The more I play of this game (Sequence 10), the more I realise this is both the best and worst Assassin's Creed has ever been. Paris is the pinnacle of AC world design and a true next-gen experience (especially on PC). Massive city, massive crowds making the city feel alive, tons of enterable buildings, etc. In a way this is everything people have wished from an open world game from years. But then the game just ends up... underutilizing it. It's hard to explain: I know this whole world is incredibly impressive and I somehow feel like I should be in awe, but after an hour or two the game just feels like another Assassin's Creed. It doesn't really matter that Paris is impressive is what I think I'm trying to say, and that is a shame.
The gameplay itself is a mixed bag. It feels like it honestly tried to be a big upgrade, but instead ended up feeling like a downgrade from games as far back as AC2. Combat finally isn't brainless buttonmashing/countering anymore, but it feels janky and unresponsive to such extent that I'd rather go back to buttonmashing at this point. It just isn't much fun.
The dedicated button for freerunning up and down buildings is great and gets rid of the annoying accidental suicide jumps often present in previous games. The new animations are great too. But once again actually controlling Arno just feels sluggish and imprecise. When it works it works, but there are way to many extremely frustrating times when Arno just runs wherever the fuck he wants instead of where I want him to go.
Stealth is one of the things I actually quite like here, but it's kinda simple and easily ruined by things that don't feel like they're your fault (Arno not getting into cover quick enough, Arno climbing up something instead of quickly and stealthily running by)
That is probably the best way too summarize my main problem with the gameplay: it just feels like it is actively working against what you're trying to do. Previous AC games weren't perfect, but at least they were responsive. In Unity I've actually had a mission I needed to restart ten times because the game kept fucking up.
Another disappointment is the mission design. Your first assassination feels like this really cool Hitman lite mission setup and actually works out quite well, but every assassination afterwards (thus far) just feels kinda forces into that template rather than designed for it. Most side objectives/opportunities end up being rather pointless and most of the sequences are just too linear to really work with such an open setup.
At the end of the day this is an enjoyable game, but one of wasted potential. If anything it makes me more excited for the next Assassin's Creed than for Unity itself. I began playing it thinking it was a next-gen AC2, but in a way it might be more of a next-gen AC1.
I'll finish the game later today but if I had to give it a rating right now it would be a 7.5/10.