Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Assassin's Creed Mirage Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Barrett and special guest Jarrett Green joins Greg to give their review of Assassin's Creed Mirage. Follow Jarrett at https://www.twitter.com/Jarrettjawn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course I am Tim Gettys and I am joined today by Game Over Greggie himself. Greg Miller. Hello, Tim. And joining us at the table for one of his rare appearances, the saddest boy that I've ever met. Bear it, Tim, you were saying before the show, you know, sometimes we do some test runs before an intro, right? And you're saying that sometimes when the fog machine goes off, when we're doing a test, it

smells different than when we actually do it, you're out of something. You're on to something. I'm telling you. He's only bringing it up because I told him how much it bothered me that you said that. But no, now it's because he brought it up, period, so then you think about it.

And it was like, it's much sweeter now. It's a much sweeter. Cab, you don't run it as long as you think you do during the previews, the test. It's the exact same time. Kev,

it's on you. It's the exact same button. So is the extra second that gives it that extra flavor? I think so. Oh, yeah. Marinate a bit more. It's a bit more.

We've gone to the bottom of it, everybody. And that beautiful voice you hear is the one and only Jared Green. Jared, how are you doing? Hello. It's great to finally see some of you again over since, what, seven, eight years ago. Jesus. Yeah, man. Since the pandemic separated us and we never returned.

Exactly. It's exciting to have you here because you are a big Assassin's Creed fan. You actually, you reached out. I forgot how it all got connected. I heard through you and then I heard through Joey. and stuff like that. Joey, I think was it. Because, yeah, Jared, you've

I think done some reviews for like the Valhalla DLC. Yeah, I did all the Valholy DLC. Yeah. It hurt a little bit because you got to do it all like very quickly. Like, playing 40-hour games

as quickly as possible. Great, great move for your mental health a movie. Did you review those for who? For IGN.com. Just like this one, right? Just like this one. Mirage, I also reviewed. It was funny because I wasn't

huge. I wasn't huge into the RPG, Witcher 3-esque Assassin's Creed's until I really got into Vahala. And then I'd be kind of back source my way into like really getting into it again. Partially thanks to Barrett

sort of like in review. Hell yeah. Because I remember I had played, you know, the old ones like everybody else did. And I got really into them, Black Flag, like everybody else was like the high point and then kind of unity kind of fell off. Syndicate was kind of like, yeah. And then I was, I was excited to be over.

Oh, okay. Then I got wrapped back in. And it's partially your fault. Oh, yeah. The boys are back. You know what they call us, Tim? Mm, BJ. No, BJ.

Because they're, okay. Barrett and Barrett. Yeah. It's true. Eric, boys. So here's what's going on here. We're reviewing Assassin's Creed Mirage. This one's been a long time coming and return to form,

hopefully for the original type of Assassin's Creed games. We're going to review it here on this kind of funny gamescast. Of course, you can get all of our reviews on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and roosterteeth.com as a video. But if you're looking for the audio version, search your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we will be right there for you. I keep saying this though.

Gamescast isn't the only place you want to be. PS I Love You XOXO, XO, the Kind of Funny Xcast all year long. We've been killing it and we're going to continue to do that the next couple months left in 2023. If you want to go above and beyond, though, get all of that stuff. Add free. Watch live as we record it. A whole bunch of bonus.

content, patreon.com slash kind of funnies where you want to go, just like our Patreon producers, Jedi Master Deadpool and Delaney Twining. We appreciate you. So very, very much. Today we're brought to you by Shady Ray's Rocket Money and DoorDash, but I will tell you all about that later. We got to talk about Assassin's Creed. Of course, Barrett, one of the biggest Assassin's Creed fans. I know he did his Assassin's Creed in review series over, not series, it was a one-off, right? On last year. No, it's been almost, it's been almost three years, Tim. So that was like... Good Lord. I know. That was February

2021, I believe. And that's like the weird thing that I put together while starting up Mirage was like, damn, it's been almost three years since Valhalla, because Valhalla was part of the PS5 launch. Oh, wow. When we were sitting there, I guess we've waited. When we were sitting there night one texting about it

and you said that, I was like, holy shit. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. That's wild. You can go check out Barrett's Assassin's Creed review where he ranks and reviews every single Assassin's Creed game. based on his taste. He's going to add this one today. Perhaps we'll have to wait and see.

But of course, Bear will be the lead reviewer here, a kind of funny for this game. Jared's joining us with the perspective from IGN. And then Greg Miller's joining us as well, another big Assassin's Creed guy. That's me. But I would say more on the more modern side than the OGs, right?

I mean, I loved AC2 in Brotherhood. But yeah, those are the ones I would say that made me an Assassin's Creed fan. But yeah, obviously, even playing this one, which I redacted, we haven't talked about our opinions yet.

I still found myself being like, man, I miss Cassandra. I miss Odyssey. I love Odyssey so much. But that isn't, that isn't a commentary on this one in terms of a, you know, it's just, I fucking love Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

That's what I need to say. Good, good, good, Joe. So then let's get right into it. Pick us off. What would you give Assassin's Creed Mirage on the kind of funny scale? So it's interesting when thinking about Mirage and like booting it up for the first night and just like,

thinking about the game itself, the review and all this and kind of thinking about the history. of Assassin's Creed, right? It's this thing that started in 2007 as like this kind of spiritual successor to Prince of Persia. And then, you know, they struck gold, I would say, with Assassin's Creed 2.

And then it was just like, all right, we're making this the yearly franchise. And we got, I think, nine main Assassin's Creed in the span of like eight years because there's that one year they released two. And they had found a formula. And they're like, all right, we're going to stick with this formula and make some improvements, make some differences here.

in there with each release, and we all got burned out very easily. How long are you going to keep making these yearly? Microsoft's response, as long as you keep buying them. Yeah, exactly. And then Syndicate comes out, and Syndicate was the last, like, traditional Assassin's Creed game before we moved into the more open world RPG-heavy games with Orson's Odyssey and Valhalla. And that was eight years ago, which is insane to think about of, like, that was the last time we got something that was a little bit more like the old-school ones that people were.

know and love really well to Brotherhood and all that. And so then we get into the open world RPG stuff. We have three of those games and, you know, those are, you know, different tastes for different people for each game. But I do feel like the open world RPG side of the series, people got burnt out on a little bit quicker than the, the traditional Assassin's Creed stuff. Drowning in content.

