assassins will only be unlocked once you destroy certain Borgia towers. They will be upgraded in certain separate missions found in the pigeon houses and the shelter on Tiber Island. These missions are endless and it's important to carry them out if you are one hundred percent sure that you will be able to achieve your recognition status. Failure to do so could result in the death of the respective mission killers. There will be a bar in Ezio's top left corner that will allow you to call them at certain vital times to kill or distract guards. The better the rank and skill upgrades, the more life and strength the assassins will have to help you.

Freedom for Rome - inside the animus
The self-centered and authoritarian Borgia Templar family command the entire siege of Rome. During the time that Ezio was never present, this command left the entire territory plagued by misery and ruin for the population. Maquieval steps in and pushes us to invest in all the areas that have been demolished in order to renovate them and gain real investment for Rome.
In order for these investments to take place, towers commanded by Borgia soldiers must be destroyed so that the respective territories can be unlocked for purchase.
With each renovation or purchase of a particular estate taken over by the Borgia, you will increase your money in the deposit bank to withdraw later.
When the stores are unlocked, you will have the option of investing (depending on the degree of possibility) in them to obtain certain items that are vital for acquiring certain equipment for Ezio in the stores on Tiberina Island.

Collectibles - inside the animus
*Feathers - the familiar feathers from the old game, this time reduced to no more than 10 to be found and with the proper money in hand Ezio can get the map from the art store to make them visible to be found;
*Borgia flags - as well as the feathers, there will be a map to buy in the art store to make the 101 flags around Rome visible. Bear in mind that some of the flags will be available in the temples of Romulus and in these areas there will be no map to make them visible;
*Chests - another marked for the purchase of a map, there are a total of 144 chests around Rome with the appearance of those that are not visible in submissions from Leonardo's machines or the tombs of Romulus but these do not add up to the total collected;
*Glyphs - the famous glyphs also return in the areas of Rome with 16 to be found to unlock a small puzzle until you find the second truth, but they are not visible on the map or for purchase;
*Keys of Romulus - to unlock the lunar garment of the wolf of Romulus, 6 keys will have to be found in the 6 temples of Romulus, which will be visible on the map as soon as certain renovations are carried out or not;

Submissions and synchronizations - inside the animus - apparently the spin off Discovery started the idea that was carried over to the rest of the games, synchronizations are the optional idea of what Ezio actually accomplished at the time in each mission and which will be marked before carrying out each mission in order to reach 100% of each. Reaching a certain number of synchronizations will unlock certain items that will be available in the menu inventory.
Some submissions will be unlocked as the story progresses or other submissions are completed.
*Thieves, courtesans and mercenaries - when you reform the territory of the thieves, courtesans and mercenaries, a certain number of submissions will be available for you to complete;
* Copernicus - the famous astronomer and his ideas have not escaped the gaze of the Templars and it will be up to Ezio to save him in certain available submissions;
*Christina - the scars of time have taken the marks of Ezio's DNA and in certain places there will be a way to remember them;
*Templar agents - the citizens will be lodged and crying out to be rid of certain Templar individuals;
* Assassinations - assassination submissions will once again return in the pigeon cages;
* Templar locations - certain regions can be unlocked by reforming certain locations where Ezio can enter to loot treasure;
* Temples of Romulus - if he wants to acquire the wolf costume, Ezio will have to delve into the dreaded depths of the homes of Romulus to acquire his keys, some of which will only be available after a certain renovation.
*Leonardo's weapons - at a certain point in the game Leonardo da Vinci implores us to destroy certain weapons of war that he has created for the Templars and which could become cruel weaponry in the wrong hands.

Guild actions and animus training - inside the animus
The assassins, mercenaries, courtesans and thieves'guilds will have a blackboard with the option of completing certain Ezio actions to receive a special item at the end.
The animus training will be available in the pause menu and will be divided into battle, quest and race modes with various mini missions to be completed in the estimated time to receive the appropriate gold, bronze or silver insignia.

Atmosphere and composition - the dark life of Rome is felt at certain points and riding or climbing near the Colosseum becomes even more captivating. Jesper Kyd again does not fail and Echoes of the Roman in Ruins remains for me as a memory in this remarkable reminder.

Multiplayer - just as the name and marketing suggest, the game that abysmally smoked out the single player ideology of the Assassins Creed saga for a distribution of human ants running around in search of points.

