Depends on the Assassin's Creed, since Ubisoft went through various iterations of "gameplay" quite a bit from 1 up through Rogue. My personal favourite was Assassin's Creed 3 because it was the first and last game with the control scheme that it had. While parkour was admittedly simple, the changing of the seasons and the use of trees made for some very interesting environmental trekking, as deep snow meant it was difficult to trek on the ground and so using the trees became essential for moving more fluid, especially when being chased.
But the real highlight for me with Assassin's Creed 3's combat was that you couldn't just rely on 'B'/Circle to counter everything (I thin it was 'B'/Circle? Or was it X/Square?). Anyway, you couldn't just counter everything -- different weapons had different counters, and so there is a bit of a rock/paper/scissors effect to the weapons and countering, or you had to use certain attacks to weaken enemies before you could finish them as they would dodge/counter your moves. Enemy was besting you in swordplay? Use a gun. Enemy keeps firing at you from a distance? Throw an axe. Enemy keeps throwing you around? Use darts.
The combat in that game was so layered and complex that I had a ton of fun experimenting with different weapon combinations. Plus, being able to string enemies up using the rope dart from the tree branches was awesome, just the same being able to customise the digital pad for your own weapon/gadget profile was super useful for creating your own combos. That was another first and last feature in the Assassin's Creed games.
Rogue had the best seafaring mechanics, but it had some really dumbed down combat mechanics like AC4. Unity had some really cool parkour with some amazing set pieces and unrivaled art direction, but the combat wasn't great. Individually there were definitely a lot of drawbacks to the AC titles, but the sum of their parts made for a good experience depending on what you were looking for out of a gameplay experience.
Depends on the Assassin's Creed, since Ubisoft went through various iterations of "gameplay" quite a bit from 1 up through Rogue. My personal favourite was Assassin's Creed 3 because it was the first and last game with the control scheme that it had. While parkour was admittedly simple, the changing of the seasons and the use of trees made for some very interesting environmental trekking, as deep snow meant it was difficult to trek on the ground and so using the trees became essential for moving more fluid, especially when being chased.
But the real highlight for me with Assassin's Creed 3's combat was that you couldn't just rely on 'B'/Circle to counter everything (I thin it was 'B'/Circle? Or was it X/Square?). Anyway, you couldn't just counter everything -- different weapons had different counters, and so there is a bit of a rock/paper/scissors effect to the weapons and countering, or you had to use certain attacks to weaken enemies before you could finish them as they would dodge/counter your moves. Enemy was besting you in swordplay? Use a gun. Enemy keeps firing at you from a distance? Throw an axe. Enemy keeps throwing you around? Use darts.
The combat in that game was so layered and complex that I had a ton of fun experimenting with different weapon combinations. Plus, being able to string enemies up using the rope dart from the tree branches was awesome, just the same being able to customise the digital pad for your own weapon/gadget profile was super useful for creating your own combos. That was another first and last feature in the Assassin's Creed games.
Rogue had the best seafaring mechanics, but it had some really dumbed down combat mechanics like AC4. Unity had some really cool parkour with some amazing set pieces and unrivaled art direction, but the combat wasn't great. Individually there were definitely a lot of drawbacks to the AC titles, but the sum of their parts made for a good experience depending on what you were looking for out of a gameplay experience.