Assassin's Creed/YMMV

"Altaïr: You are afraid... Sibrand: Of course I am afraid! Altaïr: But you'll be safe now, held in the arms of your god. Sibrand: Have my brothers taught you nothing!? I know what waits for me, for all of us! Altaïr: If not your god, then what? Sibrand: Nothing. Nothing waits... and that is what I fear."
 * Alas, Poor Villain: Sibrand. His Kick the Dog moment is born out of paranoia bordering on madness, and he is the only target that is genuinely afraid in his assassination monologue.

"Majd Addin: For thinking differently? Of course not! I killed them because I could! Because it was fun! Do you know what it feels like to determine another man's fate? And did you see the way the people cheered? The way they feared me? I was like a god!"
 * Complete Monster: While most targets in the first game are literal cases of a Knight Templar, the same can not be said for Majd Addin, the de facto dictator of Jerusalem who regularly orders and personally carries out executions of innocent people. Unlike all the other targets, he does not think that he is doing something good, he is not crazy or blind, he executes all these people for fun. When he is finally killed by Altaïr, Altaïr chews him out for killing innocents for "thinking differently than [Majd]", he responds:


 * Disappointing Last Level: Most of the game is built around stealth and free running in sprawling cityscapes. The last part is a linear, rigidly structured sequence in which you have to fight your way through dozens of opponents with no possibility of evasion or escape.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Malik, the Jerusalem Bureau leader.
 * To a (much) lesser extent, Sibrand. He's the only Templar who has much presence in fandom.
 * The nameless Rafiq in Damascus, mostly for his cheery nature and amusing sarcasm. He's not as dour as the Acre Rafiq, or as bitter as Malik.
 * Fan Nickname: "Faffing About Creed", thanks to Yahtzee. Also, "Ass-Creed", probably not also courtesy Yahtzee, but his use of it in the review of the sequel has greatly popularized it.
 * And "Ass Creed Bro" for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.
 * Or AssBros
 * Fan Yay: Malik and Altair. Strangely due to the huge amount of Foe Yay between the two . Though quite a bit of the resulting fan art set out to only tamely fill in the blanks of what Altair does when he rests at Malik's Hideout.
 * Game Breaker: Counter attacking with the hidden blade is a One-Hit Kill, even against the final boss (once you jump through his other hoops)... so long as you have the timing down enough to succeed consistently (key word here).
 * You can kill entire armies with the hidden blade. Throw two people to the ground and knife them, and others will start to recoil in horror or distract themselves. The ones who recoil can be assassinated before they recover, that assassination will make someone else react, and so on and so on...
 * Throwing knives, other attacks can, especially, in the 2 and Brotherhood, be countered themselves, so a counter attack won't 'always' kill, but throwing knives cannot be blocked, even on a fight where the boss will block all your attacks, throwing knives can make quick work of them.
 * Goddamned Bats: The guards can feel like friggin' bats when you're trying to run and hide, and they pelt you with rocks as you climb away, or the alert goes off again just as you're about to dive into a rooftop garden.
 * There also the beggars, who constantly harass you (and only you) for coins, and the lepers, who shove you (and only you), sometimes into a group of guards.
 * The archers. Up close, they are just normal guards, but at a distance with their bows out they are unblockable.
 * Unless you use throwing knives. Simple.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: After one of the main Assassination targets used poison on some civilians, Altaïr makes a side comment to another Brotherhood member that poison is a coward's weapon. In Assassin's Creed II, one of the main character's (a descendant of Altaïr) weapons is poison. (A blade dipped in poison, to be exact)
 * Said blade was invented by Altaïr himself, as Da Vinci builds it from the designs in the Codex.
 * Historical Hero Upgrade/Historical Villain Upgrade: The Assassins and Templars respectively.
 * The Templars were hardly saints, but they weren't exactly Knight Templars either. Christians of the era saw them in a positive light, and they were known both for their military prowess and for their charity towards fellow-Christians (in contrast to, for example, the self-aggrandizing Teutonic Knights). Of course, among non-Christians they were generally only known for the military prowess part.
 * The Assassins were also Warrior Monks, Ismaili Shias working for the (Shia) Fatimid Caliphate (based in Egypt) against the (Sunni) Turks and Persians. They worked for Ismaili Shiism, not for any secular leader or any other greater good; early in their history, they focused on killing those who could slow down Egypt's expansion in the Holy Land, but after Saladin overthrew the Fatimids, they turned their focus to opposing him -- even allying with the Crusaders until Saladin besieged their fortresses and forced them into a peace treaty. Sometime in the 1250s, they ticked off Hugalu Khan, and that's the real reason why you've never heard of them today.
 * It Was His Sled: The original trailers and information did their best to hide the existence of Desmond and the modern storyline, except for a few out-of-place "glitches" (now recognizable as elements of the Animus). A rather fancy trick, given the fact that Desmond's storyline is of greater overall importance.
 * Nausea Fuel: One of Altair's counter attacks with the short knife is an elbow to the stomach and a punch to the face, which leaves the victim standing there for a split second, dazed. You have the option of letting him fall and get back up again, or pressing X to finish him off. If you press X, Altair takes his knife in both hands, raises it above his head, and stabs the guy in the skull. Just . . . the sound effects (sounds like wet wood snapping in half) and the fact that Altair has trouble pulling the knife back out again . . . ugh.
 * Or you can stomp on his knee, folding his leg in half with a sickening crunch.
 * Older Than They Think: Not the story, but the Hidden Blade. See Blade Below the Shoulder for a list, of which many items were originated before this game.
 * The idea of the Templars trying to take over the world, while the Hashashin try to stop them has been done before in the Broken Sword series.
 * That One Boss: Robert de Sable.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Due to the game's mechanics, the fight with him can end quite abruptly if the player manages to knock him down early on in the fight and follow it up by stabbing him with the hidden blade as he lays on the ground.
 * Periphery Demographic: Hideo Kojima is such a huge fan of the entire series that he's put at least two major references to it in his last two Metal Gear games; Altaïr's outfit in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and the hay pile in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.
 * Also,
 * Also in brotherhood, when you first meet Leonardo you get a mission to find out where a noise is coming from. After going down some stairs you find a cardboard box in a corner.
 * Squick: "Break his legs. Both of them."
 * Uncanny Valley: The generic character models have simplified hands, the fingers stuck together in pairs. It leaves them looking like they have two broad fingers on each hand, and never stops being disturbing.