Shadow Fight 3 - A good fighting game brought down by its monetization

 Hello everyone. Today I want to talk about the iOS game Shadow Fight 3.

Unlike my review of Shadow Fight 2 which I reviewed the premium $20 Switch version which removed many of the freemium aspects of the iOS version, there is no premium version for Shadow Fight 3. So this playthrough was entirely the free iOS version with all of the annoyances that brings.

Let’s begin by talking about the core gameplay.

Like its predecessors, Shadow Fight 3 is a 2D fighting game. Historically, such genres have had a hard time working great on touchscreens due to the imprecision and lack of feedback with virtual sticks (this recently has become less of an issue as many if not most recent mobile games now supporting regular controllers). But the Shadow Fight games have controlled quite well on touchscreens.

 

The controls consist of a virtual stick at the bottom left of the touchscreen and 4 virtual buttons at the bottom right. You have a button for strikes, kicks, magic and ranged attacks. Combat consists of moving the stick in a direction and pressing a button. Unlike other fighting games that require multiple precise inputs (especially motion inputs) to output fast strings of attacks, the Shadow Fight games' combat consist of slower high commitment attacks that can't be cancelled. For example, right + kick has your character do a kick to the stomach. You can counter this by either blocking (releasing all controls) or attacking with a faster attack to hit them before the kick lands. Blocks can be countered by throwing an opponent by getting in close and pressing right/left + strike.

The result is a very intuitive and fun combat system. It's easy to pick up and get a sense of what individual moves do and how to use them. And the fun comes from reading your opponent's moves and responding accordingly in the heat of the moment and trying to combine all the different moves you have into combos. Additional variety comes from the equipment and gear characters have as different weapons have different moves. To quote a section from my old review of Shadow Fight 2 that still applies to SF3:

"SF2 was made initially for phones so its control scheme was designed to work for that (which is weird because SF1 was a simple Facebook game so it's weird how good the controls transfer over). You have 2 basic attack buttons, kick and weapon/hand, and a virtual stick. A direction + an attack button does a specific attack. For example, No direction + Kick does a simple roundhouse kick to the head. Up + kick does a jumping kick at the opponent's chest level. Down + kick is a sweep. Front + Kick is a push kick to the opponent's stomach. Back + Kick is a weaker but longer and faster kick to the stomach. Etc All these attacks can be somewhat comboed into each other. But the main thing is that each attack is quite deliberate and long and can't be cancelled. The main way to damage opponents is to attack them during an attack animation. Maybe they try to do a rather long attack with a sword and you try to avoid it so you can counter attack. You block automatically by not doing anything when you get attacked but you can throw blocking opponents by getting in close and pressing left or right + an attack. 

So a typical match consists of all these balancing acts where players have to watch their opponents moves, counter or respond correctly and hopefully gets some really good hits in. Someone taking damage also tends to fall over quickly and moves to attack a grounded opponent are quite feeble. There are some other aspects to fights. Hitting an opponent's head does bonus damage and may even "shock" the opponent where they drop their weapons and have to fight with their fists instead which can be quite devastating as weapons are the most powerful attacking tools. 

Speaking of which, there are different weapons combatants can use, each with their own pros, drawbacks, combos and intricacies. For example, double handed sword makes your weapon attacks very strong but very slow leaving you more open to counter attacks from faster attacks but also leave you without an intermediate attack as all you'd have are slow and strong attacks with your weapon, and fast and weak attacks with your kicks. Other weapons like knives give you great speed and combo potential but a very small range which can leave you vulnerable to throws. You can bring ranged weapons like shurikens or throwing knives in addition to your primary weapons. They work by doing a somewhat fast wind up animation and throwing a single item horizontally at the opponent which can't be blocked but can be rolled under which leaves the thrower vulnerable just before and after throwing. Most of the weapons do seem relatively balanced and I never found a pair that were just too amazing or too weak."

 

Shadow Fight 3 does make a few changes to how fights proceed compared to Shadow Fight 2.

 

The main change I noticed is the pace of fights. It's hard to explain but to use an analogy, fights in SF2 felt like they played out at 0.9x speed while SF3's fights feel like they play out at 1.2x speed. Back in SF2, when you hit or knock over an opponent, they appear to get i-frames as they fall and get up so it is much harder to punish an opponent repeatedly or get multiple hits in. This is best demonstrated when you hit an opponent in the air with a quick strike and try to follow up. They seem to fall straight down and phase through your attacks. Even trying to do a "down + kick" turns your regular sweep kick into a feeble stomp that's lucky to get an extra hit in. This results in fights having much more of a "back and forth" and feeling like " a traditional duel" with more pauses in the action as it's much harder to be on the aggressive and landing a multi-hit combo feels like quite the accomplishment. SF2 even has a "style" meter that fills as you land multiple hits in a row in quick succession as a way to gauge your aggressiveness and it's quite hard to fill that up.

 In contrast, SF3 has it where when you hit an enemy in the air, instead of phasing through you to fall straight down, there seems to be actual physics where they tumble somewhat realistically based on your character's model. There are also no i-frames or any alterations to your controls to stop you from attacking. Meaning you can absolutely attack stunned or falling enemies resulting in a far more aggressive experience. Getting a 5 hit combo in SF2 felt like a real achievement. Getting a 5 combo in SF3 can be the norm as you hit an enemy with 1-2 attacks to knock them over then do a double sweep to hit them twice while falling followed by a final kick or strike (depending on your weapon). The game does try to compensate by having defenders automatically roll away quickly when they get hit while following as a way to have them recover quickly but with no i-frames, this isn't guaranteed to always help.

A more useful addition is that when knocked down, you can kick your opponent's knee from a grounded state which can do some damage and more importantly, interrupt their attack giving you the advantage. However, this kick is rather limited in SF3 as it can only be done when your character is knocked face down. Resulting in it being more situational (but still helpful whenever you can use it). This is something the next game, Shadow Fight 4: Arena significantly improves upon. In that game, you can grounded kick no matter where you get knocked down to and even remain lying down for longer if you want. This makes the combat more interesting as you can intentionally remain grounded to allow a follow up attack to pass over you and counter with a grounded kick. Or if you are the attacker, you can intentionally bait out a grounded kick from a grounded opponent and respond with a counter of your own leading to some nice mind games.

