Assassin's Creed Rogue: 6 Years Later

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code you guessed it white light stay by blade from the flesh of the innocent hide in plain sight never compromise the assassin Brotherhood these are the tenets of the Creed the principles are used to live by I was a young man then the Seven Years War was about to begin I could not have imagined what the future had in store for me nor the cost by when shoes to bear my name is Shay Patrick Cormac this is my story rogue plays its premise elegantly but not subtly Shay is under your control for not a second before you're hunting an assassin a red icon over his hood and your objective to kill this nameless man the chase teaches parkour the killing below is an unforgettable lesson of assassination that's two facets of gameplay and the premise introduced in 30 seconds but is it no dead assassin because this is shade before he defected and the chase was merely training a smart twist that gets you wondering just how Shay could have left this innocent energetic friendship behind and joined their worst enemies the camaraderie between Shay and Liam charms as you're led throughout environments that naturally tutorial eyes exploration all the collectibles and arms reach but none directly on your path only those who care for exploration will receive this as a tutorial that way everyone wins fellow assassin Chevalier de La Verendrye is stranded without his ship after an ambush it's on you to recover it thankfully the Templars have left a vessel nearby yours for the capture the Morrigan steering and combat both are neatly squeezed into the end of the densest tutorial the series has ever seen as a spiritual follow-up to Black Flag its brevity can be taken as a mere refresher instead of babying you into boredom good for those familiar with the series which in Rose case I'd wager is most but excellent for replayability there is no greater turnoff to a repeat playthrough than having to spend an eon in the tutorials rogue swerves it I'd place it among the best introductions the series has ever seen which is funny because almost immediately following it is the worst introduction the series has ever seen [Music] how is a man getting back to his ship worthy of the title card drop what are you smoking listen it doesn't matter don't worry about it because we are in the North Atlantic look at this place I'd like to say before we move on that I'm incredibly thankful for the overwhelming support on my black flag video I'm delighted to have fired up old whales of nostalgia and so so many people we're now on ninety-one patrons all of whom I am immensely grateful to for helping this channel grow and survive I feel incredibly like ok now you might have noticed this is just black flag but white hold that thought firstly it's actually black flag but less yellow secondly the Ubisoft executives noticed that too but didn't say anything because they were too busy orgasming thirdly the North Atlantic is actually pretty cool the passengers of the Titanic found that out the hard way but rogues a little more accessible black flags atmosphere was as thick as tar sticky that way too it's hard to let go of but rode replaces it with the charm of its own the North Atlantic's visuals range from perfectly adequate to utterly breathtaking when the Sun beams orange in the sea contrasts blue nothing but the creaking of wood in a subtle ambience score to listen to rogues frigid kingdom of cold and silent beauty is untouchable for a game design for hardware from 2005 rogue can be heavenly but that's no surprise Ubisoft rarely design a wild anything less than beautiful what did stick out to me though was the level design River Valley is rogue second map it's literally a valley of rivers and that demands a more gratifying degree of concentration from the player both in getting from A to B but also in simply avoiding collisions impressively you can even cut straight through a select few locations on foot and to one side come out the other with a beacon to call the Morrigan round make no mistake this is in fact a long cut and opportunities are rare but it both figuratively and literally flashes out the wall and introduces a breath of variation into wild scale navigation that black flag never even approached you will not see bear islands in rogue you will not see completely linear pathways throughout an entire location what I find consistent to these levels is the sprawl pubs run through one another behind one another over each other it's use of verticality is never-ending like for every path that comes to an end on the x-axis I could go either up or down and discover a new one most inhabited outposts have this intricate quality in troves providing a parkour experience that elevates the exploration gameplay loop vastly higher than its swashbuckling predecessor shipwrecks are the liberty of being designed as parkour playgrounds first and foremost with no sacrifice of believability so if you haven't quite understood what I mean yet just take a look around can you see how parkour pathways provides so much freedom on both axes how it almost resembles a playground that you might see in those wild holiday getaways or indoor climbing activities that kids love so much though not every island is a hit there are enough in here to make chasing the almost overwhelming amount of collectables a task that somehow isn't tedious even despite the relatively low material value behind those collectables it's like Dragon Age Inquisition if the busted-ass movement didn't make me want to leap of faith into an Asda wheelie bin I'd say the most obvious theme of rogues wild is false everything's a fork the gang settlement supports the settlement settlement two forts the fort supports pretty much every city has a for and also the entire ocean is forts even the ship supports in Suzy mum this is where the level design intersects with not just parkour but with combat and with stealth forts by nature bring verticality and frequent stealth opportunities it's probably the greatest but least obvious of all the reasons rogues encounters felt noticeably more engaging than black flags level design is as useful for the gameplay as it is for the art all of rogues visual strengths work better thanks to the islands they're set on PAL is a remote