 What's up everybody I'm the hook and I'm the blade together we're you know welcome to the hook blade has two parts the hook and the blade so you can use one of the other and elegant design I'm your host Lawson and with me as always is my co-host Tim Tim what's the most shocking revelation you've ever heard in your life um oh well recently I found out that honey bees are male and worker bees are female you know that is that is kind of you wouldn't expect it doesn't it flies in the face of social gender norms it really does like bees are I think we I think you can make an argument that bees are the most progressive of us and you know what it makes sense because they're also dying at an alarming rate just like you know we don't have to get into it dude I'm so I'm psyched that you brought up insects because I actually had a really like traumatizing experience this morning I went to I went to go take a shower I don't know if you saw this I was posting about it on our on our little Mary band of discord buddies but I discovered and then shortly after murdered a spricket are you familiar with sprickets Tim a spricket I have no idea what the fuck that is are you ready dude it's a portmanteau of spider and cricket that sounds terrifying you know what it's defining trait is is that as it is that it's basically blind so as a defense mechanism if it hears something approaching it it will jump on to them holy fuck to scare them away no that sounds terrible now I was really lucky because the spricket that I discovered actually had stepped in some adhesive on like a like on a sort of wall hanging art that was in the bathroom where I was trying to take a shower so it was struggling to get free from the adhesive not that I even knew I didn't know what it was I didn't know what it was famous for but that is that is harrowing yeah man insects are artists a whole other fucking world I really I really hate them dude I'm like I'm one of those guys that just like I'm not fucking with any form of bug or insect arachnid just miss me with all of that well if you could if you could plop in like a praying mantis in your house he'd probably take care of all that shit you know I thought that way before because I had like an ant problem and then I saw a spider in my room and I was like well I've heard that spiders kill ants so I should just sort of let this whole thing sort itself out and then like days later I found 12 spiders in my room because the first one went and told all of its friends that I was cool and also there's stuff to eat there and and there was a massacre that day and I feel bad about that because I probably gave them all the wrong impression but man there's a buffet of ants at Lawson's look this is all fun but we have to talk about we have to talk about Assassin's Creed Revelations but before we do that Tim I want to I have something important to talk about that's like okay it's really it's really serious and important to me I've been forgetting to mention this on the podcast for a couple weeks but I just I have to give a shout out and a virtual audio hug to to my marathon team dude to the marathon people because they're doing a real kick-ass job running the 2020 marathon right now if any of you guys listening aren't familiar the marathon is basically this like advent calendar subreddit community event where we play a sequence a day for the now 60 days leading up to Valhalla this is our seventh time doing it and considering the marathon is more or less the entire reason I'm a part of the fan community at all I just you know I want to give him some love so I just want to give a little personal shout out to the marathon team we got Treviso he's doing a great job running the show as always Mackayzen burglar is awesome a good buddy great dude our adopted mother white wolf whispers has been super duper helpful she's been untangling the mess of Odyssey for us so that it could be part of the marathon then there's English butter doing some amazing work putting all kind dude my favorite video clips together dude English butter is making video clips on our Instagram we have an Instagram and there are video clips on it and they're they're spectacular and they're getting like one light because nobody knows we have an Instagram so like you know get on that people and there's also assessing news big help just who isn't who isn't yeah so marathon people I love you you're the best of the best of the best and please check out the marathon those of you listening if you haven't already that concludes my mind message I think it is worth mentioning last and that all of those people are particularly like great at what they do but I think but you mentioned that Treviso is doing a great job as always like Treviso does a great job at everything period even just existing he doesn't use like a Treviso has been running a whole other marathon on the side for the watchdogs people really it's it was like finding out he had a secret second family like he's just been he's been going on these business trips that we just yeah he's been coming home late working a lot of overtime yeah but I respect it you know at a certain point you don't you don't take it personally you just respect the hustle right yeah and so look there's this game it's called Assassin's Creed Revelations some of you might have heard of it it's kind of that we can finally talk about the namesake of our podcast the hookblade you know yeah shout out to the Kaisenburgler he actually he gave us the name idea for hookblade if you recall yeah originally he wanted it to be blade hook yeah which is like you know you're operating on too many meta levels there it's already hard enough to explain to my family as it is because I'll be like people will be like what what's up what's what's a hookblade and I'm like well okay so there's this line of dialogue right so there's two parts okay yeah what am I supposed to say anyway dude revelations it's really interesting because I've always known for the duration of our decades long friendship that revelations is your favorite Assassin's Creed game full stop full stop and as you know for me I always respected it I always appreciated it and I always was glad that I had played it but it didn't quite make the lasting impression on me that as it did you because I was rushing through them so I was really looking forward to the chance to sit down and play through revelations again and really indulge in all of the all of the many wonderful things it has to offer so I think we both had some did you manage to I know you said you wanted the hundred percent it did you end up hundred percenting it I got to 92% and dude that's fucking amateur hour or I have left was the chests and I just look I can't be bothered to spend you know like hours just collecting chests you know it's just like the animus fragments are at the very least put in positions that you can like keep up momentum and get them all parkour and stuff you can't really do that with chests and so that was what I left behind but everything else I did I full sync did I mean I would argue that you're a man of weak will but and I did by the way a hundred percent yes yes and all you sure do definitely which is a whole different way to experience the game than just crushing the main sequences and calling it a day for sure for sure but if you had to explain to somebody what makes revelations your your number one game of the franchise what would you what would you say well it was interesting because I I definitely got to like be reacquainted with a lot of those things that I hold special about the game on this