 

On top of that, I remember back in SF2, throws were a bit inconsistent to trigger. I would find myself right next to an enemy, spamming right + strike only to have my character do a few elbow strikes and then snap to do a throw or the AI could throw me instead. I could never predict with 100% certainty if my next input would result in a throw. Whereas in SF3, I felt I could predict if my next successful input would result in a throw around 90% of the time and I could do it more often and easily.

 

SF3 also expands the RPG elements from SF2. Gear can now change your movesets. Back in SF2, every character had the same base kicks and movement options with only their strikes changing depending on their weapon. SF3 has it where different gear gives you different base moves. For example, most leg armour has your down + kick just be a kick to the shin. If you want the SF2 style sweep for your down + kick, you need to specifically wear leg armour that lists that as the move. Equipping a rope dart as your main weapon changes your regular jump into a long rolling jump and your right + kick into into a cartwheel kick which can do nice headshot damage.

This also expands to magic. Back in SF2, Magic was a singular equippable piece of gear you could use after dealing/taking a certain amount of damage to fire a one off powerful attack that cannot be blocked (but can be dodged) that would then need to recharge. SF3 makes it that 4 of your gear pieces (weapon, legs, helmet and chestpiece) now each come with a magic power. And when your magic meter fills up, instead of only using one of your magic powers and it being expended, you now enter a "Shadow State" for a short time where you can use all of your magic attacks back to back around 3-6 times depending on their animations and cooldowns. It's not uncommon for when someone enters a Shadow State for them to basically become unstoppable and deal crazy amounts of damage by alternating magic attacks. Even if you manage dodge or interrupt 1 or 2 of these attacks, it can be quite difficult to successfully stall out the entire duration without getting hit once by a magic attack. And depending on the difficulty and situation, it can easily swing the match in favour of the magic user. Also, a sidenote, since your weapon contains a magic power, getting disarmed means you also lose that magic power for the round

Personally, I feel it would be more balanced if you could either only use 1 of your 4 Magic Attack if your meter was filled rather than enter a state where you can use up to 6, or if there was a Shadow State, the Magic Attacks drained more of your meter proportional to their strength. So you could do something like the "Spikey back power" to get an opponent off you and then try and go for a medium power magic attack, or risk it all in a single powerful magic attack like the "impale multiple ranged swords" move or try to chain 3-4 small weaker attacks.

Ranged Combat has also been tweaked. You can no longer infinitely throw shurikins or knives. You can now only throw around 3 at a time and then have to wait for them to recharge. This makes it harder to turtle up or to cheese fights. On top of that, you now have different kinds of ranged options. You can also use bows and guns for longer range at the cost of longer animations. Or use caltrops and traps to restrict your opponent's movement. Definitely glad you can't infinitely spam ranged attacks as these are annoying enough to deal with.

There are now way more perks and modifiers you can add to your gear and weapons and upgrade using specific currencies. In addition to the usual stuff SF2 had like "extra damage to headshots, regain x% of health on hits" etc, 2 new notable ones are a "charged" state where the weapon glows orange for a short time. I'm not entirely sure what triggers this but in this state, your next attack cannot be blocked and it is a guaranteed critical hit. I've found it is often impossible to successfully stall out this state so the best approach is to keep attacking and try and keep the opponent stunned or in a position where they respond with a weak kick or elbow attack which spends the charged state and hope they don't follow up with too devastating attacks. The second is an "armoured/invulnerable" state on certain attacks. This is signified by a white flash and aura around a character as they attack. In this state, the character's attack cannot be interrupted. They will still take any damage they receive but won't stagger or be stunned. This makes it harder to properly defend yourself. Trying to interrupt them with a quick kick or jab won't work and you'll take extra damage. Trying to roll or jump away can be too slow. You can block but that can leave you open and you still take a small % of the damage.

But yeah, all this results in SF3's matches feeling like you're always on the offensive. You're always attacking and there's very few, if any, moments of downtime like in SF2. SF2 had moments where both fighters would sometimes get up and slowly inch towards each other like a climactic scene from a movie. It would be tense waiting for the other to respond and trying to come up with a plan. It also felt easier to play defensive if you wanted. Waiting for your opponent to strike first and either try interrupting or baiting out attacks. But in SF3, I feel that approach isn't viable. Between the improved throws, charged states, armoured attacks, more frequent and powerful magic attacks, I found that waiting for the opponent to attack you first was often too risky. It was better to always be attacking in some way and using the block more sparingly.

Is it fun? Yeah. It is. That said, I do prefer the slower pace of SF2 or the approach of SF4 over 3 due to the improved grounded combat but in any case, the core gameplay and combat of SF3 is really good and fun. I enjoyed that.

But now lets talk about something I'm less positive on: the campaign.

One of Shadow Fight 2's biggest selling points was the pretty lengthy singleplayer campaign that consisted of multiple chapters. Each chapter required you to defeat the main bosses to progress. To get strong enough to do so, you often had tournaments, survival, side and challenge fights to do that gave you money and XP to upgrade your character. Granted, this wasn't the best approach, especially on iOS. The free iOS version had an energy system that limited you to a handful of fights at a time which you could pay premium currency to skip. The payouts from fights was often pitiful and you had to grind the survival mode to make up the difference which got repetitive. You could only upgrade your fighter so much before the next boss so you were always walking into a disadvantage. But despite all that, at least you could play SF2 offline and it was somewhat clear you could progress your own way. Like, It felt possible that you could eventually progress once you grinded enough and the tools to do so were in front of you. That if there was no energy system (like in the Switch version), you could progress albeit slowly but still consistently.