Yeah. There's a traditional you eventually ended up drowning in installments. This one was like, all right. How long's fucking Valhalla? We can't deal. Yeah, like, yeah, Odyssey had so many deals. Like, all three of them had, like, a good chunk of DLCs that Jared knows with reviewing all the Valhalla ones.

And so it's, it's interesting of this one kind of the selling point is, like, we're going back to the old school, you know, like, for the fans who have missed that kind of, like, magic that back in, like, AC1 through, like, AC Brotherhood and even, like, Black Flag and all that. we're trying to hit something here specifically from the early kind of era of Assassin's Creed. And I think what Ubisoft, Ubisoft Bordeaux specifically has done here, this is their, this is a newer studio under Ubisoft. This is their first, like, major, like, game that they've actually, like, led. I think this was a great attempt at doing that, of evoking that early Assassin's Creed formula.

So, yeah, I think this is a great game. I think they did the assignment. They were looking to bring back the nostalgia, bring back. back the formula of what we loved from those early Assassin's Creed games, and I think they nailed it. I think this is a really fun time. Something that I've kind of had going on in my head is that, like,

you know, there's a lot of variations of the early Assassin's Creed formula like Brotherhood was the one to really start off of like taking over enemy territories and all this stuff. And this one is going even before that. Like I would say this game is really trying to stick to like AC1 and AC2 of like,

yeah, it's an open sprawling city and all this stuff. There's a lot of side activities, but you're not like, oh, this area is red, and now you're going to do all these activities to slowly, like, make it blue for your side or anything like that, right? And with that, like, I think this was the closest Ubisoft could come to remaking Assassin's Creed one without remaking Assassin's Creed one. Cool. And that comes with all the highs and lows there.

I think the story is really fun. I do think there's a middle section of the story where it's like, all right, I feel like I'm going a little bit through the motions here of who I'm going after. What's my motivation with going after these specific people? But I think it has a really strong introduction to Bassem, who is a character from Valhalla. This is all about his origin story of how he became a part of the hidden ones, lore stuff for you. That's what they called the assassins before they were called the assassins. And his journey into getting into the creed and navigating through all of that, I think it's got a really good premise.

And I think it hits the, it nails the landing at the end for me story-wise. Gameplay-wise, I think it's, there's a lot of, you know, greater, like, more in-depth conversations will have. But I think there's a really good balance of, like, pulling from early AC design when it comes to, like, really prioritizing stealth, social stealth, all of that stuff. But then also not completely ignoring everything they learned from, like, the past 16 years essentially. I felt like a lot of like the

camps and stuff that you're like sneaking into feel a little bit more designed like enemy camps or buildings or whatever, what have you from like Odyssey and Valhalla of like just like a little bit more intricate and a little bit more modern to keep things engaged and not have you feel like you're actually playing a game from 15 years ago.

So I think there's a lot of like smart design choices. I think there's a lot of safe choices in game play as well. And so, yeah, I think this is a great entry. I think if you're missing the kind of old school Assassin's Creed formula and you're looking for something to play, I think this is a good place to like kind of get back into it. I think the story stuff will be interesting for people who have not played

Valhalla. I'm interested to see like what people take away from it. But I had a great time. And honestly, the biggest compliment I can give this, right, is that we got this, I think last Wednesday, that's maybe last Tuesday or something like that. Tuesday, I think maybe. We got this last week, early last week. And then we got Spider-Man a few days later.

And I've had Spider-Man downloaded on my PS5 since Friday. And at no point, like, obviously I had to prioritize Mirage because I was on the review. But at no point while playing Mirage, I think to myself, well, I could just start up Spider-Man right now. Like, I was just really enjoying being back in this world and just like having a grand old time with it. So, yeah, four out of five on the kind of funny together. five from Barrett Corny as the lead reviewer. Kind of funny. Greg. Yeah. As our other person from Kind of Funny here. Sure.

what are you going to give it. Have you beat it? No, no, no. So I went the opposite of Barrett, where I have put five hours into Assassin's Creed Mirage. My idea with it, if you've followed me on Gamescast

or Games Daily talking about this, has been like, oh yeah, it's coming. Oh, yeah, Mirage is coming. I keep forgetting about Mirage. So when we got code ahead of Spider-Man, which either you or I are reviewing, we haven't decided because we haven't talked in two weeks,

I was like, well, I'll, you know, I'll jump into Mirage and kill time until Spider-Man gets here or whatever, since that's lead reviewing that, I might be lead review on Spider-Man, and if not, I should be briefed on Spider-Man. And I found it incredibly hard to tear myself away from Mirage. You know, it is one of those things where started it here at San Francisco, had a funeral to go to in Missouri.

And it was one of those like, oh, I'll just start it here and then leave it. And then, you know, maybe, oh, I think we'll have Spider-Man when I come back. And it was like, okay, well, I'm going to pack the Xbox. I'm going to, I started it after that night one. I was like, I went to Ubisoft and I requested it Xbox code as well because I was playing on PlayStation. And I was like, can I get that? And of course, just like all the modern assassins created has cross save. So I was able to take my save from PlayStation, upload it to the cloud, put it under the Xbox, bring little X screen and play it on the plane, played in the airport when I had downtime.

And it's a joy to play. It was one of those diving into it, you know, when we were texting the first night. I was like, holy shit. I forgot how much I missed Assassin's. It's been three years. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. I hit up both you and Jared that night.

I'm thinking we're bag, yeah, and it was like I forgot just how good that gameplay loop is. And, you know, for somebody who, you know, I talked at the top of this about how much I love Odyssey, I loved the gameplay of Valhalla. I forget what it was where I played a bunch when it launched and then when during paternity leave, I think I also put,

I had some ridiculous hour of like 65 hours when we last, I think, talked or something like that. Even though I feel like I've gone nowhere in the story or done anything and I don't connect with Avor like I do, Cassandra. But it's an idea of in that, Bossum was like such a side thing to me. I'm just like, oh, I don't know. Who is in?