archipelago in the North Atlantic whose entrance is marked by two opposing men a war sinking to the deaths sailing over their graves reveals a British brig beached on the land a ship killer of an island it seems having made landfall I found a pool a cave and penguins lining up by the bay as the Sun set did anything come of it no I looted the island thought it was worth and left but the beauty of the place the design and even that tiny miniscule splash of environmental storytelling combined to a perfect way of displaying the strengths of this world the atmosphere is a subjective as game elements get some may fall in love with it some may prefer black flags golden tropical splendor but from a design perspective what we have here is so many magnitudes superior Black Flag I have to wonder how they even found time for it and there's one other thing that for the first act of Assassin's Creed rogue in French fort means strong which is absolutely hilarious because you hang out with French people in forts also the fort's enhance the encounters but mainly it's good because it's funny rogues assassin act follows a rather standard premise there is a first civilization artifact in Templar hands and the assassins want that back a precursor box and a manuscript for it to read as you hunt these relics Shea is quite visibly loaded with small Inklings of anti assassin sentiment but before we discuss what that is let me explain what I mean by visibly loaded it's not hidden it isn't subtle in fact it doesn't really make much sense at all I think we've all played a game where the story felt guided by the hand of God to get you into the most engaging situations rogue is sadly one of them the assassins inexplicably have che do almost all the dirty work despite being the least experienced assassin by far technically still a trainee by the time Shea's cut down three big trees Templars Liam hope and Chevalier haven't even left Starbucks a similar situation I think most epic gamers would know is preparing to do a thing but then that thing is postponed because of an arbitrary inconvenience which of course takes three items to overcome here we are about to use the artifacts but wait Benjamin Franklin's lightning rods got nicked by the Constabulary better go do a tailing mission to get them back times like this could unexceptional e be avoided with a simple restructuring if getting those rods was Shay's goal to begin with for a believable reason of course it wouldn't feel so forced having Shay carry out the assassinations meanwhile is a far more troublesome issue Shay does need to kill these Templars himself but his rookie status is also important to excuse tutorial ization consoling that conflict is easier said than done but necessary nonetheless Shay's gotta have some pretty strong reasons to stop his Brotherhood in the back his development makes sense through his lens and that's what matters he doesn't see a great difference between men bending everyone to their well by force where there is the assassins or the Templars it doesn't approve of how he's treated by his assassins hoop areas as a tool of rather than a free man in spite of their Creed he doesn't wish to stain his blade with the blood of men who cannot fight back like Samuel Adams or men so sick there weeks away from death regardless like Lawrence Washington but the deciding blow comes not long after Shay and hope use Benjamin Franklin's lightning rods to activate the precursor box and manuscript turns out it's a map perhaps to the other pieces of Eden and as bright as can be shines Lisbon we set sail immediately it's been so long since Assassin's Creed let you scuttle about this grand Catholic architecture so Lisbon's Cathedral was a fresh and exciting moment it was good to feel vertigo for the first time in the Kenway saga it wasn't good however to feel a sense of abyssal dread as I was asked to complete yet another one of these [ __ ] puzzles so to unlock the precursor sites you've got to stick your hidden blade in four holes what how yeah that's some maximum-security [ __ ] right there the Templars will never figure out if this was real a cat would have opened the vault in 30 seconds flat and Lisbon would have been nuked before it was even settled yeah Road places the blame for the 1755 Lisbon earthquake on you this precursor site is a tree of Eden responsible for holding the earth together any disruption results in a tectonic calamity which to this game by no means exaggerate if anything its tame Lisbon was reduced to cinder and washed away by the following tsunami which this game does not portray they had to build a new city where the old ones stood but in rogue I didn't care as dire as this set-piece may seem and as much as I wanted to I had absolutely no emotional connection to it of course we spent no time in Lisbon we barely got a glance of the city and were running away about five minutes after we arrived which is why I see it as a colossal mistake that Lisbon was never a real location why waste resources on these pointless Paris glitch missions when we could have spent time building a connection with the city that stands and then Falls as the tipping point of Shay's allegiance Shay could have lost a friend there a lover or even a child only one game later they did the SS in Templar romance but I can't help but think the Arno Alize concept would have worked better for rogue Shay losing a Templar woman would have not only set his heart ablaze but also increased his sympathy for the Templars it fits if written properly compelling romances don't need a great deal of time to blossom you may disagree on that but either way I need to feel the weight of innocent lives snuffed out explosions are no substitute it's only Lisbon by name as great a missed opportunity as this is though I still find it to be a believable reason for Shay's change he was deceived into slaughtering thousands of Ennis it's a direct contradiction of the Creed and if you were in his place having destroyed an entire city 45,000 dead what do you think any different upon Shay's return the performance is graces with some much-needed emotional punching power his fury towards Achilles is believable doubly so since it turns out this has happened before they did the very same thing in Haiti hope steps in to defend Achilles and Liam pulls