The Virtues Of Assassin's Creed 3

There are times in my life where I have kind of a "gaming rut;" an extended period of time where there is either nothing new or current that interests me, or I simply do not have the finances to purchase what does. In these moments I take to going back and playing older games. Sometimes I age myself and go way back to play NES to PS1 games; still other times I don't go so far and I will play PS3 games such as I have been doing recently.

I was looking through my game saves on my harddrive, partly to make use of a unique, yet non-jailbreaking way of making use of Skyrim console commands in the PS3 version of the game. That's a whole other story about a tedious process most would chastise me about with "just play it on PC" so I digress; but it showed me that I had a save file for every AC game I own except for Assassin's Creed 3. The reason for this is simple. I had changed the harddrive on my PS3 and didn't bother backing up my game saves so even though I had already beaten AC3, it wasn't on my harddrive. Still, I figured "what the hell, it's still an AC game" and I began playing it.

I'm nearing the end once more and I reached a point in the game where all of my opinions about it came to a head, and that's what this blog is about. For all the production mess that occurred with this game, for all the glitches, terrible free running system, and those god awful chase sequences or nearly impossible to achieve "optional" objectives and the absolutely horrible protagonist, Assassin's Creed 3 is more than the sum of its problems.

I have come to realize that Assassin's Creed 3 is 1 part Altair's story, 1 part Ezio's story, and 1 part the story of the Kenway bloodline.

In Assassin's Creed 1, Altair becomes overconfident and ends up being the reason for a near disastrous loss for the order. He spends the rest of his time being manipulated in a grand scheme and slowly uncovering the truth of it and who his real enemy is. This is very similar to Connor's story, for Connor is himself brash and impudent, manipulated in a grand scheme, and slowly uncovers who his real enemies are as well.

In Assassin's Creed 2, Ezio's story is one of vengeance. His family was murdered before his eyes and he swore he'd do whatever it took to avenge their deaths. Again, we see this in Connor's early life and as a continued theme of the whole game in his pursuit of vengeance against Charles Lee, whom he believed to be responsible for the death of his mother and the near extinction of his people.

In Assassin's Creed 3, we see incredibly complex relationships between the Kenway men, all masked behind an ageless story of those who fight for freedom, and those who desire control. Playing AC3 after playing AC4 made me question what things would have been like had Edward still been alive, even if Haytham still ended up being a Templar and all the events that led to Connor's birth remained the same.

I used to look at AC3 in the wrong way. I saw a weak Connor being manipulated by The Patriots into fighting their war for them and being unworthy of his station when compared to his predecessors or even his own father. I detested the poorly done aspects of the gameplay and the clear lack of a cohesive design philosophy for the game, but I saw some things differently in my second look.

For one thing, the game is beautiful. I don't mean visual fidelity or any of that sterile nonsense that the fashion diva gamers of this age foam at the mouth over. I'm talking the scenery. I've always been partial to that kind of Frontier setting with vast forests, mountains, and streams so that's something I've always liked about AC3. Then there's the music and the inherent Native theme present in many of the tracks. That wasn't really something I was too focused on because I was too busy detesting Connor as a character, or the other aspects of the game I didn't like and have previously listed. Such is an easy habit to get into, ignoring the subtle beauties of some games because other stuff isn't so good.

But probably the most impactful part of the game is that one moment that is the most emotional. Rarely is it true that a game has anything in it that can truly touch me. People always talk about crying at Aeris' death in FFVII and I always sneer at such a comment because she meant nothing to me. She was but a figment made of pixels arranged to look like a person. Her death wasn't a real one.

However, the death of Achilles was a very emotional thing for me. The relationship between Achilles and Connor was kind of like what the relationship between Altair and Al Mualim was and was supposed to be in that Altair and Al Mualim constantly argued the same way as Connor and Achilles, but Achilles wasn't a traitor to the Brotherhood that Connor would end up killing. Achilles was the father figure that Connor never had in his life, even if he'd be too stubborn to admit that. Achilles was definitely my favourite character of that game, with a superb voice actor, and maybe that's what sold the relationship for me, but his death is what impacted me the most in the game. Not because I know what the feeling is like, just because he was that great a character and their relationship with each other was so real, so relatable.

The game even addresses the relationship when Connor says that he misses Achilles the same way that he misses his mother, says he'll make Achilles proud of him, and that when the day comes that they are reunited, he'll bother him some more. I don't know about anyone else, but all of that was some powerful stuff for me. Those few moments were what made the game for me, irrespective of anything else.

This kind of thing is incredibly rare for me. So rare that I can't remember any other game where my opinion on it was changed in a second playthrough. I normally know whether or not I am going to like a game very early on, it's a skill a lot of old school players develop called "experience." Every now and then however, something like this happens and it's a great surprise.

Assassin's Creed Unity is coming soon. I can only hope that in Ubisoft's decision to make Arno more a character that you build rather than the story (which is how things seem to be at the moment), that they haven't forgotten what kind of an impact a good, possibly complex, relationship between the protagonist and other characters can bring to the experience.

We need more games with their own Connor and Achilles and less games that favour flash over substance. At least, that's just what I think.

Don't be wary of giving some games a second look, you might be surprised at what you didn't see the first time.