Whatever. He shows up and does the thing and leaves. I'm like, whatever. I was like, I'm not going to care about this guy. From the moment in, like, I think it's a, and we're going to get into it. I'm sure. I know you and I talk to. Like, it's a bit tropey. I'm like, yeah, but it's like, it hits on all the right, like, Aladdin themes of calling him a street rat and all this stuff. I was like, I'm feeling it. Okay, cool. Like, this is the guy and this is his motivation. Okay. Yeah. And like, I've had so much fun going on that hero's journey that I've still just started for in the grand scheme.

things, but becoming that assassin and doing that thing and getting into leveling up and their new pickpocketing system and how great Baghdad is, like how much fun this city is to explore, how detailed it is, but to rip all, you know, even move away from that and just be general, just the free running being so much fun, the climbing being so much fun, the combat being so much fun, like it's got a great story, it looks beautiful and it plays great and I cannot wait to get back to it. Hell yeah. Barrett, how long did it take you to beat it?

So I rolled credits at like nearly 20 hours. I think it was like 19 hours in like 45 minutes. But yeah, I did like a good chunk of like just doing collectibles and stuff like that. Like again, they're trying to hit on those like notes from the early Assassin's Creed days. So it's like some cool like collectibles that might get you some cool shit later down the line. And so I was like spending a few hours like doing that kind of stuff. So I feel like I probably could have breezed through it in like maybe 14, 15 hours or something like that. Which again is like just that's another little detail.

of just like, oh, it's nice to be back in this kind of Assassin's Creed formula where it's not 40, 50, 60 hours or something like that. So, yeah, it was a nice, sweet little journey, which again, I would say if you're looking for something to save you off until Spider-Man, like I think this was, I think this might be a good pickup. All right, Jared, what did you give it on IGN scale? IGN will give this an eight. I think that's a pretty high score for me. And I think I had to wrestle personally with there are things this game is doing that I really don't like.

I know a lot of people, you two specifically really kind of vied with the story. I did not. I always found Bassem to be an interesting character in a microcosm. Like the role he plays in Bahala is interesting. The lore that brings him, Ivor, and Sigur together and sort of expands, like, you know, like the possibilities of the whole Isu, like, sort of background thing is really cool. He himself is kind of just a guy that shows up and is like sneaking around the back. Yeah.

And then like, you know, final act, final hour reveal, it was hidden the whole time kind of situation. And I never once sort of left that or the DLC that kind of further explains that and sort of wraps up Kayla, like the modern version, the modern day counterpart assassin's sort of story wraps her up too. I never left any of that package thinking, wow, I would like to know more about Bassam's story. Like, how did he get here? And then, you know, devoting a whole game to it, I feel like I really still don't really have an answer. Like, by the end of that game,

you get to understand how he learns who he is. And you kind of hear him, like, discover and like, and this is a new situation. I now know, and I am empowered to do trickery and whatever nonsense. I'm about to get into is going to be incredible. But we don't get to do that nonsense. We just kind of get the best of learning that he can do the nonsense.

And that is very tropey in a way that I think I get and I respect in that it's trying to tell like a very like, you remember Aladdin kind of story. But I feel like it doesn't do a whole lot for any of the characters involved. I think the best character, my favorite character is Rashan, obviously. but more importantly, it's like, I don't know that I left feeling like his story, or that Bassim as a guy, like really evolved. Like the timeline is moving. His beard is growing. He is becoming a master assassin, but I don't feel like I've invested in that story a whole lot.

I think maybe if there's one thing, I mean, not to derive the open-worldy ones, the, you know, Vahala Odyssey and Origins are great in their own respects. But I think one thing you do much better than what this game does and what many of the sort of older school games do is there's so much time to watch these characters develop in smaller and big ways. For sure. Ivor or Avor is one of my favorite characters because you find you kind of learn the rest of the world exists with Avor. And you go through all of the emotions that they go through. and they find out all of these new things about this place they didn't know about, which informs the little decisions they make informs,

like, their greater characters in such great ways. The parallel between, you know, the paranoia of sort of Avor's growing responsibility of being like the Raven Clans, like, like, steward in this new place, but also like her brother is, I don't know, something's wrong with him. He's like, they used to be homies. Now they're not. Is he like, what is he up to? Is he going to stab me in the back?

Everything back home is all messed up. Like, what do I do? Like, the growing paranoia and pressure that is leaping onto Ivor's shoulders is paralleled great by Odin's sort of characterization of like a paranoid madman who just wants to figure out the entirety at whatever cost. That's like such a great storytelling parallel. You couldn't get in like a 20-hour game. Sure. But, like, that game is so much fun to play, to do the stuff. that like, there are so little story to kind of attach to that you don't mind that it's like not my favorite part of the game.

Like I'm, I was completely fine not being super invested with these people because everything else felt great to do. See, I think that's an interesting point if I can jump in, right? Is like that was for me with Valhalla, somebody who played so much Valhalla even, I never felt connected Avor. I always was kind of searching to get my feet with her of like, well, what, you know, why am I doing? And there was just so much. I felt like I was drowning in it, right? where I think, again, as trope as it is in the way you're dropped into this one of

Street Rat, somebody, you know, they've done, somebody's done you wrong and now you have your chance at revenge, but you also want to be something greater. I was like, that's all I need. That's what I just needed to get kicking the ass and get out into Baghdad and really start doing some missions. I appreciate that from, I found it refreshing, but I can totally understand where you're coming from. Yeah, and I'm kind of in the middle where it's like, I, I like the setup and then like once we get into kind of like the the action of the the story and hunting down certain people to assassinate that's where I started to lose of like all right like I definitely understand what Jared's saying here of like where and granted you're like

a third of the way through or whatever of like all right yeah there isn't that much of like character story going on here there isn't a lot of like growth and stuff but the the thing that I still personally liked was kind of like where they go and how they kind of fit it into leading up to the Valhalla story. And while it might not be the like the most interesting and complex stuff, um, that's where like the ending of the game and like where everything kind of leads up into Valhalla. I was like, damn, this, this ending, even despite of kind of like the middle chunk of it not being super interesting, like story wise, but I will get like gameplay wise. I'm still like being sucked into it and just like, you know, just really

invested in just being a stealthy boy. right. There's still something at the end where I was like, damn, I kind of want to replay Valhalla. You know, like, yeah, and I won't because there's too many goddamn games, but it was just like one of those like, uh, I think Bassem and, uh, where he goes is, is very interesting. Granted, I haven't played the, the, the Valhalla DLC. So I don't know if like, they start dropping the ball there a little bit, but yeah, sorry Jared, but back to you. No, I mean, it's all, all the same, you know, we, we can concur on most of this. Like, I think, I think it's probably better that they just are like, you get it.