replay it's been a little while and there were there were also some things that just you know like we're fuzzy like like the little interludes of modern-day dialogue that you can hear in between secrets and stuff like I forgot that was a thing and so but anyway I do think because you have this very cinematic and like just impactful story that's also like elevated and delivered in a successful way by Darby's writing and so you have like the game starts out and it's just like you having a fucking carriage fight and you get flown off at the side of a cliff through a bomb and it's just it's all very like blockbuster II but I but I feel like it's earned you know totally and I think it represents Xeo and a very interesting part of his life because as we just got done talking about with brotherhood yeah it's not the most interesting thing about that game and right I think that was really interesting come out of AC2 where he is very interesting then you have revelations where he's back to being a star of the show you know yeah and I think giving him this like really cute you know like little romance and stuff and totally it's just during this game is I would say more meaningful than it was in to and brotherhood because he's trying to find his place in the world and he's trying to find his place in this conflict that he's that he's dedicated his life to and he's kind of trying to figure out like what his legacy is in the in the story right the grand story of assassins versus Templars like you know and and I and I think a lot of that's actually funnily enough highlighted in the in one of the trailers you know where he's like writing a letter to Claudia and he's like yeah you know my story is one and then he thousands you know and and he's he's growing tired of the fight because he doesn't know what the endgame is and then you bring in Altair's perspective and influence and I just think it's a really interesting way to bring back AC one like air stuff it's like a book end for AC one and and I'll tell your story and that's your story and it didn't need to happen that way I feel like you could have left Altair in AC AC one and you would have been fine with that and you could have probably left at CEO at brotherhood and people would have been fine with that too right and this game provides like you know a very beautiful ending to both of their legacies because yeah I'd see a while he's discovering like what is my place in all of this he's also discovering like what Altair's place was in all of it and yeah that's a really good point it's interesting to see Altair in a much different light than we saw him in AC one because I always say that like that this was the coordinated effort to bring Altair into like legendary character status because yeah because you have AC one which is a lot to be desired but then you have the book see your crusade which came out the same year as the game and you have the Masaf keys that show Altair in such a different like both of these to me a coordinated effort to make Altair like interesting and relatable and compassionate and yeah the both of these things really play into each other very well because you can play revelations and you get a complete story there you get a complete like beginning middle and end for Altair and those Masaf keys which is not an easy feat but then you can read the book and you can get the added context to all those things Gotcha sure sure and plus you have I feel like they're working well with the the things that they establish in like the codex pages about his life and the sequence of events yeah I mean even if you go back to and read the codex pages of AC2 you you can see that even in that game they were trying to bring Altair up a little bit like yeah the way that he his writings and stuff you know like they're just they represent a different person than what we saw in AC1 and this game continues that tradition I think it's definitely easy to imagine for me that if like if everything we knew about Altair began and ended with AC1 that the way the the fans feel about him would be significantly different I think today for sure I mean if you look back like AC1 kind of ends and it's not very definitive and like what Altair's life was gonna look like beyond that then they have the codex pages in AC2 and even still in the codex pages like they they pretty much they do paint Altair in a very respectful light and it shows that he started a lot a lot of the traditions that have been continued however like you read you read his database entry in revelations and it's like this dude is like the great is like the father of the assassins and stuff you know and it's like he's definitely his status is earned through these things that we see him because we see him take off the mantle as mentor in this game and also in the book and I don't want to go too too much into the book you know because sure you know it's not really it's not this game it's not pertinent but there is like the book I didn't like Altair until I read the book and I think a lot of people may not may forget that the book came out you know years after the game did and you know it was to accompany this this game so yeah it's just it made and I think to mean this might be controversial like it without if it was just AC2 let's okay I'll say this if it was just AC2 and AC Brotherhood I don't think at CEO would be regarded as like one of like you know like oh he's like the best video game protagonist of all time I think revelations really bumps him into that league I don't know if you agree but I think I would in fact I was just thinking a moment ago too like if Brotherhood hadn't existed and they just took a year off instead I know everyone I know I know y'all love Brotherhood believe me I do I'm not I'm not trying to take anything away from you but of the three games certainly to and revelations they just they play more of a role in defining who the character is AC2 it establishes him revelations is almost like this culmination of his arc that you didn't even necessarily know he was on until they decided to go that route for the third game but it just it casts the the whole sequence of events leading up to it in his life and in a slightly different and more interesting light knowing the version of him that he grows up to be yeah definitely like that that's the kind of thing that makes a character stick out and stay with you when you get to really see them in all the different stages of their life they they become a more whole a more complete representation of a human being I think you know I think if AC2 and revelations were just like the two SEO games that we got it would be perfectly reasonable yeah and I think you would still enjoy the same legacy oh yeah like if you ended AC2 and you just boot up revelations I mean like why don't that be like a nice little trilogy AC1 AC2 and revelations you know like you know I would especially because and I guess this is a good segue into one of the things I wanted to talk about especially because you know obviously brotherhood and revelations are very similar they're damn near the same engine but because revelations puts a lot of work into setting itself apart you know aesthetically with this completely different setting and and in all of the sort of ways that it builds a unique tone for itself it feels a lot more distinct from AC2 in the sense that like I feel like oh my gosh if you'd gone from playing AC2 to just playing revelations you know that's a huge jump and then having brotherhood in the middle having a lot of those systemic similarities to revelations it makes it less