Legacy of the First Blade Thoughts. Spoilers Ahead.

[Panzerlied]

So I finally finished Episode 3 and I think overall it was a decent DLC. That being said I'll make some points in which stem from some disappointment.

1. The lack of continuity between main story quests; i.e. through all the time in the main story after you re-united with Myrrine, she talks about how special your blood is, and how important Spartan life is, etc. On top of this, if you so choose, you can spare Deimos and the rest of your family. They then become Lieutenants aboard your ship, which is fine. However, what isn't fine, is the Bloodline is hunted, as we see in Episode 1, yet there are still two of the Bloodline running around, notably Myrrine your mother, and Deimos, your sibling. I feel as if your original family could have been released from their Lieutenant duty temporarily to further the plot.

Apparently the Order didn't bother to see if they too were a threat as is implied by the Cult of Kosmos throughout the main storyline. Moving forward to where you must continue your Bloodline by obvious plot elements, i.e. have a child. Nowhere are your mother, siblings, and step-father anywhere to be seen. They're not there to realize that there is now another addition to the family. No celebrations, no in-depth story where the two families meet and share tales and adventure, etc. There's no race against time and epic struggle to find Elpidios as all members of the family, notably the three of the Bloodline, you, Myrrine, and Deimos rage against the Persians to recover their family. I felt as if this would have made an even better story as all of the Bloodline is involved, instead of just you and your son.

2. Spartans as the secondary antagonists throughout the DLC. First off, I'm aware of how historically, Persia bankrolled the Pelopponesean League with resources, etc. for the war. That's fine, they could have stayed in the shadows that way, etc. I feel as if the Cult of Kosmos would have made better secondary antagonists, since in my playthrough, Messenia was in Athenian control, so the only Spartans I saw were in one of the final cutscenes and on the beach when you had to free an Athenian General, then fight a Spartan fleet. That being said, in my playthrough of the game, Alexios is devoted to Sparta, fights for Sparta, and does not kill Spartans (with the exception of the deserter generated quests or when absolutely forced to). I feel the Cult would have been a better option as is implied in the 2nd and seen in the 3rd Episodes, the Order and the Cult were working together for a very, very long time. What could have transpired was how the Order came in and decided to re-consolidate the Cult of Kosmos into a cohesive entity once more. Where in lieu of Spartan troops, we'd see Cultists, much to the character's surprise thinking that they were defeated. Here they would see them now resurgent.

Going along with this idea, in the Cult menu, there is an empty space above where Deimos is located, at least three more Cultists could have been placed there as a point of plot and extra enemies to hunt for and kill. These three resurgent Cultists would have been secondary antagonists to the Order. So the Huntsman in Makedonia would coordinate with one Cultist, and you'd have to fight them before fighting the Huntsman. The same would go for Phila in Achaia, and Amorges in Messenia. One mission is to even hunt an Order member as he's talking to the Cultists in one of their strongholds. I feel as if there was a missed opportunity here to bring the Cult of Kosmos to the fore, albeit behind the Order, as antagonists again.

3. Now tying all of this in. Messenia is located right next to Lakonia with a convenient canyon pass. What I felt should have happened would have been an epic clash between the Spartan Bloodline (you, Myrinne, and Deimos) with Spartan backing, against the Order with Cultist backing, in Sparta itself. The story could have revolved around you a bit to lead Sparta out of the shadows politically, etc and lead them against the cancer that threatened to consume them from the inside. My reasoning behind this is two-fold. Firstly, there is a song constantly sung by the sailors in game; the Tale of Leonidas, and one of the parts of it, more or les is:

"Can a saviour now be found within the city
They hope the mighty spear will rise again
Sparta needs a new leader to believe in
A legend to build an army and to defend
But where will the next hero come from?"

What could have happened was Alexios, Nikolaus, Stentor, Deimos, and Myrrine approach King Archidamos and discuss the dire circumstances where the Order is threatening to Sparta's existence, using Persian money and resources, etc to leverage soldiers and influence at Sparta's expense, i.e. the blood and waste of lives for reasons outside of Spartan glory, all for Persian/Order gain in the region. The King then declares a state of emergency and starts to muster troops for Sparta's defense. During the first few skirmishes, he is wounded to the point where he appoints you, the player, to lead Spartan forces against the horde of Cultists and Order soldiers/leaders. Pitched battles are fought and the cost is high but the final Cultist leader is killed and Cultist forces are once against scattered. In the end Sparta remains defended and secure thanks to your efforts. King Archidamos declares along the lines that should you ever seek to be co-ruler, the empty King's seat is yours. (I know there's already a short conversation that occurs if you accuse Archidamos instead of Pausanias in the main story, but future DLC content comes to mind regarding this and tying in the Tale of Leonidas sailor song).

