For the longest time the only piece of documentation proving that Ubisoft was, indeed, making Assassin’s Creed DS was a few kilobytes of data on the Gamestop release schedule. Missing was the PC version, which was confirmed, leading many to believe that the Nintendo DS version was simply a placeholder for that version until some unknown problem was cleared up. I actually believe this was the case, and Ubisoft heard the confusion of gamers and decided it was in their best interest to scramble together a portable version of the most technologically advanced game released this generation.

Regardless of any of that information, I am going to say this blunt statement right away: Assassin’s Creed: Altaïrs’s Chronicles is one of the best Nintendo 64 games I have ever played. No, that is not a typo, it is just the feeling I had while playing the game. The game is about as suited for the Nintendo DS as a pair of boots is for a slug, and nearly every feature of the game that takes advantage of its “unique” abilities comes off as insanely heavy handed. 

I say nearly because there is a glaring exception among the awfulness, as the Elite Beat Agents inspired interrogation sequences are as stellar as they are disturbing. You find yourself poking, prodding, and twisting different parts of the back of random people in order for them to point along the path you were already traveling and tell you to hit a switch that is shining white. Compared to the other uses of the DS’s features, which are (in order of their inanity) picking pockets of people you can almost always kill as soon as you take the key, clicking on enemies to fire at them with a bow in what could be the absolute worst use of the touch screen yet, and blowing into the microphone to clear away sand from random, unnecessary treasure chests, poking the bare backs of passersby’s comes off as the most fun and inventive.