Assassin's Creed The Ezio Collection - Review

When Assassin’s Creed II first released, I was beyond excited for the chance to be able to swim, stab two people at once and explore a whole new world, who knew back then, that Ezio and his tale would become one of my favourite games of all time, along with the two follow ups. The Ezio Collection brought the three games and more together on other consoles back in 2016 and now, it is time for Nintendo fans to experience what I think is the best the series has to offer, but has this wait been worth it?

The collection includes three games, Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood and Assassin’s Creed Revelations, which chronicle the life of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, beginning with his rise from the son of a banker to the master of the assassin’s guild. The story of Ezio is one of both loss and gain, which cycles through with each game and while playing them back-to-back, getting up to the top with the best gear and health, to then lose it all again is a bit frustrating. There are story changes here, so if you didn’t click before with Ezio, or Desmond when you are out in the real world, then you are unlikely to do so now, but I still stand by the fact that they are wonderful stories and should be experienced.

On the gameplay side, I have to say it was quite relief to go back to games where the most concerning aspect was which direction you were going to climb up something. Nothing against Origins, Odyssey or Valhalla, but those games are so large and have so many things to learn, getting back to the more simplistic nature of the early games was great. This is also a double edge sword, or a twin blade if you prefer, as while none of the RPG mechanics are here, none of the improvements to the series free running, climbing or other similar aspects are here either. Syndicate, the last one before the series break and then reboot, felt so amazing to move around in, because the mechanics had been perfected to razor sharp perfection and not having that here is a letdown. I get why that it isn’t included, but at the same time, enhancing the gameplay would have been amazing.

It seems though that the team opted to put the effort in enhancements in the visuals, which are, for the most part wonderfully captured, with the Switch versions looking and running great. Let’s not mess around though, the character animations are stiff, simply because that is how they were originally created and the less said about character eyes the better. But it is when you stop and look at the grander picture that things start to come into focus, the sweeping vistas or Rome or Constantinople look great, from almost any angle. There are trades offs of course, to ensure that things look great around Ezio, or Desmond and that is that the draw distance has two layers two it, the first and the one you will see more often, is that the textures will be quite jaggy from a distance and only render in cleaner ones when you are close. The second draw distance isn’t something you will notice a lot when in town, but on those rare times you have to leave town or hit the very outskirts, you will see objects pop in, it happens a bit, but not enough to be annoying.

Something that is annoying though, when I reviewed the collection on Xbox One, all those years ago – you can read that here if you want, I noted that the three games were also wonderfully brought across, but they had some issues that made no sense, and those same issues are present here. For one, there is no single menu to get into each of the games, there is a front menu, which then loads you into a separate menu for the game you want, so you get to see the Ubisoft logo twice. A lot of the same AI issues are present in this release as well, folks will spawn in as you go around corners, or as the games have space to render them in, then they are given just a few moments of nothing, before their behaviour is assigned and they go about their day. The fact that more than 5 years later, those issues couldn’t be addressed, is a bit of a letdown. Something else that is a letdown, or at least for me a missed opportunity, for the Switch release of the Ezio Collection, I would have loved to have seen the inclusion of Assassin’s Creed II: Discovery, the DS entry that tells an all-new tale from Ezio’s adventures.

If you have never experienced any of the games starring Ezio, then this is a collection I highly recommend, even on other platforms, the Switch version though especially. While playing through the games, I couldn’t help but grab my Switch, sit down in my comfy chair and just loose myself to the wonders of ancient Italy and beyond. The game does have some minor issues with its draw distance and that front menu will never not be weird, but there is no doubt at all, that for me, this release is the ultimate way to experience the story of Ezio.

The Score

8.5

Review code provided by Ubisoft

The Pros

+Three games that all run well and have lots to enjoy within them

+Being able to experience almost all of Ezio’s story is great…

The Cons

-… though including Discovery would have been very welcome

-The same weird character behaviour is present here as it was back in 2016