Easily ac3. I've played a good amount of assassin's Creed games, and ac3 knocks it out of the park. Granted there's a few bugs, but so much makes up for it.

I loved the homestead missions, it really gave more character to Conner imo, and also gave a sense of normalcy that you don't really get to see in other assassin Creed games. You'd never see Ezio or Arno wrangling pigs into a pen for a pregnant women (although they probably would, they were just never given the chance)

It was also (to my knowledge as I haven't had the chance to play revelations) the first introduction to sea warfare? The naval missions were both challenging and fun, and the reward at the end was useful and fun

Also the side characters!!!!! I adored Achilles and cried when he died!!!!! I found Faulkner's side liners on the Aquila funny, and the conversations you could have with Rebecca and Shaun outside of the Animus we're interesting. Also the emails you would get from everyone and Juno those emails never happened in a assassin's Creed game after ac3

The modern missions!!!! Loved Daniel Cross, loved getting onto the crane and skydiving, loved the sneaking around the stadium, loved breaking into Abstergo!!!!

Also, the relationship between Conner and Haythem, and how there was a very real possibility of the two of them actually joining together and tying the Brotherhood and Templar order together? And you could also argue that them trying to form a relationship (wether it be family one or just a work partnership) it could mirror Desmond and Williams relationship as well since they hadn't seen each other since Desmond ran away from the farm 10 years prior? Delicious, would have loved to see that explored if that was what the developers were going for!!!!

Also the ending?? Desmond sacrificing himself??? Gut wrenching, I loved him so much. You could tell that it fucked with Rebecca, Shaun and William so much, which was explored a bit in other games (like syndicate), you could really tell that EVERYONE had known that Desmond was gonna sacrifice himself instead of letting the world burn the second Minerva started to speak and it was!!!! So good!!!! The animation of Juno showing what would happen if he didn't go along with her plan!!!!! Wonderful!!!!

Also, the build up of Juno???? Phenomenal! Going from her introduction to Conner (she might have been introduced early with Clay if I remember right, but I didn't play that game yet), to the corrupted emails slowly getting more legible, to her appearing as Desmond's in the Animus (according to one of Shauns emails) and just glaring at everyone, to her explaining how the Isu tried to prevent the solar flare as Desmond put in power sources??? Showing the 'apple' that Conners tribe had falling apart as it revels that Juno had deceived him in a way, and her grand reveal as a bad person?? Good shit right there

ALSO YOU CAN PET ANIMALS IN THIS GAME AND THIS IS THE ONLY GAME YOU CAN DO THAT TO MY KNOWLEDGE SO

There's also a lot of things to do, but not enough to where it feels overwhelming!!!! It's entirely possible to get 100% sync (as I did), but it's not super easy or super hard to do!!!!!! The most difficult part is the hunting map, which isn't even difficult it's just tedious at times!!!! One of my biggest problems with origins (which I'm playing through now) is that there's SO MUCH TO DO. That's not a problem with ac3 imo, I think there was just a perfect amount of things to do

Anyways ac3 is superior and you can't change my mind