You understand what happens when your family is killed and you get like abducted by the assassins. You become one of them. You understand. So let's just spend two hours like getting you there and then now we're here. Just go do it. It's just I wish, I especially wish to go doing felt better. Sorry wise.

Because it's like you're doing it because master said you got to kill that guy. Yeah. And to not to get too deep. tell they we'll get through there. But like the way they kind of pace that kind of does some some a lot of the lifting for like making you feel like you're part more part of the adventure. You do you do the investigating. You have to go find the people. But it's still kind of like that guy go go get him. And do you feel bad about about the fact you got him or not? Who cares? So earlier you were saying that you gave this an eight, which is high for you. And then you now you're talking about the story.

seems like it's not really hitting, but you're saying that the gameplay is what brings it up there. What scores did you give the other ones? So I think the, I really love the Ireland's D.L.C. I forget what it's called for Vajal. But I felt like it added a great new location that felt different, or at least both look different and felt different,

than the main game in a world where like there are three continents already and they're all about like verdant medieval Europe and America. they found a way to make Ireland look like, you know, a postcard. Wrath of the druids. Yeah, and, you know, the, I think that there's similar parallels between like that isolated, sort of focused small scale, smaller scale sort of design that parallels into Mirage, where they just kind of made a smaller space that is dense and full of things to sort of discover. I think it's better at like making those discoveries memorable. Like you can just kind of

walk into a forest and get attacked by like a weird like bog witch or whatever. That's not really happening in Mirage for different reasons. Um, and really, you know, the, the small thing to the combat and all that kind of stuff. All that was really great. Um, and I think it maybe isn't as, inspiring as mirages to me, maybe. But the story, I think, makes up for that balance. And that's, that's why I gave that one as high as score as it did. It's not as high as the other ones, which I feel it kind of just dropped most of the ball. It's kind of just feels like it going through the motions.

Even the last one, which is like all, it's the Asgard's side quest, but like a whole DLC, you would think would be an interesting concept or you're, you know, you're flying through, you get new powers that make you godly, but it doesn't really do much for any of the important parts of the game. it's just more of the same which is which felt unfortunate this feels like more of a same that we haven't had in you know 12 years or something like that I mean so let's let's jump off there

Barrett like do you think that this succeeded in what it went out to yeah like like I said earlier right of a lot of this reminds me of AC1 and AC2 of just like you know obviously it's but also like a little bit like inspired by, like, unity and syndicate, right, of, like, what Jared is saying of, like, you're the one going through the motions of, like, trying to put together who your next target is.

It's like, it'll always be a question mark of, like, all right, who's this person? You're going down these different routes to kind of uncover little things and a little bit of, like, odyssey of, like, the, like, the identities of, like, the, mass ones. Yeah, the hidden cult people. The way they did the investigations here, I thought was really well done. Yeah. Where, yeah, it would be, like, a big circle with question mark or grayed out. and then little circles around it, which the facts would fill in to then, as you went out and did your thing,

that then give you the next mission to then complete that, to then fill in the circle. It felt very Batman-y. It felt like I was doing a detective mission that I, and it feels like as I continued to play the game, that I was doing these detective missions, and I really appreciated that. Yeah, and like, so I think that was really well done of, like, kind of a blend of, again, the very early days, but then also mixing in what they've learned over the last 16 years where it builds up to like the big assassination

quest that you have to go on for whichever part of Baghdad that you're in, right? Which reminds me a lot of like what Unity and Syndicate like really were introducing of like all right this is like the big, this is the big sequence. You have like a couple of different ways

of how you can accomplish this. Go find out how to like infiltrate this area. Maybe you'll find a route that'll get you like a kind of special moment to assassinate the person that you're going after. There's a couple fun sequences in there that kind of like help break up the, the monotony a little bit in the, in the middle of the game. So yeah,

I think gameplay wise, it really, I do think they really find success and like in the main stuff, but then also just like the open world stuff, right, there's just like fun little things that don't, aren't like a huge like, all right,

I'm going to start the side quest and now it's going to turn into like three other quests or whatever, the recent games are known to do, right? This is like, oh, you got to collect some golden shards, pick pocket this man to get this golden shard, and, like, you're going to collect a bunch of these to unlock a cool thing. Or, you know, there's a buddy of yours who's trying to help fund a rebellion.

He wants, like, neat little trinkets to be able to sell for high value to help fund this rebellion. So you've got to go pickpocket those people, and that'll be like a, like, a bit of a harder pickpocket thing where it's like kind of like a... It's like a diamond or a square and a side, right, Tim. And so as it comes in, you have to hit the button at the right time. Most of the general picket pockets is really forgiving.

The special ones for these missions are really tight. Yeah, they're like really tight. You have to like really like, it's so addictive. It's so addicting. And then it's like, but it also leans into like they really want you to kind of be stealthy, right? And to not get caught. And so like kind of transition this into like the stealth versus combat and all this stuff, right? of like we know from the recent RPG stuff,

like they wanted a bit more of a balance between the two of like you're gonna be as stealthy as you can as like combat heavy as you want and all that stuff. And I think again, that's why this is refreshing is that at least for me by the end of both Cassandra's journey and Avor's journey and the RPG ones, I was fucking a combat god.

There was no more stealthing. I'd walk into a camp and like, let's go. Poison arrows, poison things to just destroy. So being in here, again, it feels very Batman. man-esque of like, all right, I am back to the shadows. This is the way to do it. You know, if I get discovered, I'd often just run, rather than fight, run, lose it. They have a whole new notoriety system.

Lose the, you know, the multi-levels of people coming after you or whatever and then come back in and go at it that way. Yeah, and they bring- Let me cut you off real quick. I want to keep talking about it. How rude. I want to hear a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by DoorDash.

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That's rocketmoney.com slash kind of funny. One more time, rocketmoney.com slash kind of funny. Go for it, Ben. Yeah, and so I really appreciate it for people who've missed the kind of more stealth-focused stuff, right? Like, yes, there is combat. And I think the easy thing they could have done was just bring back the combat of old. you know, you're surrounded by five people, you hit triangle once and you auto kill all of these dudes.

