To start off, the Assassin's Creed games are absolutely brilliant, and I really love Brotherhood. Still, there are some small issues that really irk me.
Customization
In AC:B, you get to recruit new assassins and send them on missions. It's a kind of mini-game, where they start out at level 1 as you recruit them, and then they level up by completing these missions. They then gain skill points that you get to use for armor or weapons for them. You can also assign different color schemes to their outfits, something I took great advantage of (although I would've enjoyed even further customization). However, as they reach their maximum level (9), they fill up all their skills. There's no longer any distinction. Also, as they become fully fledged assassins one also loses the possibility of assigning colors. One of my "favourite" recruits had covered up the lower part of his face, but that also disappeared when he became a full assassin. From customization to a complete uniform group of goons, that is rather disappointing. To top it off, the mini-game ceases to be relevant once you've levelled them all up to the max level, which doesn't really take very long. I see this as a mini-game with potential to keep the player's attention even after having completed the actual game, kind of like what blitzball was in Final Fantasy X (maybe it's a bad example, but I know I played it for quite a while).
Making sense
They've done a great job with cues in the Assassin's Creed games. Everything blends in very well, e.g. ramps that can start off free runs have a single white cloth hanging over them, catching the user's attention without looking unnatural. However, not everything makes sense. The core of the gameplay in the AC series is the focus on freedom of movement, which involves a lot of climbing walls and the likes. This is also what they seem to focus on when designing levels. This means that some levels don't make any sense, such as one I just played through: I was to climb a tower to obtain a war machine kept at the top. To get up there, I had to climb to the roof of one building just to find an entrance to the tower. Then once inside this tower, I had to scale the walls because there were no stairs or the likes. But this tower had no exit to the roof, where the war machine apparently was stored. Hell no, I had to jump out a window, climb around the structure and then finally up to the roof, where THREE GUARDS ARE JUST STANDING AROUND. Also the war machine was there. But what the hell? How did they get up there? How did they get that machine up there? Who thought this shit through?
Progression
As you proceed through the game, you unlock more armor and weapons at the blacksmith. At the same time, special equipment is also available by completing a "quest", which involves gathering specific items that you'll only find at a certain point in the game anyways. It'd been a great idea if it was a small mission, but the use of items for it is just silly IMO. This also means that you have to reach a specific point in the game to be able to unlock both the special armor from dungeons (Romulus) and the store-quest armor. Basically, the store-quest armor is rendered useless already by the time you can get it. The same held true for Assassin's Creed 2.
Finally, that fucking flying mission. I just had to mention it because of the level of frustration involved.
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