Mothergamer Plays Assassin's Creed Mirage

 I was really curious about this installment of Assassin's Creed. If you played Valhalla you know who Basim is, but it's not the Basim we know in Valhalla. This is Basim when he was younger and before he met Eivor. We get to see how Basim came to be where he is. There was a lot of talk of bringing the series back to basics like the classic earlier games and having the game be shorter. This is true in both aspects because I finished the game in about twenty hours. When I think of classic, I instantly think of the Ezio trilogy which I still love and it's easy to see some of those nods to the earlier titles throughout the game. 

Right from the start of the story, it's interesting to see how different Basim is from his Valhalla future. He's a young street thief living with his friend Nehal in Anbar and circumstances happen that cause him to join the assassins and end up in Baghdad. Ninth century Baghdad is beautiful. I took my time just exploring the vast city and checking out the marked historical sites on the map and reading every historical codex I could find. This was wonderfully incorporated into the game because you could enjoy playing the game while stopping to learn about the Islamic Golden Age complete with notes, photos, and art all curated by various historians and museums. It was fascinating for me and I thought it was quite interesting learning about the culture and language during that time period. 

Ninth Century Baghdad is beautiful. 

Stealth is very much emphasized because you are an assassin after all. The game gives you plenty of places to hide including a throwback from the earlier days of blending in with a group of people or sitting on a bench and hiding in plain sight. There are also the hiding closets placed around areas which were amusing for me because you can pop out and surprise the unsuspecting guards. Running across rooftops and ziplines and dropping down on enemies and then hiding quickly is a lot of fun. The parkour is great, but it's not perfect and sometimes neither is the stealth. There were times Basim would do a little hiccup and then I'd either fall and injure myself or end up in an all out brawl with guards that were on high alert. That could get frustrating and sometimes I would just have to cut and run or I'd die and have to reload the last save. The battles themselves aren't bad as if you time it right Basim can parry an attack or use the arsenal of tools he has like smoke bombs to turn the tide of battle in his favor. 

Surprise! 

The story itself isn't bad. I actually liked Basim and found he was definitely not as harsh as his Valhalla version, but again he's younger here and it's part of the story how he comes to be that way. Besides the main story there are side missions that tie into the main story having Basim find clues about each Order member and trying to figure out what they're searching for. If you haven't played Valhalla some of this can be a little confusing, but if you have the puzzle pieces fit together and you can follow where it's all going. They did bring back two of my least favorite mechanics and that's the eavesdropping and following a target. Eavesdropping isn't so bad because if you can blend into a bench or some bushes and you're close enough you just wait and listen. Following a target however was always irritating because if you follow too close or they notice you in any manner, they run away and then you have to wait until the next day to try again. I was glad I could sit and forward time so I didn't have to wait too long for this. 

Doing a little eavesdropping. 

There were definitely a lot of things I loved in Mirage. One of the more adorable things was that you can pick up and cuddle all the cats throughout the city. I also found the tokens system to be interesting. Basically you have three different sets of tokens; merchant, power, and favor. These tokens can be used to bribe people like the merchants to help Basim blend in or cause distractions during missions. I also enjoyed photo mode in the game. Being able to stop and take photos of a leap of faith or a gorgeous vista out in the desert was very cool.  I really loved the character of Roshan and I adore Shoreh Aghdashloo who did an amazing job with the voice acting for her. The relationship between Roshan and Basim as teacher and student I found interesting because it showed the differences between them as well as showing just how young Basim is here. 

That being said, I did not like Nehal because she's rude, she's selfish, and constantly shows up at strange moments and is constantly berating Basim about what she wants instead of actually listening to what he wants and not respecting any of his wishes at all. I had my suspicions about her right from the early start of the story and frankly it was pretty obvious so I wasn't really surprised at the reveal, but felt vindicated that I was right. The ending for the story was a little disappointing and felt a bit empty. While I understand that the whole point is to show how Basim essentially embraced his Isu counterpart and became Loki it just felt flat and abrupt. It gave us some back story about Basim sure, but it really expected us to suspend disbelief and accept that he didn't ask more questions of Loki and just went with it becoming the villain that tries to kill Eivor in Valhalla. It was odd and didn't really mesh with the flow of the story we're being told. 

Other than that, I enjoyed Mirage and I did appreciate that after the main story is finished you can still explore the city and look for any collectibles you may have missed. It's a beautiful game with some memorable moments and I did have fun exploring Baghdad and learning about its history. It was not a bad adventure and I enjoyed the time I had with it. 

A leap of faith. 

*Assassin's Creed Mirage is available to play on the following platforms: Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

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Another Crusade A Cute Wooden Puppet Adventure

 *Note: I received the game for free on Nintendo Switch for my honest review of the game. Thank you to Limited Run Games for the game key! 

Another Crusade looks very cute right from the start. Described as a 3D wooden puppet action RPG, the game is very charming with the artwork. The knight is coming home from a finished adventure when a meteor shower happens and suddenly, he finds himself on another adventure to save everyone. 

The knight heading home before an adventure. 

The areas looking like a cute puppet stage are adorable. There is a tutorial with the battle mechanics as the game is turn based. You have to time the attacks just so and this is where I feel the game struggles a bit. There's not really an indicator marker of when you're supposed to hit an enemy so I kept missing a lot which means I would get hit a lot and more often than not get wiped out and I'd have to try again. It's not great when the difficulty spike in a game is right at the start and doesn't get better. The timing window is so precise that constantly missing was very much an issue for me. 

Battling an ogre. 

I did like the road tips when you were in an area map. It would tell you things like healing your HP and MP in a healing spring. The various enemies are interesting, but sometimes when I was trying to get my bearings on a map it would get frustrating trying to run away from them so I didn't end up in a fight. The knight eventually meets his other friends and the witty one liner jokes and puns are smartly done. I found myself laughing at some of the antics of the adventurers and some of the villains too. 

Learning adventurer tips. 

While Another Crusade is cute, the combat could be very frustrating. There's also the lack of a map navigation. I would get lost often which would end up with me getting stuck fighting enemies that were too high a level and not being able to run away so I'd end up dying. You start over at a checkpoint and sometimes that was not always ideal. There's no fast travel in the game either which frankly would have been helpful. 

I really wanted to love Another Crusade, but unfortunately there were a lot of issues with the gameplay mechanics and the imbalance with difficulty spikes made it rather frustrating. There are also crashing issues with the game in odd places. If those issues are addressed Another Crusade could be a good game because the potential is there. 

Wandering the world map. 

*Another Crusade is available on the following platforms: Steam, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S 

*Join our community on Twitch as we play games and discussing mental health.