Alright, we just about have our bearings in the great city of Constantinople. Now our hunt for the Masayf Keys begins in earnest.
I feel for the development team of Revelations (and also Brotherhood). It is a difficult ask to come up with new tools and abilities for a kit that already felt complete. And yet, when the same character is brought back to helm another game for a sequel, it is a natural expectation for that character to grow and change, learning new skills and finding new gear. Thus, the need to graft new tools onto Ezio. Some of them, like the Hookblade, actually do add new dimension to the platforming and parkour.
Others, like the bombs, aren’t as successful. While they have uses and utility, often bombs and bomb-crafting feel like an unnecessary addition. As far as lethal tools are concerned, we have so many discreet methods of murder between chain kills, poison darts, the hidden gun, the hidden blade, and the crossbow, that yet one more tool feels superfluous. This is unfortunately not a new problem, because this was true in Brotherhood as well. It’s only worse here because we have still more tools to work with.
And while the already existing tools of Smoke Bombs and Throwing Money (via Pyrite Bombs) were folded into this new mechanic as well, that doesn’t really change much. If anything, Smoke Bombs are easier to acquire since bomb components are easy to come by and crafting tables are plentiful. I’ve also rarely used Thrown Money in either of the previous games.
They had an out to this by switching from one character to the next in each game, but because yearly sequels were demanded we were stuck trying to power up Ezio even more than he was already.
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