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konna 's review for:
Assassin's Creed: Renaissance
by Oliver Bowden
Read full review at: http://thereadingarmchair.blogspot.gr/2015/11/review-assassins-creed-renaissance.html
Ezio is a man who has lost everything. His father and brothers are accused and executed falsely by the ruling families in Florence. In order to remain alive and save his mother and sister, he flees his hometown and ends up in his uncle Mario's palazzo. There he learns that he has a heavy heritage to live up to. Is he ready to accept it, though? He decided to cooperate with the Order of the Assassins because they are after the same men he seeks revenge from. As he dives deeper and one mission leads to another, he discovers the truth behind the ruling games and the fight between the Assassins and the Templars. Moreover, his list for the people he has to go after in order to restore his father's name is filled constantly with even more powerful names, with the peak being Rodrigo Borgia.
So, to sum things up, take a hero with a powerful motive, add a family heritage, a lot of historical figures and facts, sprinkle a lot of action and you're done! Seems like a recipe for success, right? Well, that's where all the problems begin. It's the first time that I've encountered a story with so much potential not being taken advantage of, at all.
First of all, I couldn't care for a single character in the whole novel! Yes, we follow Ezio in his journey and he is in danger at times, but I couldn't feel fear for him. Although we have his backstory and his motives explained, I never figured out the character traits that make Ezio who he is. His thoughts and feelings are somewhat generic and things that you'd expect to hear from a person with these experiences. As for the secondary characters, well, they weren't developed at all, so I can't really say anything about them.
The other big problem of this novel is that the story doesn't have continuity, at least one that feels natural. While reading Assassin's Creed, I was constantly under the impression that the author wrote it while he was playing the game and he was just writing it down at the same time. To make things clear, imagine Ezio on a mission. He goes where he has to go, accomplishes with some way or another the assassination and then he meets someone that tells him who he needs to kill next. The first time it didn't bother me, but it happened all the time. Shouldn't Ezio at least question his missions? We are in a totally different medium, so things have to be explained.
This brings us to the last problem. The elements of the game, such as the wall-climbing, the leap of faith and the looting feel unnatural. They are there just because they are essential elements in the game. They are recognizable and if they weren't there I would certainly feel their loss, but I expected them to be included in a way that it didn't shout "Hey, here goes the famous leap of faith! Don't miss it!". In some instances, I even expected a NEW SKILL UNLOCKED to pop up.
Ezio is a man who has lost everything. His father and brothers are accused and executed falsely by the ruling families in Florence. In order to remain alive and save his mother and sister, he flees his hometown and ends up in his uncle Mario's palazzo. There he learns that he has a heavy heritage to live up to. Is he ready to accept it, though? He decided to cooperate with the Order of the Assassins because they are after the same men he seeks revenge from. As he dives deeper and one mission leads to another, he discovers the truth behind the ruling games and the fight between the Assassins and the Templars. Moreover, his list for the people he has to go after in order to restore his father's name is filled constantly with even more powerful names, with the peak being Rodrigo Borgia.
So, to sum things up, take a hero with a powerful motive, add a family heritage, a lot of historical figures and facts, sprinkle a lot of action and you're done! Seems like a recipe for success, right? Well, that's where all the problems begin. It's the first time that I've encountered a story with so much potential not being taken advantage of, at all.
First of all, I couldn't care for a single character in the whole novel! Yes, we follow Ezio in his journey and he is in danger at times, but I couldn't feel fear for him. Although we have his backstory and his motives explained, I never figured out the character traits that make Ezio who he is. His thoughts and feelings are somewhat generic and things that you'd expect to hear from a person with these experiences. As for the secondary characters, well, they weren't developed at all, so I can't really say anything about them.
The other big problem of this novel is that the story doesn't have continuity, at least one that feels natural. While reading Assassin's Creed, I was constantly under the impression that the author wrote it while he was playing the game and he was just writing it down at the same time. To make things clear, imagine Ezio on a mission. He goes where he has to go, accomplishes with some way or another the assassination and then he meets someone that tells him who he needs to kill next. The first time it didn't bother me, but it happened all the time. Shouldn't Ezio at least question his missions? We are in a totally different medium, so things have to be explained.
This brings us to the last problem. The elements of the game, such as the wall-climbing, the leap of faith and the looting feel unnatural. They are there just because they are essential elements in the game. They are recognizable and if they weren't there I would certainly feel their loss, but I expected them to be included in a way that it didn't shout "Hey, here goes the famous leap of faith! Don't miss it!". In some instances, I even expected a NEW SKILL UNLOCKED to pop up.