I just saw Assassin's Creed the movie and I want to do a review. I must admit, I don't actually know enough to be sure of my opinion of this movie, but with my fresh eyes I would say the movie did a good job of capturing the iconic action sequences, although I will be perpetually confused by how Aguilar survived the first Leap of Faith since they pull Callum out of the Animus in the middle of the sequence and pick up later without resolving where he landed. I would say the historical part of the story seemed to be minimized, sacrificing that part of the story to focus on action sequences and the present day story, which is confusing as hell to anyone not familiar with the franchise. I mean, I get it, but given how much I've heard about how this franchise covers history, the way they half-assed this parkour extravaganza, I can understand why fans may be disappointed. If you want to see some live-action recreation of iconic action sequences with no regard for story, then this is a spectacle to behold, but if you give a damn about plot, then an actual game that can last for hours can not be properly truncated into two hours.
On the other hand, I'd love to see an Assassin's Creed game based around the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is something there, a little mystery that would work perfectly for the conflict with the Templars. An archaeologist is studying the Qumran site and hits a dead end in his research when he finds out about the animus and has a chance to see the past through the eyes of an Essene who was there. He knows nothing about what he's getting into but jumps at the chance, only to find out that the Essenes were actually Assassins who were harboring a piece of Eden until the Templars came for it. After a conflict at Qumran, the player's character escapes with the treasure and brings it to Jerusalem to hide among the larger population. However, the Templars eventually find him and the treasure, and after the second stage of the conflict, the Templars get away with the treasure, leaving the Assassin for dead, but he catches up with them in at Megiddo for the final conflict where the treasure appears to be lost to the sands of time. Back in the present, the archaeologist goes to look for the treasure at Megiddo where he is drawn into the conflict with the Templars. The Bleeding Effect has not only given him the skills of an Assassin, but also the outlook, unsure of whether it's really his creed or the past-life laid over his own mind, he is driven to find the treasure and protect it from the Templars. When the battle is settled, it is discovered that the treasure is not in Megiddo, the Templars leave, and the archaeologist accepts his fate in the Brotherhood. If this goes well, the story would be followed up by one direct sequel in which the smae archaeologist finds a new lead with a second Assassin in 1585 England who found the lost treasure of the Dead Sea and the two sides race through both time periods to figure out exactly where it ended up, and this time the treasure is found and the two-part story will be concluded.
And now for somethign completely different... the magic of Final Fantasy for the world I have presented for the last two weeks.
There are two major types of magic, white magic and black magic. White magic was a gift from Leviathan to all people, and like most talents, it is something anybody can do, but some are certainly better than others, and the best who pursue it professionally are white mages. White mages learn basic magic from teachers, and then they can advanc their basic spells on their own, but some very special ones are hidden in ancient tomes after being innovated and then forgotten from lack of use and necessity.
Black magic is a little ore complicated, humans were not originally given black magic, only the other three races, and it was limited to cyborgs using electric magic, werecats using fire magic, and dark element and status cursing magic being the domain of demons. Once the gods were crystallized, the cyborgs were the only ones who remained with innate magic, but when the crystals shattered, people discovered they could use crystal shards to use black magic, though it takes time to learn how to use the power of crystals.
In game terms, white magic is learned from magic books which can be purchased from shops or found in dungeons and are used once to teach the spell, while black magic is learned from crystals that are dropped by enemies and which must be equipped and each character has two slots just for crystals. Cyborgs can use thunder spellsword magic innately without having a crystal equipped and can uniquely use spellsword magic of other elements when equipped with crystals, but aside from a cyborg's innate thunder spellsword magic, all black magic requires a crystal to be equipped. For much of the game only fire and thunder crystals seem to be available, so two slots for crystals are enough for any character to use all available black magic, but occasionally, dark and water crystals may become available and the player would have to choose which crystals to equip.
The elements relationship to each other is fairly simple, there are only four elements, thunder, fire, water and dark. Thunder beats water and water beats fire, and to close the loop in "paper covers rock" level of logic, fire beats thunder. As for dark it has a binary relationship with the other elements, dark can do more damage against any element and any element can do more damage to dark than normal non-elemental damage. By default humans have no element, although holding a crystal will make one half elemental for damage calculations, and cyborgs are thunder while demons are dark, but there is only one playable character of each, so players don't have to deal with this much, but it does kind of give something away if you're paying attention.
I agree with your assessment of the Assassin's Creed movie, particularly about how a typical game plot cannot be condensed into a movie's length. The parkour sequences were amazing, yes.
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