of a big jump and more of a like smooth transition yeah that's that's a very interesting thought because if you did go from AC2 to AC revelations I think you'd be like wow wow like what an updated version yeah absolutely all the same things that you feel when you when you boot up brotherhood where you're like wow I'm playing AC2 but better instead of thinking you're playing AC2 but better and then playing AC brotherhood but different it'd be wow I'm playing a new Assassin's Creed game that's totally different yeah for sure for sure I completely agree with that I think that's actually a very like astute observation you know you're so you're so sweet Tim you really are thank you know and I think when we're talking about how this game sets itself apart I mean just the beginning of the game when you're in Masyaf and just the change in atmosphere and weather makes it a completely different experience than when you're in Masyaf in the very first game it really sets itself apart I think primarily with its tone I think you hit the nail in the head earlier when you said blockbuster II because I was gonna describe it as cinematic and and almost it feels to me like like like revelations has the style and sensibilities of like an action-adventure movie you know by sort of focusing on the set pieces and you have that sort of quick fun dialogue that Darby McDevitt is so good at writing that really gives it a feel that I would say is wholly unique from AC1 and AC2 and AC brotherhood I completely agree and I do have a theory as to well not so much a theory but I do have an idea as to why that is like in brotherhood a lot of those cinematic moments are reserved for the Leonardo missions and in the main story there's not a whole lot of cinematic moments but in revelations there's one like every sequence and you have to keep in mind interestingly enough that like one of the things that contributes to that is that instead of the tombs being side content they're worked into the story of revelations which is genius because it does wonders for the pacing and the tombs in revelations are the best tombs in all of the Ezio games yeah I was well I would say they're the best tombs that we've gotten period considering we've only gotten tombs in the Ezio games I think we just said the same thing well not well not okay it's not not tombs but like you know like parkour I'm being shitty you're totally right the tombs in revelations you're never gonna have more fun with a parkour system in Assassin's Creed than than you will in the tombs of revelations for sure if unity had tried to do tombs maybe different story but they didn't even think about doing that for whatever reason so go figure you know and I don't want to be talking about school here but I think some of the tomb missions like even come across as like like an Indiana Jones movie yeah no that's exactly right I think that where say the tombs in AC2 and Brotherhood they're either puzzle like in nature or their chase sequences sometimes a little bit of both but revelations they go out of their way to have things constantly collapsing around you a real sense of momentum and speed and adventure and unpredictability that just makes them they're great to look at they're fun to play just talking about that makes me want to boot the game back up and just do the tombs again yeah I mean just a matter of feeling like you are interacting with the environment having things fall around you and things crumbling because of your weight yeah and it makes it that much more like exhilarating when you successfully get out the other thing that lends the game that cinematic tone and feel is the music because they have Lauren Balf step in as the composer and what what Lauren chooses to do with the sound in this game is like the complete opposite of what Jesper kid is doing in the other games which is you know those soundtracks are great too but there's definitely a difference between the kind of music that you're hearing it's also the only soundtrack admittedly that I will just idly listen to right it's really good yeah it's so good it's really yeah it's the best it totally just I was noticing it all the time that it was creating this very unique headspace for what was happening where you kind of you just feel like you're being an action movie hero a little bit yeah and I mean it's a go off of that like I do think in terms of like when we were playing Brotherhood there are times where it's you know is like being a badass and it's cool but do I believe it necessarily I don't I don't know like in this game though when it's you know is being a badass it's like I believe it you know he's nails and it's and it works and it's sold very well and I think it comes together with the tone and the writing and everything it everything it just takes itself seriously so when Ezio says something like I am only the most interesting man in your life it's like you are I agree with you and yeah you're the most interesting man in the world that's yeah yeah it's also funny too to go back to AC2 and to see him like kind of being you know like a lovable like kind of fool and it comes to flirting and then in this game he's like the most suave guy in the world oh yeah cuz like with Christina I remember when he's like a minute is all is all I need it's all I need yeah and then yeah as as old as you or old CEO if you will so via yeah and so like you can have at CEO like fucking parachuting through the city and you can have him like doing all these awesome things because it's earned you know and yet also what part of what gives him a lot a lot of depth in this game is the sense of humility when he's saying to Sophia when Sophia offers him to come with her to see a printing press he's like you know I would love to but my time is running short and I don't and I always read that more than just oh I'm running out of time to get these massive keys I read it as I'm running out of time to even be doing this like I need to see this through yeah and yeah I think his you know his growing love for Sophia obviously allows him to keep her around but it's always like it's also performed so beautifully from Roger Craig Smith you know and it's like it's so spot on because he's like like yeah just like I love it when he's just like my time is running short you know it's like he's he doesn't he love it he doesn't he doesn't like it but he's he asked to come to terms with it maybe I'm reading too much into it I don't know what you think no I think I think that's all there I think it's all it's all in the text and I think that that's what makes it so so resonant and effective since you know we've been kind of gushing about this game for like half an hour I'd like to I'd like to put forth my complaints yeah there definitely are some consequences to some of the blockbuster stuff but go ahead yeah that's a good point if we're talking about mainly story things right now I might take on the story and I think I maybe suggested this a little bit too in the ranking episode is that honestly I think if I were to sum up my feelings about this game in a headline it would be that this game achieves every single goal that it sets for itself and then some in some cases right you can tell what their intentions were when it came to the story and the tone and the design of the game and you can tell that for pretty much all of those intentions they knocked it out of the park I do think that naturally if you aim for that sort of blockbuster action adventure movie storytelling you do get a little bit of things getting kind of bogged down in plot now luckily they handle it