Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood/YMMV

"Ezio: Che tu sia parte nella morte. (May you be equal in death.) Requiescat in pace."
 * Alas, Poor Villain: The Baron of Valois. Lived a completely uneventful life until his distant cousin became king of France, at which point he was given the enormous responsibility of leading the French forces in Italy.

"Ezio: No man can heal your pain, Lucrezia. You must do so on your own. (smiles) Say hello to the Duca for me."
 * Awesome but Practical: When being pursued, a lot of players find it's simpler and more efficient (and more rewarding) to simply kill your pursuers than it is to use hiding spots or flee from them.
 * Subverted by missions that force you to use stealth instead, which can lead to a lot of fustration for players used to brute forcing your way out of problems.
 * Catharsis Factor: Somewhat muted compared to the AC2 example. On the plus side, the beggar women from AC1 return in addition to the Minstrels from AC2, so you can pummel them as well. On the minus side, while the guards still don't mind if you start a fist fight, it isn't completely penalty-free as doing so raises your notoriety.
 * Interesting, those beggar women aren't begging for coins like in the Assassin's Creed, they're begging Ezio to help deal with the Borgia.
 * The level in which you take control of Leonardo's tank and cut down vast swathes of troops. Those spears and arquebuses won't save you now! MWA-HAHAHAHA!
 * Even Ezio agrees. "I wish I could keep you."
 * Well, except if you're trying for one hundred percent completion.
 * Complete Monster: According to Project Legacy, Micheletto Corella
 * Creator's Pet: Salai, Leonardo's lover in the DLC. He's lazy, spoiled, spends Leonardo's money, can't keep his mouth shut, isn't helpful in a fight or for finding Leonardo. But at the end Ezio tells Leonardo that he thinks Salai fits Leonardo.
 * And Leonardo? He knows how to *ahem* shut Salai's mouth...
 * Well, Salai is genuinely distraught when Leonardo goes missing and admits that Leonardo was going to teach him how to read. Also, their relationship is implied by the history books.
 * Die for Our Ship: You wouldn't think it; but Caterina and Cristina have received flak from certain fans who preferred the idea that Ezio was more intimate with Rosa (even though Caterina/Ezio was more Friends With Benefits, and Cristina/Ezio were Star-Crossed Lovers, meaning neither of those pairings worked out). It doesn't help that Rosa is absent from the events of Brotherhood (save a passing mention in the novel).
 * Even Better Sequel: Assassin's Creed I is a good game, Assassin's Creed II is a great game. Brotherhood is awesome.
 * Evil Is Sexy: Cesare Borgia, full stop. Lucrezia as well, if you are into evil blondes.
 * Many of the multiplayer characters.
 * Family-Unfriendly Aesop: When Ezio encounters Lanz the Foodpad's despairing wife, she explains that she is about to kill herself in an effort to get through to her husband, who is both a Templar agent and an apparent murderer working for the Cento Occhi after their child died. Ezio, not fully aware of how closely Lanz's background cleaves to his own, assumes he is just another killer like the rest of the Templar agents he is hunting down and kills Lanz rather than left his wife sacrifice herself "for his crimes." Poor communication really does kill.
 * Fan Disservice: Juan "The Banker" Borgia.
 * Foe Yay: A little more than subtext between Ezio and Lucrezia. In the DLC The da Vinci Disappearance,  You then tie her up and leave.

