Beat 74%. I focused on ths main story while getting a few side objectives on the way to the next story mission. I ignored the optional objectives and did not enjoy how they tried to force a certain playstyle. The game had pretty much the exact same gameplay as Black Flag and Rogue, though it was a little different playing on PC instead of xbox. The parkour controls were mostly excellent and I once again enjoyed the freedom to climb almost anything. However there was a lot of copy paste assets that brought down the experience. There was no need to climb the same church and tree with synchronization spots more than once each. Each climbing challenge should have been unique. The combat was fun but far too easy because the enemies almost exclusively attack one at a time. Blocking and countering was the optimal strategy. It got a little more difficult when the block now symbols over the enemies failed to show. This game (and later ones) could have used difficulty options to make combat more challenging, like completely turning off those symbols. Only the basic grunts could be attacked aggressively. The fast guys could only be countered, the rugged soldiers and big axe guys had to break their defense before attacking them, and the elite swashbucklers had to be both countered and defense broken; I often shot them with a gun. I had some massive fights against upwards of 20 enemies at once. The only time I died was against several big axe guys just because they were the only enemy that could not always be parried, so against the group of them I took too many hits over time. The only real challenge was during the brawling sidequest with that guy that had to be countered into a table, and the ones that needed to be double parried. The combat was so easy that I felt little need to bother with stealth and many of the tools; just rush in and butcher everyone. I did at least try to thin the enemies out a bit with hidden blade assassinations. Poison dart was good for silent ranged kills, and gun was good for insta kills. I did not get the rope dart to work properly, and only occasionally used the bow on humans. Smoke bombs were great against large groups for easy kills, though you would think it would be meant for escaping. I used the starting sword and tomahawk until late game when I bought the light calvary saber, since it had the best stats. I used pitcarn's pistol because it had the best range and was free. I often used the gun to end chases, so range was more important than having more shots before reload. Sometimes I picked up a musket or 2 handed axe to use; the axe was the best melee weapon. I killed every animal I could that crossed my path, though did not bother with the proper hunting system. Just ran around and stabbed anything the got close. Bow was good for killing small game, and gun was good for wolves and cats. I did manage to kill a couple bears and elk with ranged shots, but they mostly charged me for that stupid quick time event. It was not difficult at all (except for 1 captain kidd mission where I somehow failed the second button press every time and died), though QTEs have no place in games. It should have used the same combat system as people.
I did not like the story and characters as much as the the other AC games (at least the ones I have played). Haytham was alright and it was interesting to see the templars portrayed as something other than the big bad evil. Connor though was not particularly likable. I think a large part of that was his dialogue and voice acting, because he had minimal expression of emotion and spoke in a very formal stiff manner. He reminded of me Data from Star Trek. The story was somewhat hard to follow and felt too disjointed. There were a few high intensity epic points, but most of it was rather boring. I especially hated the fail on detection stealth missions. The one off mechanic missions were also dumb. The one where I had to ride back and forth telling soldiers to fire was especially absurd and not at all what an assassin should be doing. The one shooting the cannon was not bad but again he is supposed to be an assassin not artillery soldier. I struggled on the final mission while chasing the villain into the burning ship because I kept missing this one spot. I had to look up a video guide to figure out where to go. The ending was very anti climactic and I felt there should have been more plot between father and son. I actually found the modern era story to be far more interesting.
After I beat the story I went around finishing up most side activities. Got all the chests, pages (though I am not sure that was worth doing), forts, hunting and liberation missions. It was fun going around the open world and doing stuff to the point of being better than the story, though the liberation missions felt superficial. I mean there could have been a whole game about liberating a single city, but here it was just repeat a few minor tasks. The assassin guild features with the variety of special hirelings were cool but entirely unnecessary with the easy combat. I skipped the feathers because the reward was not good enough, and saw no point to unlock the tunnel fast travel locations. I did all the homestead missions. They dragged on and on, and felt like the opposite of what an assassin should be doing. The dumb tug of war mini game for breaking up a fight was by far the least fun point of the game. I did all the captain Kidd adventures and switched to that outfit; those were among the most interesting locations in the game, and those timed platforming sections were the most tense aspect of the game. I did not like the crafting and trading. Again it was the opposite of what an assassin should be doing. Why am I wasting my time on chores and economy simulation when I could be getting paid to kill people? I did make what I could from what I found and sold it in land convoy. Thankfully I had enough money from chests and looting people to almost fully upgrade the ship, so I did not have to fool around with crafting much. I got the hull upgrades early on to help with story missions while the rest I got at end game. I needed a little trading to afford grapeshot and never bought the naval ram. I absolutely loved the naval missions. They may even have been better than in Black Flag and Rogue due to the different types of cannon shot adding another layer of strategy. Though the game lacked the open world endless potential naval combat. I did find them too easy with the fully upgraded ship though, largely because of the insane effectiveness of the upgraded swivel guns and the heat and grape shots. I was not able to play any DLC because the game will not connect to the ubisoft server. Ridiculous. Support is useless so I doubt I will be able to play without downloading a crack, or if a lawsuit forces them to fix the issue. I was able to access the server and play the multiplayer tutorial on my free xbox 360 version, but I have no DLC for that.
I have started playing AC Brotherhood, and 3 is definitely a big downgrade from that and the later games. Will have to see how Revelations fits into the scheme of things. 3 is too bland with too much copy paste open world stuff, combat so easy that it makes stealth pointless, lame stealth missions, and far too many side activities that do not feel right for an assassin. The sailing and naval combat is solid gold though, and I would love a full game based on that. Thus the game is mixed for me.
7.3/10