That isn't the case in SF3's campaign. Each chapter/sub-chapter still requires you complete the main boss fights to progress. However, upgrading your fighter is far more dependent on RNG and fewer resources. Unlike SF2, there are far fewer side fights/quests per chapter. Often consisting of 1-2 events at a time. It's possible to end up in a state where either even the side quests are too high levelled for you or you exhaust them all and there isn't anything else you can do to bridge the gap between the next main story fight. There are simply far fewer renewable fights you can grind.

Like, there are duels which pit you against an AI version of another player's character around the same power level as you. Doing a certain amount of these gets you a lootbox with resources. But you can only get 1 of these per day. Doing addition duels doesn't reward you.

 

The main way I made progress was by relying on the Free Seasonal Events and Battle Passes (this game has multiple Battle Passes running concurrently). Some of these often provided valuable resources. My progress, however, depended on the generosity of these events. Some events were quite stingy with rewards so I couldn't progress much and stopped playing for a while. Others were extremely generous and gave me enough to keep going for several chapters.

It doesn't help that match types that were default parts of SF2 have now been removed and are now a part of specific Seasonal Events. Survival, one of the best ways to grind back in SF2, is now only doable if there is an event for it going on.

On top of that, upgrading and resources are far more convoluted and annoying. In SF2, there were only 2 currencies, gold coins and red gems. Gold Coins were the standard currency that were used to unlock, purchase and upgrade most gear and equipment. Red Gems were the premium currency used to skip wait times, purchase and upgrade stuff quicker and easier and even buy exclusive Red Gem only gear. It wasn't the most consumer friendly but at least it was straightforward.

SF3 makes that system look downright heavenly.

For starters you cannot straight up buy or upgrade a consistent set of gear and equipment with Gold Coins or even Red Gems. You unlock new pieces of gear by collecting them as cards from activities and lootboxes. Finding duplicates of a card powers up that card and gives you some "Shadow Energy". Shadow Energy allows you to upgrade cards directly. The in-game shop shows a small rotating selection of cards every day. Some you can buy with Gold Coins and Some only with Red Gems. You can also pay some Red Gems to refresh the shop early. But there's no guarantee you even get the stuff you want or if the prices of the new stuff remain the same. So it's entirely possible to waste your Gold Coins and Red Gems here especially if you're unlucky with Gear Cards. I found it was often better to purchase the Card for Extra Shadow Currency from the shop. However, you cannot purchase extra Shadow Energy Cards directly. Not even with Premium Currency. You must either refresh the Shop with Red Gems to get another chance to purchase the card with Gold Coins, or buy Card Packs using Real Money as opening Card Packs always gives you a small pittance of Shadow Energy.

 

There are also additional currencies. Red, Blue and Yellow Crystals are needed to upgrade the perks/enchantments/magic on certain gear pieces. However, these are extremely rare and often only obtained from specific Battle Passes rather than through regular gameplay or purchasable. So you can only upgrade a small bit of these perks. One consolation is that as you are upgrading the perks themselves separately and not the gear themselves, it is possible to transfer these perks/enchantments to other compatible pieces of gear for free. But you won't know which gear comes with which perks/enchantments or what it's compatible with until you already have it unlocked and in your inventory. So it is totally possible to waste valuable resources purchasing a new helmet or leg armour that looks good but has perks/enchantments/magic worse than what you had before or doesn't fit your playstyle. I had a situation where I spent 75% of my Gold Coins to purchase a Leg Piece that had better stats than my old one, only to find I was playing worse with it since it didn't have the double sweep move and the Spin Magic Attack. I went back to my older weaker armour as a result.

Upgrading Gear with Shadow Energy is frustrating. Different tiers of gear take different amounts of Shadow Energy to Upgrade. But there is something of a "soft cap" where, until you beat the next major story boss, your upgrades will slow down while the cost keeps going up. Leaving you in an unfortunate situation where you either keep paying the extortionate upgrade fees for minor stat increases and hope it takes you close enough to beat the next boss and wasting so much resources, or try and beat them with your underleveled gear to save your resources for the next chapter where this cycle repeats.

There are also keys. Every day, you have daily challenges and completing these earns you different coloured keys. Blue Keys are the least valuable and open Blue Chests which don't give the best rewards. Red Keys are more valuable and unlock more valuable Red Chests. Yellow Keys and their corresponding Yellow Chests are the most valuable. However, certain challenges will not complete or unlock or even go away if you haven't paid for the premium Battle Passes. They will just sit there, taunting you forever with their basic "kick 4 times" labels.

There are also "seasonal currencies" just as ribbons often used for entry into certain seasonal events and rewards for completing said events or for things in the Battle Passes. One positive is that when these seasons end, they are often converted into Gold Coins automatically.

I don't need to tell you this. But this system is a frustrating mess. Having so much of the progression dependent on RNG cards and the resources from those cards, with no way to even bypass it with premium currency is absurd and disgusting. While I haven't spent any money on the game, it feels like even if you did, it wouldn't be worth it. At least with Shadow Fight 2, the Red Gems instantly and noticeably benefited you. You could get that new exclusive gear or skip the grind and upgrade what you already had.

With Shadow Fight 3, there were times, especially towards the end of the campaign where I felt I literally had nothing to do. I had done all the side fights, duels and season events I could that day as a free to play player. I simply did not have the stats for the main boss fights. I either had to wait 24 hours for another refresh, or pay premium currency to refresh or pay Real Money to get card packs or Battle Pass stuff. While SF3 doesn't have an energy system like SF2, this feels much worse.

You can't even cheese wins partway through. In SF2, it was possible to win via time out if you had more health remaining than your opponent. In SF3, in major boss fights, you will lose regardless of how much health you have compared to your opponent if time runs out. I made a great build focused on using quick attacks to stun opponents to keep them from attacking me as I was so underlevelled that even blocking hits took a good portion of my health. I discovered an exploit with the AI that as soon as they fill up their magic meter, they will enter the Shadow Form immediately and try using their magic abilities. So if I could trap them in enough of a loop, I could get them to waste their attacks and interrupt them in the process. It was risky and I'd often lose quickly once the boss got an opening to use one of their random abilities or got a charged attack or managed to get off a single magic attack. It often took multiple attempts for late game fights but I could usually make it through by doing enough damage across a round to barely scrape by. But eventually I would start running into Bosses that I simply could not do enough damage to completely deplete their health by the end of the round leading to a loss for me even if I played perfectly and didn't let the boss get a single hit in.