Shay away but he cannot let this happen again the assassins know it they have the manuscript if Shay can snatch it he might be able to slip away infiltrating Davenport Manor is as easily done as it is said but there's something special here this is your introduction to the idea of being hunted by assassins here are familiar whistle whispering all the strange noises you hear in the background play with your paranoia and build up the tension if Shay takes that manuscript there's no going back the Brotherhood will brand him a traitor but Lisbon cannot be forgiven or allowed to happen again the assassin's spring their trap it's a hopeless escape there's no way to run that's enough give back the manuscript shame I'm sure Kelly I cannot I will not let this happen again how those souls lost one more hardly matters shei could they have done this betrayal any better yes but it sure as [ __ ] gets the job done a couple weeks later Shay awakens in a New York home having been nursed to health by family of Templar sympathizers the local gang is causing trouble for the finnegans under hopes orders for attacking them they must be taught a lesson this is Shay's first strike against the assassins and Colonel Munro likes what he sees what follows presents two problems the first of which is familiar Munro a total stranger just shows up and decides 30 seconds after having met Shay would be a great time to renovate some buildings together it's an attempt to win Shay's approval but I don't think I need to explain how meeting a total stranger giving them 300 quid to spend doing up the front of a church and then pissing off into the distance isn't exactly a natural way of owning someone's trust the second problem is that even with it's unnatural placement it doesn't go far enough it never really does many of Shay's reasons for despising the assassins are purely moral purely ideological and that's good because it gives room for ambiguity I should be able to disagree with Shay it isn't simply an objective truth that the assassins are in the wrong perhaps it is right to kill the few to save the many perhaps it is worth killing unarmed men for the greater good but the ends only justify the means if the ends are worth it the ax thuds would slaughter innocents to keep power out of Templar hands but can we really say Templar power is such a terrible fate if that's the cost that's what Shay should question are the Templars really the bad guys that's where Shay's transition should be solved but I cannot see how he would overcome a lifetime of anti Templar indoctrination and switch sites so quickly logically Templars presenter means to stop the assassins but that doesn't mean she should ideologically agree with him yet his betrayal was done excellently but that's only half a defection his new allegiance is left a lot to be desired nevertheless Shay is now a Templar so if Black Flag fulfilled the pirate fantasy and Rogue is a copy but with nothing to do with pirates then how does Black Flag structure service rogues fantasy supposedly this game is about being a Templar and the conflicts between them and the assassins make sense in that case to start with combat in typical AC fashion the best part is how it looks one new weapon type is pathetic for a mainline Assassin's Creed but that one is certainly a gem the new animations are fantastic but what we're supposed to make rogue unique was the idea that everything you can do the enemies can do as well and through the stalkers that's part true their presence is marked by loud whispering and their location is generally hinted at by the same distance based compass so you have an assassin's creed multiplayer tracking them down is half the fight the rest is getting the first hit hanging shoot'em don't get seen if you do they'll attack fast so you've got to be just as quick on the counter but you can't always see them coming it's quite a rush to find yourself pinned to the ground and a better one to turn that situation over no it isn't groundbreaking the constant whispering when you're just trying to get from A to B as annoying and unfortunately you'll very rarely see them outside of New York but it is welcome variation in the Black Flag video I said tougher enemies was exactly what the game needed stalkers are tougher enemies but they're not tough gang leaders are tough they have the stealth of a stalker with a pistol smoke bomb in an unblockable hidden blade strike fantastic but let's not get ahead of ourselves a gang leader needs a gang so you won't find them outside of settlements there's 16 of those so enjoy your 16 tough fights per playthrough provided your detected each time the bounty hunter certainly look tough and they may feel that way too when you realize you physically cannot counter them an illusion dispelled the instant you try using the rope dart or just shoot them in the head so rogue contains mechanics that allow you to fight assassins but the only challenging variant of that can happen a maximum of 16 times and the rest are largely restricted to one dull city that you won't be spending most of your time in anyway do you fear death Shay shut the Frick up Davy Jones no I don't fear death the game's still too easy and I'm not happy about it what fantasy does this serve I'm not a pirate I'm not an assassin I'm a Templar how can this make me feel like a Templar if not a person who orchestrates civilization from the shadows then at the very least a person who kills assassins easy combat and feeling like a badass are not linked this is better than Black Flag but it's an incremental improvement which I find monumentally disappointing given this game is a very premise disappointing and after having listened to the ideas of more Coris essence Creed players perhaps justified in a twisted sense there with me you'd think after Black Flag whose technical issues were very hit-or-miss for people that they'd actually try to fix up the clunky mechanics the bugs and the inconsistencies really Shaye because it sure feels like this asthmatic engine is making your luck well you'll be pleased to know that you don't randomly sheathe your swords in the middle of a battle anymore but everything else remains and is host to the plague of new issues we're about to see right now this one here is both a bug and a mechanical problem I'm on low