Assassin's Creed Mirage and rankings

[BrawlMan]

Some people really started liking (or, I believe, pretending to like Unity) after Origins, as way to on-line "protest" the change in format. Then Unity got a little more good press after the IRL Notre Dame had a massive fire and people were praising the game's recreation of it, going so far as to create a myth that it would literally be used to help restore the real one.

Too many people have been going too hard on the copium and self gaslighting. In the case of that GameStop employee, she was overly defensive about Unity way before the fire at the Notre Dame happened.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

 

[sXeth]

This is why I'm always defending AC around here- not because it's not worthy of criticism (it is... it is). But because it just became this lightning rod of "well ahckchoollies" on the internet. It's to video games what "both parties are bad therefore why not Trump" is to political arguments- based on some understandable frustration but ultimately a pointless exercise in smug self-promotion.

And the funny thing, you don't need to do any of this to criticize Mirage. I like SkillUp and Dunky and Yahtzee but there is no possible way to make an AC that will please them at his point. I really can't imagine what such a game would look like- these games are not for them.

I mean, the general thing with AC is most people will say X (usually whichever they played first) was good and the rest were kind of repetitive or mid follow ons (at least until the weirdline overhaul into whatever would-be MMO design and live service nonsense going on with Origins-Valhalla).

With an occasional one that just latches on to the preferred historical setting instead of the first one. Or Black Flag which was a novelty in the almost-completely disassociated piratey sailing bits and if we judged just on the bits more effectively trying to be Assassins Creed was probably one of the worse ones.

The more critical folks seem to probbably want it either to lean more heavily into being a stealth game or a platformed proper (rather then it sort of auto-running thing), which would take away the accessibility of the series and probably crater its sales comparitively.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

The more critical folks seem to probbably want it either to lean more heavily into being a stealth game or a platformed proper (rather then it sort of auto-running thing), which would take away the accessibility of the series and probably crater its sales comparitively.

And also I don't think there's every been a game (or book or movie) that was great because it delivered on specifically what critics declared they thought was the right thing. Because great art and entertainment involves surprise and creating new expectations not catering.

Funny thing about it all is that Mirage is exactly what critics declared they want, it is doing this exact thing- hey, you want stealth in a dense urban environment and relatively shorter story? Well here you go!
And despite my reservations of Yahtzee bothering with AC* his main observation that he made about it on a stream recently is correct- Mirage is not "streamlining," as the marketing implies with its "back to the roots" thing, it's just removing things from Valhalla.

Mirage is like FF16- was having some fun with it, then got annoyed, then after I'm done the more I think about it the more pissed off I get. Left a real bad after-taste in my mouth.

I really hope the next game is a fucking 670 hr story campaign with a thousand areas and a million collectibles, just to piss everyone off now and give me a pretty Japanese playground to dick around in while listening to podcasts.

* Yesterday Yahtzee changed his post-ZP stream from streaming the game he reviewed to just streaming what he wants, and it illustrates my point about him- he's just much more fun and interesting when not engaging with the AAA stuff, especially a game like Mirage.

 

[BrawlMan]

I really hope the next game is a fucking 670 hr story campaign with a thousand areas and a million collectibles, just to piss everyone off now and give me a pretty Japanese playground to dick around in while listening to podcasts.

(Does Emperor Palpatine head turn) Not from an Ubisoft game.

Yesterday Yahtzee changed his post-ZP stream from streaming the game he reviewed to just streaming what he wants, and it illustrates my point about him- he's just much more fun and interesting when not engaging with the AAA stuff, especially a game like Mirage.

Even that is losing its appeal now (for me at least), because he doesn't know what he actually wants. The best I can give him is when he reviewed SOR4 back in 2020. Yet he had a gall to complain about the game being really hard when he boasted about playing hard games such as God Hand and Viewtiful Joe in his MadWorld 'review' (Wii biatch fit) back in 2009. The Streets of Rage franchise was known to be hard series. No most of these games have the right level of challenge, but Viewtiful Joe and God Hand are much harder games than SOR. He enjoyed the game, so that's all that matters, but it's one of the inconsistencies that is really noticeable with Yahtzee.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

(Does Emperor Palpatine head turn) Not from an Ubisoft game.

Man that just looks like Ghost of Tsushima 2 lol. Which.. you know, I'm down. And it being a Sony exclusive suggests polish and narrative focus (and, likely, hand-holding and easy gameplay). We throw AC/Ubisoft with Sony first party in the same bucket sometimes because map with icons but there are enough differences. I'm confident Ronin will have a base level of quality and polish and vision, even if it is derivative. AC: Red though- which will also be in Japan- I'm now worried it might not even be the kind of bad-fun I like with my AC games.

 

[BrawlMan]

Man that just looks like Ghost of Tsushima 2 lol. Which.. you know, I'm down. And it being a Sony exclusive suggests polish and narrative focus (and, likely, hand-holding and easy gameplay). We throw AC/Ubisoft with Sony first party in the same bucket sometimes because map with icons but there are enough differences.

This a Team Ninja game. While probably easier than Ni-Oh and definitely easier than Ninja Gaiden, this game will not hold your hand.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

This a Team Ninja game. While probably easier than Ni-Oh and definitely easier than Ninja Gaiden, this game will not hold your hand.

oh.. i haven not enjoyed what few games of theirs I played, including Nioh... I forgot that was a Sony exclusive.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I recently learned this game was supposed to be a DLC for Valhalla (yeah, I can be really slow with news), and I think it shows.

Yeah, AC Mirage is an attempt to re-capture the old AC games, but nothing more than that. I'm not gonna pretend the old AC games were some sort of holy grail, but Mirage feels like a far cry from those games; It's decent, but it just feels off.

I feel this game was one of the many AC game experiments that Ubisoft seem to be doing. I think the mainline will continue to follow the Odyssey/Valhalla format, and it is disheartening to see this