Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - 9 Years Later

with the polarizing release of assassin's creed odyssey and assassin's creed valhalla the assassin's creed fan bases had a new challenge to face they must now juggle treating each other like rabid apes with holding on to their childhood the solution playing the older games it's frankly the only reason most of us continue to purchase the newer games a diminishing hope that maybe this time we'll get a return to what made our memory so good a return to quality a return to what assassin's creed is but surely assassin's creed isn't about vikings or spartans it's about assassins but perhaps our very identity one that becomes blurrier with each new entry as it adds a gaussian to the legacy of these games isn't as clear as we once thought the assassin's creed games have been anything but consistent and as i've replayed the games i found myself struggling to nail an identity to assassin's creed which is something i've never faced before growing up the assassin's creed games have always had an identity in movement finesse stealth and charm it's these qualities that made me appreciate the first four entries and to an extent the third game even if looking back i realize the games aren't as good as i remember the sentiment is the same i have fond memories of collecting all those damn feathers and sneaking down to the basement in the middle of the night to upgrade my villa praying that the floorboards don't creak loud enough to wake my parents it's this very mindset that made me reject assassin's creed iv it wasn't an assassin's creed game it was a pirate game this is a flawed mindset and one that initially challenged me when i actually played black flag there was so much here that i thought i wouldn't like that when i did eventually play it over a year after its release i was blown away at how much of a fool i was the game wasn't a traditional assassin's creed game but it was better [Music] [Music] this game made me realize that i have to try something before i knock it and while there are still some assassin's creed games i don't want to go back to valhalla i'm looking at you it's worth taking a chance because this might actually be my favorite assassin's creed game period so let's talk about the game its identity the series identity and what this game means to the assassin's creed legacy this time we travel to the west indies with a band of pirates who are jacks of the same trade and serve one master gold while edward might be on the cover do not mistake yourselves one of the main characters here is gold greed is the main antagonist since edward's consistent battle against his own greed and that of others that eventually leads him to the middle of an ideological war zone between two factions we all know too well this fight prompts edward to finally mature even if it is at the cost of everyone and everything but rather than stalking from the shadows as an assassin frequently does edward prefers a louder approach that involves a lot more liquor and a hell of a lot more gunpowder through this swashbuckling spy glass lens we see something we've never seen before the templar assassin conflict from an outsider's view and an outsider that couldn't care less this changeup is needed because the assassin's creed games at this point were becoming increasingly repetitive we kept seeing the same arguments being made between the assassins and templars but with different settings and some new animations and many players and reviewers noted this while assassin's creed 4 does little to innovate on the assassin's creed formula that the game's prior had followed it instead injected new life into the series with gripping gameplay and addictive gameplay loop and a story that while suffering from the very things that made the series popular still stands as one of the most engaging it's no wonder that edward and the jackdaw become such iconic and respected characters this game to some isn't an assassin's creed game but it's a great game nonetheless and the series holds this glowing achievement as a reminder that just because the game is a bad assassin's creed game doesn't mean it can't be one of the best with how often we see the phrase this game isn't an assassin's creed game and with the save the series now i'd argue there's no better time to revisit black flag and analyze everything it did right and some of what it did wrong it's normally at this point that i say be kind to each other in the comments and remember that all of this is an opinion but the comment section is always a [ __ ] show anyways so instead i'll just remind you that if you do feel offended over me liking or not liking a part of this game i'm a loser in his mom's basement who is just talking about a video game it's not that deep and i'm not trying to tell you what to think so strap in brace for impact and try to keep your hands inside the ship not a boat as we sail the seas through the caribbean once again something that black flag does differently from the get-go is adventuring into new territory sure going from israel and palestine to venice and rome is a major change in scenery but rather than changing the landscape black flag opts to venture into the deep blue while the land masses here are so vibrant and bustling there's a greater focus on nature this time around islands that contain tropical palm trees perfect for parkouring through truckloads of terrain contrast the cities that still offered the tried and true movement and crowd blending options from the previous games the more exotic settings here offer more color than nearly every other game though it still in my eyes lacks the color and vibrance of popular pirate films fortunately through playing this on pc it took only a few minutes to tweak the game to my preferred experience in fact this was one of the most stable experiences i've had with a ubisoft game on pc and while it has its fair share of bugs it ran beautifully throughout the entire game now i must get this out of the way all of the opinions towards the game's visuals will encompass the vanilla game which i have plenty of footage of i just figured for the sake of the video i'd make the game look a tad prettier for you but focusing back on the cities you'll notice that the likes of havana and kingston look great and even the more ragtag environments like nisao and your home cove of great inagua have a charm to them that is present across all of the games i don't think the environments on land reach the same heights as rome and venice but they certainly beat out the likes of america but of course we don't care much for the cities because a majority of your adventure will take place on the waves considering this game came out in 2013 the water is astounding and to this day looks gorgeous and what's that in the distance oh my god today's sponsor it's beautiful you know people invest a lot into things video games jobs unnecessarily long reviews but it's not often people invest in themselves skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for anyone who loves learning and wants to explore their creativity and learn new skills invest in yourself and your personal growth have a specific skill you're trying to learn skillshare is the perfect place to start from photography in illustration to graphic design freelancing and more you can find classes that will match your goals and interests i recently joined the chess club at my university is i have a pretty large gap between my classes but the problem is i suck at chess fortunately i've been learning how to play through skillshare and this is just one of the thousands of classes and thousands of things you can learn all of which are ad-free and available in french spanish portuguese german and english so if you'd like to brush up on any skills from self-care to youtube related skills then you can get a free month by being one of the first 1 000 people to click the link in the description or the pinned comment so start investing in yourself today and thank you to skillshare again for sponsoring this video seeing the waves crash against the jackdaw is a site that never becomes tiring and seeing the wind pass through the sails goes a long way for immersing you in this vast world the design itself is one of the best aspects as the bird then inspired its very name flies the same black colors a ship does and most of its elite upgrades see a gold plated finish reminiscent of the ship's original name of el dorado and while it is but a fraction of our modern day assassin's creed maps it still feels big and it's never crowded with too many collectibles plenty of fast travel points allow for quick journeys and the travel speed feature makes getting from point a to b as long or as quick as you like chances are it will be quite long though as there seem to be a million things grabbing for your attention causing you to take a detour a small island with an open treasure chest calling your name a cave with a glimmering light just asking to be explored and the sight of your mother just begs for a wailing detour because if you don't stop her nobody will but not only are there plenty of distractions for you there are also obstacles the wind itself acts as a determinant of your course as does the weather a water spout could tear your ship in half and a rogue wave could equally shoot down the jackdaw like a game of duck hunt and it's actually quite funny because when it comes to the game's presentation things look awfully familiar which is fine and there's little to say about the water other than it looks great and considering that you'll be seeing it for most of the game that's a good thing when you do actually take a dip in the water you'll notice that there are plenty of urchins eels and sharks ready to nip at you but you won't notice them or at least i didn't because of how good everything that surrounds it looks the flourishing life here offers a tranquility unfamiliar to the land dwellers and pirates though do be warned the sea has its own tricks to inject a little chaos music this time around is great and that's not an unfamiliar statement as these games have always delivered amazing if copyrighted tunes but the addition of sea shanties makes the sailing more lively of course this sailing can be interrupted by the english or spanish ships at patrol which also look really good the level of detail present on these ships is astounding from the countless cannons to the chips in the wood the ships of mass destruction waste no time in asserting their dominance over the waves but we have some cute gun boats to balance it out too another area where the details haven't been skimped on is in the character designs with edward's robes likely due to all the time he spends in the ocean being the drippiest of his ancestors and successors blackbeard looks amazing too with his slow transformation into the mythical boogeyman of the seas being entertaining first