"Ezio: No man can heal your pain. You must do so on your own."
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment: When lowering them into the Temple of Juno via a hidden mechanism, Shaun jokingly tells Desmond; "If you're trying to kill us you're gonna have to do better than that"..
 * Game Breaker: All of the Game Breakers from AC2 can still be used in Brotherhood. In addition, the new executions/kill streak and Assassin recruit mechanics can make combat significantly easier.
 * Somewhat mitigated as enemies being able to end the kill streak (by hitting Ezio during his execution animation against someone else, grabbing him, dodging, or just being far enough away), and even an Assassino can be (theoretically) killed in combat, if they fall off of a high-enough ledge/rooftop, or if they're sent out on a max-difficulty mission without enough support (100% success probability is only confirmed with three or more Assassini).
 * Actually with the enemies attacking you in a kill streak, you can quickly tap right trigger and X (Or square on PS 3) and counter there attacks and keep going with your kill streaks. Leading to some absolutely ridiculous one man army moments.
 * The Crossbow may be the game's best new weapon -- it locks on very quickly, it can be used for quick "snapshot" kills at even melee or point-blank (grabbing) ranges, it has an extremely high starting capacity of fifteen bolts (upgradeable to twenty-five), it can be aimed from most angles (such as over-the-shoulder or behind Ezio), it is quieter than the Hidden Gun (no Notoriety increase just from firing and less likely to draw attention towards Ezio), it can be used for counter kills in melee, and its shots are a One-Hit Kill against all enemies except Borgia Captains, the bosses and Papal Guards.
 * The timing for the counter-kills with the Hidden Blades has been made noticeably easier (perhaps representing Ezio's decades of experience wielding them). Combine that with kill streaks and still being able to counter any melee attack from any guard, the longsword and short blade are virtually useless.
 * On the other hand, the longsword/bludgeon ("Medium Weapon") seems to have an even more generous window of opportunity for counters, and both the Medium Weapons and Short Blades can integrate the Pistol and Throwing Knives respectively into their kill streaks. Moreover, Borgia Captains and Papal Guards are immune to counter kill attempts, though only  is immune to kill streaks.
 * The Dagger of Brutus. Has the largest window for counter-kills in the entire game, hits for huge damage, and has an increased chance of making enemies break and run, has its own unique and incredibly brutal kill animations. There's a reason why it is the Infinity+1 Sword.
 * The Poison Dart Launcher makes poison so much more useful. You can now poison enemies from afar, with almost no chance of a hostile spotting Ezio, unlike the poison blade where you had to get into melee range. Furthermore, any hostiles around will be distracted as they watch the victim's throes, allowing you to slip by. Contrast with the Hidden Gun, which almost certainly will give Ezio away, and the crossbow which is also likely to be detected. Also, it's always a One-Hit Kill, even on Brutes/Almogavars and Praetorian Guards/Janissaries.
 * Goddamn Bats: The bards from AC2 are back and as annoying as ever. This time they are supplemented by groups of beggars that basically do the same thing in groups. Thankfully the beggars stop spawning as you renovate sections of Rome. The bards, not so much.
 * Ho Yay: If you go to meet Leonardo after Sequence 8, at the end of their conversation Ezio tells Leonardo (who had just mentioned being busy with a portrait of a lady) not to get too distracted by women to build equipment for Ezio (and presumably Ezio's apprentices). Leonardo says that women would provide no distraction whatsoever, followed by him flirtatiously putting his hand on Ezio's shoulder. There is some historical evidence that Leonardo was indeed gay, but almost immediately Ezio says, "Wait, I don't get it..." leading to an awkward silence as Leonardo lifts his hand away and looks about.
 * How about Leonardo's 'assistant' Salai in the DLC? As part of his introduction he asks Ezio, "Outside the church of God lies the realm of men. Do you worship there, Messere?" Also, Ezio at one point declares to Leonardo, "Salai fits you. I approve."
 * Jerkass Woobie: Lucrezia Borgia is this in her backstory. She winds up getting pregnant by an Assassin, and even though the baby lives thanks to the Shroud of Eden, she's forced to play with the kid while being unable to reveal that she's his mother. After she tells her son "I don't know where your mother is but I know that she loves you" it's kind of hard not to want to cuddle her.
 * Then there's her appearance in The Da Vinci Disappearance. Even Ezio feels sorry for her.

"An old man who is agile enough to jump around on rooftops and on scaffoldings while wearing those silly clothes and never lost his breath; who had the balls to just stand there while Ezio screws up a jump and falls; who pushed another loser to his death with a nice taunt; and then finally decided to knife-fight Ezio just for the lulz. And, last but not least, had the best death scene in the game if you threw him off the ledge. Man, I loved that guy."
 * Lanz could count as well, since his reason to being a thief of Cento Occhi was losing his child at birth. And according to Project Legacy, Gaspar de la Croix seems to be one to, albeit the reason for such is unrevealed, but also seems related to the death of a loved one. By the time he faces Ezio, he's become a wild shooter, firing at anyone who passed by his aim.
 * Les Yay: The "Seduce a Noble" Assassin contract involves sending one of your Assassins to court and seduce a noble lady associated with the Templars to get information. You can send either male or female Assassins on the mission.
 * You can do that or you can send until 5 Assassins for the job. No wonder why they only give as an answer a laconic "The mission has been a success" when they come back.
 * Lucrezia and Caterina, with liberal streaks of Foe Yay.
 * Memetic Badass: The Cardinal you chase in the final Romulus Lair mission is slowly becoming this. A GameFAQs user sums him up pretty well:


 * Most Annoying Sound: The Animus voice when trying to load a multiplayer game. "Searching for a programmed session...Searching for other Abstergo agents...Searching for a programmed session...Searching for other Abstergo agents...Searching for a programmed session..."
 * The "Loading..." voice, half a dozen times, in every single Truth segment.
 * The citizens screaming after a dead body shows up or when a battle breaks out in the streets. Realistic as it is, it starts to grate after a while since the number of lines of dialogue programmed to play in this situation are kind of limited.
 * Nightmare Fuel:
 * Nightmare Fuel:
 * Oh God, the Harlequin. It's even lampshaded, in SONG no less, by this GameStop commercial. To make matters worse, the Harlequin been made into a Jack-in-the-Box.
 * Work your way through 16's puzzles. Then go read up on some of the stuff touched on in them. Then realize exactly how little Ubisoft had to change to make it all look like an Ancient Conspiracy (just by adding a Templar backstory to real-world events), and what the nature of the conspiracy is: Sleep tight.
 * Almost the entire final scene.