Secondly, after Sparta is secure Amorges goes to hide in his well defended fortress. Mustering the remaining troops and resources of Sparta, your character, and family find the location of Amorges thanks to the work of yourself and Darius. With this news, everyone gathers to assault his well fortified position to secure your son. Epic fighting ensues, and the final cutscenes draw close. It would more or less remain the same as it is now, except with extra dialogue and appearances from your family. After Amorges is dealt with your family goes to find your son with Myrrine and Darius talking about sending Elpidios away so that he cannot be found by those that would use or destroy him. It would also be hard for Myrrine as she wouldn't want to just send family away like that, but Darius convinces her that the child would never be safe from the Order, etc.

I personally would have liked this as it would have been more in depth and tied together various plot elements of the main game. Continuity being my first point I felt as if the Legacy of the First Blade DLC is altogether un-connected to the game at large. Even the two main story chains, i.e. family and Atlantis, are tied in with Myrrine insisting that you meet your father, find out about your Blood (it's emphasized a lot), etc.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on it. Overall the DLC was kind of alright, but it didn't really suck me in like the main storylines did sadly. The lack of continuity just took me right out of it so I couldn't find it as amazing as it could have been.

[lev]

Too much text, sorry mate

[pokerhabs]

Too long to read.

My opinion on that DLC is that it was:

- Too short
-Too cliche
-Lastly, the 3 remaining ''order members'' doesnt have any quest around em, you have to figure out the clues and find them, exactly like these ainingmata ostrakas... It was a deception. I would have loved to see atleast the tiniest sidequest around em...

Also, nothing really new except some engravings and an ability ( wich is decent if you play warrior build )

[SoKrates]

Too long really, but anyway..
I like the connection that they made between Egypt and Darius & Elpidios at the end, but nothing else. Too bad they did it as a DLC and not a part of the main story, that would make so much sense.
The Cult cannot exist if you do the entire main story first.. short, boring (some boss fights were allright).. the end.

[Inspiral]

I agree with the OP regarding the non-appearance of Kassandra's (or Alexios's) family, but I guess that would have created problems when it came down to choices players made in the main game, i.e. whether they spared their sibling or not.

I also agree with the comment above re. clues to finding cultists. There could have been a lot more side quests where NPCs give you info rather than having the player look for notes lying around.

Overall I thought the DLC was okay. I didn't like the boss battles and I thought there were way too many cutscenes, Episode 3 in particular seemed to lurch from one overwrought cutscene to the next. Fingers crossed the next three episodes will deliver something fresher.

[Panzerlied]

Originally posted by NicoCR7:

Too long really, but anyway..
I like the connection that they made between Egypt and Darius & Elpidios at the end, but nothing else. Too bad they did it as a DLC and not a part of the main story, that would make so much sense.
The Cult cannot exist if you do the entire main story first.. short, boring (some boss fights were allright).. the end.

The Cult idea was to have them be resurgent for the DLC, i.e. they're propped up as secondary antagonists by The Order since they already have troops and strongholds littered around Greece. You would have three more Cultist leaders to kill, who were chosen by The Order, along with The Order leaders as well. Even though most of their infrastructure and support is crippled, The Order still uses them and funds them until they're no longer useful, i.e. toward the end of the third Episode where you kill the final Cultist Leader and then take out Amorges. Effectively, the Cult would no longer present a credible threat due to the lack of money and resources from Persia. It would have been better in my opinion to place the Cult again in the scenes, since they were such a huge part of the main story. Seeing interactions and reactions from the Myrinne, Deimos (if you let them live), the main character, and the Cultist Leaders would have been pretty cool.

[pokerhabs]

Also mentionned in another thread :

Spoiler : In the end, we see Darius walking with your son, then descendants of your son untill we see Aya. That was a nice cutscene except that the sphynx and pyramids were built many hundreds year before Darius' time but we clearly see Darius and Elpidios witnessing their construction

Originally posted by NicoCR7:

The Cult cannot exist if you do the entire main story first.. short, boring (some boss fights were allright).. the end.

Well, the way I see it is that even if you cut the heads of every Cult members in your menu, there's always some cultists somewhere. Some locations are still full of cultist guards, they are just probably poor and really limited influence, not to mention they don't have any little golden triangle pieces anymore.