Whereas the combat here, I felt like, is a bit more mixed of, like, there is some elements from the old school stuff, but, like, also bringing in some of the more modern, like, RPG stuff, or it is the shoulder buttons that you're using, like, R1 to attack, L1 to parry. But, like, it's not always guaranteed that if you parry, you're going to, like, do an auto kill on three people, four people.

Like, sometimes if you parry, there's not a guarantee that you're going to, to auto kill just like one person. I felt like I found myself like having to like either kind of like wear people down a little bit. Like I wasn't always getting like an auto kill. But I liked that because and it's also one of those things were like the combat AI wasn't like the days of old where they're all like kind of standing around you and then one of them's waiting to attack.

And then like the other one will slowly attack after that. The AI is a little bit more like the modern games. We're like they're all going to attack you whenever they feel like it. So it's like you can get really. overwhelmed really fast. If I've got like five or six people around me, it's like, oh man, this is probably a hotspot I did not want to get into. You do have

the tools to be able to get out of it. But I did appreciate of like they really want you to try to like be as stealthy as possible. So a question for all of you here is do you think that this game kind of being more in the style of the originals, but obviously with a lot of the learnings of

the more modern RPG titles, does it feel like it's kind of like taking the right things from both? And does this feel like a new Assassin's Creed vertical going forward or does this feel like this was a fun experiment that they did to kind of just have this here? I would certainly prefer this going forward. Yeah. Even if it doesn't, even if this is the only, the first one and only one that stays this

small because I think it makes, it's not, it doesn't feel so nakedly like it's trying to chase a thing, right? Like I feel like. It's not just as much as I like play, you know. Right. It's not simple, like, to the combat aspect, which is, I think, the most unique thing about Mirage. I think most of Mirage is kind of like taking the best parts of like one, two, and like things in a little bit of unity and kind of like, how do we make them feel new again? You know, the density of the cities in unity, the pickpocketing and the notoriety of two.

The combat feels really like, how do we make stealth feel important? you make combat feel less important or you feel less you get you take some agency away from you in combat and it's not like you can't do it right you could if you're if you're if you're real good you can definitely fight your way out of four guard or six four to six guards like and just but I don't think you're going to murder your way through camps like you could in the in the past three um Bastian only has one weapon type he doesn't have long combos he can kind of weave light and heavy attacks make your own combos everything is like you know, stammer up and health base kind of like Sekaro but you know not as deep.

A lot of the things that you can do by default in other games like parry and roll over enemies and stuff like that you have to unlock here. So really you're spending, you're basically kind of just attacking

and parrying and hoping you don't die. Restricting melee combat like that is like a great way to get stealth games for you to like lean into stealth. That was the whole Tenchue thing back in the PS2 era. Like, melee was so, I mean, to Tenshu's problem was it was in the PS1 era, PS2 era.

They just didn't really know how to make combat. But the combat was so poor that you kind of had to stealth because you're not going to be able to fight out these ways. Or the original Metagherr felt like that too. Even if you're up to two and three, it's like aiming is so elaborate that you can't auto-target anything. So it's almost a detriment mechanically to openly

engage anyone. So you never want to. So then all your stealth options need to be that much more important. It feels to the same extent in Mirage. I don't think it's as broke. It doesn't feel broken necessarily like Tenchue 2 kind of does if you play it again.

Or like Metal Gear, like a snake eater kind of feels sometimes when you're trying to like run around third person with a gun trying to aim, hit a person in the head. It feels a little broken. This doesn't feel broken. It feels intentional. You can, you, you are powerful.

You are definitely capable, but not more capable than seven dudes with swords. So figure it out. And there's also a lot more things to interact with in all these, all these camps. So, you know, if you never were the kind of person that used a trap in, you know, Odyssey or origins, like you are far more empowered to do so now because, hey, the traps are everywhere. There's always people standing near them. Even if you don't catch a lot of people, you can always catch somebody. they are allowed so you'll always ever like you know catch a guard's attention it's always a reason to do it because you're always going to get something out of it um and there's so many of them and some

of them respawn or whatever it's like you're rewarded for doing the stealth thing so much more than the melee thing this time and i think that's like a very important thing that should go forward and then yeah like the the the gear and stuff uh like the the stuff that you can slowly unlock throughout the the game of like there's the classic like blow darts and like the there's a little like a gear traps that you can set as well. And like smoke bombs like all feel more gear towards like encouraging you to do stealth. And I found myself like using almost all of them more so than like in like most Assassin's free games where it's like you usually find like your one or two. You're like I know how to do this. I know how to nail it and like use it to kind of traverse my way

through this whole stealth area right. But I felt myself like kind of wanting to use everything to like fully kind of like I don't know just to be again be the sneaky. boy. But yeah, like to bring it back to your question of, I would love if they continued down this route. I don't know. I'd be interesting to, interested to learn of like what their success was with like Valhalla, especially that being like the beefiest of the open world games that they've come out with. Like they found some, like they definitely found success with origins and Odyssey of like kind of like breathing new life, different life into into the series. But it's been eight years and, you know, I think the biggest thing about the original Assassin's Creed

kind of like design and all this stuff is that it was never bad. It was never like broken. Yes, there were some bad entries and there were some, you know, maybe they tried to learn how to climb on all natural environments a little too quickly in AC3 that it broke a lot. But the formula was always like good and tight, you know. And the only problem was it with it was we got nine games within eight years. So we're, like, super burnt out on it.

And so I would love to see this kind of Assassin's Creed game. Not every year, not like the days of old. But, like, I would love this, like, every two of the years. Yeah, you know. I mean, next one's red, right? That's Feudal Japan. That's the one we've all wanted for so long. Right.

My hope with that one is that it contracts. I do love the RPG. I hope it contracts from Valhalla and hits around that Odyssey area. I hope it, we have a compelling character who's behind the blade. I want to be able to go in, especially in that system, in a very ghost of Sushima way, be able to build out more. Well, is it assassin? Am I a swordsman? Am I, you know, whatever it's going to be that way? But I hope there's, I think there's lessons to be learned from here, but I do love the giant RPG.