well enough that in terms of momentum you never feel like it's dragging or that you're that it's losing steam but when it's relying on those sort of easier elements of like revelations or twists about who's really a good guy who's really a bad guy sort of your typical like thriller plot mechanics it's going to be harder to create lasting emotional impressions compared to say something like AC2 which is not really in the thriller mold the way that that revelations is right revelations it's it's set piece heavy it's full of fun conversations and fun dialogue but outside of I would say the beginning and the end of the game you don't get super high emotional stakes you don't get super high you know drama storytelling wise so while I would enjoy playing this game more maybe than say AC2 on a story level AC2 gives me a lot more sort of moments that that last and linger in my brain there's a lot about the story and revelations that I've already forgotten about things that have to do with like Sulamans brother or uncle or whomever was the Sultan like I I flushed that stuff from my brain already because it didn't really matter I think I think I disagree with you come on dude really I'm just kidding you're really what the fuck obviously the beginning is amazing as far as setting the stage for Ezio's personal journey and connection to Altair right a lot of the Altair moments are particularly memorable and the ending is is really well done because the ending kind of the whole relationship between Ezio and Desmond going from Desmond being this name that he hears and that he doesn't understand to realizing that his role in this whole thing is as a vessel for another hero in another time right that's perfect that's beautiful that's the kind of thing that you feel like only Assassin's Creed could do that's a story only Assassin's Creed I'm getting like misty eyed I'm getting misty I just kind of thinking about it it's so good it's great just because the sort of understanding that he comes to about Desmond for him to have the humility to just be like like I've seen enough you know and and this is this is enough for you and maybe you'll make my suffering worth something in the end you know yeah that's all that that's all I can ask for you know it just it is so good but for me I have to count it as a slight weakness that when it comes to like if you ask me about this game in in five years I'll remember the very beginning of it and the very end of it and there'll be a lot in between that I don't remember at all which I I can't say it's true about AC2 AC2 I've never forgotten you know Venice Rosa Antonio Leonardo like I could pretty much recreate the whole sequence of events in that game from my from my head and it's because of how emotionally invested I am in Ezio's goals and growth throughout that process I mean I think that's totally fair I like obviously you know beginning and end very strong but I do think there's a lot in the middle like even Palet Legos assassination you know like his confession like like there's a lot of like very like well delivered dialogue there and you'd have to remind me right now who that is he is he's the like he was the heir to the Byzantine throne and he's the leader of the Templars at the moment and in Capoduce Ezio's like I kind of remember Ezio's like there he is the monster I came to kill yeah he's he's big beard that's like Santa yeah yeah okay also Shakulu thanks Shakulu who's like the best multiplayer character in this game by the way like he's dope he's great I like him like I don't know there's just and it's like I also love Prince Suleiman's Prince Ahmed right yeah and I'll say also that like as far as supporting cascos something we talk about a lot in regards to these games when they're strong when they're weak Sophia and Suleiman being the main supporting characters in this game they're both great and they're both pretty memorable there's plenty of good supporting characters I mean Yusuf like everyone loves him and he's he's in the he's in a couple sequences of the game yeah he has actually less of a role than I expected from the beginning of the game but when he died I was legitimately sad about it right 100% yeah it worked in you know and that's the thing too is I also think Ahmed while he kind of becomes a villain like kind of becomes a villain at a very convenient time for the story I do think there's like there's plenty of interaction with him at Etsy who has and I'm really only addressing one scene here where you go to Ahmed and you're like where the fuck is Sophia dog and he's like you know why are you doing all this assassin business you know the Templars we're where it's at but he says it in a way like there's one line that's I think very memorable and he's like he's like when you're amongst the ashes you know you Etsy auditory can say that you stay true to your creed and like there's stuff like that yeah that were the I think Darby does well is he dichotomy between assassin Templar like where is that line handles the nuance of it beautifully right and so while I do agree with you that like whenever I think about the most impactful thing of this game to me I think about the ending obviously but I do think that there is plenty peppered out through the the middle and stuff and you know it's it's kind of an equally and I guess we'll get into that but it it isn't a super long game but it feels no like a lot excuse me it feels like a lot happens yeah when it's only a couple months of time really but it feels like yeah it feels like years they do a lot with less I but I I kind of want to I think this could be a good way for us to get into some of the consequences of the blockbuster feel before before we go completely off of this I'm gonna ask you one question that and and this may blow up in my face but it might also make my point everything that you've quoted at me or referenced to me as things that happen in the middle of the game that aren't the beginning or ending but that strike you as memorable could you have described those things to me the same way before we did this replay of revelations uh well with mania with at least the palaea legos I I think I would have I also like I always have a soft spot for shikulu um there's definitely like bits and pieces that I got a refresher on this time around right but like I always did like you know etio's relationship with sofia forming and how you know he has that change of pace where he goes and picks her flowers and stuff and it's just there's a lot like it's it's it's a blockbuster movie but it also has a lot of personal moments to it like altair and you know altair and maria and just there's a lot of little personal interactions altair and durim his son like there's and abbas too in abbas as well you know and you know there are little personal moments like that and you know it's like when etio is kind of like talking about the creed when they're walking up to masyaf and stuff like I think it does slow down a little bit there and sure and it and it does work for me um but I think I think on the other side of that coin you have you have the consequences you know like for me the most egregious example is to kind of fulfill like you know a big explosive escape that etio has to make etio makes us really a neglectful choice to like endanger citizens in this city and it's like what the fuck was that all about you know people definitely died from that well they they they make it a point to tutorial and say hey how about you use eagle sense to get out of this burning cave what about people who can't do that what about people who aren't