Status Chovus Sep 16, 2022
Beat 82% during free trial of Ubisoft +. Again this was a game that I had misgivings about playing, so it was great to play it for free. I focused on the main story while getting side stuff along the way. The combat was the same overly easy fare found in the other middle games, which could see me devastate …
Beat 82% during free trial of Ubisoft +. Again this was a game that I had misgivings about playing, so it was great to play it for free. I focused on the main story while getting side stuff along the way. The combat was the same overly easy fare found in the other middle games, which could see me devastate 20+ enemies at once. I did die a couple times from inconsistent camera and parry icons, and a couple of the bosses that required very specific button presses. The combat was so easy that I only used the chain kill feature a couple times, and cheaped out on upgrading my gear. I did buy most ammo pouches, but used the free starting sword, pistol and Connor's tomahawk for most of the game. Near the end I bought the heavy cavalry saber and hook axe, but never bothered upgrading my gun. Reading a guide after I found out the pocket pistol could be used by the slave and lady, so I should have bought it. I enjoyed the disguise feature, and it was great to see an assassin dress properly for the role instead of wearing those flashy iconic robes; the exact kind of thing a real assassin would not want to wear. The system was a little simple and sometimes what disguise to use was mandatory. I found the slave to be overall the most useful due to its balance of combat, stealth and parkour. Picking up a crate and walking past guards into a restricted area made getting around easy, while she could still climb and jump to get into favourable positions and collectables. The lady was the least useful because of her inability to climb and jump. It made it much more difficult to get around, though she made the best assassin from either charming the target to lure him to a secluded spot or openly using the poison dart parasol. I did not use the bribe feature outside the mission that introduced it, though I did enjoy charming a minion to take with me into combat. I could even blend with my minion to get into some restricted areas; oh that is just a lady and her paramour out on a tryst, nothing to worry about. I did try to get a target to attack me first so that my gentleman would kill him for me, though it was not easy; I had to throw a punch and get into a fight anyway. I wonder if repeatedly pickpocketing from the front would have worked. The assassin persona looked the coolest, had the biggest health bar and the best weapons, but it was the most expensive to operate. She gained notoriety so easily and I almost always ended up littering the street with corpses. Had to drop several grand on bribes, while the lady and slave could reduce notoriety for free.
After I finished the story I went around completing the side content that I missed. I did all side missions for the smugglers and each persona, found all diary pages and fever victims, and most of the other collectables. I am not a fan of collectathon though at least many of the collectables here were not annoying; I don't mind exploring the world to see interesting sights and picking up stuff along the way. It gets annoying when there is nothing interesting to experience and feels like a bland chore. The gator eggs were an example of a bad collectable because every nest was the same with no environmental story telling, and using damn QTEs to defeat the gators was just a chore. I tried to shoot them for easy kills but she would not. I overall found the bayou to be an unpleasant pain in the ass because of how slow it was to get around. I gave up on using the canoes because they seemed no faster than swimming, and were very janky to get in and out of. I ran into a number of janky bugs, and once had to quit the game because I was stuck in the swimming animation while on land. The lack of fast travel made it even more annoying. The game claimed to have fast travel, but those were just map transitions. I did not see much point in buying businesses because they did not give passive income, only discounts. I suppose buying them all before buying the best gear would save some money, but the trading minigame was an extremely easy source of money. The trading was simple enough to not be annoying, so I used it whenever I was at the HQ. Unfortunately, accessing it from a shop hid the mouse cursor and made it a huge pain to operate, so I did not use the feature as much as I could have. By the end I bought a few east indiamens for their highest cargo capacity to ship cotton to Europe, then guns to south America, then I think sugar back to Europe. I went for the long high profit trips. The very last thing I did was the different perspective mission to play as Connor. I had to look up online how to access it, and it was not worth playing. Just a repeat of the standard mission with a bit more generic combat and no boss fight + platforming challenge.
I enjoyed this game more than 3, though it was an objectively lower quality game. And had no naval missions. The story and characters were a little more interesting, though the main reason was better mission design and the disguise mechanics. Many missions failed on detection, but properly using the disguises made it a fun restriction rather than annoyance. There were only 2 missions that I disliked because I failed many times; the race where the timing was unforgiving, and a slave mission in the bayou to take out 4 guys holding a hostage. I tried many times to double hidden blade the 2 guys holding the witness at gun point, but it would not work. I think the hitbox to kill both was ridiculously precise for some reason. I ended up poisoning them with the blow dart, but even that did not properly work. They didnt die, instead just stood there. When I killed them in melee I got mission failure for being detected, but then it suddenly changed to victory. I mostly ignored optional objectives as usual. I am done with the game but if I owned it I could see using the trading to make enough money to buy all pocket watches for the best gun. Shame the disguise mechanics did not return in later games.
7.0/10