health so a single shot will kill me I see a way to save myself just got a grab one of the captain's buddies to use as a meat shield but the guy on the left here his AI is completely broken and hasn't actually engaged me yet the game therefore thinks she can't use human shield on him and it's good night New York the fact that you need to be in an open combat state to use human shield is the heart of the issue the bug worsened it to lethality this next one is so bad I can hardly comprehend it Here I am trying to truck a stalker off a roof but there's no throw body button so I set her down she starts sliding she then gets up like nothing happened and glitches into an assisted suicide check this out what's missing from this picture any ideas the answers Shay he isn't [ __ ] in it he's just gone invisible and his dialog keeps going out and then as soon as the cutscene ends Shay's somehow Falls and instantly dies did they code this game with [ __ ] alphabetti spaghetti I'm not trying to portray these individual bugs as consistent I'm trying to frame the generally weak technical state in combination with poorly coded mechanics that is a consistent pain in the ass so how could any of this possibly justify the combat the difference between a bug and poor coding resulting in difficulties is hard to distinguish in the moment but the general sense is one of inconsistency of clunkiness that could be applied to the majority of this franchise and consider this the heart of the game is the harder inconsistencies punish you black flags clunk is just an annoyance if it was hard it'd be a nightmare maybe we'll see if that's really the case in the future but for now I'd like to give credit where it's due part of being a Templar is supposedly bringing order to the world and to that end you can renovate almost 40 buildings you can free locations from gang occupied these all make noticeable differences and contribute to your coffers I can't complain but it doesn't change the fact that in Templar game you play as an assassin who spends most of his time being a bog-standard British privateer what's so difficult about discussing this game is that it's fundamentally the same as Black Flag there's no point in repeating myself especially since most of us played at first anyway a lot of what I've said so far explains my disappointment but like I said Rogue is just black flag with a sleep grenade and an Irish accent Black Flag was great you still have among the best naval combat systems ever created decent on foot assassin mechanics and incredibly exhilarating boarding you still have sea shanties a good economy streamlined upgrades you still have a wealth of areas to explore and a hell of a lot to do and find within them Rogue is a good game but it naturally demands comparison to Black Flag I also expect improvement and for it to live up to its premise for now let's make do with what we've got if we're playing a privateer you should meet our Templar quartermaster Christopher gist I have one question who even is Christopher Guest don't ask me I forgot he existed this man has to live up to Adewale and all he does the entire game is make meaningless chitchat and his utter ly ridiculous voice you also learned the path we must take next prevent a group of paper skull killers from destroying another city you know trying to sell washing machine fluid to pensioners mate you're a wartime privateer he doesn't even do anything man he's got no conflict no backstory no death he's an insult to Anne Bonny in Adewale though Monroe isn't much deeper he sure is more likable and he is central to what I'd call the second act of Assassin's Creed rogue you're tasked with protecting him against the assassins during a war between the British Army in the French the Seven Years War as decent as these missions are Munro just isn't a strong enough character to support them he is the physical embodiment of all that is good in the Templars che needs to see the Templars aren't so bad but it's something else entirely to be presented with this perfect human being AGGA reefs do if there ever was one Templars are still meant to be human aren't they it's as if they want to replace one good guy faction with another instead of maintaining an ambiguity worse I get the sense that Monroe's like ability was only built up so much for him to be killed by Liam like he was an overt tool for the writers to fan the flame of anti assassin hatred unfortunately this over nature undermines it for me the only thing I feel is disappointed in the writing but that's not even the right doll to be aiming for we already dislike the assassins they blew up two cities what we need is reasons to believe in the Templars with Munro dead the manuscript returns to assassin hands it's this the starts the third act one that makes the privateering fantasy all the more reality with another earthquake now a terrible possibility Shea makes it his mission to stop that at any cost he hey 'them Kenway and captain james cook fight in the Battle of Louisiana it's an amazing spectacle whether you love the history of this time period or not Shea fights for the British but Adewale he fights for the French they are annihilated Shea and Haytham hunt Adewale to a snow swept island but what's really remarkable is that neither Haytham or Adewale are remarkable themselves I don't think many would disagree if I said hey --them is among the community's favorite characters franchise wide his sarcasm wit brutality and moral ambiguity make him an addicting presence but not in this game with rare exceptions he feels neutered where's the personality where's the wisdom anytime I expected him to say something interesting he instead comes out with very well and that's all there is to it Ida wale on the other hand it feels like himself but his end was rather under dramatic for such a legendary assassin you just walked round the barn and stabbed him I could have seen that coming and the only heir assassination I've ever seen was Pavarotti sitting on a hamster Adewale is a debatable case but it's the start of a trend act 3 is structured like a hit list one by one Shea hunts each member of the rogues gallery but it's emotionless these people your ending they have no internal conflict no goals in life no family no backstory you can find anywhere that isn't the Codex