Even on release (which I had been very hyped for), I was very disappointed with the actual game. But then a few years later I did complete it, despite not liking it very much even then, just because someone convinced me that the sequel is great, and I didn't wanna play the sequel without beating the original. I remember even then thinking it's at best a mediocre game. But revisiting it now, I could barely find anything enjoyable.

The first hour of the game is a torture. To begin with, this game had fooled everyone into thinking it'll be set in the medieval Middle East, and, as you start the game, it surprises you by telling you that you're just some regular modern guy, and everything happening in the game is not actually happening to you. Pretty stupid idea, if you ask me. And I remember that NOBODY liked being pulled out of the adventures in the Crusader era Holy Land into the sterile, monochrome medical office or whatever it is. And in the first hour of the game, you go through incredibly boring tutorials and expositionary cutscenes that constantly break the flow of the gameplay to explain you some boring information. And the gameplay is also extremely limiting at the time, letting you do only what they tell you to do.

I kept thinking "it should get better once I leave Masyaf and enter the open world". But once I got there, the reality started to sink in: Assassin's Creed is really a very bad game from almost every perspective. Some people think it's a stealth game, which it isn't. There are only a couple of stealth mechanics here, and most of the really important stuff can't be done stealthy anyway. You can go on a continuous murder spree, and the game doesn't punish you at all, as long as you're only killing armed opponents.

And the combat is very simplistic and clunky. There are like 2 things you can do: counter-attack (which the game quickly deprives you of in the beginning) or hit attack when your sword reaches the opponent. But you don't have to do either of these, because you can just hit them with your sword 3-4 times and they'll die, or just push them off a cliff.

Since the game takes all of your weapons and some combat mechanics away from you in the beginning, early on it's best to flee from opponents using parkour, which consists of holding down two buttons and controlling your direction. I recently criticized Prince of Persia (2008) for its simplified platforming, but this is much more braindead.

As I reached Damascus, I was quickly reminded of all the little chores you have to do between missions, and it instantly gave me this enormous sense of fatigue. I knew I had to do them going in this time, because I remember this being the most annoying aspect of the game, but for some reason (maybe because I had just been forced to do a few of them in the tutorial), once I actually saw the icons on the mini-map, I felt this wave of anxiety washing over me. Which is one thing I get enough in real life and don't wanna experience in games.

I also remember there was nothing interesting about the story, but going into it now, it was even worse than I remembered. It's just constant exposition with cliched characters; and the cutscenes are unskippable. And the devs seem to have really been proud of their story, because there is so much of it. It's just hell. Which is really sad, because the Crusades are such an interesting topic. This was a clash of two worlds, with a plethora of different religious and political worldviews and conflicting moral systems. There are so many themes to explore and complex characters in this era, and this game has none of that.

After a while I started to really question what I enjoyed in Assassin's Creed back then and what drew me to revisit it. I think it's just the setting and the ability to roam freely around the map, climbing over any building I want. But honestly, what was authentic Middle East in my teenager memories, I've now discovered to be a very shallow, empty world with copy-pasted streets and inhabitants. It lacks any nuance that would've made the real place in this period fascinating. And I don't think it's even that historically accurate.

In conclusion I have to say I barely enjoyed anything in Assassin's Creed upon this revisit. It's a janky, clunky game with simplistic mechanics, boring story, empty world and not even very nice aesthetics tbh.