it's the beard then it's the fuses out of the hat and eventually that raspy growl he uses to intimidate his captives it all came together to create a picture that really felt like the devil of the sea i'd learned of growing up even the more fantastical elements like the observatory don't feel out of place as they could reflect a greater theme in the game we venture by rapid sea and through a jungled web of fauna to get here and yet when we arrive it's smooth colorless lifeless i couldn't help but notice that this a portion of the game that's unequivocally assassin's creed seems as though it's beneath the lustrous surface of our pirating adventure slowly seeping through its roots and corrupting the bustling life above but enough of my more controversial opinions there will be plenty of time for that later let's instead stay on track with the agreeable opinions about the presentation which is to say that like in most games it was of a high standard voice acting was good graphics astounding and the for lack of a better term vibe of the game is there but as is the case more often than not a handful of bugs plagued the experience the most notable is with the parkour i had countless moments where edward would just fall off geometry for no reason and while i don't think this in itself is a big deal because it only happens one time out of a hundred but when that one time leads to death which in the case of shipboarding means you lost the cargo your bounty and time all due to one slip it stings a hell of a lot more than usual other issues see you losing the ability to perform actions in combat like countering which can allow you to get hit for free and again when this leads to death it just sucks i can at least commend the solid variety of enemies here ranging from the spanish to english troops to thugs bounty hunters assassins pirates and guardians but mechanically speaking you'll be left not wanting more but just something new black flag rather than attempting to innovate on the already present mechanics decides to jump ship and dive into the vast ocean of unexplored ideas to support its gameplay things like the parkour are near unchanged from what i can tell though i do want to talk about the simplification of it when parkour received a slight overhaul in assassin's creed 3 i mentioned that rather than pressing r2 and x to free run you now just press r2 and i called that unnecessary i was and i know this will shock you wrong and some people pointed out that taking away the need to press the x button makes it possible for someone to turn the right stick while moving around while an argument can be made that this restricts the player i can respect the decision to allow the player to move the camera without an extra thumb or playing with a claw grip which is how i play and why i didn't understand the change in the first place i think the older system was better but that's probably just because i hate change and became accustomed to the old one one thing i noticed this time around as i had mentioned before was that everything felt more imprecise and slippery with accidental falls being more common which again were frustrating the combat here is again much the same though there are a few notable additions like the dual wielded swords and the multiple pistols having two swords doesn't feel as new as it could as it's just an aesthetic change and even then when using a sword in assassin's creed 3 conor often dual wielded it with a hidden blade used as a knife this is unfortunately the only weapon type you have in the game which confused me given that every weapon functions the same there are tons of swords for you to use and yet they all look and feel the same with extra damage not being felt as enemies still take four hits before beginning a chain and speed was near negligible anyways because you often fight in groups where enemies attack one after another making a counter the best way to start a chain in brotherhood where the same chain kill system was present we had a wider variety of weapons and animations if the swords are becoming stale swap to a dagger that offers faster albeit lighter damage with a brand new set of animations here you have two swords to hidden blades and fists and the fist animations are all brought over from assassin's creed 3. when it comes to the swords there's one outlier as the pistol swords have additional animations and it's a solid mix-up but by the time you unlock this weapon which requires you to finish all the assassin contracts it's too little too late i know obsessing over the animation seems like a nitpick but the problem is that the animations are all that's new here as mechanically the swords are the same as the hidden blades what makes me even more confused is that it seems as though they're struggling to find practical animations for the hidden blades the hidden blades are a staple of the series and as the developers attempt to create new animations the takedowns become more and more elaborate with this game offering some of the longest ones in the series this isn't anything major but when the game already has a problem with enemies being able to hit you when you're killing someone else a problem the aforementioned dodginess of the combat created you are finding yourself stuck in an excessive kill a blade to the head will do plenty we don't need one to the gut then to the neck and snap his ankle while you're at it but i feel these elaborate animations were created to add variety if it's variety the devs wanted to add then why not include different weapons maybe a club or a mace or bring back the daggers and one-handed swords they have the animations here for some of these weapons too there's a unique animation for battle axes and muskets but you have to pick these weapons up off of your enemies meaning your ability to use them and subsequently your ability for variety is contextual and unreliable of course the other form of animation variety you can have is a pistol takedown but these are slightly unviable because they again are for aesthetic purposes only and actively use bullets guns overall are a bit more powerful this time around given that you can be strapped to the teeth with up to four pistols i like this change because of course it looks cool as hell but in the older games some enemies couldn't be taken down by one bullet alone so if a brute or otherwise chunky foe takes more than one bullet you can continue pumping them nothing feels cooler than swapping pistols to take down four enemies in quick succession but there's one small problem you can't freely reload your pistols and the only way to initiate a reload is to fully empty your supply what makes this strange is that you have four different pistols all with its own bullet so reloading one without needing to reload the others makes complete sense the problem this creates is that you can be unintentionally underprepared for battle let's say you have an encounter where you shoot three enemies your choices are to either waste a bullet to force a reload or enter the next encounter under equipped sure you could fire one bullet then run around while you reload but that breaks the pace of the fight and when the chain killing and addition of more pistol bullets lend themselves to fast-paced killing i'd say that gets in the way of the power fantasy ultimately this is a minor issue and perhaps i'm overblowing it here but it was a consistent problem i ran into and it was one of the few things that prevented me from feeling like i had true freedom with the combat it sounds like i might not enjoy the combat here because i had a lot of criticisms and i'll admit spending a paragraph on animations alone is a bit much but i should clarify that the combat here is so good i don't want to repeat myself and since this combat has been present in every game since brotherhood that's near unavoidable every praise i levied against the combat still rings true and my problems here are less with what they do wrong and more with what little they do at all chalk it up to development time lack of interest or simply not wanting to fix what isn't broken but i still felt as though i wanted more outside of histles you can use a rope dart to bring enemies to the ground but in combat it wasn't the most viable tool even if it did look awesome counter killing with it in stealth that is a whole other story of course it still just does not get old to use the rope dart to hang an enemy from a tree but we also have a blow dart that fires berserk and sleep darts which are your run-of-the-mill tools there seems to be more bushes this time around that allow for easier and more enjoyable stealth even if some of the stalking zones aren't as good as edward or the game seems to think they are alarm bells need to be sabotaged distractions are necessary and ultimately it is again the same i have no real issues with the mechanics of the stealth though their applications leave some to be desired but let's avoid that rabbit hole for the time being and get to the least assassin thing and also the best thing in this game and that's everything to do with the sea the naval combat and exploration has been wildly expanded and refined from its humble american roots in assassin's creed 3 that not only give you more tools to make use of but also more strategies and factors that decide if you sink or swim let's start by looking at the new tools at your disposal the jackdaw has cannons on either side of it which will be your most valuable tool positioning in the cannons work best together and it's easy to fall into a beginner trap of thinking that being in a good spot to fire an onslaught on the opposing ship is good enough but that's only half of the equation as in this position the ship can fire back typically with greater power if you want to take down some of the bigger ships you'll need to position yourself behind the ship so they can't hit you back or wait for them to take a shot and quickly hit them with a drive-by as they're reloading your heavy shots are simply stronger but have a short range making the aforementioned drive-bys more viable when hitting a ship you might have the chance to target a weak point with your swivel shots dealing extra critical damage your heavy shots unlike your normal cannon fire has a limited ammo that can be replenished at the front of the ship we have the reinforced ram and some chase guns that can stun a ship the chase cannons if fired at the sails can slow down an escaping ship and if you need even longer range damage then the mordars will also be of use as they reign hellfire on unsuspecting frigates and men of war finding the right position for a ram is risky but the reward is high damage fire barrels offer a means of taking down pursuers or at least slowing them down enough to get away from them and you have the option to go from none to half to full sail but traveling in the animus has a convenient traveling speed that allows you