You are charting your own course. What decisions are you making? Where are you going with that, right? Like, I think one of the reasons this works so well as a linear tale is a smaller game is the idea that it's always that problem of you know where this character is going. Like we know where Boston's going to end up, at least in terms of Avor, right? Bass, Bassam? They say, I struggled in Valhalla to pronounce it. And then I had it for this and I've lost it again.

Anyways, you know where that's going to end up there, right? So this one is a little bit more like, all right, this is the story to get you there. Whereas when I get one, what I love about Odyssey, what I, you know, loved but didn't love in the grand scheme of things is just the idea with Valhalla was the idea of, hey, here is a story. Who are you going to make? Who are you going to be? Who are you going to build? I do like that. Really quick of like,

just you reminded me of just, I love opening up the menu and going to the skill tree and it's like, what, 15 skills or something like that? I'm like, fuck yeah,

let's go. Especially again after Valhalla, where you open it up and oh, am I doing red, gold or blue and what the fuck? And honestly, I personally loved Valhalla's like, kind of like upgrade system.

I know I was like one of the, one of the few who really enjoyed it compared to Odyssey origins. But it was just like really nice to just be like, okay, like cool. Like I don't have to worry about these 15 things. And like what do I specifically want to track? Do I want to like upgrade my bird and like have my bird be like seeing things like really quickly or do I want to, you know, upgrade more of like the stealth side of things and all this stuff? And so yeah, it was just really nice to kind of be more than that linear track like you were saying, Gregie. But yeah, I would love a future

where we can have both, it'll be, I think it'll be up to Ubisoft to see like how well this does. I don't know, like, I don't know of just the selling point of like, hey, this is like the old Assassin's Creed's that you used to know and love back in the day for this to be super successful. Like I haven't heard a lot of like chit chatter about people being super excited for this game, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. But yeah, I would I would love a follow up to this, whether it's with, boss in Bosphon between this game in Valhalla, whether it's a different story,

whether it's red, I don't know. Also, I got very surprised when I called my bird near an enemy camp and an asshole with an arrow shot at him. And I was like, how... Get the hell out of here, bird? Wow. But I do love that of like, that's a little bit of a mix between old and new, right? Like the

the bird, I forget his name in this game. But in the recent like RPG games, you can call on your bird and he'll like mark, you can use him to kind of like mark enemies and all this stuff. but there are certain enemy camps where there would be like, no, no birds, no birds are flying around here so they shoot them off. So then you can't rely on that.

So you have to like the kind of first piece of the puzzle if you want it to be is to be like, all right, how do I get up to that guard who's got the bow and arrow to stealth my way up there and then take him out and then be able to call in my big bird boy to be able to mark enemies? Or you don't even have to do that if you don't want. If you want to just play it old school and it's like really just try to navigate it. Just on your own, you can. Which again, I think there are a lot of smart lessons here that are probably going to be a bit more subtle for people who haven't played like an old school Assassin's Creed in eight years. Like these are things that are popping up in my head and stuff just because, yeah, I did Assassin's Creed and review a couple years ago.

So I replayed a bunch of them like just a few years ago. So it's just like all of that stuff is just like kind of in the front of the mind. But it's a lot of like really cool stuff. I think it'll be interesting. I do think why. walking away from this, people being like, oh, it was like, it was nice to go back, but it wasn't anything like crazy special. But I don't know. I think this is a cool first step, hopefully, for the future.

A99 writes in and says, what would you say is a game from the franchise that this one feels most like? Or is it just a big culmination of all of them? As an Assassin's Creed fan, I haven't really felt too much hype for this one personally. Like I said, AC1 and 2, I would say is just like the, definitely gameplay and design-wise, like the, what this game feels the most like with little, little trinkets and little sprinkles of other games, but those are the big two, I would say.

Rioski says, they keep saying it short. Does it have a lot of side content like Odyssey or Valhalla to fill it out? Yeah, but I don't, I don't find the side content to be all that engaging. I think there are two

maybe really big side change you can do that is, that I think one of them actually isn't even a side chain. it becomes sort of mandatory eventually. But there's contracts, which is their sort of recurring quest system that I only really ever engaged with to get stuff. There's a,

it's a reliable way to get money and is, and tokens, which are little items you can get, you can give to certain people for favors or whatnot. Like there's a merchant token that you can get to merchants to lower their prices. Yeah. Or like you can hire mercy.

or like it can even be helpful in some of like the bigger stealth missions of like oh like oh this uh this servant dude like maybe he'll unlock some doors for you but you got to have like one of these specific tokens and like you can do that by like uh doing some of the the uh message board stuff or just like pickpocketing random people or stealing it yeah yeah there's no way to know who has it on the field so you just steal a bunch of stuff and eventually you'll get that like i never felt like i was really hurting for these tokens so i didn't really feel like i needed a reason to do these things. I personally am fine with that.

I would, I'd rather have, like, you know, this very big long, uh, chess or maybe not even that long, but a very direct, uh, easy to find sort of compelling main quests and all the side stuff is ancillary. There isn't side quests like, you know, I, there's a baby stuck in a tree and that baby's actually a goblin. There's nothing like that.

Yeah. Um, there are. There are some cool, I ran into some cool, I think it was like Tales of Baghdad. Yes, I was very touching. There's like two tiers of these things. Yeah, and those are really cool, like nice little like five to ten minutes stories. I don't want to spoil either of them just because like they're not like huge like story beats, but they're just like, oh shit.

Like this was like a really touching, but all kind of sad and like I came off as like the bad guy a little bit in one story. And I was like, oh, I didn't, I kind of didn't want to come off as the bad guy. feel like I had an opportunity not to, but like that was really cool. Like the premise for another one is like a kid is essentially up near like one of the synchronization, uh, synchronization points. And he like was dare to like jump, uh, off of it. And you go up there to like, like, be like, hey, like, you scared? Like what's up? And so there's like a little, like cute little stories like that. But I would say nothing on like the crazy like, all right, I'm starting one side quest that's going to open up a bunch of other side quests. I think there's enough there to like

definitely fill it out. But it's not like, overwork. I would say like the the RPG games. J.D.H. writes in and says that somebody who's never played in Assassin's Creed game, would this be a good one to start with, Jared? What do you think? I say it at the end of my review. This is the one I would recommend to people. Wow. Before any other one. And that's not it. I don't think this is my favorite one. I don't think it has my favorite things in it. But I think it has, if there was ever like a thesis statement for what I like about Assassin's Creed,

I think it's in Mirage. And I think it's the best form it is in Mirage, because it was made, you know, in 23 and not, you know, 2007. It's a condensed, you nail it. It's a condensed, hey, this is why Assassin's Creed's great. Yes. If you were ever curious of why people like this, I think if you leave this game and still don't know, then you probably don't like this game.