Conclusion - Assassins Creed Brotherhood tends to be one of the saga's tightrope walkers. Despite reducing the exploration rate of the previous games, its story continues to be marked by the notoriety of the narrative and its atmospheric vividness.

*Note: ubisoft ended up disconnecting certain dlc's from the game that contained very good submissions such as Leonardo's disappearance and even though I had already obtained and played these submissions before in my bookstore, they have been removed.

Synopsis: The sequel to the first game sees Desmond on a terrifying escape from the Abstergo company with his partner Lucy to meet his new companions Shaun and Rebeca where his mission this time is to enter on the new upgrade of animus 2.0 to another of his past lives called Ezio Auditore in search of the lost fruit against the notorious Templars in the Renaissance era in Italy.

Locations - Outside the Animus:
There will be rare moments when this happens as part of the story without being too involved in anything further.

Locations - Inside the Animus:
The game will be set in the regions of Italy in its Renaissance heyday. They are Florence, the village of Monteriggioni and San Gimignano, the Apennine Mountains, the Romagna region (Forlì) and Venice. There will only be the Vatican region as it is essential for history and will be available at the end.

Help groups - inside the animus
At one point in the game you will be introduced to three characters who will introduce you to three types of help group to assist you at certain points in the game. Unlike in the first game, these groups don't appear to save someone in danger, but must be paid to be functional and will go with Ezio wherever he goes to be guided, having command mechanisms to stop or be taken to the objective to be distracted. They are:
*Courtesans - the first group to be unlocked in the game, the courtesans are the faithful and attractive charm if you need to distract a guard for a not-so-momentary moment;
*Thieves - the scoundrel group who sneak up on the guards to make them run back while Ezio goes in search of some objective. They also seem to be the only group who can climb the rooftops with Ezio because of their cat-like artistry;
*Mercenaries - the manhood of the group, these are the brutal killers who cause the guards to fight with them as a means of helping Ezio.

Monteriggioni Shelter - inside the Animus:
After a few sequences Ezio finds himself with his family in the guards of his brave uncle Mario in his village Monteriggioni. This will basically be his safe house for any collectibles or enhancements he acquires for it. Given the state that time and battles have judged the villa to be in, the place is impoverished and unsavory to visitors. It is your mission to acquire improvements with the money you have on hand. For every improvement or collectible you buy, you will receive an increase in visitors. This increase will be deposited in a safe where you can withdraw it whenever it becomes available.

Collectibles - Inside the Animus:
*Chests = easy to see if you buy the appropriate maps of the regions you're in at the painting workshops, the chests are the essential money if you want to improve the village;
*Pages of the Codex = at one point in the game we meet the legend in dimensional flesh, Leonardo da Vinci. This encounter will help us discover pages that are necessary for the story and that will be used to upgrade Ezio's equipment. Again, just like the chests, they will be available as soon as you complete the eagle's eye view without having to buy another map;
*Glyphs = walking through certain regions will reveal to Desmond/Ezio the location of strange drawings to discover a mysterious truth. Each of these drawings, when acquired, will be given a da Vinci puzzle moment to decipher. These do not appear on the map and not another purchased map makes them appear, requiring a certain amount of exploration to find them;
*Feathers = in one of the initial missions, Ezio's brother Petruccio will tell you to find certain feathers. These feathers will be kept in a chest in the village of Monteriggioni later on in the story. There are a total of 100 feathers around the regions of Italy and there is no map detailing where they are either.
*Paintings = this is one of the collectibles that will be bought at art workshop. Each region has different paintings and each time they are received they are placed on the floor above the Monteriggioni mansion.
*Weapons and equipment = available in the blacksmith's workshop, they will also be added to the village as an improvement;
*Seals = in order to unlock the classic dress of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad in the Monteriggioni village, Ezio will have to find 6 seals of the assassins that are scattered in the catacombs of certain explored regions. As well as the chests and pages, in the respective sequence they will be visible to the character.