to go even faster it's impressive that despite only having a few weapons and mechanics there is so much depth to the naval combat when a ship is close to being destroyed you can board it sporting ships is integral to survival and plunder and it typically sees you killing enough of the opposing crew to make the rest of them surrender before boarding you can shoot them with swivel shots and in some of the cases you can take them down before even physically setting foot on their ship if you're going to come down on them then you can do so from above thanks to the conveniently placed swinging ropes depending on the ship you may have different objectives with some asking that you strictly kill the crew and others including additional powder reserves to destroy scouts to kill and flags to tear down these often ended up being more tedious than it was worth as the parkour was unreliable and made the heights of the ships more stressful than fun but i appreciate the variety here nonetheless of course true to the pirate lifestyle once someone surrenders they are spared so the crew doesn't risk their life executing them and so they can run home and tell their husbands and wives about their mercy once the ship has been successfully boarded you have a few decisions the crew can take the materials to repair the jackdaw which is the best way to repair it outside of paying someone at a dock and they can also simply let the surrendering crew go which will lower edward's wanted level and finally you can send the ship to edward's fleet no matter what you pick you can obtain whatever materials and reels are on board the most common choice will likely be to repair the jackdaw and the least common is to send it to the fleet i like this choice a fair bit and it offers some strategy to taking down the greater armadas in the game for example a man of war is often surrounded by other ships be them frigates and gunboats and it might be smart to do some damage to the man of war and once you lose some health focus on a smaller boat and board it to repair the ship so your ship is at full health and the man of war is still damaged i like the extra reward for proper strategizing and this goes even further as you can defeat the man of war without losing too much health and then you can send it to kenway's fleet which i know i haven't touched on yet but i will worry not lowering your bounty is a decent choice but the bounties don't pose a real threat until they reach the maximum of level 4 and even then most ships can be outsailed with proper effort also having a wanted level at all times is a good strategy as the bigger the ship the better the loot and rather than searching for a large ship to plunder why not have them come to you in the early game they are threats but by the mid and late game they are just free resources and more of a pain in the ass than anything i appreciate that it took quite a while to increase your rank too games like odyssey specifically would have bounty hunter after bounty hunter coming your way and they were almost immediately a way higher level than you and were consistently on your ass here they feel like they strike a solid balance and being able to lower your wanted level basically whenever you want was nice too of course the other ships are not the only threat on the seas as the controls can also get in the way when attempting to aim you'll be zoomed in on a part of the ship that corresponds with the selected weapon you select the weapon by looking in its general direction which is indicated by the icon in the bottom right corner in a few cases i'd be facing the front of the ship and the chaser cannons would be selected but when pressing l2 i'd get shifted to the side cannons now this didn't happen very often and unfortunate that this never resulted in anything more than minor annoyance i wonder why it happens maybe some of you couldn't lighten me the weather and waves act as obstacles too as evading waterspouts becomes your primary objective as soon as they show up rogue waves are also a death sentence especially in the early game but i feel like there is plenty of time to react to one of these and the only times they swept me up was when i was way too caught up in the action to notice the minimap indicator the crew screaming about it and oh yeah the skyscraping wave coming at me what can i say i get tunnel visioned these are taken care of by just facing them head on more of a beginner trap than anything but an expert does not simply avoid or coast above the waves but uses them as a tool waves can act as cover for both you and your enemies and there's truly nothing more underwhelming than lining up a shot only to fire it right as a massive wave eats all the cannons the inverse of this is incredibly rewarding especially as if this happens you don't need to brace and can instead prep yourself for a counter-attack mastering the waves is not easy as they vary from battle to battle second to second but having this complexity allows for different strategies and greater replayability the naval combat and exploration here is truly the best part of the game which i find quite odd as it's the farthest thing from being an assassin the assassin bits that are here are mechanically fun and while i disagree with the decision to not add new animations or much of anything new i can get past it so long as there are new ways to apply your skills and i'll give you a hint there isn't he's a monster now before you correct me in the comments no i did not spell that wrong this game truly has tails and arguably way too many now i'm not going to do what everybody else has done and harp on the tailing missions because i get it and so do you many people myself included felt there were too many tailing missions i don't actually think that the tailing missions themselves were poorly designed and i mean sure better checkpoints would have helped a lot but the problem is that these missions are a test and patience more than anything else it's a lot of waiting moving from cover to cover and repeating or if you have enough coin to buy some courtesans then it's no different than a following mission the greater problem then is that there is no variation in this test so by the end of the game you become less patient with it thusly failing more and forcing yourself to replay more of it i especially rolled my eyes when i saw that we have to do a tailing mission on the ship the ship for god's sakes but these were actually a lot more enjoyable for a few reasons the first is that simple navigation has a lot more nuance on the seat than it does on the ground on the ground we have to push the stick where we want to go and perhaps hold the r2 button if we want to traverse the y-axis which in many cases you don't even need to on the sea we have to factor in the waves the wind our speed the environment and rather than pointing where we want to go we steer they are minor changes sure but they make it more engaging than the latter which is all it needs there's even further variety when tailing a ship in the swamp and that you have to get off the ship and follow on foot for a bit engaging with stealth as a boat keeps moving giving you a pseudo time limit to your stealthing and why is that so much fun because it's the antithesis of a tailing mission the tailing missions and even the stealth in some cases in nearly every game has been a test of patience you have all the time in the world but now time is turned from your greatest ally to your greatest foe and swapping between these two play styles was far more enjoyable than what boiled down to following someone i'm not defending the tailing missions here i'm just saying that they could have been more enjoyable and in some cases are enjoyable in fact this whole mission is really good as it ends in you chasing your target through a collapsing village which had a cinematic flare that was hinted at in assassin's creed 3 but to me fully realized in this game much like that naval combat there are so many cinematic points in the game where the music gameplay and spectacle come together to make something that is just flat-out fun i know that just calling something fun can seem like a cop-out if you're attempting to analyze something but if an analysis of this mission could be boiled down to one word that's what it would be not every detail is done to make you more immersed or to pull at the heartstrings some are just done because they're a good time like when you leave your ship when you jump overboard someone from the crew will react to it and when you get back on the entire crew cheers for you this means nothing but it just put a smile on my face and i can't help but feel that this was done just for the fun of it having the crew of hype men cheering at every victory and tanking each loss as a team if it was done for immersion then it worked too and if there's one thing this game succeeds in immersing you in it's the culture of being a pirate nothing reinforces us more than peacefully sailing the seas to the many sea shanties you can collect around the map fortnite [Music] and the camaraderie when boarding sailing whaling is truly some of my favorite parts of the game the black flag is not simply a means of communicating with ships it's a symbol representative of a lifestyle most flags of nations incorporate bright colors and black is devoid of all of that it's the antithesis of established governments and rules a similar freedom that the assassins fight for but not similar enough as ultimately gold still reigns supreme in the mind of even free men the color black is also commonly used to symbolize death to anyone spawning it through an unlucky spy class in some cases it meant that there was a plague on the ship but this also became ubiquitous for a looming pirate boarding in the case of the game every pirate flies a jolly roger at all times but in reality pirates would use a friendly flag to get close enough to a ship and then swap to their true flag something we actually do in one of the levels but i imagine this was left out in the open world as it might have been a pain for the player to follow i would have enjoyed a system where the other ships would attempt to flee upon seeing you but that could have made the eventual grind more tedious maybe they could only react that way depending on your bounty making lowering it more viable and giving you a greater immersion in the pirate lifestyle the black flag is meant to be feared so let it in further regards to the bounty system if farming bounty hunters is what you desire then perhaps an option could be added to fly a red flag a black flag told the opposing crew that if anyone surrendered then their lives would be spared and this is followed well within the game as regardless of the choice you make the crew there is not killed if they surrender a red flag on the other hand means no quarter given basically you will be slaughtered whether you resist or not there