that fortunate you know that's the in fact about the assassin's creed universe everyone has eagle vision dude that actually explains why the guards in ac3 detect you immediately all the time sorry we'll save that for later I mean that is true though but yeah it's just that was silly and it's definitely not a high point of the game like for all our talk about etio like you know actually having consequences that's one thing where he doesn't suffer any consequences for capadocia in general I had interestingly different feelings about this time around I remember loving it the first time I played revelations I was like oh my god dude underground city this is dope and then I felt like this time around I may because I'm just paying more attention to like the the story pacing and things like that it I did I did feel like that's one moment where the momentum slowed down mainly because one thing I was really invested in at that point was the dynamic between him and Sophia it gets to a point in the story where finally Sophia has has been looped in on things and she's getting involved with things and that's something you kind of want to see from the get go and then the moment that she's really able to start participating in the actual events of the story in a way that will be interesting to me uh he goes to underground city and he's talking to completely different people and it almost felt like you know if someone told me this was a dlc add-on the same way that battle of forley and bonfire the vanities were like that would have made sense to me so I guess I have a problem with it on that level but I do still love the whole vibe of the underground city so I can't complain too much yeah I mean I gotta say like I agree with you about the same time like I didn't feel like it was a it was a complete like pacing below no it's not it's not certainly not as egregious as those ac2 dlcs right and there is certainly like you know where you go in there and it's like okay go go get this key and go free the girl and do this and that and like but you but you it focuses up real quick when you kill shakulu and you can you kill play legos and you get his key and then prince akamed is like hey you fuck we're gonna go interrogate sofia and then it gets right back on track so it's not that big of a diverging thing and they pay off the the sofia involvement thing because then you get you know it is kind of a damsel in distress situation with her but she she ends up once she's like on the carriage and she's like you know she's holding her own and shit she's doing the thing that you want to see her do the whole game she's getting involved anyway that's pretty much my big gripe with the story is the capitocha fire thing but ultimately other than that i i think it handled itself really well and sure you know and i i do think it came out of like okay so how can we get at ceo to like flee from the city well just cause an explosion right how do we force him out of here and keep things moving you know and like in that same vein though like there's so many set pieces like that in the game that do work like like fall like falling down a fucking mountain fighting akmeh in midair like that's fucking that was sick dude it's insane dude it doesn't midair fight hell yeah that would never happen in ac2 but it it's it feels so at home in this game it's perfectly in revelations and you know another thing that you reminded me of that i wanted to shout out is just the fact that like darby is uniquely talented at imbuing every conversation with interest and importance um so things that happen like in recruit missions and master sassan missions or or interactions that you're having with with any character in the game really he just he makes it interesting he gets as much as he can out of the time that they allow him to to put his words on oh yeah dude i mean a hundred percent i'm still thinking about how yusuf was like when were you ever young yeah when were you ever young there you go also losin what might be worth mentioning about darby is darby was uniquely suited to do the altair bookend thing because yeah making altair interesting was kind of a job for darby when he when he when he did uh we did uh the the handheld game bloodlines yeah yeah so like making altair and maria and all those characters interesting yeah was was kind of like something that he was always uniquely capable of doing yeah you're totally right dude i you know so also i think is worth mentioning too is i i i don't i'd be remiss to not mention modern day while the modern day in this game is i would agree with you that it's like a bot episode it's not much happens but the dialogue between desmond and clay is is so great it would be considered though it'd be considered a good bottle episode you know in a tv show because yeah you're right the relationship between clay and desmond is is interesting and you know that's a super strange dynamic and just like uh you know the ending with etzio another thing that's true about the whole the whole storyline between desmond and clay which is brilliantly paying off things that have been now set up for two games in a row three games in a row is that it's a story only assassin's creed could do right here's a dude trapped inside a computer tron style uh with someone who will never get out because their physical body is dead and is is having these conversations with them about purpose and and what kind of relationship do you have with someone who is going to be jealous of the fact that you have a real life and a real body to return to and this is temporary for you while he's permanently doomed to this that you know that's it's cool i think the weakness of it is it relies really heavily on you know sort of invented concepts for this game that they obviously couldn't set up earlier in advance and that they have to have time passing the way that it is they have to have him in this coma the the creation of the animus island is a plot device you know it's not really building off of anything that we've seen before unfortunately but i appreciate it for all the same reasons you do he's also resentful of desmond because you know like clay's clay's life ended rather instantaneously but here he is having to sacrifice himself in obstergo to like leave messages to help desmond yeah so he's resentful because he's like well fuck you know like now i gotta help this this fuckface i don't even know dude you just unlocked dude you just unlocked something about this game we're about to hit him with a banger dude you know what you just realized or at least you made me realize is that clay is playing the same role in this story that etzio is that they're realizing that they're not the chosen ones necessarily and that all they can do with their lives is lay the groundwork for desmond to save the world the only yeah the only thing clay can do is to pass on his memories which etzio uniquely did to desmond because clay passes on his memories when he touches him and then he pushes and then he pushes him away to safety like that's that's basically what etzio was doing for for you know desmond to do in the future so clay is just sort of a thematic reflection of the same role that etzio is playing in this game that's darby man darby's just he's playing he's playing 40 chests with us all the time and we can't even perceive it our monkey brains dude we're just not we're not equipped but he's doing it he's putting it there i gotta say i didn't make that connection etzio but i think it's spot on like you know because obviously like you know clay you know did say like okay well fuck it i