This one's a personal favorite of mine. Really don't like how the present day story was handled but Haytham/Connor's story is probably my favorite of any Assassin's Creed game period. I love the way the game sets up the villains in the first few sequences of the games because it gives them far more personality than just having the main character find some nameless/unimportant dude and kill them without meaning. Haytham and Charles Lee are both fantastic villain characters and the build-up/development they have over the course of the game is phenomenal. This game's story also has an interesting take on the American Revolution and I love that it challenges a lot of the preconceived notions that most Americans are taught in public school history classes as a child. Also the fact that the main character is a Native American is awesome because out of all ethnicities, this group clearly does not get enough respect or recognition in today's climate.

I will say though, 100%ing this game for a Platinum trophy was an absolute nightmare and is the reason I'm assigning it a 4 star rating instead of a 5. I love most of this game's main missions and side content (like the Captain Kidd missions and especially the Homestead), but doing all of the optional objectives on some are an absolute pain (and make zero sense in context of the game's diegetic world). Why does it matter if I shove someone when chasing Thomas Hickey or Charles Lee? Why does it matter if I have to destroy all 3 boats by firing on their powder kegs when I upgraded the ram so it was next to impossible to accomplish? Why do I have to stay within 40 meters of this guy when a scripted sequence I can't control randomly decides whether or not I fall outside of this distance? I don't know who designed some of these optional objectives but they did a TERRIBLE job in doing so. Most of them aren't bad though, but these select few were an absolute nightmare that took away my enjoyment of the game.

All in all, I still think AC III is one of the best games in the franchise that tends to get overlooked by other games like 2 and 4. I hate what it did with Desmond's story both in terms of just ending it and completely ruining all future games' present day storylines as well as making most of the present day missions boring an unfun to play. Aside from those few gripes though, I still heavily enjoy this game and will obviously be returning to it again every few years like I usually do.