and no depth whatsoever only their surface level traits distinguish them at all Chevalier being a prick Lee and being wise and hope being I don't know it will come to me I hope she is the first on the list though and cleverly she only let you fight her to give time for Liam to escape then it's off to kill Chevalier ah but he only like you fight him to give time for Liam to escape dude no way I love how he reveals the ruse to Shay in the most dramatic way possible as if this hasn't now happened twice in a row but better three times total this exact same thing happened on your very first assassination Washington was just a distraction to give the Templars time to escape the overuse of this device is comedic did Shay suffer an icicle lobotomy on his way down the cliff fool me twice shame on me fool me three times shame on me Munroe it's already dead what do you mean [Music] the missions are fun no [ __ ] tailing missions and the dialogue is tight despite its dumb flaws this is by no means a bad experience just one Hollow of any emotional weight rogue has such a great premise but systematically misses just about every opportunity to connect you to it not that it at work even if it did perhaps that's harsh everyone has conflicting accounts regarding bucks everyone played on different machines but the bugs exist Universal or not noticed or not and they aren't so kind as to spare the narrative from their [ __ ] just as a teaser this one is from a Paris glitch memory a jump off a roof and that ends up phasing my target into a wall I had to restart the memory turns out you can't stab the concrete but for the main course the creme de la creme let me tell you about the [ __ ] hope chase where do I even begin how about the music not kicking in for no apparent reason or when Shay dropped off a building despite the obvious desired destination being a jump even I could make all the times the parkour bunks left me stalled like a dumbass all the time when hopes a I decided it was tired of this a certain malarkey and thought it best to run merrily throughout the streets only the streets I chased her like this for three [ __ ] minutes before realizing I physically could not catch her so I decided to commit self desynchronization big oof bugs clunky code or lack of testing be still undermine drama not routinely but it happens they come at you like dance sometimes you get lucky sometimes you'll hit with the bullseye and you've got to play a murderous game of it I'm pleased to say that the climax and ending of rogue are considerable spikes in quality Shay and Haytham track achilles and liam to the arctic circle the site of another tree of Eden the place is almost otherworldly and a delight to behold but aggressively defended by both the assassins and the first civilization there's some decent parkour challenges in the form of their ancient security measures as you close in but somehow by simply looking at it Achilles realizes Shay was right about the trees but then Liam has a heated game a moment and knocks over the artifact like a [ __ ] which triggers the earthquake unlike Hayes conflict is rarely addressed again after he joins the Templars a huge missed opportunity but one of those times is now regarding Shay and hope his heart and mind warned with each other over killing her he screams to Liam that he's sorry and that he had no choice it's a compelling narrative beat to add to the dramatic final chase also great is that Haytham gets his personality back about to execute Achilles Shaye convinces him to show mercy both for mercy's sake and because if only Achilles knows the danger of the trees then only he can stop the rest of the assassins from meddling Haytham grudgingly agrees but turns back to shoot him in the leg as punishment a satisfying origin for Achilles is limped that's the Haytham Kenway I know the final memory is a conclusion to the Paris glitches you've had on occasion until now at the Palace of Versailles you witness the very same conversation between Arno and Elise just as it happened in unity moments before you put a blade in his father setting that game in motion che recites his new Creed a Templar of the colonial know of the American right I couldn't have asked for a better end to the Kenway saga or a better introduction to the modern one rogue was a short game but I don't think the benefits outweigh the immense cost even if the writing was up to snuff we didn't have enough time to attach to hope Chevalier or Liam it obviously have been exciting to interact with the assassins as a Templar but instead we got a dull hit list astray is continually distracted like a muppet by the exact same ruse we were denied any time to spend in Lisbon despite it being the bottom line of Shay's betrayal where he felt the weight of 45,000 lost lives we felt very little rogues brevity at least came with density there was no padding never a dull mission gameplay wise forget [ __ ] tailing missions if you weren't assassinating the assassins you were taking part in a war of Empires they never failed to engage the theme of my time with rogue story was disappointment you know for a game sold on the idea of being a Templar I don't think we hear even a single nuanced Pro Templar argument from start to finish I'd argue Assassin's Creed 3 did a better job of exploring the ideological conflict hell even Assassin's Creed 1 and with the countless missed opportunities and the ridiculous writing blunders I think my disappointment is justified but does that make it bad performances were great dialogue was largely compelling and it never failed to be at the very least interesting I'll always love Shaye as a protagonist I am dissatisfied with rogue soul and it quite clearly doesn't his body we're soon to see yet more reasons why but perhaps that body may still have something to offer us I think the privateering aspect can become more than a theme it can become the fantasy itself exploring plundering blowing up the French the Seven Years War is an immersive setting interestingly there are a total of no side quests to that end or at all but there is site content so much of it in fact they're going for 100% probably extends the game's runtime so far behind story completion you might have forgotten it by the time you're done there are vastly more locations than Black Flag enough