guess and he you know left messages for desmond and he made a sacrifice for desmond but yeah i mean you're totally right it's like clay is realizing i'm never getting out of here i can't do anything about it so the best i can do is to try and help desmond yeah that's what both of them are doing and for also the hope of mankind too you know desmond is the one who can save them and i think also what's interesting about it is clay is clearly resentful but he i feel like he's almost like giving desmond the opportunity to prove him wrong he's like i want to know if you regret anything and then desmond is honest with him and clay is just so happy for someone to be straight with him for once you know yeah he's like just thank you for making sense and he disappears and like moments like that are just i don't know it's it's what saves us modern day from just being like a you know forgetful to me for being a complete piss in the bucket to being a complete waste of time yeah sure so not to do a huge whiplash 180 on you but i have to talk about some gameplay things no yeah i i want to get to some of the gameplay stuff too so it works out so like i talked a lot in our brotherhood episode about the idea of like what role are the systems playing in the game the systems that are separate from the core pillars you know in this game you have assassin recruits bomb crafting you have den defense i think that's pretty much it as far as these extraneous systems well you know there's also the economy right right there you go i will i feel like even though there are aspects of these systems that i enjoy more obviously the the assassin recruit system is a lot more fleshed out you get to actually have missions with them some of them get to be actual characters obviously that's better way better right ultimately though i felt like they took a lot more time than even the brotherhood ones did out of the playthrough and created even more of a sense that the only things that those systems were accomplishing in the grand scheme of the game was padding the length and i have some specific thoughts about i mean obviously den defense is not super popular and no one's going to be offended on behalf of den defense if i say right now that it fucking sucks and i avoid it like the plague they also they also kind of force you to participate in the den defense systems for at least a little while because it takes a few minutes in the game to actually level up your mat your assassins enough to properly defend a den without den defense and they whatever the opposite of nerfing is they do that to the whole notoriety system so the notoriety system becomes artificially more of a pain in the ass to manage because it's what drives the den defense right you can't you can't remove posters anymore you can't take any actions as far as notoriety reduction until you reach a threshold right if the heralds i think remove 25 percent you can't be at 13 percent notoriety and bribe a herald to get rid of it you have to be at 25 percent at least same goes for 50 percent with the whatever they're called the the politician the official yeah which literally can i completely honest with you i didn't see a single one until i was well past done with the main story part of that because i i managed my notoriety pretty closely but there were a lot of things about the intricacies as far as how the assassins and the the master assassins and the dens relate to the den defense system that i wasn't really in this is partially because i'm a dummy i wasn't really able to figure out until like way after i should have figured it out or things that i figured out from google or people talking about it right so like there are some kind of design awkwardnesses in a lot of these systems especially now the recruit system when you're actually managing sending them on missions and their xp and they're leveling up it's not clear for instance to me the reason why until a certain point why i would have all of these level 10 assassins that would be having 50 000 xp but not leveling up at all and the answer is because oh well you only have seven dens and therefore only seven master assassins but to figure that out after i've sent all of these level 10 assassins on so many missions i didn't have to do you know a bit of a frustration right um i have some pretty strong feelings about the bomb crafting system because i'm of the opinion that it's a complete waste of time outside of the fact that it gives you a smoke bomb a a powder bomb and a cherry bomb basically which you know powder bombs and cherry bombs which are very useful stealth tools didn't really exist in ac up to this point and they're super useful here however if the game had stripped out the bomb manufacturing the bomb crafting entirely and just gave me a black powder bomb and a cherry bomb a smoke bomb would have been much simpler would have been much less of a hassle and just a strange time sink into something because even though there's a lot of cool effects and you know special sort of things you can do with them i would say at least half of the different kinds of bombs you can create are either completely redundant to other bombs you can create or objectively worse and therefore bombs you would not want to create so at that point what a waste of time yeah i think i came around like i do think you can easily bypass it by just buying the black merchant bombs pre-made which eventually i did right for sure and so but i'm not saying like oh well this the bad system is actually good because you can bypass it you know i just right you're not jacers i just think yeah i'm not i'm not about to say hey just super blend well the great thing about ac1 parkour is that you can choose not to do it we're sorry jacers we love you we're just teasing you it's all friendly don't don't don't be hurt um have you heard about vaulting today but i didn't have fun with it but yeah it's not this is the thing right is if bombs weren't just gonna disappear next year you know and they were going to be completely gone i feel like they would have been more integrated better uh however yeah i didn't have the greatest time with it um i also i feel like a solution i would have given to the bombs is like let's say you could hold 12 bombs and you can divvy out between the three bombs or three bomb types which ones you want to carry if you want to equally distribute that would have been super interesting it would have been an extra layer of complexity to an already over complex system but i i like the idea anyway well what i think is because like okay so let's say if i really love the lethal bombs and i want to hold on to 12 lethal bombs that's what i could do if i want to divvy them out between lethal and tactical i could do that and so what i think it does is it it adheres to you know a certain play style which is what these games started to really like doing yeah and it also allows you to carry more bombs at a time so that way you're not constantly going back and interacting with the cumbersome bomb crafting mechanic so actually honestly tim that alone if you did just that and not the ability to craft your own different types of the three main bomb archetypes that alone would have been more interesting because yeah then choosing if i can hold nine bombs how many of them are going to be tactical how many of them are going to be distracting how many of them are going to be that would have been like decision making that matters what doesn't matter is whether this bomb is going to explode on impact or stick to somebody you know what i mean what doesn't matter is is the cloud