I quit playing once I somehow passed all that and made to the Shadow Beast Boss fights where he is permanently in Shadow Form, has unlimited Magic and can only be damaged through you using Magic Attacks. You gain Magic Energy by taking damage. A single hit would give me a decent amount of Magic Energy but tear through my Health Bar. Even when I could get off Magic Attacks, they did a pitiful amount of damage.

While I haven't played the same amount of SF4 as I have SF2 or 3, what limited time I did have, even it felt better and it was a PVP game. The "main campaign"  there is just playing matches against other players one after the other. There are a few unlockable side modes against the AI with some story and custom rules, but the meat and potatoes is the basic PVP. And even though progression is still dependent on getting cards, it's significantly better because -1- it's just cards and Gold Coins. No Shadow Energy or anything like that -2- you only upgrade/unlock individual characters instead of gear or perks so progression is straightforward and -3- there's always something to do. While you may run into better players or players who have premium cards/characters, they aren't impossible to beat. You can even win via time out if you are good enough and -4- there are no hard or soft timers. You can play as much as you want.

The unfortunate thing is that Shadow Fight 3 does have the pieces to have a fun campaign. And in the early game and some of the Seasonal Events, it does do that as the fights are generally fair, upgrades are quick and easy to come by and swapping equipment isn't a hassle. If anything, it is really fun seeing all the new gear pieces and what they can do. Many of the Boss Fights and wacky challenge fights are really fun and unique in a singleplayer context. A boss that literally summons vines and turns the stage into an obstacle course where you jump over stage hazards or one that tries to balance on their sword to try jumping onto you are really cool spectacles and fun to fight.....provided you aren't crazy underlevelled.

I'll briefly mention the story. And to SF3's credit, it does make more of an effort to make a more fleshed out story compared to SF2. There is a "story so far" tab as well as bonus chapters where you play as the individual characters' backstories. All of which do reward you nicely. And later on, there's even fully animated cutscenes where you have to make a choice and stuff changes. The story even introduces factions and lore. There's time travel, magic, sci-fi, mind control, conspiracies, political intrigue, alternate dimensions etc. I imagine fans of the story and lore will probably enjoy it. I took a glance at the Wiki for SF3's story and it was quite massive.

 

The only problem is that it's told almost entirely through static text boxes in between major fights. I kinda stopped paying attention after a while and just fast forwarded through the text boxes as they often felt like filler. So when the fancy animated cutscene played and the major choice of the story happened, I was certainly caught off guard. I sadly won't give an extended breakdown and analysis of the story but I will say that if it was a full on and well produced anime or something, I'd probably watch it as the I do like the weird hodgepodge of ideas, themes and aesthetics the game has.

 

Finally, I want to talk about the presentation and graphics of the game. Unlike its predecessors, Shadow Fight 3 ditches the "silhouette" look in favour of traditional 3D graphics. So now you can see all the character models and stages in all their 3D glory. And they do look and are animated quite nice. The boomer in me wants to say SF2's silhouette look was still more striking and novel but I suppose the 3D look now allows characters, gear and customization to actually appear. Like, in SF2, there were some nice looking gear pieces, including a funny unicorn mask and lollipop weapon you could only buy via Red Gems but you couldn't even tell you were wearing that in-game. But for a more practical purpose, actually seeing what exact gear or equipment you are up against does tell you beforehand what perks and magic the opponent has. It does mean it's kinda odd for the game to call itself "Shadow Fight" since there aren't Shadows Fighting anymore. But if I recall correctly, The Shadow now refers to like, the magic energy and there is also a Shadow Force and your character is a decedent of SF2's protagonist (named "Shadow").

So yeah, would I recommend Shadow Fight 3? It is a large game taking up almost 3 GB. I'd say "yes"*. The core gameplay is fun so it's worth at least playing it for a while until you reach the mid-game when the game starts becoming more draconian. Stop playing then. If you want more of the gameplay, either play SF2 with its less intrusive design or SF4 with its really fun PVP.

Maybe I'll do a review of SF4 one day. Next up for me is probably Lego Batman 2 VITA. See you all then

Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag Review - I enjoyed everything aside from the pirate stuff lol

 Hello everyone. I recently finished the main campaign of AC4 (and a good chunk of the optional content). I was thinking of platinumming this game but I didn't want to deal with the multiplayer trophies. So this is a review of the singleplayer side.

Coming off playing Odyssey that removed a lot of the parkour and social stealth elements the series was known for, it was always refreshing whenever I explored the main cities of Havana and Kingston. The atmosphere and design of these cities was really cool. Their mix of architecture and layouts also made it fun to parkour and wall eject. I really missed this feeling from the latest Assassin's Creeds. I even found enjoyment in some of the tailing missions somehow (at least at first). Normally, I was never fond of these missions but just being able to sneak along rooftops and blend in crowds, even if not the most deep, still felt cool and "like I was an Assassin". Which is ironic given Edward isn't an official Assassin and is even working against the Assassins for most of the game lol.

I like that AC4 retains many of the improvements AC3 made with the Anvil Next Engine to the core gameplay and movement. I like that you can retain your momentum and movement when performing actions like Assassinations. Allowing you to keep moving seamlessly after killing your targets. I like that you can climb trees and alternate between them and buildings mostly seamlessly. I also like you have vaulting moves you can use to quickly leap over or under certain obstacles. I will complain I feel the parkour controls themselves could use a bit of work. In these set of AC games, holding R2 will make your protagonist both run, jump, climb and swing depending on context. While holding R2+X will also make them more likely to do unsafe jumps and leap of faiths. R2+O will make them try to drop. This sounds a bit like a precursor to Unity's really nice Parkour Up/Parkour Down system. But in practise, it is a bit unwieldy. Since many of the functions overlap in regular R2 and R2+X, you are often at the mercy of the automatic systems. There are times you will climb, jump or drop when you meant to run. Or you will drop low when you meant to jump farther on. Unity's later system works better because the 3 modes (R2, R2+x and R2+O) are a bit more specialized and you can better tap X or O to better communicate your intentions. Still, at least the actual speed and flow of AC3-Rogue's base parkour system is a bit of step up from AC1-Rev (the animations I feel are slightly worse to accomplish this though) and the fact you can manually side eject gives the parkour a nice bit of depth as you can use it to reach higher places quicker or without needing to find an alternate route around.