chess to fill a foggy video and countless collectibles we've seen how that links with level design but perhaps more interestingly is how it links with the story there's a fundamental conflict between a dense tense high-stakes story and a vast open wild with a thousand leisurely activities to spend your time on a youtube comment help me put this into words I paraphrase in black flag I did maybe 75% of the side missions before I'd finish the story because the missions ended like see you in a month they didn't feel like the plot was the most important thing but in Rogue all your missions are of utmost importance so this huge open world just becomes something you travel through not something you actually explore now I think this has more to do with time scales than it does with importance black flag still had stakes the plot was still important it just made you understand that there was a time gap but nevertheless this account mirrors my own experience almost exactly I did most of the site content before finishing Black Flag story but I barely scraped rogues because it was a war on two fronts and it never slowed the pace yet another way Rogue soul seems completely disconnected from its body edward is a pirate kind of makes sense he'd get up to piracy to that end the pace of the story invited interacting with the troves of content in the Caribbean Shae isn't portrayed as a pirate he's a soldier it felt bizarre to jump out of an intense story mission and get down to business looking for cave paintings in a remote North Atlantic island of course you have to account for the lengths of each game Rogue is surprisingly short even for a game I knew would be short black flag was the exact opposite so inevitably the proportion of site content completed before you've beaten the story will be much lower here but even considering this the point remains Black Flag's body was built for its sole rogue's wasn't and among many other things this manifests in a half intense experiences the story plays out and a half slow relaxing one as you meander through the site content to the detriment of the pace of both I feel like I got to review two different games here because that is how the experience can end up if you quit rogue shortly after the story ended did you know you could have prisoner of war ship battles and naval clashes randomly in the open world do you know what you missed first let's understand how naval compacts changed I found private airing a damn sight more engaging than piracy for almost as many mechanical reasons as improvements to the open world best place to start the explosive shot it's kinda like the chain shot actually it's almost exactly like the chain shot but what is unique is its ability to shatter icebergs we've since discovered that it was actually mermaids who sunk the Titanic so no opportunity for revenge but I also hate polar bears and enemy ships which is convenient because breaking about sends out ripple waves that damage nearby schooners and gunboats guys I have something to tell you Shay gets rammed so hard in fact that he fell over sounds like be intro to a futanari video but it's actually the intro to getting boarded for the first time enemy ships can truly bring the fight to you variation an added sense of danger even a little immersion there is no downside here I love the mix up every single time this happened finally rogue replaces black flag swivel guns with the puck or gun it's a full auto free aiming cannon that can sync smaller ship single-handed an upgrade in more ways than one it's a lot more engaging to actually aim at a ship's weak spots than to simply hold and release all these new toys and for no shortage of battles to use them in you've still got your convoys but I'd say my personal highlight of all rogues additions were the prisoner of war battles there are three ships in a fleet two escorts in one prison ship your goal is to sink the escorts with as little damage as possible del to the prisoners the less damage the greater the reward given the spread of the broadsides and the proximity of the escort battle to the prison ship this creates vastly more interesting choices to make than standard gameplay it brings the best out of the naval combat but that's only a start once the escorts are sunk you board the prison ship kill the resistance and free the captives a smartly designed multistage fleet battle backed up by the immersive to save the prisoners it's absolutely fantastic naval clash is similar but a bit more bare-bones it's all-out naval war between the strongest of the British and the French your objective is simply to support the British with the health bars providing a sort of moral compulsion to do so you're rewarded with a very satisfying cutscene at the end and any survivors will join your crew expectedly the endgame of rogue is very much like Black Flag's their sets of legendary armor to chase and legendary ships to defeat but rogue does far far more than a selection of beastly man-of-war it's legendary encounters mirror true historical battles its warfare on an unprecedented scale for this series and it is utterly glorious though the music is far too quiet that glory is in part thanks to elite to alexandrova thoroughly badass David and Goliath you'll fight devastating fire ships that require the utmost concentration to mow down before they can impact waves upon waves of frigates and one final flagship to win the day it feels brilliant like you haven't just mastered this game but this era of Assassin's Creed it's a damn shame the armor doesn't hold up its end of the bargain the Native American set came with a moment of hilarity when it was introduced you had only just saved a tribe from assassin control when the elder immediately pulls you aside to show off the armor like that's an appropriate thing to do right after her entire tribe was nearly executed who is waste of time anyway first off its protected with bamboo I could have just hired a panda instead of exploring the ends of the earth for bits of a sacred key and secondly it's just not worth the trouble the armor looks a bit like you've just been drenched in PVA glue and thrown into a mound of feathers but the real problem is that the only benefit is reducing melee damage it's probably going to take a lot longer getting this than Black Flag's