going to be big or or really big even though i had fun with with like you know like sticky pouches or just trip wire pouches and stuff like that was fine sure but most the time i just picked impact shells because that was the easiest because it's easier it's more predictable and it really just came down to like i kept having to go back like that's why in the tutorial bomb mission they give you like three different you know little bomb areas to craft and because they know that you're going to go through them like candy okay so either they do this either they say okay these are your bomb types and here's what you're going to use and you choose which ones you want to take with you and you get 12 or 9 or whatever or they make it a really like you know a really intricate system and there's like a thousand bomb opportunities and because then it's rewarding if you stick with it this limbo that's in right now it's not so rewarding and i found myself dreading every time i had to go make a new bomb because i wished that i could just i don't know fucking do it them in the pause screen you know like yeah because it's just it's well you actually can did you know that you can make them in the pause screen i believe in the inventory screen you can craft interesting i wasn't aware of that i might be wrong but that's how i feel i remember like discovering that by accident being like what the fuck was i doing interesting but anyway um i'm sure someone will tell me i'm wrong but like i yeah i think we've kind of explored the bomb thing in depth yes i will say that it's something that i have to mention as far as the strengths game gameplay wise in this game partially yeah due in part to the way that they expanded on bombs stealth feels so much more possible in this game than it does in any other etio game yeah 100 i think i think eagle sense adds some interesting moments to it i totally is my favorite interpretation of eagle vision in any of the games yeah far and i'm surprised it's completely confined to this one game i liked having to evaluate targets to find who the person was i like being able to trace the path you can trace the path of a target in um origins and and odyssey but you're doing it as your bird and it's just not a school right and it also adds to the it also adds one more layer of like etio is old and experienced and this is why like dude if you got into a borja tower and you started just following the path which would be a really long path and managing to stay undetected using social stealth from the guards in the in those restricted areas you could catch up with the target by following the path stabbing from behind and then you know essentially just pull it off flawlessly that's like one of the first times in the franchise that you really get to have a satisfying stealth experience yeah it's like the right balance between something that is set up for you it's designed for you but also is you know giving you the freedom to approach it how you want to so it's well it's really well done i completely agree and i also think when it comes to some of the level design it's definitely more it definitely caters to like you know like some of them are definitely open to like you just do it how you want to the the main example that i think you and i both can pull from is the sofia cargo mission you know like yeah we can both yeah we can both just waltz in there and do it how we want to and i feel like i found a really unique path and i and that worked for me that allowed me to get on the ship and get out really quickly and i'm not saying it's like a black box mission but it's unprecedented at the least it's super good and even ac3 pretty much never is able to give you that same empowering feeling that you know what all of your tools are and you know how to use them and you know the conditions and the obstacles that you're up against and just having that puzzle-like experience of figuring out how you're going to tackle it and you know how you're going to make it unique to you the other thing i want to point out that i'm surprised we didn't say at the very beginning you know is that this is also in my opinion i know that some of our friends will disagree the the most fun you can have with parkour in an etio game because the hookblade adds so much depth to the moment-to-moment gameplay as far as the speed at which you can climb things the way you can use the zip lines the lamp jumps and all of these other things there's just a lot of richness to it and it really makes you feel like you're in control of your movements plus the city is designed to take advantage of the movement system the city is it's dense it's the buildings are tall they're well spaced out you have these routes between places that are really clearly defined especially with the zip lines and you can just run wild and and as i told you many times this is the only game in the franchise other than unity that i could just boot it up run around for 45 minutes with a podcast on and have a great time with no destination no collectible grabbing just running across rooftops fighting some guards doing some emergent things and and having a great time i yeah i mean i'm right there with you on that and i think it's interesting because it's really surprising to me that for it being a brand new mechanic in the last of the etio games that all play pretty similarly and it's a brand new mechanic and it works beautifully and the thing is is the hookblade bleeds into every part every pillar of the game you have your tactical stuff where you can pool down scaffolding and you can like you know like launch yourself over guards with it and it works perfectly i've never had a problem with it you can use it in combat you can use it to steal things you can use it to counter people with and it's just it's so effective and you can use it in your navigation because the city like you said is designed a way that takes advantage of it and it's so it's not like it's not just brotherhood with a hookblade this feels very unique to revelations you know yeah absolutely you couldn't put the hookblade on in realm and have a great time absolutely not everything is meticulously designed to benefit your use of the hookblade like you said with the lamps and with the ziplines but also just like i don't really know a word besides just to say it's really cool that i can do a lamp jump and know that the game is designed a way that i know i'm gonna land on so are advantageous when i'm dumb at the lamp jump i also think it's it was i think it was such a big risk because ac2 and ac in brotherhood they're very specifically italian games and then you have revelations which brings in a whole new setting excuse me and it brings in a whole new like architecture style and they beautifully built around it and they and they made it work you know and honestly like it's one of the best like open worlds that i've experienced period like just walking yeah down the street in this game i i know that you mentioned that you really like the atmosphere of this game i mean it is so it is so prevalent like i booted i booted up the game and i just was standing and there was a guy doing hookah next to me they added in a little hookah sound effect to the guy like did they need to do that absolutely not and they did and it's amazing and it's just it's such a beautiful city and i think it was a risk because they could have just done another italian setting and they didn't totally and it really fucking paid off just the atmosphere around Constantinople as you're just walking through the streets definitely to me it's by far my favorite