I personally loved the Cultist system itself, even if I do agree that it lacked a few big missions to more importante targets (similar to the "Black Box" Assassiantions that we had in Unity and Syndicate).

It had you collecting clues to reveal the targets, which seemed like a throwback to AC1, but this time the info gathering was not as repetitive (it also did not give much info about the surroundings and opportunities to kill the target like 1 did, which is something they can improve). It is an element they should bring back in the next one in my opinion.

I liked the Misthios, I could choose dialogue that made him/her do what I wanted most of the time and their own actions in the narrative made sense to me. The arc itself is a simple hero´s journey, where they get out of their ordinary life, see the bigger picture, overcome challenges and accept their role as the hero the world needs (destroying the Cult, securing the Artifacts and, a more personal objective, reuniting their Family).

The personality may not have changed much, but they had a fun one to have around for a long time. It was like with Bayek, Edward or Ezio, where the protagonist shows a big variety of emotions and, in the end of the day, you would like to hang out with them.

Another factor is what they do in the story and if people agree with it. Altair himself, from my view, got a boost of popularity in the fanbase on Revelations, where they showed his ups and downs after the end of AC1 and showed his actions to save the brotherhood and reformulate it for a new age (we knew of the codex in 2, but seeing the process that lead to it sealed the deal).

And I think Odyssey desserves the AC name on it. As a prequel to a prequel, the lack of some iconic elements was not that bad to me. It was refreshing personally, and now Ubi made people not take things for granted, so they will be hyped for common things in the next game (hidden blade, memory corridors, etc).

Anyhow, those are my drachmas on the subject.