Templar armor and by then I doubt reducing melee damage will be much of a benefit especially in light of rogues relative ease it would be a boring bonus even in a game where it mattered a similar problem plagues the 11th century Templar armor it's locked in the shipwreck of the Sapphire which you just stumble on by exploring I love that but the special perk is reduced projectile damage now Gunners are the strongest units in the game but how is that worth collecting all 24 Templar maps and finding all 24 Templar treasures that's the longest quest for any in the series just to look like a guy who hunts weeaboos the last two sets include the James gun armor which is reserved for the collector's edition and makes Shay write highly inappropriate tweets and the other is the assassin killer set that comes with a permanent gas mask I'd say the assassin killer is the best looking set in the entire game arguably the most useful - must be a hell of a grind together then right yep 20 you play points now that's a hard bargain this pisses me off what motivation could I possibly have to chase any of the other sets when the most desirable of the lot is a literal button click away just don't unlock it is a band-aid solution more interestingly what motivation could you be soft possibly have get people clicking a few buttons on you play is that it if you're gonna do something like this Ubisoft at least rob us blind or something I gotta say it surprises me that Ubisoft characterized themselves as Abstergo in the Days of Future past maybe it shows a conflict between the suits and the developers very much like the one we see in rogues modern day offering not everyone who works for Abstergo understands the company's true nature it's only a handful of executives handpicked to join the Templar order Melanie miss yipper chip our overachiever and herself that promotion over time even taken oliviers position from the last game apparently they never found his body presumably Abstergo placed him into the assassins crosshairs and Aiden piss pulled the trigger Melanie seems shaken up over that there's a small sheen of compelling tension but rogues modern day has little else to offer unless you like being taken out of the game periodically to get harassed by this utter scoundrel and forced to play a series of stupid-ass iPad mini games you won't even understand what you're doing until the end of the game what so Berg wants to use Shay's story as anti assassin propaganda to show the world who they truly are but that is a very little consequence to the overall modern-day plot it would have been better to get me invested before the story ended was it wise for Ubisoft to just unabashedly compare themselves to the corporate Illuminati given everything they've done it takes balls I'll give them that and if you needed any more convincing I think I might have spoken too soon about Ubisoft robbing us blind because they kind of did I'd like to make a point of touching on the Assassin's Creed remasters but my point in this case is that there isn't anything to touch on what the [ __ ] it's the same game the only reason you can't buy the master on pc is because all they've done is taken the old pc settings and put them on console i don't think that justifies a thirty dollar port being advertised as a remaster what's really [ __ ] amazing about this though is that despite the fact that this last journal can ask games been ported over with what looks like no improvements at all it still runs at 30fps i mean i'm speechless how the [ __ ] is that even possible they've done this multiple times now even Dark Souls remastered figured out that FPS is meant to be a priority I'm glad that this version exists it means more people can play rogue but its execution is unforgivable and depressingly not hard to believe you see the reason black flag structure is it's such a disconnect from rogues premise is because Assassin's Creed rogue was made to cash in on the success of its predecessor change my mind did that make a good game yes am i immensely disappointed it didn't live up to its premise absolutely but it's like I said it's important to express my disappointment with rogue I expected more but it is still a fundamentally good game with its own unique charm charms what makes you fall in love with a game rogues might to some people grant them more joy than they ever got from black fly or any other Assassin's Creed I'm saying I think I understand why people love this game I'm saying by my measure it's good but it could have been better and a lot of that wouldn't have been hard thank you for watching and speaking of watching there's a lot of that to do during these trying times I might be able to help you there my buddy Ren's reviews recently took off thanks to a series of absolutely fantastic videos including a hilarious analysis of Patrice désilets newest game ancestors yes our main man Patrice is back this is amazing viewing another critique of Patrice's work comes from infamous sir Hellfire the most under subscribed review channel in the known universe he is endlessly passionate about Assassin's Creed which recently manifested in a two-hour critique of the first games in the series if you need another AC fix check him out for more general critique videos on some underrated gems by an underrated gem I'd like to once again shout out squid the CID he's now got a couple videos on Linux gaming and a very interesting essay on why games aren't open source unique as it is insightful now finally if you're interested in fear or FPS games in general my last video was about a new indie title trapping - which I believe out does fear and crisis both in terms of gameplay yeah that's a strong statement if you'd like to hear me back it up please do go on back and check it out thanks again I hope to see you next time massive thanks go out to I know lucky Fabian flack Blake Noland Foss for Dylan Shaffer Murphy Roman three two three seven four six five mama Maudie mr. t with some Teager neol Kang ballistic rainbow sim John lammle Bishop Nelson Benjamin Carter Dominic Jaworski Lex Williams L Hudson Lucas de azevedo Thomas hey I'm Tim Joshua W Shriner Rob mercy sy Trixie lulamoon captain excellent shade chance Tucker Rock ZZ combat wombat juris purines holy shift Noah be subtly Leone cotton doll and Abby [Music] you