could be some problematic lore implications that prevented something like this as edward is seen as a honorable fellow if not always morally correct but i think if the player can sustain the ludo-narrative dissonance associated with slaughtering half a crew and then still seeing edward as the good guy then slaughtering the whole crew isn't too large of a step up in this hypothetical flying a red flag would mean that your job is a bit harder having to kill say 40 instead of 15 people upon boarding but this could yield a greater reward such as extra cargo leading to a better incentive for reals and a lower time spent grinding the problem is that you will increase your bounty rapidly say one level per ship slaughtered this red flag boarding could also be the only way you unlock a hypothetical fifth wanted level for end game pirates just because that bounty level 4 the ships they send don't act as much of a threat and are just free materials at level 5 the ship sent out will be up there with the legendary ships meaning only the best can avoid them or god forbid take them down these legendary ships will hold even more gold making this a greater challenge shooter for those wanting to test their skills and for those wanting to do some grinding which is unfortunately part of the game when i say grinding i don't mean in the modern sense like the grinding we've seen in odyssey valhalla and a bit of in origins nothing is really locked off but depending on how you play you might have to spend a few hours building up the jackdaw before tackling the later sequences you're given all the motivation to do this from one mission which i really like there's a memory where edward pilots the queen anne's revenge much better than the jackdaw and being able to just steamroll ships was all i needed to make me think huh i want that all the time and with enough time it's achievable the difference between the two is that you want to grind and the goal was better in the rpg games you grind to boost a number it doesn't allow you to take down greater foes in most cases it allows you to take down the same moocs from the start of the game the only difference between them then and now is that they have higher stats in black flag you increase your dps and i think it could be argued that the upgrades to the jackdaw are just dps editions with minor visual changes but the foes change at first you can only take down shooters and gunboats but eventually as you upgrade your ship you can take down frigates and brigades and eventually the mana wars and they progress from being multiple minute long ordeals to just 30 second pit stops this is your reward and you really feel more powerful the other major difference is that you don't need to grind for as long to get closer to these rewards but the biggest difference to me is that the grind itself is fun and varied origins and odyssey side content could be fun but it was often repetitive and didn't expand outside of go here kill x or go here collect x i don't want to make too many comparisons here and let's be real at this rate i'll rename the video to in offense of assassin's creed odyssey but there's an insane amount of variety to the side content here in nearly everything you do results in an upgrade to the ship of course boarding ships is one of the ways that we've discussed with enough depth already but one aspect that i've left out was the fleet because i think it's underdeveloped and unbalanced something each ship has is a cargo hold and generally the smaller the ship the smaller the cargo hold kenway's fleet is similar to the trading in assassin's creed iii you can send ships from your fleet through different routes to trade different things usually this results in gold and you have to wait for your ship to make the trade and return certain routes are too dangerous which will lower the rate of success for your trip so to lower the hazards you can engage in a battle which is a boring 3 on 3 battle between the ships but because this battle also has a success rate that can be easily maxed out there's no tension or strategy it's just a numbers game the main issue with this system is that it's incredibly inefficient compared to just boarding ships and doing side content even after killing my fleet with a ton of mana wars and doing missions that would yield a thousand reels it would take over 10 hours for this to actually hit my pockets meanwhile i can attack one royal convoy and get 10 000 in minutes not to mention that boarding ships yields more than money it's cargo for upgrading too and if you don't need that cargo then you can sell it which again is better for you in the long run my overall annoyance just boils down to how pointless the whole system is i wonder if the original intention for this was to be used in tandem with a brotherhood system that we've seen in previous games and rather than calling in assassins we would call in pirates who would assist us on the seas this system isn't present in the game because the developers believed that it would take the tension away from battles as they could be completely skipped through calling in reinforcements i imagine that allowing ships to go on expeditions would make them more powerful when called on and that i hope was meant to be the main incentive to engage with this system another system that has returned but in a rather poor way compared to its predecessors is the ability to invest in your home some of my favorite parts of the seo trilogy was upgrading the villa rome and to a lesser extent constantinople i loved seeing an actual change in the environment and the consistent cash flow was nice too i also criticized that the game gave you all of this money but nothing valuable to spend it on and even if there were nice things to spend it on the balance was out of whack because you could easily get a ton of money and buy high level gear quite easily the cove of great inaugural here has been changed and in a way i appreciate it a lot rather than receive a return on investment through upgrades money in more money out you receive buffs that not only make your journey easier but save you money in the long run rather than increasing hourly income by building a brothel you can instead now hire courtesans for free the only problem with this to me is that it changes very little in the older games money wasn't an object and your pockets were lined by the hour so the system serves the same purpose you could always afford a courtesan another difference is that there are only a handful of things to upgrade even in the most primitive form of this the villa was in my eyes miles better the villa allowed you to upgrade certain shops for better discounts and once the entire villa was upgraded it looked noticeably different across the board here you can make the main strip look better and the chateau at the top can have a few additions but the rest of the village which to be fair is quite small is still run down it makes the renovated location stick out more than anything i think a better system would be one with more things to upgrade for aesthetic and discounts at stores upgrade a local smith to get better deals on weapons like we saw in assassin's creed 2. you could also renovate houses and with each house renovated you're rewarded with a pit stop out in the ocean where edward can for free repair the jackdaw these are basic ideas but i don't want to go too far into it because the cove is ultimately a small thing and i get that while the jackdaw and the cove are important upgrades edward himself can be improved throughout the game too more health bigger pockets you know the drill like the game before it you can use pelts for quick cash or for crafting upgrades and in this game's case outfits something as new here on the hunting front is wailing it perfectly plays into that pirate lifestyle that i was mentioning as the crew cheers you on as you just pelt these things the whales and sharks can attack you but if you throw a harpoon as they wind up you'll cancel their attack some of the larger whales can just wipe your health bar and i think this is one of the only games where you can actually parry a whale and i just find that to be really funny i know some people specifically peta had some problems with this but i don't know if they've seen the parts of the game where edward splits a guy's melon in one swing of an axe but either way it's all fake so i'm indifferent on it the best part is hearing a dwali hype us up after a big catch though look at the size of him also you can pet the dog let's [ __ ] go hunting the land animals is fine and usually a pistol shot away but by the time you start upgrading the jackdaw to the point where money comes easily you can just purchase every pelt you need it doesn't mean the hunting isn't fun in some cases just that if i want an upgrade instead of fast traveling to a location finding the animal and skinning it i'll just throw a few shekels at the general store and call it a day what i'm trying to say is i'm lazy i do a lot of running around and killing in these games and i'd love to have a nice zen break you know and that's exactly what the diving bell offers at multiple spots around the map you can dive into the deep ocean and explore different caverns and wrecks to find loot these were lovely low-key activities that have their own challenges to them you have urchins that can poke you in tight corners and sharks that survey an area they won't be too much of a problem so long as you move quickly from cover to cover which can be done thanks to different posts that edward can launch off of hiding in ships and foliage is not exclusive to edward though as the eels can jump yeah you son of a [ __ ] do that jump out and attack you these things are really annoying and they completely ruin the tranquility of these deep-sea dives another thing that gets in the way of your peace are bandits that stake their claim inside caves these encounters were pretty fun because they see you stripped of your gear and upgrades otherwise they weren't too distinct but i love the allure of seeing a shining light from a cave and by the end of the memory being at that very spot diving into the deep and heading back to the jackdaw it's actually something i've been struggling to articulate and granted not being able to summarize my thoughts without talking for an hour is the epitome of poor articulation but what i'm trying to say is that this sense of adventure bleeds through nearly every aspect of the game except for one part the assassin stuff now before you string me up on the gallows in the center of town i'm not saying the assassin stuff is bad just that it doesn't mesh well with everything else i think this could be a fatigue problem because i've done hundreds of assassin contracts but these specifically were just busy work you get a target show up kill em and that's it bonus points for not being spotted this isn't bad on paper but in motion it boiled