Assassin's Creed (video game)/YMMV

• Breather Level: Between the action-packed assassinations, Altaïr has to complete multiple relatively peaceful investigation missions.
• Disappointing Last Level: Most of the game is built around stealth and free running in sprawling cityscapes. The last part is a linear, rigidly structured sequence in which you have to fight your way through dozens of opponents with no possibility of evasion or escape.
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Malik, the Jerusalem Bureau leader, barely qualifies because his role in the game is bigger than the other Rafiqs. Nevertheless, he has a sizeable fandom.
  • To a (much) lesser extent, Sibrand. He's the only Templar who has much presence in fandom.
  • The nameless Rafiq in Damascus, mostly for his cheery nature and amusing sarcasm. He's not as dour as the Acre Rafiq, or as bitter as Malik.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • The guards can feel like friggin' bats when you're trying to run and hide, and they pelt you with rocks as you climb away, or the alert goes off again just as you're about to dive into a rooftop garden. They also like continually spawning just after you've killed a bunch of them to save a citizen, immediately starting another fight.
  • There is also the beggars, who constantly harass you (and only you) for coins, and the lepers, who shove you (and only you), sometimes into a group of guards or an informer's assassination target.
  • The archers. Up close, they are just normal guards, but at a distance with their bows out they are unblockable. Throwing knives can easily kill them, but early on you only have five, and you have to either steal from thugs (whom you have to leave the rooftops to find) or return to Al-Mualim to restock them.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After one of the main Assassination targets used poison on some civilians, Altaïr makes a side comment to another Brotherhood member that poison is a coward's weapon. In Assassin's Creed II, one of the main character's weapons is poison (a blade dipped in poison, to be exact). Making it even funnier, said blade was invented by Altaïr himself, as Leonardo da Vinci builds it from the designs in the Codex.
  • Many fans of the first game call Ezio weak because he uses dual hidden blades and his hidden gun. "Altaïr never needed those." Considering that it was Altaïr who invented them... well, what does that make him?
• Most Annoying Sound: The town criers' speeches about Saladin's exploits, the beggars' pleas, the enemies' repetitive insults and the "bleep-bleep" sounds that indicate Altaïr's need for a hiding. Repeat until your ears bleed.
• Nausea Fuel: One of Altaïr's counter attacks with the short knife is an elbow to the stomach and a punch to the face, which leaves the victim standing there for a split second, dazed. You have the option of letting him fall and get back up again, or pressing X/Square to finish him off. If you finish him, Altaïr takes his knife in both hands, raises it above his head, and stabs the guy in the skull. Just... the sound effects (sounds like wet wood snapping in half) and the fact that Altaïr has trouble pulling the knife back out again... ugh. Or you can stomp on his knee, folding his leg in half with a sickening crunch.
• Squick: "Break his legs. Both of them."
• Uncanny Valley: The generic character models have simplified hands, the fingers stuck together in pairs. It leaves them looking like they have two broad fingers on each hand, and never stops being disturbing. Apparently, the Animus can't render them like the main cast, or Altaïr can't remember any more about them than that.