I like that AC4 incorporates the entire weapon wheel into the D-Pad. And this feature would carry over into most of the later AC games. In past ACs, you only had quick access to 4 weapons/tools at any given time out of a max of 10-15 (depending on the game). Swapping between them required holding down R1 to bring up a weapon wheel that paused the game and using the left and right sticks to select the weapons/tools you want. In some games like AC2-Rev, this process wasn't bad. It was quick to hold R1, select the stuff you want and get back into the game without much interruption. Some games like vanilla AC3 messed this up. In that game, even pressing R1 lightly completely interrupts the experience as the game transitions away to a different menu entirely, sometimes even taking time to load said menu. Then giving you the weapon wheel there. And if you only pressed R1 instead of holding it, the menu would go away and make you repeat the process. It was such a chore and step back from AC2-Rev's implementation.

AC4's approach is that now all your weapons and tools are on the D-pad. Pressing up once gives you the hidden blades. Pressing down once gives you the swords. Pressing Down twice gives you fists. Pressing left once gives you the pistol. Left twice gives you smoke bombs. Right gives you your darts. And so on. This system gives you all your weapons and tools without the need of a dedicated weapon wheel and keeps you in the game. You can even do crazy stuff like cycle between your equipped weapons while doing stuff like running and climbing without it interrupting the experience. It's great. AC4 uses the now freed up R1 button to.....display the list of collectibles in the immediate area? I mean, that's nice and all but it doesn't use the free-ed up button to allow more on-foot gameplay options. Unity used R1 to allow you to use additional tools like the smoke bombs alongside L1 for stuff like guns. Origins onwards used R1 as an additional attack button.

Despite being made to run on PS3/360, the game is still technically very impressive. Stuff like being able to dock your ship and get off to explore a small port down, start a mission and have that mission involve a naval chase to get back on your ship and begin a ship battle in a massive storm with the waves being all dynamic and there being mini hurricanes all without load screens is really cool. The game looked rad on the PS3 when I first played it back in 2013 and still looks rad on the PS4.

 

I also like many of the new tools and abilities Edward has in the game and feel they balance some of its systems a lot better. For example, Edward's 2 new tools here are the blowpipe that fires sleep darts and the blowpipe that fires berserk darts. And I like the execution here. In past AC games, there was often this issue of balancing ranged tools for stealth. In AC2 for example, you had throwing knifes which were silent and killed weak enemies instantly but barely touched tougher enemies. And you had the hidden gun which took some time to aim and reload and was loud but would instakill enemies. But the issue here is that in missions that required you to be undetected, often both these tools were useless as throwing knifes couldn't do enough damage or distract enemies. While the gun would alert everyone. Brotherhood added in the Crossbow and Dart Gun which just became overpowered as they were silent and killed most enemies quickly.

AC4's blowpipe mixes up this dynamic. The sleep dart is silent and has decent range and puts an enemy to sleep for a short time. You can use it to temporarily incapacitate a troublesome enemy like a gunner who'd otherwise spot you but then have to move quickly to take advantage of that opportunity. Either to sneak past or get close enough to the enemy to KO them. You still have the guns for loud and immediate damage. So AC4 comes the closest to getting the balance between risk/reward and choice right. I do wish there were a bit more of a challenge to using the blowpipe though. Similar to the Metal Gear Solid games, if you do a headshot, then it's an instant sleep. A single body shot kicks in after a while. And multiple body shots may take up a lot more ammo but will speed up the process. And there could be upgrades for range and effectiveness of the darts. Because as it currently is, the sleep darts start out being balanced by their low ammo count so you have to use them sparingly but with pouch upgrades start becoming overpowered.

 

I will complain that the overall combat and stealth mechanics of AC4 are quite lacking, both for the time in 2013 as games like the Arkham games had much more satisfying and fleshed out combat and stealth, and now especially in 2023 as future AC games like Unity and Odyssey have really improved these aspects. AC4's combat and stealth do still look cool. The animations for the various counterattacks and takedowns are neat. But the actual gameplay with them does start feeling stale. For combat, it's extremely easy to press O to initiate a counter, even while attacking enemies making most encounters rarely challenging as you can chain kill/counter kill through entire groups of enemies. The game does try to mix it up with different enemy types that can't be immediately countered or chain attacked, but it's simple enough to then press X to break defence them or shoot with a gun or incapacitate them all with a smoke bomb. So just like in past ACs, it's often faster and easier to fight through areas rather than stealth through them.

 

And like its predecessors, stealth in AC4 isn't amazing. There's no manual crouch or dedicated stealth mode making it awkward to sneak through areas. There aren't many tools for distraction which can slow down stealth encounters. AC4 does make steps forward with more bushes to hide in, the ability to whistle from more places to attract nearby enemies, the aforementioned sleep darts, Eagle Vision being able to tag enemies through walls and the premise of combining parkour/climbing to navigate around large forts or similar areas is cool. But it's not until Unity when all these aspects would finally come together and make stealth in AC both fun and necessary/useful.

AC4 also has its own take on the "Brotherhood/Trading/Mother Base" system. And I'm not too fond of it. It's simultaneously too involving yet too boring. I like the idea of it. The ships you capture can be sent to Edward's fleet where they can be sent on trading missions. Different ships have different stats which can affect their success, timings and actions. Trading routes can be made less dangerous by engaging in automated turn based battles.