I play it on why they like it. Really quick before we get any other questions. One of my notes here, I just put bugs question mark because throughout the series, you know, bugs have always been like an interesting question. Literally thought you made insect. for a second. I was like,

is there an insect part of this coming up? You're collecting weird beetles? I didn't run into, I didn't run into a lot of bugs.

Obviously, there's the classic assassin's street jank because you can climb and parkour and everything. There's like the weird every once in a while. I felt it like

not as much in this game but every once in a while like I want to jump over to that rope and it's like Boston's like, okay, I'm gonna climb down. It's like,

ah, that's not what I told you to do, but whatever. There's like some clunkiness here and there. The one big bug that I ran into is there's a town that you start off in. I think it's called Anbar. Jared,

correct me if I'm wrong there. At one point when you're in the big city, right, there's a story beat and it kind of like transports you over to Anbar and you have like a story beat, you're back at like your old little house and then you walk outside. And because like I know on the back end of the game, it's like,

oh, I was literally in like the big city like five. seconds ago and it transported me all the way over here. So like the city or the like little town didn't load in like super well. And so I'm just seeing like big like chunks of just like sand colored like boxes and stuff like that. Everything's still interactable. Like there's a wall that like I couldn't see any of like the assets loaded in on. But I had a wanted poster there and I could still rip it off and stuff. And then the interesting thing was I was that wasn't like the last five hours of the game. So I'd go back to the big city, you know, do the last couple of things there. and then I have to head back to Anbar for one of the last, like, story beats.

And Enbar's still like that after hours. I was like, huh, I think this is just what this town is like now. That's just your Anbar, yeah. That's what I've done to it. I did this. Yeah. And then Kevin's actually showing up here, an interesting stealth ability that I know people have a lot of questions on, which is like the, you know, you can hold down R3 and then

select a bunch of people to kind of like quickly assassinate. And I know a lot of people were kind of worried about that if it was going to feel cheap or whatever. Does it make sense in the world? It is interesting. I felt like I definitely would lean on it in like a quick pinch of like, oh man, there's like these four guys like all next to each other. And like I, there's no way like I can really stealth myself out of that. So I'm going to like use that. I never felt like I was using it like too much like. Yeah, like the like the, like the only comparison I can come up with is like Arkham Oritans where he's got the electric gloves where he's Like once that's introduced, they're like, all right, I'm just going to mess up fools all the time.

I never felt like I relied on it too much. And then lore-wise, why it's there. Like, I have a story in my head of why it makes sense, but I can understand why it doesn't make. Yeah, they make absolutely no effort to tell you why. I don't really. It does happen at a certain story beat. And like, because I'm such a dork who knows all of like the, or not all of, but a lot of, like, the recent Assassin's Creed lore, I'm like, Okay, I think I know what they're trying to do here.

I found it kind of, it's pretty balanced, I think, because you have to kind of earn it. Like, you can, you spend it, but then you have to stealth kill basically to build the bar up so you can't spam it. Yeah. You only do so much at once. So I really think you can't abuse it.

Yeah, I think they designed around it in really smart ways. This question we, I don't think y'all have answered explicitly. We've talked around it a little bit, but Austin writes in and says, does it feel like DLC but bigger, or does it feel like a full-length game that got the love and character deserved?

I think both, honestly. Like, it's interesting, like I say both only because I think the original premise for this was it was going to be DLC for Bahala, if I'm remembering that correctly. And I, like, looking at the game, looking at the structure of the game,

I can definitely see the part where it's like they, like, might have added in a little bit more into the middle to make it feel a bit more like a full-length game rather than like a seven to 10-hour experience. I can definitely see that where I'm like, all right, this kind of center part of the story where we're just kind of going through the motions

and killing people that I don't really care about in any way, shape, or form. I can see that kind of being like where it was like the original kind of plan of being a bit more tight. Some of the storylines, I feel like probably would have been more of the main focus. But then at the same time, like I do think, even though like the story stuff

the middle wasn't hitting. I do think they like the, again, the design of the world, exploring Baghdad and just everything else around it. I do think they did put a lot of care into it for it to be its own game. I don't know if you agree, Jared. I do. I think if anything, this is

you can call maybe spin-offy, right? Like, this is not what the series has looked like up for the past 10 years. So it looks a little different, a little smaller. I think small is not necessarily an indication of, you know, smaller scope or smaller desire for this as a, as a DLC or expansion versus a, you know, a larger AAA game. This is a AAA experience for all

intents and purposes. I think definitely, though, I can see a world where this game exists as a side series alongside a, you know, going back to the, the RPG kind of things and these things living together. If you want, you know, this kind of experience, go to the Mirage series. You want the other kind of experience go to the, you know, the Vahala series or whatever. Jumping in real quick, even though it's early for me, obviously, I haven't done it. My, in these five hours that I'm playing and I mean from the start all the way to the end here, like I've been, I wore off, I guess, but I was shocked like, oh, this, this feels like a AAA experience like Jared saying.

This doesn't feel like it. And obviously you wouldn't expect that. Something can start as an idea of DLC and become much more than blah, blah. But as somebody who's played so many Assassin's Creed DLCs, I'm rarely. if ever wowed. I think if the most recent example would be when they gave more to Odyssey on top of Valhalla and had them cross over.

Like I like that gimmick of it. I like that part of it. But doing those ELCs, it always felt like somebody like just put the chip in the back that was like, okay, there's new missions. And granted, I'm not trying to take away from Druids in Ireland and a new area and blah. But even when I, I think I may even tinkered with that one when it came out. It was the idea

like, okay, this still feels like the same game. This doesn't feel to me like it's in Valhalla. This doesn't feel like I'm playing something that is existing in another game, even though it's in the same world. Yeah. Very interesting. Jared, you wrote in a question. Should this game have Smelovision?