down to fast traveling to a location walking up shooting a target and then fast traveling out it was never challenging and there wasn't any incentive to do anything different because this strategy also nets the bonus every time in the main missions you can get full sync by killing a target while blending on a bench and there's nothing of the sort here also i'm not even going to talk about the full sync requirements they suck dick in every game and i always end up ripping my hair out just to include a sentence or two saying that they suck only for the criticism to be shot down by some comment scholar who makes a revolutionary revelation that it's optional so i can't criticize it god i'm such a bitter [ __ ] anyways these assassinations did offer really neat reward in the pistol swords they don't change anything aside from the animations but come on i do wish the grind for these wasn't so repetitive but the reward does make it worth your time much like the reward for doing all the naval contracts you unlock these contracts by liberating forts which were pretty fun even if they don't evolve much they see you taking down its defenses using your cannons and then taking down the leader on foot in rather glorious fashion these contracts see you targeting a ship or series of ships and they weren't too engaging but at least you got reals and cargo for completing them so you can get two birds stoned at once and your reward is just hands down the best pistols in the game there's not much else to it just the best stats and they look great too the swords and pistols while cool don't break the game but the mayan armor absolutely does you can get this by heading to different locations and using your eagle vision to solve a terribly easy puzzle i think a better way to hide these keys would be to make use of a pre-existing hidden treasure collectible you can find maps that give coordinates to hidden treasures and these are pirating at its peak but the rewards are often just cash and sometimes plans for the jackdaw finding keys and buried treasure to unlock the mayan armor would have made the armor more rewarding especially considering that its special ability is that it negates all bullets now i don't have a problem with bullets or ranged weaponry but let's be honest they can be a huge pain and not dealing with it was convenient the final assassin quest you can complete is the templar hunts your reward for this is the templar armor in great inagua and unfortunately edward makes it very clear in all of these that he is only interested in that reward these missions have consistency with our story as some of them see edward awkwardly apologizing for compromising the creed right you're offended i'll go the issue i find is that he's sometimes terribly douchey to these people yes mum what is it look i get that he has no interest in the assassin conflict but some empathy would go a long way because they wouldn't need his help in the first place had he not given the templars a literal map of their plans and locations in havana he shows remorse for his actions when it comes to the maroons he just doesn't give a [ __ ] doesn't sound like my business mate another slight problem i find with these missions is that the campaign expects you to have completed them in one of the last sequences of the game you meet up with a few assassins and they greet you with open and friendly arms but i hadn't done the templar hunts at this point so i found myself saying wait who is this story-wise these all see edward fixing whatever problems he caused i never cared too much for them and gameplay-wise everything is standard too you just do a few favors for the assassin contact and eventually when your target is revealed you take them down and nab the key there's nothing out of the ordinary but there was enough variety to satisfy me and i think it's solid side content once you feel like you've seen everything which will take a while there's a lot of ground to cover you can take on the endgame challenge of the legendary ships these things are no joke and can only be found on the far corners of the map meaning you won't accidentally run into these things they're solid fights with their own gimmicks one of the first i thought had armor on all sides except the back meaning i had to make use of proper positioning to attack it and avoid its attacks it brought me back to the bloodborne boss fight strategy of just hugging their ass as i chipped away at the health bar another i went against had a strong ram and was much faster than the jackdaw which was an interesting gimmick and the one after that just had heavy mortar attacks which wasn't too unique but tough regardless the most interesting was a two-on-one battle that was not as simple as it seemed these two have a predictable strategy they do circles around you and hit you from both sides my first strategy was to focus on one as early as possible raining mortar fire on them making the rest of the fight a simple one-on-one but this wasn't anything simple when one goes down the other receives a buff ornstein and smoke style and a one-on-one fight is insanely tough as this ship completely outclasses you so the optimal strategy was to whittle both of their health bars down and once one got close to death focus on the other so when one went down i could take down the other before i was outplayed this was my favorite encounter and the reward for defeating all the legendary ships is the charged ram which is just busted this thing will shred most ships and i've always enjoyed when games give you broken abilities at the end of the game it made the end game grind so much more fun so as i hope i've conveyed the side missions here are a lot of fun and even the grindy elements of it are saved from being boring thanks to the new naval mechanics that are here fortunately the main missions have a solid variety too and i believe this game has one of the best opening hours of the franchise showing you new things while refreshing your memory on the old the game begins with some basic steering and swimming which leads to some low stakes parkour where we can take our time as we face duncan though we end up having to chase him providing an early challenge for those new to the movement as we're now on someone else's time then we get a stealth tutorial and an introduction to edward's motivations all within the first 20 minutes it's quick so experienced players aren't bored yet doesn't leave new players behind it's too bad then that as the story is ramping up and as we're fully invested in edward's plight we're ripped out of it so we can see the modern day which is something that happens a lot you'll have a fun gameplay sequence and your adrenaline is immediately killed because you have to play a first person segment the story itself does this too so why don't we shift our sights there because boy is there a lot to unpack [Music] the year is 1715 and we play as a young edward kenway as he's caught in a storm that while deadly isn't nearly as deadly as duncan walpole who ominously boards his ship until both him and edward are blown off waking up on an island with duncan edward chases him and eventually kills him finding a letter detailing an important trade that will yield gold edward's main desire prior to the events of the game edward had a simple life with his at the time wife but desired more excitement and pleasure he had a plan to sail with a crew but he was discouraged by everyone around him and even to the point of his wife leaving him his lust for wealth is what drives him and while it might be hard to agree with his actions at times his motivations are something everyone can relate to a want for something greater freer and richer edward after stealing duncan's clothes with the intent of impersonating him saves one steed bonnet who is probably my favorite character in the game just for how kind-hearted he is there are plenty of pirates here that only want gold and their friendships and loyalties are influenced by nothing but personal gain but steed he's just happy to be here a ludicrous idea imagine my wife with such an advantage over me imagine what a thing like that'd be worth i think this is why edward and steed get on well there's a part of edward that even if he chose gold over everything cherish the connections he made with people something that we see more of at the end of the game the two make their way to havana where we meet up with a band of templars and give them a full map of assassin plans it's at this point that we fully realize duncan was an assassin intending to betray them and join the templar order unfortunately it isn't long before edward is found out and captured waking up on a boat next to a man we will come to know as a dwali and the two break free and claim the ship as their own edward then attempts to track down a fellow pirate named james kidd in hope of finding someone called the sage which can be sold for coin and finds him at the assassin brotherhood in tulum where he learns that his actions have had major consequences for the assassins the sage is a reincarnation of ita husband of juno and has the ability to open a isu structure called the observatory which holds immeasurable wealth and an object that allows one to spy on someone without their knowledge templars want this for power and control while the assassins want to keep it out of everyone's hands edward just wants it for money after helping the assassins he's cleared of any crimes but exiled and now with a ship crew and quartermaster edward and friends head to nassau to meet with fellow pirates james kidd blackbeard charles vane and benjamin hornigold it's in this out that the pirates dream is fully realized as they can live and do as they please as you'd imagine this goes sideways and the community is stricken with sickness and this causes a rift between the founders as this is happening edward attempts to tail two templars he believes know the location of the sage but finds that kid is planning to assassinate them the two eventually team up to kill the templars and find the sage and in the process kid reveals himself to be a woman named mary reed the sage though is unfortunately able to escape back in nissau woods rogers shows up with a pardon for the pirates crimes and the decision to take the pardon leaves a group split when edward catches word that the royal navy intends to destroy all ships in the harbor he assassinates peter chamberlain before he can give the order edward then sailed to meet up with thatch as he plans to retire but after an attack from the royal navy blackbeard is killed leaving edward distraught after betrayal from jack rackham both charles vane and edward are stranded on an island leading vain to go mad and attempting to kill edward and that doesn't go very well for him edward then still dreaming of finding the treasures of the observatory tracks down the sage to principe after assassinating two templars and