"GO! ALONE!"
 * Project Legacy has 
 * Paranoia Fuel: A big part of the Multiplayer, since all the players are potentially hiding in plain sight and visually indistinguishable from NPCs. Somewhat mitigated in Alliance and Manhunt modes where the pursuer and target teams are clearly defined, but in full effect during Wanted mode, and possibly more so in the Advanced Wanted mode (which unlike regular Wanted has a less accurate Compass indicator). A major strategy/tactic is to get as close to this ideal as possible, as the player gets more points when they don't use High Profile much or at all while within line of sight of a target.
 * Subject 16's puzzles are chock full of this. "Have a nice day, Mr. Jameson," indeed.
 * Assassins are everywhere. That pile of hay? It's got an Assassin in it. That rooftop garden stall? Assassins. That well? TWO of them. And if you're in the middle of a field with nowhere for them to hide? Sometimes they'll bother riding on horseback or running, other times they teleport in to kill you. Nowhere is safe from the Assassins. Being a soldier for the Borgia had to be a scary job when Ezio was in town.
 * No wonder there's probably more Seekers in Centro District alone than in all of Venice! For all the good that does the Borgia troops when the Assassins can simply shoot them from out of nowhere.
 * Almost as scary as being a Borgia courier, who wasn't even armed -- and had probably already heard about their hapless counterparts in Florence and Venice.
 * Oh you think that is bad. Try going out with Desmond while he free runs Monteriggioni. Play around with the Eagle vision. Its not like you will see any--wait, are those red footprints? They weren't there before. Holy shit, they lead to the only accessible entrance of the Villa. The Templars are here! Oh shit!
 * It gets worse; those footprints came from the sewers, and lead directly to where Lucy stands after talking to her once in that segment.
 * And then it gets even worse
 * ...Or it could just be Ezio's bloody footprints, from when he And the footprints are there the whole time.
 * Still, if you're paranoid enough, there's a lot of what could be subtle hints that
 * Even the story set-up for the multiplayer option in the games lends some credence to the possible theory that.
 * Averted: Word Of God says that the red footprints have nothing to do with Templars, and are just there to help players find their way back to the Villa. The red color is merely an oversight.
 * As of Revelations, [[spoiler: Lucy is revealed to have switched sides, after feeling abandoned by William Miles and the Assassin Order. The only reason she still shows up as blue is because she DOES care about Desmond, and didn't intend for Clay/Subject 16 to die.
 * Player Punch: The game starts off with the villa and mansion you spent all that time sprucing up being bombed and blown up by catapults and cannon fire. "No, not my roof! Not my art gallery! Not my brothel!"
 * Forget the brothel, ! No way he lives!