There are a few issues with this. Lets bring up AC Brotherhood's system first. In that game, you just select the individual unit(s) you want, the task you want to send them to and just send them. It's quick and easy. And it makes nice passive income. You can access the menus from these pigeon coops scattered all over the map so it's not too out of your way.

In contrast, AC4 has these long elaborate but still basic turn based ship battles you can't fast forward which get boring. On top of that, you can "re-enter" these battles to reroll your opponents so you can never lose. There's no stress or tension here and very little stragedy. On top of that the money and resources gained from these aren't great. The long 10 hours of real time missions reward the same kind of money as capturing a couple brigs and frigates as Edward. The resources are exclusive to this minigame so you can't even give yourself the metal and wood you win from these.  And you can only access this from Edward's cabin on his ship. If you could fast forward battles, get more actual resources from missions and could access it from the pause menu or something like in AC3, then this would be a nice system.

Now for the section that might be the hottest take of this piece. I didn't enjoy the pirate gameplay in AC4. Which is odd given that is like 60% of the game and the reason why many people love this game.

The pirate and ship gameplay isn't bad. It is cool to sail around. And it is improved from AC3's sailing as you have more options and weapons, boarding is more dynamic and the strategies of positioning your ship in front of or behind ships or using waves as cover is neat.

But I found it rather repetitive and boring. After a few hours of taking ships, it stagnates. Capturing a ship requires you kill the crew or do the things the same way every time. There aren't new tactics or options. And the slow paced nature of certain animations like boarding end up feeling like a drag. At least Rogue added stuff like icebergs you could shoot to create waves and that you could be boarded by enemy ships to mix things up.

I wasn't as bored of ship sailing in AC3 because in that game, ship sailing was relegated to a handful of missions rather than being part of the open world. It worked better as an occasional change of pace so its shallowness didn't bother me as much. And in Odyssey, everything was sped up and more streamlined. AC4's approach feels like that side activity in AC3 made better, sure, but not deep or varied enough to sustain 60% of the gameplay.

On top of that, AC4 shifts away from the urban based environments of past AC games. Most of the map is now ocean with the land being islands or small settlements. And I find these sections not as fun in AC games. Like, yes, you can parkour on trees and rocks and cliffs here, but these lack the options or freedom of parkouring in cities. Trees typically direct you in a linear path and you can't climb them entirely or make a custom path while climbing. You can't even side eject when scaling up the branches. Small port towns don't have the same architecture or variation as Havana or Kingston. This was an issue in AC Brotherhood's Rome where a good chunk of the Eastern section was flat countryside, and in most of AC3's Frontier but at least there, a good chunk of those games were set in their mostly urban sections. And this becomes the norm in Origins-Valhalla as the series moved away from large urban cities towards massive rural environments.

I suppose it does complement the pirate fantasy. Being able to sail anywhere, and leave your ship to explore a random uncharted island and finding treasure is cool. And some of the side missions such as the Smuggler Dens, Music Sheets, Warehouses, Treasure Maps, Assassination Contracts were fun and I enjoyed them. The Assassin's Creed formula and gameplay does lend itself well to a pirate game where your pirate has to explore jungles, cities, use stealth and flashy combat and climb stuff.

But it often felt like I was grasping for that fleeting AC formula in between the Pirate gameplay it was enabling.

To use an analogy, imagine if the next Spider-Man game had a place like Manhattan with skyscrapers so you could do all the web swinging Spider-Man was known for and you always enjoyed. But now lets say that 60% of that game was set in like, the countryside where there were no skyscrapers so no web swinging. And instead, it was GTA style gameplay where you used cars and guns to drive and complete missions. Even if this GTA style driving and shooting was cool and fun and made cooler by Spidey's powers, you'd rather this Spider-Man game be set in Manhattan so you could do stuff like Web Swinging instead of driving and shooting. Except most people really liked this aspect so now future Spider-Man games moved farther and farther away from cities and web swinging and more into the driving and shooting in the countryside.

AC4 is a good Assassin's Creed game when it chooses to be. I had a blast playing in Havana and Kingston. It's just that it's obligated to be a pirate game most of the time. One I don't really enjoy and am bored of. Which is odd because I imagine for many people, it's the other way around. Most people probably enjoyed the pirate stuff more than the Assassin stuff.

Onto more positive notes: The Story:

The story is also really good. I enjoyed it. A common criticism against AC4 is that "it's a good pirate game but a bad AC game". I remember listening to the game's developer diaries when the game first released that refuted that. 

AC4's story is unique among the AC games because it's arguably the only AC game where the protagonist initially couldn't care less about the Assassins or their Creed, and actively opposes the Assassins, but then comes to see the value of it over the course of the adventure (the only other AC game that tries something similar is maybe Odyssey since there, as there are no official Assassins, Kassandara comes to a similar realization about the philosophy of the Assassins but on her own. But she doesn't oppose the philosophy tho). AC4 is arguably the first AC game that is about why someone who doesn't like the Assassins or their philosophy would come to see the value in the Assassins.

Like, if you look at AC4's predecessors, in AC1, Altair was born into the Assassin Order. The story does have the Templars question Altair's motives and Altair doesn't have the answers. But ultimately the story is still from a different angle there. In AC2, while Ezio was not born into an Assassin order and did enjoy a civilian life initially, he sort of.....goes along with the Assassins. He doesn't really question the tradition or push back against his teachers. The game also does a lot of timeskips so we don't see much of Ezio's Assassin education. In AC3, it's a similar setup. Connor joins the Assassins (consisting of literally one retired old dude) and is 100% on-board with their philosophy. To the point that even Haytham and co call him naive for this (and the story supports that).

In contrast, Edward starts the game with no knowledge on either the Assassins or the Templars or the Isu. He just wants money. He falls in with the Templars and impersonates the defector, Walpole, just for the payday. He continues to work with the Templars and double crosses them and the Assassins just for the money. Leading to him being marked an enemy of both of them. Edward is an outside observer to the conflict and the rhetoric of the sides. This creates a more interesting dynamic as characters like James Kidd and Adewale, who see Edward's potential, act like "angels on his shoulder" nudging him closer to the Assassins. Edward initially mocks them and the Assassins. Even jokingly saying stuff like "if nothing is true and everything is permitted, I guess I'm doing well then" only be chastised by Kidd. Saying "the words are in your mouth yet you do not understand their meaning".