gaining robert's trust edward helps him steal vows of blood from a vessel in exchange for showing edward where the observatory is despite edwali's advice to tell the assassins about roberts and the observatory he sails there with roberts and is betrayed which everyone saw coming from a nautical mile away and edwards ends up in port royal as a prisoner after seeing that marion anna also stayed there the leader of the brotherhood in tulum rescues us and we attempt to but ultimately fail in rescuing mary and is able to get out alive though after drinking his zorros away edward decides to help the assassins killing rogers roberts and tracking down tours the templar grandmaster to the observatory where he kills him and seals the place edward then receives a letter informing him of his wife's passing and soon the arrival of his daughter edward decides to leave the cove to the assassins though not before reminiscing over his old friends and begins to sail to england with his daughter learning that his wife was quite angry with him we then see edward in his later years with a grown-up jennifer and a rather young hatham at the very opera that begins assassin's creed 3. this was one of the more dense plots in the assassin's creed franchise and unlike some of the other games in the series it almost all feels relevant the game much like liberation skips the fluff of the modern day and just gets right into the action making this a gripping start it's even further refreshing because we don't immediately jump into the assassin conflict and we spend a majority of the game viewing this fight from an outsider perspective this is shown right away when we first spot duncan who looks intimidating as hell and makes the assassin seem so much more badass and scary we actually see a few scenes of assassins working around us as when we're walking with the templars we can see them sneaking around and hiding in bushes edward's disregard for the entire conflict is refreshing if a bit disrespectful at times he had the charm of the previous assassins but his desires were just as personal and i feel more relatable look i like ezio and conor but it's hard for me to relate to my entire family dying but i can relate to greed and just wanting a better life edward's entire goal has been to achieve a life of riches and ditching that cringe nine to five and he actually gets it most games and even the assassin's creed games like to shy away from following through with their messages ezio doesn't fully let revenge corrupt him and while conor technically does his new family in the homestead saves him from seeing the full consequences of his actions by the time edward finishes his journey everyone he loved or even had a friendship with is either dead or new to leave him and his lifestyle before it was too late most of his friends in this hour rotting in either prison or davy jones locker what might be even more tragic is that they knew this would be their fate thatch knew that he wouldn't be able to keep his lifestyle afloat forever but he couldn't make it out in time as he says during his final moments in a world without gold we might have been heroes he knows that if he wasn't out for the luster of wealth things could have been different but they aren't and he seems at peace with his decisions something edward has come to terms with as well by the time edward is done he has enough gold to at least pretend he's in a world without it where he can actually be a hero or rather a father but depending on who you are that might be one in the same i would have liked to have seen a greater dialogue about how edward feels about this but the way it is now is still good enough even the most bitter details aren't spared as when edward speaks with jennifer she explains that edward's wife didn't still love him in the end like i'd expected she instead grew even more bitter that he left her the representation of a stable and secure if boring life for one of danger and adventure the allies that do make it to the end have satisfying conclusions like a dwale who even received a standalone expansion that i will cover in another video he always acted as a voice of reason for edward and an advocate for the assassins what liked about a dwali is that he just like edward is caught in the middle of a conflict he knows nothing about the difference between him and edward and friends is that a dwali's gaze isn't glazed over with thoughts of riches and wealth adwali's conscience is what puts him at odds most with edward and his unyielding loyalty was admirable though edward too has loyalty it gradually shifts from coin to the brotherhood even eventually flying the insignia by the end of the game it's explained that edward is especially in tune with his isu roots in the same conversation where mary explains that everyone is born with the ability to harness eagle vision but only a few can utilize it without years of training which if i'm correct is a retcon but i don't really mind it edward despite not even knowing about the assassins for a majority of the game's beginning act has the patience skill and charm to fit right in something mary picks up on mary was another angel on edward's shoulder that i came to enjoy quite a bit throughout the game she broke the mold in the sense that she wasn't equipped with the standard hood in robes which a few people don't wear in this game she also acts as a mentor to edward in that she tries and admittedly fails on multiple occasions to explain the potential he has and how to properly realize it for the greater good it's unfortunate that it took her death for edward to realize the error of his ways but it makes edward's breaking point far more believable i mean thanks to edward's greed he goes on a journey for nothing and this is realized when he after the betrayal of rakum is once again stranded on an island with an [ __ ] back to square one all of edward's friends up to this point have died due to their own actions and weren't great people mary on the other hand had her heart in the right place and didn't deserve to meet her fate thankfully another one of the characters to survive the trail of oblivion stuck to edward's tales is bonnet i already mentioned his significance but i just want to re-say that he was such a fun character and awfully relatable because he like a lot of us would [ __ ] his pants before boarding another ship but still desires that exciting adventurous life his send-off hit me a bit harder than i wanted it to as well edward your constant friendship has been my most treasured find on these seas well above gold and silver and ram i i prize the courage you've inspired me this year thank you sir edward's friends consistently challenged him and his philosophies and that's part of what makes him and the game so engaging his perspective shifts in the same direction that the series has which began with ac3 assassin's creed 3 gave us a solid look at the conflict from the inside sure it was heavily on the assassin side but there was still plenty of time given to the templars and their ideology here we get the same conflict and the same ideology but we see it from the outside on both sides i don't mean that literally of course we play both sides and have direct roles but is from a vessel that doesn't pay it any mind in three we played as an assassin questioning his beliefs here we play as someone in the middle but ultimately choosing the assassins and by rogue we get someone who chooses otherwise as i continue talking about the harsh realities for edward and the consequences of the observatory i want to remind you that there is a lot of fun to be had in the story the pirate story the one of nassau was refreshing and i like the tidbits of humor here with even the scariest of friends like thatch oh god looks fine of course it does i did feel that sequence seven dragged its heels a bit as we spent it doing what felt like side quests in nassau but overall i was hooked from start to finish in fact the worst parts of the story is the observatory and the modern day this is the closest thing we have to edging in a video game medium they give you all this awesome pirate stuff it's new it's fun and right as you get invested they rip you away from it you're pulled into this first person modern day like price clocking you down the stairs and they straight tell you in this that you need to focus more on the observatory and the assassin stuff and it's like [ __ ] me it's like eating a nice steak and you're just loving every bite but the waiter comes around and says whoa buster you aren't having any more of this until you eat some asparagus the assassin elements here felt like a chore and i know that seems ridiculous i mean how can i call myself an assassin's creed fan if i don't care about them and it's not that i don't like this stuff it's that i don't like how it's done instead of fully being a plot that edward naturally falls into it's a [ __ ] block that prevents this game from reaching greater heights i think within edward's story this is portrayed well enough he is involved with the conflict but not for any philosophy and eventually he acts from a moral obligation rather than a desire for wealth and i still think the assassin stuff gets in the way of the more enjoyable pirate plot but it's downright annoying with the modern day so let's dive into that modern day because while it is intertwined with the story it is pretty pointless yeah i know shocking you play as an unidentified new hire at absergo who is reliving the memories of kenway to see if it is suited for abstergo's new line of products where they take the memories of someone and alter it slightly turning it into a video game of sorts exactly how we've seen with liberation they even reference liberation here maybe you saw liberation no nobody played liberation as you do some tasks for melanie and olivier you are contacted by an i.t guy named john who asks you to do some illegal behind-the-scenes work for him to which we oblige as we hack things for him we find out that sergo's accessing the memories of edward and others by using the dna from desmond's dead body after a few more hacks were led to a room where we have a conversation with juno and the it guy isn't very happy about it we head back to our office and next thing we know the it guy who looks significantly like roberts attempts to give us a lethal injection as juno was supposed to take over our body but as we learned she wasn't powerful enough the security guards come to the rescue and kill jon melanie then comforts us and that's where it ends i know i left out some details but i promise you there is a lot of stuff here that is interesting for lore reasons but not much else and the story it tells isn't that great we do make some deliveries to rebecca and sean who are undercover and seeing that the it guy is yet another reincarnation of ita was an okay twist and there's even a side plot with olivier going missing and