I think AC1 defined the identity of the series and Ubi has been chipping away at that identity ever since AC2. AC2 introduced the money system, the RPG weapon system, added a second hidden blade and changed it from a pure assassination/timed counter tool to a normal weapon. It got rid of skill-executions (timing your hit with the clash of the weapons to execute) and introduced health-based executions instead. Instead of expanding on what made the first game great, it made choices to make the series more palatable to more players. Ubi has been selling out since game 2.

Furthermore, I don't like Ezio as an assassin, or the storytelling in 2 . The playboy who gets into scraps with his buddies becomes a highly skilled murderer overnight? Come on. I get that his family was executed and he was butthurt but besides the fact that he would parkour with his brother and that he could hold his own in a fistfight - barely - there was no indication that he had anywhere near the level of training Altaïr did to be the best of the best. He just had it handed to him on a silver platter. There are a ton of time skips, even without exiting the animus, that make the story feel rushed and random. And he just goes from playboy to effectively the MOST skilled killer in the world practically overnight, with no training. It was just all too easy for him.

That game is also where they came up with the phrase "we work in the shadows to serve the light" which I've always found dumb as the whole Templar vs Assassin thing was supposed to be a moral quandary, but they just started trying to paint the Assassins as the quintessential good guys.

And I didn't like his outfit as much as Altaïr's either.

At least future assassins had SOME believable training as killers. Connor was a native hunter-warrior, Edward was a pirate, the Frye twins were raised as assassins from birth. Bayek was a medjay, Kassandra/Alexios was a mercenary, Eivor was a vikingr raider.

Ezio and Arno are the two least believable assassins in the whole of the franchise and I don't understand why people like Ezio so much.