nostalgia brought me back to an buggy, boring husk of a game. the story is way too focused on playing with history to give proper depth and distinction to characters besides the antagonist party and while the combat animations are flashy it ultimately gets as stale as most AC games do.
AI is ridiculous. world is bland. the alternate weapons that could have given me a varied flavor on combat can only be unlocked through annoying parameters. there's also side objectives that are incredibly uninteresting and pointless yet always like to waste 8 seconds of your time after every mission to indelicately inform your failure to 100% them, despite there being no incentive to do so.
the worst part is that this game has ideas. there's some interesting stuff here, like the concept of building up a homestead of people and establishing your own trade network, and a slew of naval missions to go through -- stuff that isn't Assassin's Creed and therefore Fun -- but progression of these other stories are inexplicably walled behind mandatory collectathons and such a late point of progress in the main game that the resources you could get from further investing time in the homestead become redundant.
it's really sad, because the homestead and naval combat were the parts of this game that I adored as a kid, the parts that brought me back to this game because there haven't been any others that executed this things the same way AC3 did. but by god, Ubisoft's modern core game design formula is so dull that it's made me come to despise seeing its fragments of its early reflection in these older AC titles.
really hoping my love for Black Flag doesn't get soured in the same way when I eventually revisit that game again. with the horror story that is Skull & Bones development and severe lack of singleplayer seafaring games out there, I remember AC4 as the pirate game of all time. hopefully I don't get tricked into an hour long intro of unskippable Abstergo Office segments and tailing missions without something to take away from it all.
AI is ridiculous. world is bland. the alternate weapons that could have given me a varied flavor on combat can only be unlocked through annoying parameters. there's also side objectives that are incredibly uninteresting and pointless yet always like to waste 8 seconds of your time after every mission to indelicately inform your failure to 100% them, despite there being no incentive to do so.
the worst part is that this game has ideas. there's some interesting stuff here, like the concept of building up a homestead of people and establishing your own trade network, and a slew of naval missions to go through -- stuff that isn't Assassin's Creed and therefore Fun -- but progression of these other stories are inexplicably walled behind mandatory collectathons and such a late point of progress in the main game that the resources you could get from further investing time in the homestead become redundant.
it's really sad, because the homestead and naval combat were the parts of this game that I adored as a kid, the parts that brought me back to this game because there haven't been any others that executed this things the same way AC3 did. but by god, Ubisoft's modern core game design formula is so dull that it's made me come to despise seeing its fragments of its early reflection in these older AC titles.
really hoping my love for Black Flag doesn't get soured in the same way when I eventually revisit that game again. with the horror story that is Skull & Bones development and severe lack of singleplayer seafaring games out there, I remember AC4 as the pirate game of all time. hopefully I don't get tricked into an hour long intro of unskippable Abstergo Office segments and tailing missions without something to take away from it all.