melanie attempting to find the person who is hacking their servers but it doesn't mean much and honestly melanie's job should be upgrading the security because some random joe can crack their confidential files through a game of crossy road i understand that making hacking fun is a tough thing to do and you could argue that even watchdog struggles to keep it engaging but just because these puzzles take place on an ipad doesn't mean they need to feel like an ipad game the math mini game is simple enough and if you don't care you can brute force it easily and the same goes with the globe minigame this one was my favorite only because i found it harder to brute force and it took some solid forethought the crossy road game speaks for itself it's truly riveting the problem with these is that they feel so unnecessary i know that they obviously do it so they can avoid the criticism of how is this person able to access just anyone's computer and the answer is that they don't have to the it guy who i assume has admin access is able to just grant you security clearance remotely so surely he could do the same for passwords and audio logs the best part is most of these logs are pretty meaningless some like the conversation desmond has with his father and the test on a new subject were interesting but others like the sticky notes which are just crazed ramblings and the market analysis videos were just weird it features some of the most eyebrow-raising sentences i've heard in the ubisoft game the weird mispronunciation of every character's name which is funny because it sounds like the voice of ezio roger craig smith calls his own character enzio overall the modern day just didn't interest me the same as the others in the series hell even revelations had some gameplay to it even if it was placing blocks modern day up to this point had an actual story too that had ramifications by the end here it's all lore and lore isn't a bad thing but the other modern day segments had actual story at the forefront albeit bad ones they also had gameplay the subpar characters of the modern day of assassin's creed 3 are acceptable because there's solid gameplay there and the lore acts as a supplement not the entire product when the game closes its final sequence we are pulled out yet again to get the sage killed and our reward is a trailer for the in-universe game they're creating what there's three plots going on here the assassin templar plot the modern day and the pirate plot and they're all fighting tooth and nail for the spotlight to the point where almost all of them are left malnourished but ending the game with a trailer for the actual game we are wanting to get back to just feels so weird ultimately the story here is still enjoyable and had this game taken an approach where we only saw the historical aspect keeping the observatory elements intact the game would flow much better and be better for it we could have a system similar to liberation where there are parts of the modern day within the program but nothing that takes us directly out of the simulation and i know that liberation had its own issues regarding modern day shoehorns thankfully these flaws didn't hinder my ability to fall in love with edward and his band of questionable friends his charisma shone through in every scene and characters like thatch are better off dead less they steal the whole show but like a lot of aspects of black flag it breaks the mold with excellence in some notable ways causing me to again question if this is even an assassin's creed game at all now i know i've said many times before that simply bearing the title of assassin's creed makes it an assassin's creed game and i hold that with any series but for the sake of this discussion i'd like to put that aside and look at the more vocal mindset that being that there are core pillars of the assassin's creed series that are constants and a game's inclusion or exclusion of those pillars are what defines it as assassin's creed or not the reason i don't like to subscribe to this doctrine is that it's so subjective from person to person and it doesn't account for the constants that aren't good for example bugs and hilarious tactical blunders have been constants in the series does that mean a new assassin's creed game that performs well and has no bugs isn't a true assassin's creed game i doubt many would say so most would say that it's a better game so sacrificing something bad that is normally associated with the series is okay so long as it's an improvement i'm sure some might say that bugs had charm but that's a chaos i can't tackle so let's take this idea and apply it to the reworked combat scene in rpg games that being that if a part of his series identity is exchanged for something better than it's a good thing when we do this we get a major issue and that there's subjectivity in a combat system's quality especially when we're comparing apples to oranges and one button chain killing to gear systems and abilities for one fan this may not feel like assassin's creed because so many of the games have had linear combat and gear systems with the most complex up to this point being unity which even then wasn't very deep but for another they might see the other side but greatly prefer this system and feel that's just the next step in the series evolution because they feel it's better this doesn't mean you can't have a preference personally i prefer the chain killing and would choose it over the other iterations of combat any other day to me a core pillar of assassin's creed is its power fantasy chain killing combat but i still like the newer systems hell my favorite game unity doesn't even have chain kills here's something that makes things even more complicated though chain killing is in the minority brotherhood revelations 3 4 and rogue make 5 games of chain killing 6 if you count liberations having chain killing but one two unity syndicate origins odyssey and valhalla make seven games with deeper combat six of which see the enemies with health bars and three of which have rpg mechanics combat has never been very consistent so how can we possibly pinpoint one game or group and say this is a definitive combat that screams assassin's creed i'm of the belief that most just pick their favorite game and use that as a reference this isn't wrong but it isn't as rock solid of a foundation as many parade them to be unity is my favorite and thus is the first game to come to mind when somebody says assassin's creed but does that make it a good reference point no unity's parkour is unlike anything else in the series with the only one similar being syndicate and the combat is entirely unique if reminiscent of the first and second games it also has an amalgamated stealth that combines both social and traditional stealth blending and a crouch button the problem with this is that when we don't have a solid baseline we don't have a solid foundation for an argument what will the identity of the series be when we end up with more rpg games than non-rpg games let's go back to parkour then and talk about the different expectations for these pillars as many call it the parkour has always been a staple of sorts and while the newer games have parkour they aren't seen as assassin's creed by the fan base because its controls are simplified to its own detriment so it's clear that you just can't shoehorn these features in they need to be developed but that's still not the whole equation many fans don't like the grappling hook and syndicate because it removes the need for parkour which is strange because the parkhorn syndicate is actually quite solid so you can't just plug the unity movement into a newer game and call it a day the game needs to be built around it many people call these aspects pillars because without them the identity of the series crumbles but as stated above the picture of what this pillar looks like is blurrier and blurrier with each new entry but why not ask others directly what defines assassin's creed and with that i'd like to present some responses to a tweet that i put out which asks the following what makes an assassin's creed game to you like what's the thing you see in another game and it makes you think that's assassin's creed at what point can a staple in the series change like parkour and stealth before it is no longer assassin's creed here are some responses some fell into the mindset i mentioned where it's simply the one they enjoy the most the seo trilogy was the peak definitely not whatever the modern ac games are and even infamouser hellfire just states that it's a fun game worth the money but i think he's elaborated on that enough in his own videos link below some said it's the animations with meaningful parkour and counter-based combat one fellow in particular said specifically that black flag is still considered an ac game some said the shadowy conflict between two groups and the sci-fi elements are what make it assassin's creed hell someone said it's the parkour of unity with the story of the ezio games and another said unity parkour with trilogy combat but a game like that doesn't even exist one person said it's something that discourages open combat but in a large handful of the games brotherhood to four open combat is way easier than stealth in nearly every scenario so begs the question of what motivates you and what discourages you from using something i can continue showing responses here but i think you're already seeing the problem i don't mean to discredit or say that these interpretations are wrong but that they are all so different if the game's identity was so clear these responses would overlap heavily and here when they do overlap like in the case of movement it just ends up revealing yet another debate over if assassin's creed ii or unity had better movement now that in itself is a different argument but it's yet another thing that nobody can definitively agree on all of this is to say that finding a through line in the series is difficult as hell and yet i'm going to try and do my best i won't be going off of what the best games are necessarily but their quantity of well-developed features so let's try and identify the general consensus of what the pillars are and i'll attempt to throw some of my own through lines in there and explain why black flag doesn't really fit into either definition first assassins you can have an assassin's creed game without an assassin protagonist but you need the ideologies the hidden ones and the order of the ancients works because even if they don't have the title of assassins and templars they have the same ideology and they function the same let's look at the combat it seems that the combat throughout the series has been closer to the likes of the rpg games and unity as far as basic mechanics go but the golden age of the series according to a lot of its fans is with the ezio and kenway games we can say that the combat must be counter