The story explores this idea of freedom through the perspective of a selfish pirate. Edward and his peers set up their own independent pirate city in Nassau with the intention of living their own free life. Edward even uses this as a knock against the Assassins. Citing how his version of freedom is working out better. Of course, a city built on piracy isn't sustainable. Nassau eventually begins to fall from an accumulation of disease and the British Empire cracking down on piracy. Even offering a pardon for pirates that splits the founders of Nassau. On top of that, even Edward's peers admit that their future isn't bright. They had their chance to show the world they were legit with Nassau and, in their own words, pissed it away. Some of Edward's peers even side with the Templars. Unlike the Ezio games, AC4 actually does a good job in making the Templars look reasonable. Justifying why these pirates would join them. Remember, The Templars whole philosophy is that humanity isn't competent enough to govern themselves so needs to be "guided" from behind the scenes. They offer protection and purpose to many people. Governor Torres even tells his fellow Templars to stop engaging in slavery and aims to help in abolishing it.

All this ends up affecting Edward. Because, eventually, while he does become wealthy and gains the success he always wanted, it feels hollow because he's a wanted man and criminal whose peers died in pursuit of the same goal. And the people that didn't and had actually noble aspirations like Kidd were killed while he survived. This combination of guilt and introspection drives Edward into understanding more of the Assassin philosophy. That blind freedom, for its own sake with no plan and only violence, isn't worth it. That the Assassins preach a kind of "freedom with wisdom".  While Edward doesn't become inducted into the Assassin Order as an "official Assassin", it doesn't matter because he still becomes a real Assassin as he comes to understand and support the Creed.

Also, I don't know where to fit this in but I like that the whole plot about the Observatory feels like an analogue for modern surveillance and tracking. Edward is absolutely horrified that it is possible for a person to be able to spy through the eyes of another person so easily. And once he becomes allied with the Assassins, wants the placed sealed so its power cannot be used by the Templars to control people in the world. The analogy Mary gives to describe the power the Observatory holds and why the Templars are the enemy here is "it's like a man with endless supply of water who refuses to share with others during a drought. He'd be a murderer with no blood on his hands" to which Edward agrees. Which is why he intends to help.

 

Which feels tragic given that is what happens in the Modern Day with Templars/Abstergo. That's often the bittersweet thing about the AC games. No matter the successes and things you accomplish the Animus, it's always for naught given we know what happens in the Modern Day. Nothing Edward accomplishes here matters. Either in the short term because we know what happens in AC Rogue with Shay helping the Templars take over. Or in the Long Term with Abstergo taking over the world.

Speaking of which, the Modern Day sections. AC4's Modern Day sections have been widely criticized by both non-AC fans and AC fans. It feels like an interruption to Edward's pirate gameplay. On top of that, it doesn't really progress the overall story forward. Mostly spinning its wheels and adding some cool details. Like, we know Juno is hanging around the internet but is disconnected from not only Edward's story but even the Modern Day one. And is only resolved in a side comic years later. The concept of the sages is really cool though but the future games barely follow up on it. It's gone after Unity.

But despite all that, I'm going to drop the second hottest take of this review. I'd argue this take on the Modern Day is actually pretty good.

I do agree the pacing and the actual story being told in it isn't particular exciting, but the appeal it has is a bit specific. One of my favourite parts of AC1 and 2's modern day wasn't playing as Desmond but rather hacking into computers or Subject 16's puzzles and peeling back the curtains to learn more about the world of AC.

Because AC is the only franchise that dares to ask the question: "what if every conspiracy theory ever throughout history and no matter how trivial or wacky was not only true but connected?"

In AC1, you could hack Warren Vidic's computer to learn that: "that Africa's population has been decimated by a plague; massive number of illegal immigrants are crossing the U.S.-Mexican border... into Mexico, resulting in a shooting war between the U.S. and Mexico; hurricane season no longer exists, since hurricanes happen all throughout the year thanks to climate change; and the last film studio has closed, as piracy has destroyed the movie industry". All this back in 2012.

In AC2 and Brotherhood, doing Subject 16's puzzles tells us that: Alan Turing was Murdered to prevent him from inventing too powerful computers. Cable TV is actually a method for transmitting brainwave altering signals and monitoring citizens. The Moon Landing was done to find an Isu artifact on the moon. The JFK assassination was done by an Assassin who defected to the Templars to recover JFK's POE. He uses his subordinates to kill JFK, stole JFK's POE, used said POE to create the illusion of gunshots and framed Templar Sleeper Agent, Harvey Lee Oswald for it. Which lead to the Templar Lyndon B. Johnson taking the presidency to accelerate the space program for that aforementioned moon landing. Or that Jesus Christ was someone who used Isu Artifacts and his crucifixion was spearheaded by the Templars.

Obviously this is quite unhinged and wacky and I am all here for it. I find this aspect of AC lore fascinating. Seeing how seemingly random historical events have some connection to either the Assassins, Templars or Isu is really interesting to me. And AC2 and Brotherhood in particular, I feel, nail this aspect well because of its presentation here. Subject 16's puzzles are presented in this really creepy and unnerving way. You have recorded phone calls from random civilians talking with Abstergo reps about how their cable TV has their private history storied on it. You have paintings that ask you find meaning in seemingly innocuous details. That photo of Napoleon putting his hand in his pocket? He has an Apple of Eden there. I remember back when AC Brotherhood first came out, I joked that we would eventually learn that BigFoot was actually real and was this Isu experiment gone wrong or something by the Templars to create an Isu. And after playing Odyssey, I think that might actually be true lol.

Part of this is to reinforce one of the themes of those early AC games. Of how skewed history can be and how difficult it can be to ascertain what really happened. And how the Templars are doing a really good job skewing and controlling history.