[SoKrates]

Originally posted by pokerhabs:

Also mentionned in another thread :

Spoiler : In the end, we see Darius walking with your son, then descendants of your son untill we see Aya. That was a nice cutscene except that the sphynx and pyramids were built many hundreds year before Darius' time but we clearly see Darius and Elpidios witnessing their construction

Originally posted by NicoCR7:

The Cult cannot exist if you do the entire main story first.. short, boring (some boss fights were allright).. the end.

Well, the way I see it is that even if you cut the heads of every Cult members in your menu, there's always some cultists somewhere. Some locations are still full of cultist guards, they are just probably poor and really limited influence, not to mention they don't have any little golden triangle pieces anymore.

That is a positive way to see it.. but yeah, why not.

[SoKrates]

Originally posted by X Ulfhedinn Panzerlied:

Originally posted by NicoCR7:

Too long really, but anyway..
I like the connection that they made between Egypt and Darius & Elpidios at the end, but nothing else. Too bad they did it as a DLC and not a part of the main story, that would make so much sense.
The Cult cannot exist if you do the entire main story first.. short, boring (some boss fights were allright).. the end.

The Cult idea was to have them be resurgent for the DLC, i.e. they're propped up as secondary antagonists by The Order since they already have troops and strongholds littered around Greece. You would have three more Cultist leaders to kill, who were chosen by The Order, along with The Order leaders as well. Even though most of their infrastructure and support is crippled, The Order still uses them and funds them until they're no longer useful, i.e. toward the end of the third Episode where you kill the final Cultist Leader and then take out Amorges. Effectively, the Cult would no longer present a credible threat due to the lack of money and resources from Persia. It would have been better in my opinion to place the Cult again in the scenes, since they were such a huge part of the main story. Seeing interactions and reactions from the Myrinne, Deimos (if you let them live), the main character, and the Cultist Leaders would have been pretty cool.

From that point of view, I agree with you. Let's see what Ubisoft have for us in the next DLC.

[pokerhabs]

Originally posted by NicoCR7:

Originally posted by X Ulfhedinn Panzerlied:

The Cult idea was to have them be resurgent for the DLC, i.e. they're propped up as secondary antagonists by The Order since they already have troops and strongholds littered around Greece. You would have three more Cultist leaders to kill, who were chosen by The Order, along with The Order leaders as well. Even though most of their infrastructure and support is crippled, The Order still uses them and funds them until they're no longer useful, i.e. toward the end of the third Episode where you kill the final Cultist Leader and then take out Amorges. Effectively, the Cult would no longer present a credible threat due to the lack of money and resources from Persia. It would have been better in my opinion to place the Cult again in the scenes, since they were such a huge part of the main story. Seeing interactions and reactions from the Myrinne, Deimos (if you let them live), the main character, and the Cultist Leaders would have been pretty cool.

From that point of view, I agree with you. Let's see what Ubisoft have for us in the next DLC.

With the name '' Atlantis'' I believe that we will see higher cultists, or maybe another cult. Anyway, it needs to be proto-templar. After all, the whole point of the game was to shut down the gate of Atlantis to prevent some cults to use it's power ( Isu power, wich is the case in every AC ).

Also, probably a final cutscene with Layla and some hints toward Legion.

[LeftPaw]

It reminds me of how everyone was hoping the next DLC for FC 5 would be a good one. Sadly they were all garbage. I see the same happening here. Atlantis will be BS.

[SoKrates]

Originally posted by Road to 1 year ban:

I thought Atlantis DLC was that mission where you looking for dad and killing world bosses, no?

No! There will be a DLC apart from that.

[SoKrates]

Originally posted by Odyssey:

It reminds me of how everyone was hoping the next DLC for FC 5 would be a good one. Sadly they were all garbage. I see the same happening here. Atlantis will be BS.

let's be positive! if you love AC, be positive.

[MF]

Originally posted by pokerhabs:

Too long to read.

My opinion on that DLC is that it was:

- Too short
-Too cliche
-Lastly, the 3 remaining ''order members'' doesnt have any quest around em, you have to figure out the clues and find them, exactly like these ainingmata ostrakas... It was a deception. I would have loved to see atleast the tiniest sidequest around em...

Also, nothing really new except some engravings and an ability ( wich is decent if you play warrior build )

I awarded you points because I'm a Slayer fan and I think Diabolus in Musica is highly underrated.

[MF]

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

It reminds me of how everyone was hoping the next DLC for FC 5 would be a good one. Sadly they were all garbage. I see the same happening here. Atlantis will be BS.

That post didn't age well.................