based and have some sort of variety most of the games have good variety in the weapons you use and even if you don't like the rpg games you can't say they don't have variety too albeit if too much of course stealth more specifically social stealth should be there too the problem i have with this is that the social stealth in a majority of the games is pretty tacked on but the stealth in general is a through line whether in crowds or bushes having the choice between combat and self seems to be another through line movement is another big one but only if developed properly this one is quite easy as i feel that in every game up to origins the movement has been acceptable an argument could be made that syndicate doesn't fit in but it doesn't change the fact the majority of the games feature deep movement some undisputed ones are open worlds historical settings and the needless collectibles i also think that level design is a big through line for especially the earlier games tailing missions eavesdropping assassinations cinematic chases and thievery are staples for the pre-origins games i think the older game specifically the first one was a little more formulaic but that could be a product of wanting to play things safe with a new ip as by the second entry things started getting way more varied the modern day story has been a part of every assassin's creed game even the ones that some feel aren't deserving of the title i think there are some games that add more to the modern day than others but there's usually something there to keep you posted on the things happening with or without desmond so now let's apply these to black flag it has the combat for sure but its variety is severely hindered in comparison to its other entries something that helps the series is the naval combat which while introduced in assassin's creed 3 isn't a through line and isn't very assassin-esque as far as stealth it's here and in full force there's lesser emphasis on social stealth but it is here and viable regardless the game also offers the option between stealth and combat in most scenarios so that's another notch on the assassin belt but even if that's the belt edward wears it's not the belt he's earned edward may look like an assassin but he isn't he spends a majority of the game inadvertently helping the templars for personal gain by the end of the game he agrees with the assassin mindset but still shows few signs of actually understanding it i assume these kinds of things happen off-screen because after the events of the game he does in fact join a bureau and you could argue that edward's journey is about his transformation into an assassin but even this ideological shift is brief and is left to the final sequences i can at least excuse this though because i assume the game is a little less ham-fisted with his ideological delivery because most of the player base already knows and the arguments of either side have been told over and over by now the movement is here and there's no arguing that despite playing half the game on the ocean there's plenty of ways to flex your movement muscles the level design is also here there's a great variety and plenty of different sneaking contacts the modern day is here but as i've argued it doesn't add too much to the story after desmond's death fans wanted to know what was next and this game more or less says not much just that things keep moving forward with sean and rebecca it's good for lore but if it weren't here the game would be better off the sci-fi elements are here and the hidden conflict is here too and even if edward is a third party in that conflict for most of the game it is present regardless so if i were attempting to think with this mindset of what is and isn't an assassin's creed game i'd say despite there being plenty of assassin's creed dna here it doesn't feel like one the naval combat and pirate lifestyle overshadows everything else and while the assassin's creed formula is there by the end of the game specifically that final sequence it's too little too late if we were going by my own definition of what an assassin's creed game is i'd say yes simply by the title alone but if we look at what the gameplay has to offer it isn't really an assassin's creed game it's better than one the assassin's creed games up to this point were becoming so repetitive and frankly boring that having a game like this that breathes new life into the series that the sacrifice of its identity is a no-brainer but there's a bigger issue here why do we care if it's assassin's creed or not ultimately if the game's good isn't that all that matters to me if the game has the title of assassin's creed and it's good then it's a good assassin's creed game you won't catch me dead saying some [ __ ] like it's a good game but not a good assassin's creed game but maybe that's just me i think people say it isn't an assassin's creed game because they rather than admit that their series has fallen and isn't what it used to be keep their beloved series intact and everything that doesn't live up to a standard clouded in a rose tint that gets stronger every year is disregarded and disowned i think this is a mindset that makes a community far more toxic than it needs to be it creates these us versus them conflicts between the old school and new school fans gatekeeping the title of assassin's creed fan in the same way they keep the title of assassin's creed game you aren't a true fan unless you love assassin's creed 2 and you aren't a true fan if you liked odyssey the community has an obsession with faux pedagogy in regards to the series and tries to enlist an opinion-based dogma that makes things far more complicated than just enjoying a game it's a good game but not a good assassin's creed game is irrelevant but it's a great catch-all term for not wanting to explain or even understand why you don't like something the assassin's creed series is a holistic gaming experience it isn't a binary yes it is assassin's creed or no it isn't there's a massive grey area and most of the games fall into this grey another problem this mindset brings is that distorts the argument problems regarding the new games mechanics and bloat are there and i'm glad to have seen the sentiment of valhalla being bloated echoed throughout the community but in my video a lot of the comments were debating over whether it's a good assassin's creed game or not but that shouldn't be the point the discussion should be focused on what works and what doesn't especially considering that what most would claim to be a good assassin's creed game likely wouldn't be considered a good game by most but that's a different discussion entirely but in regards to a good game but not a good assassin's creed game argument i feel like my words just fall on deaf ears and are met with the same excuses the most common of which is saying that it comes from a place of love i love the series and i want to see it improve and that's a tough stance to get behind because typically when someone loves something they don't make it their entire personality to hate it and spend far more time disregarding new entries before they even come out rather than continuing to enjoy the older games but aqua didn't you make a video explaining why you don't like assassin's creed 2 yeah but that's all i did i made one video putting my thoughts out there and i still respect assassin's creed 2 as being a beloved game and i love it for introducing me to the series i didn't make 10 videos explaining that anyone who enjoys the game is an ignorant child i just explained why it wasn't for me anymore i did the same thing with valhalla i played it gave thoughts and feedback and if you like valhalla it's all good you can dislike something and still respect it but all this anger surrounding the series is just unnecessary and it causes obsessive losers like me to have multiple hour-long discussions about why someone doesn't like a game just to find out at the end that they haven't even played it black flag has all these amazing qualities an interesting story a charismatic and fun main character that could have easily had their spotlight stolen if all the side characters hadn't died along the way its naval combat was fresh and fun as were the different side activities here the environments here had ranged from bustling city streets to the ambiance of the ocean broken only by sea shanty all part of the pirate lifestyle it's not the same but it's a lot better it seems on more recent years black flag is being looked upon with a friendlier and friendlier gaze and in time i'm sure the same will be done for these rpg games maybe one day the fanbase will be able to look back at the newer half of the series and enjoy it or better allow others to enjoy it but i'm sure that when that day comes somebody will be there to say it's a good fan base but not a good assassin's creed fan base hello everyone thank you so much for watching this video and for supporting the channel i just want to give a shout out to our youtube members and our patreon members worshiper of the olympians sad amv squishy frecks aidenspark77 it's srtw lane daniel a tao and breeze over a beat ben conway bossian bryce stevens chiefy edgar sunday gonzo benzalis jadon mp3 mark short matthew graham pyrite ryan hutcherson sean bailey and alfhednar8457 your support means the world to me and it helps me pump out these videos faster and helps me pay for our lord and savior sean to edit these videos and i hope you enjoyed it if you did leave a like i don't know subscribe do do some of that stuff next video is going to be on rise of tomb raider and then after that i have no idea i haven't thought that far ahead but you can expect that video within three ish weeks i i want to get it out this month if possible and yeah there's not really much else going on with me i did just start a podcast with nam's compendium called polar opposites it is available on all streaming platforms there will be links to it in the description and you can find more updates on it on my twitter page which you can also follow so yeah hope you're all staying safe and healthy thank you so much i love you guys take care [Music] you

Channel: That Boy Aqua

Views: 550,447

Keywords: Black Flag is NOT an Assassin's Creed Game, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Critique, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Analysis, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Retrospective, What is The Best Assassin's Creed Game, Assassin's Creed Retrospective, That Boy Aqua Black Flag, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Years Later, Assassin's Creed IV Critique, AC IV Review, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag Critique, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag Review, Assassin's Creed Analysis, That Boy Aqua, Black Flag

Id: 4mBiZPJ8Tdo

Length: 70min 49sec (4249 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022