Liberate me from this.
Assassin's Creed Liberation was a Vita game...
and it shows. Seeing how the Vita was a sinking ship, and with Assassin's Creed there's always money to be made, Ubisoft ported the game to the then last-generation of consoles so that more people could experience the game. Sadly, it might've been better for the game to
sink with the Vita.
The story pits you as Aveline de Grandpre, a socialite born to a businessman and a slave, during the end of the French and Indian War, in Louisiana. Aveline had potential, but the story is poorly told. You
never get to see Aveline become an Assassin, which is something that really needs an explanation, and only get a
few pieces of information of how it happened near the end of the game. There were a few interesting bits, like Aveline's Mentor growing untrusting of her, but the explanation of how it happens isn't very convincing. He had a dream? She spared someone?
Big flippin' deal. The setting had some real potential, as Aveline tracked the Company Man, a man taking black people into slavery, with nothing but empty words. The game's reveal and ending are the story's highpoint, and it somehow manages to close the story in a high note,
despite how unremarkable the rest of the script was.
There are no modern-day segments here, although there is a modern-day
framing device in the form of Abstergo. The whole game is supposed to be a product by Abstergo paint Assassins in a negative light, and does a poor job at it, but 'someone', an unspecified character, hacks into the game and lets you see 'the truth'(5 truncated cutscenes + the real ending) if you can find all "Citizen E" NPCs and, well,
murder them. Besides hunting down the Citizens E, the game offers the usual busywork every other AC game does: Collect every Alligator Egg(which may require killing an Alligator), finding every diary page, stealing every Voodoo Doll, collecting every Assassin Coin, collecting every gem, synchronize with every vantage point... there's a lot to gather, and a lot of side-content to partake in, a somewhat complete run of the game took me a little over an hour, which is more than
respectable for a game born on the Vita.
As far as gameplay is concerned, it's pretty much like every other Assassin's Creed game, set in an open-world and having to complete missions, albeit on a
smaller scale. The Templars are out to get you, so doing shady things in public raises your notoriety, etc etc. There are three different areas: Louisiana, which is nothing special, Mexico, which is so small it might as well not count and, lastly, the Bayou, and area completely unique to this game, since no other AC game has featured a bayou before.
There was a clear
effort to distinguish this game from the others: Aveline can don different outfits, and I mean more than the costume recolors, each 'outfit' is actually a Persona: Slave, Lady and Assassin. Each Persona has different attributes and sidequests, for example, the Lady can't parkour, has the smallest health bar and access to the least amount of weapons and it's harder to get notoriety with it, however, lowering it requires you to murder witnesses. The Assassin has the most health, the most available weapons and the notoriety is always at 1. The Slave is in the middle, an average health bar, access more weapons than the Lady but nos as many as the Assassin and it gains notoriety very easily, it only takes for someone to watch her climb onto anything. It's an interesting idea, and
some missions even let you take different approaches. Will you parkour your way in as the Assassin or bribe the guards as the Lady? It's such an interesting concept, but used so
little!
So... what's the problem with the game?
It runs like hot garbage. Moving around feels jittery, it's hard to describe, but the way Aveline interacts with buildings, water and stuff she can climb feels off. And I'm pretty sure,
but can't confirm, that this is an issue on the HD port only. Not only that, the game is a bugfest, reminded me of Revelations a lot. Just to name a few issues, during the Mine Escape, one of the falling rocks would fall onto a platform and stay there, preventing me from climbing up, forcing me to restart the checkpoint. Or the fact that some chests
don't count for your chest % total, preventing you from 100%. And it's entirely possible to get stuck in an infinite loop, say you start a sidequest that requires you
not to be spotted, well, if your notoriety is at max level and the game decides to respawn you next to a guard... well, get ready for and endless loop of losing, until you manage to run just fast enough for the guard not to see you.
It sucks. And then there's the hood, for whatever reason the game loves to just unequip your Assassin's hood just for kicks whenever you reload your file.
Assassin's Creed Liberation is a completely
skippable entry in the franchise. I applaud them for giving us the first playable female Assassin, a-then-exclusive Vita game that felt like a proper Assassin's Creed game and the concept, but no the execution, of the three Personas.
Sadly, the story is poorly told, the game itself can be a bit of a bore and it's full of glitches. There really is no good reason for anyone to play the game save for fans of the franchise.
4.5 out of 10
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