Fighting methods - inside the animus
Ezio has better and more up-to-date ways of fighting than Altair, and as soon as Ezio acquires the pages of the codex given to Leonardo da Vinci, they become his allies at crucial moments. Some that will become well known in this one will be the fists and throwing knives. Others are:
*Money = method not used as much, it can be considered as a distraction to kill someone while the crowd clamors for coins;
*Hidden Blade 2x = famous duo of updated hidden blades that are not only the future of the rest of the games, but are the hallmark of stealth at all times;
*Hidden Gun = just like the Hidden Blade 2x, this is carried over to the rest of the games to a certain extent, but it's clearly not used much because it's a noisy and slow method, causing Ezio to be discovered.
*Swords, hammers and maces = these weapons vary from their lightness of attack to their defense, but if you choose the right item in the blacksmith you won't have any problems;
*Short swords = just like the previous weapons, but more subtle, agile and quicker to attack;
*Venom = created by the hidden blades and purchased from the doctor's store, these are useful if you need to cause a ruckus with a single opponent, but it's easily the slowest and most consumable method in the game;
*Smoke bombs = bought at the blacksmith store, these bombs are extremely useful if you want to blind the guards and disappear or kill them mercilessly. Unfortunately, this item only has three storage locations, so you have to buy it several times.

Submissions - Inside the Animus:
*Touching the husband = Ezio will receive submissions in the form of a closed fist in which weeping women ask him to teach their cuckolded husbands a lesson.
*Racing = in one of the initial missions you will compete in a race with your brother, Federico. Later, other npc's challenge you in submissions to see if you can beat their race times.
*Assassination = available in the pigeon cages, where you have to kill a certain opponent. There are around 16 submissions available.
*Templars= in certain regions there will be markings of the Templar insignia that can be completed with the majority in search of hidden Templar treasures.

Music and atmosphere: The famous Italy in its golden age has never been so lively to walk around, giving you the feeling of wanting to be there in the long fields of Tuscany. Jesper Kyd once again opens up with his Renaissance art in one of, if not the, best of his compositions ever made in games.

Spin off - Assassin's Creed II Discovery :
The game only has one spin off available for Nintendo DS and IOS, but you can easily play it on an emulator available online called Desmume for Nintendo DS.
This story takes place in the middle of the second game where Ezio receives a call from Spain to confront another league of Templars.
The game seems to be the first one to involve the synchronization system in each level, challenging the player to complete certain challenges in order to achieve 100% synchronization.
There will be wanted flyers scattered around the regions and for every 10 wanted flyers torn up, Ezio receives a grain of life.
With only 8 sequences and a similar system to Altair's Chronicles, Discovery tends to be shorter and a little tedious, so to speak.

Conclusion: Assassins Creed ll is clearly considered one of the best games in gaming history. Its artistry and simplicity in making something historic, a surreal boil is such that to underline anything less is to overlook such a feat.

Synopsis: The year is 2012 and the bartender Desmond Miles is no longer serving on one of his occasional normal days, but he is inexpertly taken in by a company called Abstergo that induces him to experiment on a machine called Animus that takes him to his past life called Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, known to be from a brotherhood of assassins located in Masyaf led by Al Mualim at the time of the ancient crusades to go in search of an ancient artifact that could change the events of humanity forever.

Locations - Outside the Animus:
Desmond Miles will complete around 8 separate sequences in the Animus and in each sequence he will have the opportunity to leave the Animus for a little exploration. Each different event will provide opportunities to talk to Lucy when permitted and read short emails to discover the truths of why you are where you are and the company that kidnapped you.

Locations - Inside the Animus:
The game takes place in four regions of the ancient holy lands of the crusades in Acre, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and Masyaf where the assassins' creed resides. The whole thing practically boils down to killing 9 opponents in order to redeem a mistake made by the pride of the past life protagonist Altaïr and in between, you will go between the three regions of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem in search of them. At the same time, there are two more regions to explore at the time of the crusades: the kingdom that divides both lands and which will allow you to access the regions first, as you can then quickly take a shortcut to each location, and Arsuf, which is only available in one of the final events as a specific battle location.

Weapons and places to hide - Inside the Animus
Throughout Altair's journey there will be times when he will need to train himself to fight, and being an assassin there are certain ways this can happen:
*Fists = rarely used only for submission contracts that involve taking the truth from a certain opponent;
* Hidden Blade = the famous hidden blade, only used for stealth methods and to kill opponents vital to the story;
*Long Sword = mostly used for close battles where the stealth method cannot or has not been carried out correctly, alerting opponents;
*Knives = small blades that can be thrown at opponents.
There are three different locations in the game that can erase the killer's traces: The famous haystacks, Rooftop Gardens, which are small curtained places above the cities where the killer can hide inside and the benches.

