Played on an original Xbox 360 model.
It took me way too long into my playthrough of this game to appreciate anyhing it was trying to do - Edward as a protagonist is aimless until the last act of the story, the gameplay acts as an inverse of AC3's with more focus on ship sailing than actual on-the-ground assassin-ing, and the modern day plot is embroiled in a weird meta commentary about Ubisoft's own development of the franchise through the lens of being a front for Abstergo. Whenever I hear people talking about this game it's always heralded as the "best" entry in the series with much bemoaning of how the franchise has since fallen in quality and all I can really respond with is "really?" Black Flag, with it's parkour and general movement hat's further simplified from AC3's dumbed-down mechanics and yet still remains as dodgy and imprecise as the original game's? Black Flag with gameplay and mission markers and side activities and hidden trinkets bloated to being over a 40 hour game with the narrative of a 10 hour experience? Black Flag with its cosmetics and upgrades locked behind mandatory online and multiplayer content? That Black Flag? Because if this really is the peak of the AC franchise then jesus wept I'm not even sure if I want to bother continuing with it.
Ok, positives - the art direction is really fucking good. I've enjoyed the art style of all the previous mainline entries but Black Flag really does manage to capture the clear blue oceans, golden beaches and scummy shanty towns of a romanticised carribean amidst the golden age of piracy. Characters all look pretty good too and I had a much better time being able to identify individuals here than I did in AC3's ocean of bland-looking, wrinkled white men in their 40s. The music too is more defined than the last entry, with many tunes becoming recogniseable over the course of the game, and while I never truly enjoyed sailing the high seas (7/10, too much water, etc) I can certainly recognise how all of these points coming together could provide a really great vibe for people to relax into.
Unfortunately I didn't fall into that camp - I grew to appreciate the ship segments in AC3 well enough towards the end but having that be the main focus here never grew on me. It's not what I enjoy these games for and combined with the other multitude of problems I listed prior resulted in a frustrating and boring experience for the majority of my time here.
I could forgive some of this if the focus was upon the assassin/templar conflict but it took a large back seat to Edward's journey, and that felt like a slog at the best of times to get to the (admittedly satisfying) inevitable conclusion to his arc. Too much of the story just has him bugger about, dead set on chasing a vague goal of riches despite him offering really insightful monologues about how it's all kinda worthless and recognising his friends are slowly dying. This could have worked as a fine story but it's so bloated in the middle and the ending remains vague as to if Edward even joins the brotherhood or not. Genuinely the best part was the drunken sequence of everyone shouting at him but this came so late in my playthrough that I was actively just trying to finish the damn game and it was a bit soured by that point.
The modern portion is similarly mixed for me - it takes far too long to realise just what exactly Ubisoft were trying to do here and really the entire scope of it all only becomes clear at the very end when you're finally able to access all the computer files previously locked off to you. The narrative of the Sage and Juno weaving into it felt kinda cool but I was surprised they wrapped all those ideas up here instead of allowing them to be left open for the next installment. Sean and Rebecca's return was fun and satisfying and the audio logs from Desmond and the original Subjects from the 80s were really cool to this guy who's always genuinely enjoyed the modern portions, but like I said, it just takes too long to actually see it all.
Ultimately, Black Flag is a step back for me. I can recognise why a lot of people really enjoyed this game with the AAA gaming scene really lacking in strong pirate games but those are half the reasons I just couldn't gel with this one. The other half is purely down to the game feeling really buggy to play dispite this being the 6th entry of the series and the bloated nature of it's narrative and activities dragging the pacing down.
It took me way too long into my playthrough of this game to appreciate anyhing it was trying to do - Edward as a protagonist is aimless until the last act of the story, the gameplay acts as an inverse of AC3's with more focus on ship sailing than actual on-the-ground assassin-ing, and the modern day plot is embroiled in a weird meta commentary about Ubisoft's own development of the franchise through the lens of being a front for Abstergo. Whenever I hear people talking about this game it's always heralded as the "best" entry in the series with much bemoaning of how the franchise has since fallen in quality and all I can really respond with is "really?" Black Flag, with it's parkour and general movement hat's further simplified from AC3's dumbed-down mechanics and yet still remains as dodgy and imprecise as the original game's? Black Flag with gameplay and mission markers and side activities and hidden trinkets bloated to being over a 40 hour game with the narrative of a 10 hour experience? Black Flag with its cosmetics and upgrades locked behind mandatory online and multiplayer content? That Black Flag? Because if this really is the peak of the AC franchise then jesus wept I'm not even sure if I want to bother continuing with it.
Ok, positives - the art direction is really fucking good. I've enjoyed the art style of all the previous mainline entries but Black Flag really does manage to capture the clear blue oceans, golden beaches and scummy shanty towns of a romanticised carribean amidst the golden age of piracy. Characters all look pretty good too and I had a much better time being able to identify individuals here than I did in AC3's ocean of bland-looking, wrinkled white men in their 40s. The music too is more defined than the last entry, with many tunes becoming recogniseable over the course of the game, and while I never truly enjoyed sailing the high seas (7/10, too much water, etc) I can certainly recognise how all of these points coming together could provide a really great vibe for people to relax into.
Unfortunately I didn't fall into that camp - I grew to appreciate the ship segments in AC3 well enough towards the end but having that be the main focus here never grew on me. It's not what I enjoy these games for and combined with the other multitude of problems I listed prior resulted in a frustrating and boring experience for the majority of my time here.
I could forgive some of this if the focus was upon the assassin/templar conflict but it took a large back seat to Edward's journey, and that felt like a slog at the best of times to get to the (admittedly satisfying) inevitable conclusion to his arc. Too much of the story just has him bugger about, dead set on chasing a vague goal of riches despite him offering really insightful monologues about how it's all kinda worthless and recognising his friends are slowly dying. This could have worked as a fine story but it's so bloated in the middle and the ending remains vague as to if Edward even joins the brotherhood or not. Genuinely the best part was the drunken sequence of everyone shouting at him but this came so late in my playthrough that I was actively just trying to finish the damn game and it was a bit soured by that point.
The modern portion is similarly mixed for me - it takes far too long to realise just what exactly Ubisoft were trying to do here and really the entire scope of it all only becomes clear at the very end when you're finally able to access all the computer files previously locked off to you. The narrative of the Sage and Juno weaving into it felt kinda cool but I was surprised they wrapped all those ideas up here instead of allowing them to be left open for the next installment. Sean and Rebecca's return was fun and satisfying and the audio logs from Desmond and the original Subjects from the 80s were really cool to this guy who's always genuinely enjoyed the modern portions, but like I said, it just takes too long to actually see it all.
Ultimately, Black Flag is a step back for me. I can recognise why a lot of people really enjoyed this game with the AAA gaming scene really lacking in strong pirate games but those are half the reasons I just couldn't gel with this one. The other half is purely down to the game feeling really buggy to play dispite this being the 6th entry of the series and the bloated nature of it's narrative and activities dragging the pacing down.