Took a long time to get back that feeling of being able to do things somewhat differently in the series. I remember being able to skip fights by being clever with the environment, finding ways to kill the main targets in stealth or aggressive ways that weren’t obvious (for me) on a 1st run.
The missions and even the main assassination missions had “some” freedom to them (you could have different approaches to them and still clear them) which starting with AC2 got removed (or rather the games started to get pissy if you didn’t do things how they wanted you to). It was a repetitive game, but I loved it. I also loved that the present gameplay had more to it than met the eye, I only found out all the secrets (like, literally that there were secrets and stuff to do in the present) on a 2nd run. I absolutely loved it at the time, especially Altairs arc/story.
