Assassin's Creed Memories Review

When one becomes an assassin, one is choosing a life of impossible dichotomy. You are a killer of men, but you retain a strict code of honor. You are a heretic, an intruder, a nightmare, but you may be the one hope for the future. People may curse you and fear you, but in the end none will ever truly know you. The life of an assassin is many things. Boring should never be among them.

Assassin’s Creed Memories is a card-based game set in the Assassin’s Creed universe. Players take on the role of one of the titular assassins as they are plugged into the genetic memory-exploring Animus, allowing them to experience landmark assassination missions from several different eras. The game is entirely dependent on an internet connection to work, featuring no offline play whatsoever.

The graphics are somewhat difficult to qualitatively describe. The visuals are nice and crisp most of the time, but some of the card close-ups are strangely low-res compared to everything else. And my game crashed and lagged frequently while I was playing - with all other apps turned off. So while Assassin's Creed Memories looks good most of the time, its graphics definitely come at a performance hit.

Which is ironic, considering how little game there is to it. There seems to be a lot ‘going on’ here but not much to do, and absolutely nothing that requires skill of any sort. Players will amass a collection of gear cards and ally cards that can be equipped to increase stats, but the game provides virtually no guidance at all as to how any of these choices matter or even how they really work.

You can undertake contracts to kill specific targets, but those contracts involve tapping a target icon on a map. Sometimes that icon will just give you coins or other non-premium resources, but occasionally the game will present a series of challenges in order to move on to the next spot. These "challenges" (sarcasm quotes) involve literally nothing more than tapping a button. Once. There is a percentage success/failure, and you tap and hope that the secret dice roll lands on the success side. There is no element of luck or strategy whatsoever, and when you do finally catch up with your target, you are treated to a pre-rendered scene of two human-shaped massing models running across some rooftops while you frantically tap anywhere. Yay?

Assassin's Creed Memories features guilds and card evolutions and tons of chances to buy premium content, but the sad truth is that there isn’t really much game here. You tap, hope, and wait for your stamina to recharge or for your allies to come back from assignment. That’s it. It's all sizzle and no steak, which is sad considering how good its source material is.