city in the etio trilogy as great as florins is as great as venice is it's like i just i i love it i could boot it up and and just have a great time right now in my hundred percent save file just right around i think it's definitely my favorite map in the series and i think too where it kind of benefits from roam remember how i pointed out how like it's kind of interesting how the games that don't have horses are the better games for parkour yeah like it's kind of interesting how realm did a lot of things to like be accessible for horses and then the very next game they could have did the same thing but then but they decided not to in the game benefited because of it totally and you get that sort of effect that i feel like you definitely get in in say florence and venice where you start to feel like you know the city like you start to memorize some landmarks and you start to get your bearings for which way things are that at a certain point you know you go oh i just need to head in that direction and i'll get to the fairies that'll take me across to the gallant district right you know what i mean and it's just you know look man i'll say it revelations it's pretty good i i do want to mention one last thing if i may absolutely i i i have to mention multiplayer and i know you have to and i know that unfortunately you didn't get to play it but i will never know what it's like to enjoy the sweet sweet release of assassins creed revelations multiplayer i just want to say that it is still like just one it's still the best multiplayer experience i had um i really enjoyed it when when i was able to play and and i uh it was it was brotherhood it was brotherhood multiplayer but polished um it just worked so well my go-to character was shikuli which you could probably assume yeah everything was just everything was just firing on on on all cylinders and so many cylinders you know it's just i don't know you can probably cut this out entirely i just i wanted to mention i won't i won't tim i won't do that to you well cut this part out then because sometimes you like to leave in the part where i say to cut it out i look like a fool i typically don't i just want to say that yeah i love this multiplayer um i'm glad it exists i'm glad i got to play it tim if you love uh assassins creed revelations multiplayer so much why don't you marry it oh fuck fuck fuck also also the like the fucking like the official introduction of daniel cross in the multiplayer cutscenes that you get daniel cross and otso burg like the first official fucking introduction these people yeah that's a good point i almost forgot about that because i'm pretty sure uh the fall came out after revelations right same year anyway yeah just fucking overall it's still my favorite and i think it'll always be my favorite and i love it and i hope people love it just as much as i do and i hope that everyone can come together in the comments and just unify over their love of revelations i want to hate mail i want to see someone who hates revelations and i want them to hit me with some facts and logic about it that's what i'd be interested in that because it's not a very hateable game i can see someone thinking it's maybe insubstantial but right i would disagree with i feel like i feel like most people don't even dislike it they just maybe think it's worth skipping you know so right exactly yeah where i'm like god can you imagine someone who thinks brotherhood's great but like doesn't think revelations is fuck dude i don't know i think there probably is a lot of that too because as we saw on the ranking episode a lot of people putting brotherhood in their top three not as many people putting revelations in their top three and i that doesn't really make much sense to me other than if you're just really horny for the classic etio it italy atmosphere which i get i get it but revelations it's got the polish it's got its own identity it's got its own tone and it's got an aversion of etio with more character depth than in either of the other games and it's got a hook blade i'm a big fan of the hook blade we named our show after the hook blade thank fucking christ that it didn't stay a mobile game what else my favorite ac would be ac2 i don't want that yeah it's super interesting to imagine what assassin's creed lost legacy would have turned out to be i suspect though that yeah it would have been a whole it would have been its own thing man it would have been a whole different thing i think that other than the idea of an older etio reconnecting with the memories of altair to my knowledge as far as what darby has said in interviews that's the only element that carried over so the lost legacy on 3ds might not have even been set in constantan opal for instance that could have been a whole different thing yeah for sure i'm glad we got what we got though well as always there are plenty of ways to not support the show leave us a leave us a like leave us a comment leave us a script you guys should tweet at us um makes like once you comment on youtube and once you make a comment on spotify you should tweet us and tell us what you think i i would like to challenge our viewers to make a post on facebook uh about the hook blade podcast but only wrong descriptions of what the hook blade podcast is like i want i want to see someone like telling their friends that this is the most like life affirming chicken soup for the soul type shit they've ever listened to right or like it's like a blacksmithing episode like a podcast or just you know it's about golf whatever you want to say and then we can just enjoy some like really confused comments at least you know just something to brighten the day in these dark dark times it's really fun to talk about things that don't suck on this podcast which i feel like doesn't happen often enough this hour and 27 minutes of recording has flown right by shit you you have to okay i'm curious and you have to add this into the podcast yeah did you get the like secret cutscene did you just say secret cutscene like the secret sophia cutscene a hundred percent of the game what so you don't see so so okay this is what i was hoping for i wasn't sure if we were aware of this would i know if i had gotten it well yeah like well did you know there's a secret sophia cutscene that you can get and i could tell you how you get it if you didn't know how to get it no i don't know okay so basically uh and i found this out as a wee lad when i first played because i was just doing everything i was i was completing it completely if you buy every single book from a bookstore i was gonna do that you get a sophia cutscene kind of like finding the flowers and syndicate what happens if you what what happens in the sophia cutscene so you get all the books and you and then you get a little sophia memory icon and you go to the hq and you're walking in and sophia is like hey at ceo is this is this where you work and he's like preggle and she's like i was in the neighborhood you sly dog and and then you're like well here i want to show you something i have i have acquired the great many books exactly and all the assassins were like you're like who the f**k is this lady and at ceo is like guys it's cool so i'm gonna have to look that up because um i you play plus expired so i can't play revelations anymore f**k god damn it you know what this has been great i've been the hook this time around i've been the blade and this my friends has been the hook blade has two parts the hook and the blade so you can use one of the other and i'll get designed podcast see you next week see you next week