[b]TL;DR:[/b] it's a barely play-worthy game in my book, but only if you can tolerate its issues listed below, and only if you're invested in the plot. The most frustrating thing about the game is that it clearly wants you to do one specific thing, but the controls are so heavily automated, that it feels sometimes that the game plays itself and loses. And it's so weird, because when it works, it's so polished and cool, but when it doesn't, the clunkiness is worse than in AC1. Recommended only for the fans.
[h3]Good parts:[/h3]
- Graphics was an improvement, even with remastered edition.
- Combat animations: my favorite kill animations so far in the series.
- New tools and combat mechanics.
- Naval combat. This is the first iteration of naval combat in AC games, and I was shocked to find that whatever they have in Origins and Odyssey pales in comparison to this. BTW be careful with reefs you can actually get beached there.
- Best character writing yet, and really solid voice acting.
- Actual facial animations in cutscenes, not autogenerated ones as in some later titles! Teknologia!
- New parkour mechanics, works really well... when it works
- Animals!
[h3]Most severe issues:[/h3]
- The worst intro I've seen in the series yet: it's 5(!) sequences long.
- Aggro is insane. Stealth is mostly not viable. They swarm you and spawn behind your back, and aren't even shown on the minimap. And it's borderline impossible to run away if you have max notoriety level.
- Automated imprecise movement. I feel like I don't control the movement at all, especially during chase scenes, very frustrating.
- In some areas enemies respawn immediately after you cross a perimeter, which is like 20ft away, and you can accidentally keep respawning them.
- Naval quests do not reward you with anything substantial except for Peg Leg quests. Also they are so detached from the rest of the game, it stops feeling like a narrative driven game and more like an MMO.
- Some side quests have incorrect timing and are available before they should be, and they don't make sense plot-wise until later.
[h3]Minor complaints:[/h3]
- Crafting and trading items are largely useless. There are too many items that are too cheap to trade, and that have no real value for crafting, that content should've been cut and simplified.
- You can't see quest markers on the map until you get into the area.
- Character upgrades aren't available until much later in the game, and it feels like you're doing it wrong, but no, that's by design.
- Optional objectives to achieve full synchronization are atrocious and sometimes straight up impossible.
- Softlocking quest bugs requiring a checkpoint reload: I've had one where a required implicit condition was to kill a target with an assassin recruit's specific ability.
- Some minor NPC animations are cursed: I saw a barmen with arm joints at the wrong places.
- Objects and NPCs sometimes get stuck in textures on their own. I had a target stuck in the wall, and a lantern you get in underground stuck in the floor without an opportunity to rescue. That might make you undo a bit of your progress.
- Freaking tree synchronization points. It took me a few tries to find out how to dive from there without dying, and even then, my method is not 100% reliable. At least you don't lose progress because of this.
- Blocking firing line doesn't work after tutorial.
- Westpoint missions are pointless and could be safely cut out.
- The game apparently has regional contracts for assassin recruits. Guess when I found that out? That's right, after completing the entire game. It doesn't teach you properly and doesn't nudge you to do these. And the UI is made in such a way that it's impossible to open those contracts unless you know they exist and where to look.
[h3]Linux experience:[/h3]
- Miserable, because of Ubisoft launcher: it doesn't always launch. My solution is to start the game, wait for 12 seconds, if you don't see the loading screen, force stop, clear the cache with the script below, and retry the same way:
rm -rf "/home/USERNAME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/911400/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Ubisoft Game Launcher/cache" "/home/USERNAME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/911400/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Ubisoft Game Launcher/spool" "/home/USERNAME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/911400/pfx.lock"
I don't know what how to fix it reliably, no launch parameters helped.
- Sometimes the textures get all messed up and it takes a reload of the location to fix.
- That being said, once it manages to launch, it runs without crashes happily.
