To quote the immortal words of SpongeBob Squarepants, “Sorry, I don’t speak Italian.” I figured that would be a better way for me to begin this article than by potentially misquoting the star of the collection I’ll be reviewing today. At its core, Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection is exactly what it both appears and professes to be. It’s an anthology of every game in the franchise which stars Ezio Auditore da Firenze ported to the Nintendo Switch. I honestly don’t see this trilogy as anything too groundbreaking since the relevant games have been available for several years on other platforms.

That’s why, for the purposes of this review, I’ll be focusing mainly on each included title’s performance on this collection’s newest home rather than on the question of whether or not each individual game is worth your time based on things like their gameplay or plot. That is to say, this article will mainly serve as a sort of “port report”-style piece which centers around what it’s like to play the new Switch versions of Assassin’s Creed II, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.

If you happen to be unfamiliar with any of the games included in this trilogy, I plan to write separate, more detailed reviews of the newest versions of each title in question later down the line. For today, though, I’ll be going through all three of these releases with something of a finer-tooth comb looking for things like bugs, glitches, performance issues, and the like over the course of a normal playthrough. I would imagine that this article’s length will be at least somewhat proportional to the number of issues I encounter.

There’s one last thing I want to mention before we begin. I don’t know if this only happened because I received a pre-launch review key for The Ezio Collection or if it will be the case for everyone who purchases this anthology, but I found that only Assassin’s Creed II was playable when I first launched the trilogy. I had to separately download both Brotherhood and Revelations from the Nintendo eShop (for free, of course) before I could play them. On that note, let’s dive in like we’re Ezio Auditore da Firenze performing a leap of faith into a conveniently-placed pile of hay from a dizzying height.

I thought I would start with Assassin’s Creed II since that was easily my favorite game in the entire franchise until Assassin’s Creed Odyssey came along. This game was the primary reason I was looking forward to the entirety of The Ezio Collection coming to the Nintendo Switch. Now I can take a selection of my favorite Assassin’s Creed games on the go with me, which is especially handy because it seems the rest of the franchise currently isn’t faring so well in terms of compatibility with the Steam Deck.

The main thing I expected when I initially fired up my copy of The Ezio Collection is that I would need to take some time to adjust to this series’ control schemes again. I hadn’t played an Assassin’s Creed game in quite some time, so I was sure I’d be particularly rusty as far as controls were concerned. Beyond that, I never exactly managed to master Assassin’s Creed II’s controls even on PC. This, combined with the fact that I’m still not used to the layout of my Switch Lite’s face buttons, surely meant I’d need to spend a while acclimating to the optimal means of controlling Ezio.

It turns out I was definitely right about that. During one mission early on in the game, I was tasked with following Ezio’s brother Federico to the first of several dozen in-game viewpoints that offer players the “synchronize” ability. The otherwise simple task of reaching that viewpoint took me about four or five attempts because I kept accidentally pressing the wrong button at an especially inopportune time and launching myself to the ground below, resulting in my demise.

It isn’t the game’s fault that it has taken me so long to become even partially accustomed to the control scheme, but within the scenario I’ve just described, that lack of familiarity certainly didn’t help. Having said that, the more I’ve played Assassin’s Creed II, the fewer instances there were of me face-planting from several meters up instead of continuing to climb. I don’t expect to truly master the game’s controls anytime soon, but progress is progress regardless.

I’m also quite pleased to report that I haven’t experienced any glaring issues with Assassin’s Creed II during my time with it thus far. I should clarify that I haven’t exactly played any of the three included games in this collection to completion. I’ll save that for their individual reviews. Even so, I’ve progressed far enough in each title so that I’m reasonably certain that I would encounter any such issues if they existed.

To be a bit more specific, Assassin’s Creed II performs quite well in my experience. I’m not completely sure at what frame rate The Ezio Collection (or the Switch in general) typically runs, but I certainly haven’t seen any noticeable dips or issues on that front. I also haven’t come across any bugs or glitches as far as I’m aware, no matter how minor they may be. I certainly haven’t seen anything remotely close to what I would consider being game-breaking, either. That is a bit of a surprise since I expected a few bugs from the outset.

Moving on, my report on the performance of the remaining two titles in The Ezio Collection is exactly the same as that of Assassin’s Creed II. I have noticed something that affects all three games in this collection, however, though it’s rather minor. While transferring screenshots from my Switch Lite to my PC for the purpose of using those images within this article, I was made keenly aware of how far we’ve come technologically in going from 720p as a resolution all the way up to 4K and beyond.

That is to say, I don’t think this anthology of games looks particularly stunning at 720p, but again, that’s certainly not the fault of the games themselves. Ubisoft did what they could with the hardware that makes up the Switch and the Switch Lite. I suspect they didn’t set out to remaster a trilogy of Assassin’s Creed games that’s both exceptionally visually appealing and portable at the same time. Besides, due to the size of my Switch Lite’s screen, I didn’t even notice the games’ graphical quality at all until I was examining screenshots and resizing them to 1080p.

As I said near the beginning of this article, Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection is exactly what it is meant to be. I think it’s great that this trilogy of titles has joined some of its brethren on the Nintendo Switch, including Assassin’s Creed III Remastered and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Now the console has the majority of notorious titles in this franchise, all in a much more portable form than they’ve ever been before.

I own AC III Remastered and Black Flag on Switch, but I haven’t gotten around to playing them. As such, I can only vouch for the performance of the titles contained within The Ezio Collection. If all you’re after is a way to relive the memories of Desmond Miles and Ezio Auditore while on the go, or at least in a different way than you might be used to, this anthology will most assuredly give you what you seek. That’s my final word on The Ezio Collection for now, as anticlimactic as it may be.

A Nintendo Switch review key for Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection was provided by Ubisoft for this review.

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Assassin's Creed: The Ezio Collection

$59.99 USD

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Great Way to Take Three Popular Assassin's Creed Games on the Go
• Games Adapt Relatively Well to the New Platform

Cons

• Graphical Fidelity May Turn Off Some Players
• Control Schemes Can Be Awkward at First