Channel: Whitelight

Views: 1,288,337

Rating: 4.9317765 out of 5

Keywords: assassin's creed, assassin's creed rogue, shay patrick cormac, ac rogue, ac rogue gameplay, assassins creed rogue, templar, haytham kenway, assassins creed rogue review, ac rogue review, assassins creed review, assassins creed rogue critique, whitelight, white light assassin's creed rogue, rogue review, assassins creed rogue 6 years later, colonel monro

Id: r-sVx-4zsRY

Length: 42min 18sec (2538 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/iV1rus0]

The best thing about AC:Rogue is its concept. The idea of playing as an assassin who has gone rogue and joined the templars is refreshing.

Like Whitelight said, this game has its positives but overall it's a bit of a disappointment because it had potential. But I'm also not mad about that, because Ubisoft literally released this game the same day as AC:Unity, they clearly meant for this game to be a quick cash grab by being very similar to Black Flag, being a last gen exclusive early on, and having a studio with barely any experience working on big projects developing it. So I'm happy with what the devs had achieved and I wish this concept would be revisited in a future AC title.

[u/datlinus]

Rogue is pretty good but honestly it's not nearly as good as the story it adapts should have been.

The philosophical differences between templars and assassins was not meaningfully explored in any of the AC games in a long fucking time. AC1 and perhaps AC3 are really the only ones that did it justice. Almost every other installment portrayed templars as completely irredeemable villains, in some games even to an almost cartoony level (cough Syndicate cough).

So Rogue on paper sounds amazing... but in practice? Eh. I still enjoyed the game overall (it's a pretty good conclusion to the Kenway saga, and the gameplay was close to a full copy of Black Flag so it was pretty damn fun) but it does feel like a huge missed opportunity.

Shay's turn is just not done well. It's incredibly rushed and lacks a philosophical angle. He only switches sides because he gets far too emotionally worked up. He believes the assassins were aware of the PoE's power, but he doesn't even have the emotional stability to have a proper conversation with Achilles. He then immediately joins the templars because they treated him well - and lets go of all his beliefes, philosophies in literally a couple of days. He's spent years hunting, killing templars since he believed in the assassins' cause... and now he's suddenly ok with everything the templars say and do?

What's worse is how... "gamified" the side switch is. Immediately after you became a templar, you just start hunting down your friends. No hesitation, no nothing. Just off you go killing them.

Rogue ultimately just felt like a side game with a very interesting premise. It had its moments but it was still just a side game. Much shorter, lower budget and you can really tell. But I think the premise itself deserves another try as a main entry to the series.

[u/DARDAN0S]

It was always weird to me that this game didn't feature Haythem as the protagonist. He was a dude who was the son of an Assassin, and then became a Templar. It would have been cool playing as three generations of the Kenway family. Although I always thought Haythem should have pulled a Darth Vader and died saving Conner too.

[u/Lfoboros]

I like how the devs incorporated Lisbon's 1755 earthquake into the game. As a Portuguese I appreciate any gaming reference to my country, even if this particular one was such a tragedy.

[u/[deleted]]

Having played for a short while, can anyone tell me what Shay's accent is supposed to be? It was like what an American who's never heard an Irish accent before thinks what it sounds like, it's baffling

[u/qui-bong-trim]

It was like something you felt was gonna be really good but then when you were really playing it you were like huh this is actually not quite as rich as some of the other games

[u/not_my_real_name_lol]

Rogue's story really disappointed me (spoilers)

In a game that was meant to highlight the thin line between "good" and "evil", the end result was just highlighting the silliness of their philosophies

For one thing, the Assassins in this game were just comicaly thoughtless - they kept trying to activate precursor technology despite it already causing the deaths of thousands. They didn't show the dark side of the Assassins, they just made the Assassins more evil than they had been shown in any other game.

This is compounded by the fact the Templars you meet make no mention of controlling the populace like they do in the other games. Somehow you learn less about their plans and motives when you're actually one of them than you do from the other side.

Having the player kill Adawele, a fairly well liked character, also is an odd choice - it really kills any sympathy for Shay, because he has just killed someone we have been shown in 2 previous games to be a decent guy (pirating aside - although he wanted out of that life fairly soon after you met him in 4).

I think the biggest way in which the attempt at grey morality fails however, is that whilst you are meant to be seeing the "good" side of the Templars in the 18th century, you're shown the complete evil side of the Templars in the modern day. Any slight thought of "maybe they aren't so bad" is thrown out of the window when the modern day Templars are saying they might kill the player once they've fulfilled their use, and all the other evil stuff you hear about in tapes.

[u/GameisArt]

The last real AC.. just sad..the story of Origins was good too, but the gameplay and the RPG thing ruin the AC feels and it looks AC Unity and syndicate look waaay better.

[u/[deleted]]

I miss the old style of AC games. I've finally gotten around to playing Origins for the first time and its massive map that has horrible movement options with copy and paste quests is beyond boring. Does anyone know if they fixed the slow navigation in Odyssey or is it just more of the same but in an unnecessarily larger map?