Let's start with you. So I got this question. I thought about this for a little bit because I was standing in, you know, one of the many assassins bureaus. And everyone's kind of standing very close, yelling, very upset. You know, tensions are high. The rebellion is on the, the Calife is, uh, we're about to loosen the iron grip he has in the city.

but I just couldn't stop thinking about how crazy it must smell in there. And like, how sweaty it is. If being able to smell the tension, the sweat on the brows, would that like further immerse me? Did anyone get to play this game? The shirt? With the shirt. No.

Because the shirt's next thing, mask. Yeah. Then you get the smells. You get hit and you get to smell it. Or what if the shirt just sweats and you start smelling that? Then you can see that's good too. There you go. There you go.

We'll get Mike on that because I know Mike's really into the shirt. Can you imagine playing this game with that shirt, Greg, now that you're actually playing through it? Sure. Yeah. Stupid gimmicky, rumbly, whatever garbage. Yeah, I guess I could experience. You want to break a rib jumping off a building?

Yeah, right? Well, that's the thing is like how many times, you know, it's like only when you're screwing out. You don't even when you screw up the parry when you're getting nailed by somebody. We're wrapping up here a little bit, but I want to bring up a question. from Imron Khan, actually. Why won't they bring back the competitive multiplayer that was a big part of some of those

early Assassin's Creed 2 type games? Do you guys want to see that? And do you think that they might end up putting that out eventually as a different type of spinoff game? Because they're fucking cowards. That's why they won't do it, Emron. Because Brotherhood and I think two, but definitely Brotherhood,

great, awesome multiplayer, so weird and different. Not the beefiest or most complex things. thing, but it was just fun to like, all right, let's like, I'm going to try to be stealthy and avoid like all the, like, I look like a computer. I got to pretend to be AI and all my me. And like, like, Mike was playing another game that like I think came out this year where the whole point is that you have to like try to disguise yourself like you're like an AI

kind of controlled thing. Dude, the multiplayer back in the day was great. They should bring it back. Maybe it'll be part of a. That's what I was going to weigh. I was like with infinity. Anything's possible. You know what Ubisoft should do, though?

It's just release skull and bones. Do that first and then worry about Assassin's Creed multiplayer. We'll start there, maybe, and we'll see otherwise. Barrett then, I want to kind of wrap this up. Revisiting Assassin's Creed in review. You have your rankings currently. Would you like to add this to those rankings? That's a great question, Tim.

Kevin, play my intro. What's up, everybody? everybody, welcome back to Assassin's Creed in review, a kind of funny games in review special where I, Barrett Courtney, review and rank the games in the Assassin's Creed franchise. You've already heard the review for Assassin's Creed Mirage, so we're just going to get right back into it.

Kevin, let's take a look at the first image that we have here, which was the ranking that we had at the end of Assassin's Creed in review. Currently, number one is Assassin's Creed Syndicate, number two, Valhalla, number three, origins, Number four, Black Flag, number five, Brotherhood, number six, AC2, number seven, Odyssey, number eight, Rogue, number nine, AC3, number 10, Revelations, number 11, AC Unity, and number 12, the original Assassin's Creed. This is a scientifically proven ranking here. There's no argument. Four and five, Dennis back this list.

Four and five, Dennis back this list. I think with everything said here, right, I think, with everything said here, right, I want to see a while, I want to see a while. I want to see where he puts it in the Unless you probably Yeah, I I, I, I, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, um, yeah, yeah, um, he just kid, too much power,

too much power, so the thing is, I think this is a solid entry. I think it, it plays it a little bit safe in, uh, some of the design,

but I, I do think they make a lot of, uh, smart decisions of modernizing the old school assassin's creed formula. I think the story is solid enough. I think it's, uh,

got a really good premise that starts in like the first few hours. I think the biggest problem that I have with the story personally is, and this is something I talk about in Assassin's Creed in review, is these games mostly have a villain problem. There's just never, like, the interesting villains are few and far between. I know you can shout out the Pope from AC2. That's not an interesting character.

It's like, it's cool that you have to like kill the Pope at the end of AC2, but like he's not an interesting character, right? Like shout it to Hatham Ken. way, shout out to a lot of the villain and antagonist stuff from origins and Valhalla and stuff. So I would say that's like the biggest detriment to the story. I personally love all the weird lore shit that like may or may not get it near the final hours of this game.

I don't know if that's going to hit for everybody, but I personally was into it. So this is the interesting thing. I think with this being a great game, I think the entire or most of the series is great, I would have to put this kind of more in the middle of the road. So, hold on, let me pull it up on my end really quick before we reveal the ranking here. I would put Mirage below Assassin's Creed 2, but above AC Odyssey. So at number 7, just because I think it's a good, solid entry. I don't think it has any of like the highs of AC2 of like some of the biggest moments.

Like the Who is Desmond moment is still one of the best moments in video games of all time. Oh, that's so good. That shit. Fuck that in. God, it's so good. But I don't think it has like any of the camera. Like, oh, God,

you can see me. Yeah. But I don't think it has like the like valleys and the lows of AC2 or AC1 or anything like that. So I think it's a nice like solid like right in the middle. So there you have it. The new ranking is number one, AC syndicate.

Number two, Valhalla. Number three origins. Number four black flag. Number five brotherhood. Number six AC2. Number seven Mirage. Number eight Odyssey. Number nine, Rogue.

Number 10 AC3, number 11, Revelations, number 12, AC Unity, and number 13, Assassin's Creed. And this was a redemption for myself to remake this ranked list because someone pointed out to me months after Assassin's Creed in review came out that I had misspelled Assassin's Creed at the bottom. And I only put in three S's and not four. So this is a nice little redemption moment for me. So there you have it. I'm proud of you. Now the fourth S is in there, but it's not where you think.

I'm sure we'll be talking a lot more about this game over the next couple months as Greg keeps playing it Jared where can people find you Find me at the internet Just yet go to your Google search bar Put in at the internet If you can't do that Because you don't have the secret power that I do

Just go to Twitter or X At Jared John If you don't want to do that go to IGN.com and search my name where I am a frequent contributor. That is probably where all I'll be tweeting about is games that I am reviewing there or professional wrestling.

Hell yes. And Barrett, thank you so much for leading this review. Remember, you can check out Assassin's Creed in review right now on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Let us know in the comments below. If this review sold you or unsold you on Assassin's Creed Mirage, what you were expecting, what you want to see, all of that stuff.

and until next time I love you all Goodbye