Collectibles and Investigations - Inside the Animus:
During the separate events a small open world will be available to explore and at each location there will be eagle sights to climb and survey each designated location on the map to discover situations or investigations to be explored.
The situations involve certain citizens who are in danger and require the assassin's help to free them from the oppressive danger of the guards, and when this happens the women in danger provide you with certain men-at-arms to prevent the guards from catching you when necessary, or the men in danger provide you with scholars who are essential in certain parts of the game in order to go unnoticed by the guards or to kill an essential opponent.
Investigations are an obligation to find out the whereabouts of each of the 9 opponents you must kill. They can be eavesdropping on a conversation, stealing something, forcing a truth out of someone or even challenging your assassin partners before they tell you anything. Each of the three regions (Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem) has three districts (Rich, Middle and Poor) where each of them will be given different assignments to uncover reports that could lead to your opponent's whereabouts.
The collectibles do not appear on the map and there is no market system for discovering them either. They are divided into two situations: the 60 Templars that can be found and kill in the three regions of Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem and the Kingdom that separates the two. And the many little flags of each of the four regions Acre, Damascus, Jerusalem, Masyaf and the kingdom that separates them.

Music and atmosphere:
Jesper Kyd during his stay in the Assassins Creed saga never failed to manipulate the essence of the bygone era giving that manifestation of the ancient meditative wails and dogmas of the regions.

Spin-offs: The game has two separated spin-offs that tell some of the remain story of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and are available outside the computer platform, but you can easily play them on emulators available online called Desmume for Nintendo DS and PPSSPP for Playstation Portable. Neither shows Desmond leaving for the Animus or the personification of it. Both focus purely on Altair and his lost adventures against the Templars. They are called Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles and Assassin's Creed Bloodlines.

Spin-off - Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles - precedes the events of the first game by a year and was released exclusively for Nintendo DS. It begins with Altair being asked by Al Mualim to recruit an ancient sacred object called the chalice, but in this endeavor the dear Templars will also be interested in this object with their leader Lord Basilisk.
The game conceptualizes the famous ancient plataformer tricks of the old prince of persia surrounded by traps to overcome and plenty of puzzles to solve. Several battle locations are waiting to be unlocked but can often be avoided.
The game doesn't have an open-world focus, being just about completing the 13 sequences at various points in the ancient holy land of the Crusades.
The game also has two systems for stealth and making your opponent discover the truth. The stealth system involves a small camera pointing at your opponent's pocket, where you carefully remove the key and avoid touching other objects. In the system for discovering the truth, you have to touch the right points on your opponent's body using a series of buttons to be clicked at the right time.
Around the game there will be white orbs to collect and they can be used to upgrade your sword or your life system. Some orbs can only be collected by killing certain soldiers.
It also has a few flaws, ranging from the camera's stuck movements that often lead to wrong jumps and wrong movements.

Spin-off - Assassin's Creed Bloodlines - This game is exclusive to the Playstation Portable and takes place after the events of Assassin's Creed, where Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad travels to the islands of Cyprus in search of the Templars who are terrorizing the Holy Land. The game has a small open-world system where you can synchronize in certain locations to open certain missions and submissions such as delivering messages, killing opponents or saving citizens. Using these submissions will guarantee you certain coins that you can use to improve Altair's abilities. There will also be Templar coin collectibles dotted around the region and there are no points to locate them on the map. With only 7 memory sequences to complete, it's much shorter than its spin-off predecessor and has a very light story in comparison.

Conclusion: Assassins Creed is the fateful game that would be orchestrated even before Ubisoft's own Prince of Persia saga, but fortunately we had the Persian classic in our hands even before that. Its historical fictional originality and the regions to be sought out and explored make this a landmark cult classic that will be revisited a few times and which will have a looooooooong... future to look forward to.

*Observation: Unfortunately, given the amount of time that has passed and the "kindness" of the company in recruiting this lost time, this game is plagued by gameplay problems ranging from screen freezes, crashes and some archaic bugs such as the famous leap of faith where instead of falling into a pile of fluffy straw, it ends up being hard enough to kill you and send you flying into infinity.
https://youtu.be/Ne5ktNP_PPM

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