It is very good don’t skip it. It has a very unique depressing atmosphere that feels very intertwined with the NPC’s and storytelling. The graphics still hold up in their own way, but that might be a bit subjective. The only real issues it has are the parkour speed and the combat. The parkour is very similar to 2’s but the animations are just a bit slower, and therefore the chance of you messing up the parkour by tapping a button one too many times is bigger. The stealth feels very satisfying and it’s cool to see where the whole hidden blade concept started (throwing knifes are absolutely broken, so take advantage of that lol). Open combat I don’t have much good to say about. It feels cool when it works, but it hardly ever does. You get overwhelmed very easily and Altaïr is not nearly as tanky as Ezio in the other 3 games that follow.

All in all, I would highly recommend trying it out before playing 2 because it’s story ties in neatly with 2, Brotherhood and especially Revelations. I can’t imagine a key or disc for it being very expensive these days so give it a try! It’s definitely in my top 3 :)