 * When playing the second Cristina Mission,, when , walk onto the stairwell (below the guards' line of sight) and then turn the camera to 'zoom in' on the faces...
 * Scrappy Mechanic: Getting 100% sync rate. Most of the time it involves not making one tiny little mistake like miss a jump. And if you do mess up you have to start the whole mission over again and sit through all the cutscenes.
 * Tear Jerker: "Requiescat in pace...."
 * That One Level: Potentially every mission that requires no damage taken or detection throughout the mission for Full Synchronization. This is especially annoying if the requirement is something that could only happen later in the Memory, since if you get the "full sync failed" notice, to try again for full sync you must play the entire Memory over from the beginning. Also, some people have had Ezio get attacked right after a cutscene in a Memory with a "no damage/don't lose any health" full sync requirement, or even during the cutscene itself (while the screen is still all-white).
 * Conversely, if the requirement is for something early in the Memory, the Chariot Machine Gun (no detection and no killing anyone until after you burn the blueprints) and the Naval Cannon (open one of the three gates yourself instead of the Brute doing so), after completing it you keep the "full sync" even if you get desynchronized afterward, since the checkpoint that you resume from is at or after you met the requirement.
 * It's even worse if there are cutscenes in the memory. You CAN skip them, but if you do the game has to temporarily exit you back to the "White Void" loading space and load up the stage all over again! (At least in the PS 3 version) Sometimes its faster to just watch the cutscene than attempt to skip.
 * The part in Sequence Eight where is also very annoying due to its Full-Synch requirement of not killing anyone, combined with the guards getting on your case with abnormal speed. Moreover, to complete that memory you need to be anonymous, and by the time you reach the place there will likely be a lot of guards after your head.
 * To make it worse, you can't hide from the guards to lose your notoriety while en-route. If you manage to hide from them, the instant you lose them, more will suddenly spawn, knowing exactly where you are. You can't actually shake off the guards until you've made it to the courtyard, where you have to be anonymous, meaning you may have then backtrack and make the guards lose sight of you before you can go back...all within that damn time limit.
 * The following mission requires you to complete it without losing any health. You start with dozens of guards closing in, and you're armed with the Apple... which prevents you from using other weapons and depletes your health when used! Meaning that running is your only option. Just hope that you're able to avoid the archers on the rooftops and the agile guards that can just catch you no matter how fast you run.
 * The "Take no damage" requirement is especially irritating in the Tank level of the War Machines missions, where you are required to take absolutely no damage while piloting the tank. In addition to being the later half of the mission (meaning you have a lot to work through again if you fail), you also have to skulk around while piloting the tank itself, turning what should have been a fun rampage into something more like a cover-based shooter. Worse still is the last section where you face not one, but two enemy tanks, meaning you have to dodge both their attacks in order to get the 100% sync requirement.
 * Subverted by the fact that there are only four things that can give you damage: The static cannons (which are fairly inaccurate especially if you don't stay in one place too long, plus they have a 3 second wind up time and a line to tell you where they'll shoot)), running into explosive barrels (which is your own fault), splash damage and/or ramming (shooting an enemy tank while you're right next to him.) And the other tank's weapons, and of the four the real threat is the tanks (and only because they're harder to dodge and take longer to kill, they're only slightly more accurate than the static cannons and have the same 3 second wind up time per shot while you only have 1) even then only because Anything else (IE the soldiers trying fruitlessly to shoot you with their guns) doesn't count.
 * If the tanks at the end are too much trouble, there's also a glitch you can use to prevent them from shooting at you.
 * Not to mention that the whole idea of the mission is to destroy the tank, as Ezio indeed does in the final cutscene, so all your efforts are in fact completely pointless.
 * And this isn't half as bad as the Bomber mission with the same requirement. It takes plenty of concentration just to avoid crashing the thing and hitting all the targets (some which are moving and on time limit), let alone dodge the arrows shot at you at the same time. At least with the tank you can stop to take a breath every once in a while.
 * To be fair, crashing or failing to hit your moving target does not effect your full synchronization. Only getting hit by arrows do.
 * The Bomber mission is infuriating to complete without full sync.
 * Attack the wooden guard towers (the sole source of the arrows) as far away as possible (you ARE in the air after all) and never fly straight at the towers. Also, Make sure you kill all the towers first and NEVER get caught in between two of them.
 * That One Sidequest: All the Collection Sidequests for the shops are pretty annoying, but getting the two rare Shrunken Heads for the blacksmith beats them all, as one of them is in a Lair of Romulus, and selling either of them will make it impossible to complete that quest, obtain its reward, and thus to 100% complete the main story -- which is required for an achievement/trophy.
 * If you have enough patience, you can chase after robbers and Borgia messengers who have random loot. Eventually you may find a Shrunken Head, even though it takes very, very long time. Or you can reactivate the thieves sidequest where you have to beat up members of a rival gang over and over again and loot their pockets every time, thus "farming" until you find what you are looking for.
 * Shrunken heads (And Aconite, which is otherwise only randomly dropped by Borgia messengers) can be obtained if you invest enough gold in certain shops. Given that it takes 100,000 florins to get a shrunken head, and you can only invest in 1 shop every 20 minutes for some reason, it will take a while.
 * It takes one million florins in investments to get a shrunken head - not a mere hundred thousand.
 * The tactic of just letting the game run and collect money while you do other things can somewhat alleviate the problem.
 * Getting Gold rank on the Virtual Reality missions ranges from moderately difficult (complete an obstacle course in a certain amount of time or complete a course without being detected for example) to "Oh God why?" (get 20 kills without being hit. Yes. 20.)
 * Any Lair of Romulus and/or Templar Lair that requires you to complete it in a certain amount of time for 100% Synchronization. Which, let's face, it, is pretty much all of them. In order to make it under the time limit, you have to know 100% where you're going (which is especially troublesome since a lot of them require you carefully gauge your surroundings), not miss ANY jumps or platforms AT ALL, avoid pretty much all combat, and add to this the occasional dose of Camera Screw just to piss you off even more.
 * Uncanny Valley: The Nobleman, with his hunched back and seemingly undersized limbs.