'nother year, 'nother Creed. Except that I kinda binged through them in less than three months.
So, where do you go from Assassin's Creed III? Easy, you go back a couple of generations and play as Connor's grand father, Edward Kenway,
d'oh!.
Since Desmond's story was pretty much over at the end of AC III, one would've hoped we they would abandon the
pretentious present-day sections, but such is not the case. Instead of playing as Desmond and his rather likeable allies, you now play as... yourself? You, as in "you" you, in first person, as a videogame tester for Abstergo. Yes. The present-day sections are
veeery corny, cringe inducing even, and while I think they intended to make them so... they still made me cringe. At least they are fairly short. As for the Assassin of the year, we now get Edward Kenway, a pirate who comes across the Assassins and Templars of his time and gets involved in their affairs more than he would've wanted, it's tough being a selfish pirate when you are after the same object both parties want, even if it's for personal gain when it comes to Edward. Yes, Edward is very unlike previous protagonists, and even though he is always looking for coin, it's hard
not to root for him at times. While the story lacks the
scope of previous games, it was fairly entertaining for what it was.
The game borrows heavily from AC III, but it's not as blatant as AC:Brotherhood towards 2, AC 4 borrows and
expands on AC III. The most notorious element being ships, AC III had fantastic ship-combat elements, and AC IV expands upon it by... well, almost 70% of the game you'll be on your ship travelling through the sea while engaging in piratey behavior, like sinking and
plundering other ships. Everything that concerns naval combat is spot-on, moving and attacking feels very tight, and you can put your skills to the test by trying to take on "Legendary" ships which require special strategies to bring down. When you destroy an enemy vessel, you can steal some their cargo,
but, if you chose to board them, you'll get 100% of their cargo and choose to use their ship to repair yours, bring it to your Fleet or use it to lower your Wanted level. Furthermore, you can upgrade your ship or customize it a bit, you'll grow
fond of the Jackdaw, Edward's ship. Lastly, while the game allows for "travel speed"("Hacked" enhanced speed when out-of-combat) or "Fast travel" to
known locations, at times, it can be a bit of a drag sailing from place to place, the numerous shanties your crew sing can aid to make it more pleasant, but get ready to spend a
little more time sailing than what you would like to.
As far as the on-land sections go, it's your same good ol' Assassin's Creed. There are
collectibles all around the game's world for you to find and collect, Assassination missions for you to partake in and a few Naval contracts. Among the new items to find, you have the
shanties, which are so worth it, as the songs are fantastic, and maps that lead to
buried treasures. Finding all of these is easier than ever, as
syncing with viewpoints will show everything on your map, as for the collectibles outside of towns, you just have to find the charter's Fort and liberate it. The game also adds new Underwater segments which are easily the
worst of the bunch, underwater controls are merely adequate, but they are fairly boring,
only one of this is mandatory though. Returning from AC III is hunting, which has been a bit simplified, but it's still fun, and there are new harpooning hunting sequences in order to hunt Whales and Sharks, which are quite
decent. Hunting grants you the items you need to enhance Edward's armor(IT'S BACK! Although it doesn't reflect on Edward's attire.), but if you can't be
bothered, you can simply buy the pelts and skins at shops. There's also a bunch of optional activities on the "real world", which have you hacking through simple, dull minigames and finding 20 notes "hidden" throughout Abstergo, they are just filler though. You get a trophy for hacking 15 of the 33 computers and... nothing for the notes.
Fun. It's completely optional, so no use complaining about it, plus, you get some cool extras that deepen the lore of the series.
The game does have its fair share of flaws though. The least of them being the environments. As the game takes place on the sea, you'll be visiting a ton of Islands and Island-towns... and they all look the same. Previous Assassin's Creeds have had some
fantastic recreations of famous landmarks, and the towns in every game felt fairly different, with a ton of variety in the buildings and objects that made up the towns, such is not the case here. There are about 2-3 "big" towns, but they also feel very
samey, with few elements that set them apart. Then there's the combat... when fighting 3-4 guys, it works fairly well, but when the fights get crowded,
particularly when boarding ships, it all goes to hell. The targeting system is a mess, sometimes it feels as if Edward targets whoever he wants to target. And since this game borrows the combat system from AC III, the enemies that require particular strategies return, like the guys that can only be killed by breaking their defense with the X button, so if I break a giant's defense, and I press Square right after, IT MEANS I WANT TO KILL THIS GUY, not that I want Edward to try to attack the guy that parries normal attacks. This is a very
common and annoying occurrence. Then there's the fact that enemies only seem to die from "finishers" and not due to health, this means that if you are in the process of killing one of the tougher enemies, and another one tries to attack you, you either counter his attack or take the hit, regardless of the outcome, the enemy you were attacking will "recover" and force you to start the attacks on him all over again.
On the bright side, the presentation is
phenomenal. Graphics are downright
gorgeous, water looks beautiful, and while the environments are samey and repetitive, they are also quite colorful. There's a lot of vegetation that uses very clean and bright greens, the end result is a very
appealing world. Character models also look really good, I'm willing to say that Edward sports my favorite assassin's robes yet. Voice-acting is spot-on, as per usual with the series, and the music? The music is very, very fitting. Of particular note are the Shanties that the crew sings, which are very convincing and fitting of the period, not to mention fairly
catchy.
Before wrapping up, I'd like to talk about the exclusive "60 minutes of gameplay" on Sony consoles. These "60 minutes" are more like 20-30 minutes, and I'm including cutscenes and the retry I had to do due to a glitch on one of the missions. This "content" stars Aveline, but it offers
no substance, it's glitchy and it's short. It's glitchy due to how your partner behaves, fairly dumb, and the game will often "teleport" her towards different places. There was also this one cutscene where the gun and charm a character was grabbing decided to float outside the guy's hands, which at the time was fairly amusing. The script is also a bit dumb, with no substance. It starts with Aveline going to the forest while Connor's letter is being narrated, which basically says "Yo Aveline, I need you to find this woman because of no particular reason, 'K thanks bye". Three missions later you are done. Yeah, I'd say it isn't worth it, even if you really like Aveline(Or if you are interested in her character, like me, but don't have a Vita and/or dislike digital media).
Assassin's Creed IV is
one of the best Pirate games I've ever played, I'd place it high up there alongside Sid Meier's Pirates. It's so good that it almost makes you forget about how bad the combat can get, or ignore how similar places can look. Plus, the core of the game is quite solid, with a ton, and I do mean a TON of side activities, AC IV is a game that will take you a loooooong time to complete.
9.0 out of 10.
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