Trumpets
Member
Having played every other AC game up to and including Unity (ugh), I finally bit the bullet and picked up the hated third installment, the one with the terrible main character, the boring setting, the one that takes ten hours to get started. The one that almost buried the franchise for good, but for Ubisoft enlisting a bunch of famous pirates to dig it out of the mud afterwards. At least I'd know for myself how badly they messed up after the great ACII & Brotherhood.
And what do you know, ten hours in, it's amazing!
I can't believe people complained about the opening, pre-Connor sections. It's a clear storytelling highpoint for the series, carefully introducing new characters and settings, and then suddenly pulling the rug out from under you with a great plot twist (which I didn't see coming). Following that you get to experience Connor's life in an isolated tribe in the American wilderness, which feels very different to previous AC games. What I'd been led to believe was a flat, snowy expanse dotted with trees is actually a beautifully designed, rugged, varied and dynamic environment. Even the new tree and rock climbing stuff works well.
Silly as it is, I'm also happy to be back with Desmond and that whole present day narrative, after Black Flag and Unity watered that stuff down to the point that it may as well not have been there.
Maybe the whole thing takes a huge nosedive in quality later on, but with the ship combat still to come (the only aspect of the game people seemed to praise when it was originally released) I doubt it.