AC4's Modern Day......sorta keeps this up. I am a bit disappointed because I felt there would be more wacky, creepy and unhinged stuff here. Like, you're in Abstergo itself and can hack their computers. You're at the centre of all the wacky conspiracies, not receiving snippets from an insane computer backup of a dead guy in a USB stick. But while there is some stuff related to the Tunguska event, there's not much as wacky as JFK from Brotherhood.

But there is still some juicy stuff here I enjoyed reading. I loved all of Desmond's material. Seeing what happened to his body and DNA, and the contents of his phone and audio recordings. It retroactively makes AC3's modern day even more tragic given how Desmond was getting closer to his squad.

I loved reading emails from the higher ups at Abstergo. Stuff like cool potential ancestors from Desmond's DNA and shooting down why projects set in Ancient Egypt, WW2 or the Wild West wouldn't be good fits (and I agree with that lol). Oliver and Melanie joking about some of their work. Or one guy complaining that "we have the means to show history in its most accurate light through the Animus, and we are using it to make terrible and lowest common denominator movies and video games". Only for the truth to be that is intentional. Making terrible movies and Video games allows Abstergo to control pop culture and therefore people without them realizing it. Hell, that's what they plan to do with the footage you get from Edward's memories. And they do it. You can see a trailer for their terrible Pirate Movie with some of the "artistic liberties they wish to take". (and in Unity, you learn that movie bombed. So I guess humanity has some hope. Or perhaps the Assassins sabotaged the premiere?).

Another one of the standouts was Subject One. He was one of the first Animus test subjects and his experiences in the Animus exploring the life of Aveline de Grandpre was used 30 years after his death to create the hit video game Assassin's Creed 3 Liberation on the VITA. And the most unrealistic part of all of this is the fact that the VITA was a success in the AC Universe lol.

You can find material and recordings that explore some of his experiences and feelings.  He notes that his centre of gravity is lower, and he can feel the eyes of everyone looking at "his" attractiveness as a female, and finds the roles society expects of a woman restricting. He is also really uncomfortable with attraction she has to men, and asserts that he is not gay but now has a hard time separating his sexual feelings from Aveline's. Someone get Mirror and Image to write a fanfic on this because I would kill to read this story.

You also have the "Market Analysis" videos where an Abstergo executive explains why they passed on making movies/video games on Altair, Ezio and Connor but gave the greenlight to Aveline. And I love how funny and biting this satire is on how executives meddle with and change projects to better appeal to a mass market and ignore the context of the games. He talks about how Ezio is a lecherous old man with anger issues and not a "model leading man" as he corrupts impressionable youth. Or how Altair is a fanatic who breaks the taboos of his time and how Abbas (the guy that literally corrupted the Assassin order, kills many of his own people) is a model leading man. He puts in a request to find any descendants of Abbas. Or how people would take umbrage with Connor's personality and find his early life "foreign" and how it lacks the "balance" to tell the whole story of America. And they approve Aveline because they can edit her footage to show her as a well behaved girl inspired by her mentor Madaline as an empowering piece for female audiences (ignoring that their editing does the opposite from Aveline's already existing story lol).

Like, even though walking around Abstergo Entertainment as a floating iPad and doing basic hacking puzzles isn't the most exciting thing, I found getting the lore from it enjoyable. I honestly wish there was even more juicy lore or more wacky revelations to spice it up.

I will complain however, that the overarching plot of Juno isn't something this modern day does very well. And part of that is because, I feel, the modern day of AC games isn't equipped to handle a story like that.

Hear me out here. But generally, one of the advantages of an AC's game structure is that it allows for there to be an overarching and looming threat/story/stakes across games without interfering with the historical aspects. Like in AC3, the world is going to end on December 21st 2012 from a Solar Flare. Desmond needs to explore Connor's memories to get the information needed to save the world. But at the same time, it's fine for the player to engage in side missions and goof off as Connor because it still adds synchronization to Desmond and points to leads that can help them in the future. And because this is a simulation, AC technically avoids the "Fallout 4 style the main character is supposed to save their family but instead goofs off with side missions" issue (which I don't agree is an issue but I digress) since we know what Connor actually did and you are playing a simulation of it through the Animus.

But this approach doesn't work well if there is a more pressing and urgent issue in the Modern Day that doesn't require the Animus as an immediate solution. Like, if AC4's Modern Day made Juno's threat the focus, well then it feels odd why you the player, instead of going after Juno, spend the next several weeks exploring the memories of a random pirate who had no connection to Juno. It kinda devalues Juno as a threat.

 The Modern Day stories of AC games struggle at this time because without Desmond and some kind of specific threat or stake looming on the horizon, there's nothing for the story to focus on or build to. You now have these ancient God seemingly loose on the Internet, this Dr. Who style reincarnation whose DNA you now have, an observatory that can see through any person's eyes and this magical shroud that can bring back the dead that Jesus Christ himself used....... and none of it seems relevant or like its building to anything or even connects together. Not to say Desmond's stories were amazing (Brotherhood really made most of Desmond's story feel like filler. Revelations was mostly a retelling of lore we already knew etc). But there was at least some sense of progression. Something that appears to be happening again with Layla in the recent games.

 

In closing, a common complaint leveled against AC games is that a certain game is "a good x game but a bad AC game" or some variation of that. I disagree with that used against AC4 for the story. The story is arguably the best take on why someone would become an Assassin despite an initial reluctance. Its Modern Day even at least showcases some nice lore.

With the gameplay, it's harder to say. The Assassin gameplay that is there is still fun. Especially in large cities like Kingston and Havana. It also complements much of the pirate gameplay as, just like in the story, there is a lot of crossover between the abilities of a pirate and an Assassin. But much of that dedicated Assassin gameplay in towns is sparse. Leaving little of parkour and social stealth to shine.

Most people did enjoy this and the game is fun so I cannot call AC4 a bad game. But is one I won't be replaying too much.

Thanks for reading. My next post will probably be either on Shadow Fight 3 or Lego Batman 2 VITA's Platinum. See you then.