It appears that the Janissary Captain Tarik Barleti could be in league with the Templars in Constantinople. It’ll be up to us to confirm if that connection is genuine, or if there’s more to it than first appearances.
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In between the last recording and this one, while I was sick, I watched an Assassin’s Creed Revelations retrospective from a YouTuber who goes by “So Says Jay”. I will cite this an a few other videos over the course of the rest of this, as I find listening to other opinions does much to help me form my own. Nonetheless, I do recommend watching this video because he does a great job reflecting on both the game and the context it was developed for.
And something he cites that’s particularly relevant as we go through the cave in search of the Masayf Key is that Ezio feels more like an action hero than he ever did before. Part of that we’ve already covered and discussed, like with regards to the game’s opening sequence and the carriage set-piece. We’re told he’s an old man past his prime, but mechanically he’s just as powerful, if not moreso, than he’s ever been. Aside from that one sequence at the start, there’s nothing to suggest that he’s lost his touch.
If anything, he’s being thrown into more and more strenuous situations than he’s ever been before, and walking out of them unscathed. He feels less like an Assassin, slowly stalking prey until the right moment to strike, and more like an action hero similar to Nathan Drake. In the previous game, players probably wouldn’t be racing a boat on foot in a platforming challenge while being shot at. The tombs of AC2 always had more of a slower, deliberate feel to them, with music that reflected such a pace.
There’s an incongruity between the old, wizened Ezio that the game’s story wants to establish, and this superhero that we play as in many sequences.
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