[John Watson]

Yeah, like Lestrade said, if you care about the story you definitely don't want to skip them and go right to III. Even ignoring the Ezio-centric stories, they still involve a lot of Desmond-centric story. They may not have numbers in their name, but they are definitely sequels, not spin-off/stand-alone games.

As for Connor's design, I think he does look pretty neat, and the bits of Iroquois design they added is kind of nice. The problem is that he looks HORRIBLY out of place with everyone else in town. He's supposed to be able to blend in, but he sticks out so much compared to everyone else in their revolutionary-era clothing. That's really the problem I have, it doesn't fit the setting at all. If he spent all his time in the woods or something, that would be fine.