To start, I don’t understand why this game doesn’t run at 60 FPS since it's a remaster. I don’t remember it being particularly taxing on the PS3’s hardware and the graphical update isn’t amazing or anything. It even got a lot of public flack for the lighting problems it had versus the original. But that’s another point altogether.
It does a lot of things well. The combat animations are probably the most satisfying in recent memory. The outfits are pretty cool but Achilles’ outfit is by far the best. I think it’s probably my favorite outfit in the entire series. It’s too bad you can’t get it until the end of the Homestead missions, or the end of the game really (not sure exactly), but the good news is there’s so much side content to do that if you hold off on doing it until the end of the game, you get to use that outfit for a ton of the time you spend playing the game.
The optional objectives in this game, however, are absurdly hard, downright ridiculous at times, and appear to have been chosen somewhat arbitrarily. They hold the game back a lot and they unquestionably make this one of the hardest 100% journeys of all the AC games.
The naval warfare can be hard to enjoy at times when you’ve already experienced the refined mechanics of Black Flag and Rogue, but it’s still amazing to see how much they got right on the first try. But as far as optional objectives go, I spent more time trying to get them for a few naval missions than I did for any other part of the game by a very wide margin.
As with most AC games, I skipped the cutscenes because I don’t really care about the story. I remember only a few bits and pieces from my first playthrough back when I was in Korea and if the story were anything to boast about, I would have remembered a lot more.
The use of snow in the environment for the winter missions is something I wish was used more in other entries. Seasonal missions and gameplay are always interesting and automatically enhance the replay value of any game.
Connor is a badass. I don’t care what anyone else says.
Tailing missions are cancer and should never be in AC games unless the tail ends with an assassination, which I think is something that would justify the tail itself.
Horses. Jesus Christ, the horseback riding in this game is insufferably buggy. It holds back navigating the Frontier big time. This is a real bummer since the first episode of the Tyranny of King Washington DLC takes place there and there are no fast travel points and all enemies travel in large groups that treat you as notorious, therein forcing you to be on horseback for just about all of it.
The underground sections of Boston and NYC are interesting but ultimately fall a little flat. They have a couple of puzzles but the tunnels are bland in appearance and there’s just not a lot to make them engaging to explore beyond simply looking for the next fast travel point. I think this could have been circumvented by removing the minimap because it draws the eye when navigating and you don’t really need to use the clues and signs in the tunnels.
The weapon wheel is disruptive to combat and gameplay flow and it’s difficult to navigate. I’m not sure what could have been done to make it better, but it’s more of a hindrance than a help as it is.
The Peg Leg missions are one of the greatest things about this game. Each one is unique and offers a refined slice of adventure. There is an intense chase sequence through a series of shipwrecks, a stealthy infiltration of a massive seaside fortress, the exploration of a British serial killer’s home in Jamaica, a Mayan pyramid, a fabled ghost ship, and even a landing of Oak Island itself for a First Civilization artifact. Other than the first example, where inconsistent and unintuitive gameplay requirements hamper the mission constraints, they’re all superb. I’d welcome more of these in future games. It makes you appreciate how much time and resources went into these missions. A lot of them have what are probably very unique assets (climbable trees in Oak Island are an example - these don’t appear anywhere else in the game).
The Oak Island mission is a lot cooler than I remember it being. The island itself looks really nice and is actually one of the more interesting forested environments in the game. After solving the puzzles, Connor and Faulkner detonate gunpowder barrels, opening an underground passage. The hole down which Connor jumps is cleverly lined with broken log planks, a nod to the real ones found by the diggers there. All throughout the underground passage are manmade wooden walkways, rope ladders, and other such things until at last, Connor arrives at Captain Kidd’s treasure chamber. It smacks of AC4’s treasury room, with chests and golden objects glittering among the stalagmites and stalactites. I actually have no memory whatsoever of the underground part from my first playthrough back in 2013, and that’s surprising since it was the cooler part of the mission.
A game that is impressive in its scope and how much it achieves, but is disappointingly held back by serious gameplay inconsistency, arbitrary mission constraints, and bugs.
The last trophy I had to earn for the base game was “Original Gamer” which requires you to win a game of fanorana, mills, and bowls on the Homestead. It was ridiculously hard. The only way I got through fanorana was by copying someone else’s winning game on YouTube and praying the computer made the same moves as the computer in that game, which was luckily the case. But without that, I don’t think I’d ever have gotten this trophy. Mills was tricky too and I spent way too much time on this. Judging from what everyone else is saying on the forums, it’s held that the ACIII trophy list is excruciating and one of the more difficult ones. I guess I’ll be glad, all in all, to move on from this one, as this trophy has sadly left a bitter taste in my mouth. Minigames are cancer and shouldn’t be part of trophy lists at all.
The “spirit” sequences in Tyranny of King Washington are more of an annoyance than they are useful. Bland environments with ill-defined assets makes for a disorienting experience.
That's all I have to say.
