4/5 ★ – kubachowicki_'s review of Assassin's Creed III Remastered.

Assassin's Creed III is so much better than what I originally gave it credit for, at least for the most part. I've always liked it, but I never loved it, and I always considered it one of my least favourite Assassin's Creed games. This replay changed quite a lot. A rich story of both family and revenge. A family quarrel wrapped up in the traditional Assassin vs. Templar story. With this, it gives us the luxury of two playable characters, Father Grand Master Templar Haytham and Son Assassin Connor Kenway. A tale of opposing sides, both in fiction and in real life history, and this is where the game gets a lot of credit from me. I love how it blends real history with fiction to create the basis of every game in the series, historical fiction. We see opposing sides not only with assassins and templars but also with the British and the Americans in Colonial America and the American Revolution. The game puts a really big focus on its history, and how that real history influences fictional events. After four games of playing as the two most iconic protagonists of the series, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad and the face of the series Ezio Auditore da Firenze, we get introduced to a new protagonist, Connor Kenway, or Ratonhnhaké:ton. Whilst Connor isn't anywhere near as great of a character as the former two, he still has his fair share of fascination. Of Native American heritage and background, the game manages to dive into some Native American culture whilst also using that to build up this fictional character. We see a boy who is sent to find his way as a direct result of colonialism and oppression rooted in greed as a direct result of capitalism and a superiority complex, something that Native Americans have been enduring for many lifetimes in real life. The locations are very refreshing and different from each other. They symbolise the difference in culture that this game offers. The wild and nature scape of the American Frontier reflects some of American history's biggest moments, namely the Battles of Lexington and Concord, but it also is where our protagonist grew up, making him a master of manoeuvrability around nature. The background of Connor in the Frontier thus reflects the Native American cultural standpoint of this game. Contrastingly, both Boston and New York offer the complete opposite, the former on a smaller scale and the latter on a larger scale. Those two cities see the perspective of non-Native Americans and their idea of civilisation. We also see how it differs for Connor and his way of life and his assimilation. On top of that, we also see a taste of the quiet and secluded life surrounded by nature with the Davenport Homestead, and also even more historical context while out on the open sea aboard the Aquila, reflecting a time in history when ships traversed the seas and oceans being reliant on the wind and weather conditions. The combat is one of the best in the series, maybe even the best, along with Assassin's Creed Unity. Parkour is more average than anything, unfortunately. Whilst the tree parkour feels incredibly smooth, the parkour in the cities feels quite clunky and sometimes unresponsive (over-responsive at other times, too). On top of that, whilst the tree parkour is the best type of parkour in the game, the game just does not give enough situations where it can be used in missions effectively, making it more of a free-roaming or collectable feature. The voice acting is top-tier, and the graphics are solid. The side content is a mixed bag, unfortunately. The Homestead missions are very unique, and make the Assassin's Creed III experience feel more complete from a narrative standpoint. The idea of forming your own tight-knit community is brilliant. However, I can't exactly say that the missions are overly fun to play. A few of them are, but most of them feel like you're just being asked to do some chores, and the only game I can say I've enjoyed doing chores in was Red Dead Redemption II. As for the collectables, standard, I guess. The Almanack rewards did feel quite cool, though, despite the Almanack pages being so frustrating at times due to the above parkour reasons. The naval content is also a mixed bag. The naval missions and privateer contracts felt quite repetitive, and once again, some of the optional objectives were a nightmare. The naval locations, however, I really, really enjoyed. Some felt like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, whilst others felt unique in their own way. The Aquila is a solid ship. A bit lacklustre in terms of manoeuvrability, but it's a real powerhouse and sets up the open waters very nicely for the Jackdaw in Black Flag and the Morrigan in Assassin's Creed Rogue. Some of the other side missions were basically the same as in previous games, such as assassination contracts, courier missions, delivery requests, forts, liberating zones, and levelling up your assassin recruits, so not too much to say there. The crafting system of this game is very, very tedious. It's overly long, it's time-consuming, it's ineffective, it's inconvenient, and most of all, it's frustrating. As for the remaster itself, it does what a remaster is supposed to do. It improves on the graphics of the original (which were not even bad in the first place), the gameplay feels smoother and less choppy at times, and it all feels more ironed out, despite its occasional annoyances. It can be a bit buggy at times, unfortunately, but that's about the only complaint I have about the remaster. Now that I've said the good, and quite a bit of it that I wouldn't have said on my first play-through, partly because I was younger and overlooked a lot of it, but also simply because I did not enjoy the game as much as I do now, we can look at what I did not like about the game. Firstly, the stealth is not particularly great, and the detection system is flawed. The responsiveness of the guards and enemies is unbelievably inconsistent. Sometimes, they detect you from who knows where, and sometimes they don't detect you at all in a similar situation. For a game with so much mission time spent outdoors, and with a protagonist who was born, grew up and was raised in an outdoor environment, there are nowhere near enough stealth spots outdoors, such as tall bushes or haystacks. Hiding in and traversing trees, which is meant to be Connor's forte, is also very inconsistent when it comes to stealth. Sometimes guards have a sixth sense and spot you instantly, sometimes they are blind fools and don't bat an eyelid to your presence. There is not really much in between. Secondly, the optional objectives in this game are possibly the epitome of why certain gamers hate fully completing games in the form of 100% and the platinum trophy. As a gamer who tries to 100% and platinum most games I play, this game was a farce when it came to the optional objectives. To me, and I'm sure that to a bunch of other gamers, too, optional objectives are supposed to add a new variation of playing the game. Doing things you usually wouldn't, making you try out a different play style for certain missions, making you use certain weapons and/or equipment, and other things that allow you to experience the game differently, and also to try to make things a bit more challenging, which is even more imperative in Assassin's Creed III, as ignoring the optional objectives makes the game beyond easy. The problem here, however, is that a lot of the optional objectives, particularly in the third quarter of the game, are excruciating. The only purpose they serve is to test your patience, which grows thinner and thinner with every objective. I'm not sure whether to call it poor-level design or straight-up lunacy on the developer side, but some of the objectives do not do any of the things mentioned above, they're just there to be there and to be a hindrance rather than a challenge. Specifically, whoever gave the final green light to sequence 7 can seriously go do one. Single-handedly, the worst sequence in the game, and that is purely because of the optional objectives. Story-wise, no problem, but factoring in everything above, my goodness. That in turn makes both the 100% synchronisation and the platinum trophy feel like an absolute chore, but one that is worth it in the end, or at least to me it is as a completionist and a long-time Assassin's Creed fan. Overall, I see Assassin's Creed III as a great game that unfortunately has quite a few flaws that knock it down a notch. It's a weird one, because in terms of story, characters, combat, locations, and real-life history, I absolutely love it, but in terms of a reasonably large chunk of side content and a completionist perspective, it feels quite bloated and unnecessary. I would say that it has risen from being one of my least favourite games in the series to somewhere in the middle of my ranking, and the rating is definitely boosted up.