EU copy played on a PlayStation 3 Super Slim.
This is by far a more enjoyable experience than Assassin's Creed III but it only earns that respect through the lens and context of the base game. It's a lot shorter for example, without all the unnecessary bloat and filler, and thus has a much more streamlined narrative. This is essentially a What If...? tale (or Elseworlds if you're DC-inclined) that takes the initial backdrop of the early American Colonies that ACIII did and turns it on it's head, all while keeping within continuity somehow. But it still has a lot of the old frustrations whilst managing to add new ones.
The gameplay is fun if a little tiring at times. Connor (or Ratonhnhaké:ton as he goes by since the events are different) never leaves a notorious state with the guards, meaning they'll attack him within seconds of spotting him. This works out fine in the first episode which takes place in the Frontier, with big open spaces to avoid conflict but it becomes increasingly harder in the following episodes where conflict is completely unavoidable at times. This isn't helped by what seems to be a huge spike in the AI's difficulty, causing waves of guards to appear, loss of attention taking at least five times that required in the base game and attacks to not be telegraphed with the little red triangles, meaning the game won't let you counter and you get hit. The animations involved also seem to be quite buggy, resulting in a lot of executions or counter animatics unsyncing with the actors involved. It feels very sloppy overall and while the increase in difficulty seems fun at first, none of your weapons feel as though they have differing attack stats so it falls into standard ACIII patterns of block-attack or block-counter-attack.
This is where the gameplay has its biggest draw - the animal spirit powers. This feels very much like Ubisoft was testing the waters for a possible branch in the franchise with these abilities because not only are they well-designed, they're also really fun to use and change the way gameplay feels entirely to the point where I played through the entirety of the later episodes with purely the tomahawk and totem powers.
The story itself then is an entertaining twist on AC3 - the same things roughly happen but their reasoning and involved characters can differ wildly and through that perspective is what kept it so interesting to me. But the same issues with bland and forgettable characters still persist here, even if ones like Washington and Ratonhnhaké:ton's mother and friend do get more screen time and abit of added depth.
Honestly probably the best part of this DLC is the new music, which manages to be more memorable than the majority of music in the base game.
All in all, if you've already played ACIII then I recommend checking out this DLC - it almost feels like the superior version of the original game, and I'd be curious to see what the franchise would be like today if it went down this path instead. It freshens the characters, setting and gameplay up whilst keeping within a comfortable length too, but I'll be honest in saying I'm not sure what those who haven't played the original game itself would get out of this.
This is by far a more enjoyable experience than Assassin's Creed III but it only earns that respect through the lens and context of the base game. It's a lot shorter for example, without all the unnecessary bloat and filler, and thus has a much more streamlined narrative. This is essentially a What If...? tale (or Elseworlds if you're DC-inclined) that takes the initial backdrop of the early American Colonies that ACIII did and turns it on it's head, all while keeping within continuity somehow. But it still has a lot of the old frustrations whilst managing to add new ones.
The gameplay is fun if a little tiring at times. Connor (or Ratonhnhaké:ton as he goes by since the events are different) never leaves a notorious state with the guards, meaning they'll attack him within seconds of spotting him. This works out fine in the first episode which takes place in the Frontier, with big open spaces to avoid conflict but it becomes increasingly harder in the following episodes where conflict is completely unavoidable at times. This isn't helped by what seems to be a huge spike in the AI's difficulty, causing waves of guards to appear, loss of attention taking at least five times that required in the base game and attacks to not be telegraphed with the little red triangles, meaning the game won't let you counter and you get hit. The animations involved also seem to be quite buggy, resulting in a lot of executions or counter animatics unsyncing with the actors involved. It feels very sloppy overall and while the increase in difficulty seems fun at first, none of your weapons feel as though they have differing attack stats so it falls into standard ACIII patterns of block-attack or block-counter-attack.
This is where the gameplay has its biggest draw - the animal spirit powers. This feels very much like Ubisoft was testing the waters for a possible branch in the franchise with these abilities because not only are they well-designed, they're also really fun to use and change the way gameplay feels entirely to the point where I played through the entirety of the later episodes with purely the tomahawk and totem powers.
The story itself then is an entertaining twist on AC3 - the same things roughly happen but their reasoning and involved characters can differ wildly and through that perspective is what kept it so interesting to me. But the same issues with bland and forgettable characters still persist here, even if ones like Washington and Ratonhnhaké:ton's mother and friend do get more screen time and abit of added depth.
Honestly probably the best part of this DLC is the new music, which manages to be more memorable than the majority of music in the base game.
All in all, if you've already played ACIII then I recommend checking out this DLC - it almost feels like the superior version of the original game, and I'd be curious to see what the franchise would be like today if it went down this path instead. It freshens the characters, setting and gameplay up whilst keeping within a comfortable length too, but I'll be honest in saying I'm not sure what those who haven't played the original game itself would get out of this.