Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Review

What gives a hero their strength?

Is it their power?  Is it their ability to defeat evil, or is a hero just one of us, someone who had a good foundation of support and managed to make it to the end alive?

In Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Edward Kenway takes the player on a journey that has as many emotional ups and downs as a ship being caught in a squall.

The game is leaps and bounds an improvement over Assassin’s Creed 3.  Ubisoft has taken some of the biggest problems and criticisms of the game and improved the game play.  The crafting system from AC3 has been revamped and a lot of the complicated gathering has been simplified.  If you want to create a health or weapon upgrade, just gather two of the same material, that’s it.  Upgrading the boat is a small task of pirating enough to steal supplies from other ships.  Similar improvements have been made across the game.

The complex underground fast travel system is gone.  To zip to different parts of the map now requires finding all the view points.  This makes travel across the map accessible and not an inconvenience.  Do you need to travel from Kingston to Havana?  No problem, a few clicks on the map and you’re in Havana with little to no effort.

Need to travel from one side of the Caribbean? No problem, these handy view points are safe and efficient.

The combat system is still the same as in any Assassin’s Creed game.  It’s fluid and fun to play.  The only difference is how many environmental effects you can play with.  You can find anything from lifts to vault onto a roof or crow’s nest, or a dangling hook to drop down and assassinate your targets.  The free run system plays better into combat now than it ever has before.  Make no mistakes about it, you will be forced to run from some fights, and they give you a wide range of choices on how to do so.

One of the biggest complaints from AC3 was the stealth missions.  Black Flag has learned from and improved that.  That are more places to hide.  The guards won’t be push overs, but they won’t have laser eyed night vision either.  You feel like you can actually pull of the stealth aspect.  If you think stealth isn’t your thing, you can also waltz into your target area and start swinging.

*Minor Spoilers Warning*

There is one reason to buy the game, it doesn’t matter for current gen or next gen.  The game is worth purchasing for the story alone.  The journey of Edward Kenway is almost Shakespearean.  You will walk through history, with some of the most notorious pirates in time and befriend them all.  You are Edward though his best and Edward through his worst.  He is a loveable asshole at the start of the game, someone seeking fame and fortune.  By the end of the saga, you are someone who has seen most of his friends killed, and realize that there is something more valuable than doubloons.  If you needed an example for how the monomyth plays out, Edward Kenway is the perfect candidate.

This is what makes Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag the game you have to play.  Take away the game play, take away the stunning sound track and take away the next gen graphics; at its heart AC4 is just a damn good story.  The writers know this and know exactly which heart strings to pluck at to make you fall in love with the loveable Welsh asshole.