Assassin's Creed Mirage Review (robilar5500)
Alright. Assassin's Creed Mirage is done and dusted. Two things I think are particularly noteworthy when considering playing this game.
First, although it definitely has aspects of a lot of previous titles in the series, Mirage has more in common with the original Assassin's Creed than the other titles from a gameplay perspective, but with a world design that has more in common with the latest trilogy. Nice blend there.
Second is that while this game can definitely be played as a standalone, some aspects of the story will be lost on you if you haven't played Valhalla. On the other hand, if you have played Valhalla, there will be a few "Ohhhhh, that's why "x" happened the way it did in Valhalla" moments. It definitely serves to fill out some of the details that were vague about Basim and his motivations in Valhalla.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359959601
So, with that out of the way, I thought the gameplay was tight in Mirage. There is still the ever-present danger of unintentional parkour as is the case in most Assassin's Creed games. You know how it goes. You accidentally walk into a crate and next thing you know, you are climbing something whether you want to or not. It can be particularly inconvenient at times and comical at other times. Another unintentional feature of Assassin's Creed games is getting stuck on random objects or not being able to climb something because your angle is not quite the way the game wants it to be. But otherwise, everything works as intended, and the sense of familiarity can feel like warm blanket. Something comfortable and satisfying.
The writing is a mixed bag. Initially, the writing, and especially the dialogue, is very heavy handed and clunky, to the point where the emotions they're trying to convey were mostly lost on me. As the game progressed, the writing did get better, and by the end, the writing was actually quite good. I wouldn't say it ever reached the excellent tier, but it was good overall. Now, the actual overarching story, in contrast, was cool from start to finish. That was very well done.
As a result, the voice acting takes a similar path of progression, from a bit wooden and clunky, to full on believable. And the voice actors themselves, once they warmed to their roles, were actually excellent. Additionally, the other audio really breathed life and helped craft a living breathing Baghdad and surrounding area. And the music was really cool, from the orchestral pieces to the street musicians. Everything was well done in that regard. There was however one weird thing of note. Most of the animals had the same audio track, a somewhat startling roar. Which is incredibly weird when it is an antelope, lol.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359241233
The graphics were top tier. This game looks great. And despite being a more limited map than a lot of the series features, there were plenty of unique areas with their own unique presentation, which was nice. This game is definitely a screenshot archers dream, and there is a photo mode, which is something Ubisoft pretty much always gets right.
The skill trees and equipment upgrades will be familiar to series vets. Nothing new here, although everything is useful in this iteration. One thing that did stand out was the token system. In order to receive special favors, you need faction tokens, and the appropriate token will net you things like shop discounts, information, reduced notoriety, hiring mercenaries, and so on. Tokens can be earned by doing faction quests, pickpocketed from people, and so on.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3360478398
It took me about 33 hours to complete the story and do a fair amount of exploring, breaking and entering, and such, lol. And that was 33 hours well spent in my opinion. I had a great time playing through Basim's backstory, and it will be interesting to see if they continue to develop Basim as the modern-day character in future Assassin's Creed games. I wouldn't want to pay $50 for this, and definitely wouldn't buy the Deluxe Edition costume upgrade, lol, but for $30, this was a great game to buy and enjoy, which is what I did. And it's easy to recommend you do so as well, especially if you have already played Valhalla. Btw, you can pet cats in this game. Just thought you should know. :)
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