by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
… a fast-paced, rip-roaring nautical adventure with slick combat, a solid story and more booty than a Cardi B film clip.
The Assassin’s Creed series has been with us for 18 years now, if you can believe it. Launching first in 2007 with Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s cash cow has blurted out 14 main entry titles and over a dozen spin-offs, mobile games or VR gear. You might think, then, that it would be hard to pinpoint a universal favourite amongst that cornucopia of titles. You’d be wrong. See, despite the oodles of games to choose from, the fan favourite entry that gets picked as series best over and over again is: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag from back in 2013. In fact, so vehement have the proclamations of adoration been over the years, Ubisoft have finally bowed to pressure and released a brand spanking new remake in the form of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced.
For newbies, or those who haven’t thought about the game in years, Black Flag’s story concerns one Edward Kenway, a privateer-turned-pirate who chances upon a Templar plot that spirals into a narrative involving faithless assassins, ancient technology and a pirate utopia. However, Eddie is far less interested in globe-trotting adventures and far more keen on outfitting his ship, gathering a crew of salty dogs and flogging everything that isn’t bolted down. Yarrr!
Set during the golden age of piracy, Black Flag is a rousing piratical adventure that has you hooning all over the Caribbean, assassinating targets, claiming booty, battling other ships and slowly unravelling a grand story with larger ramifications for the Assassin’s Creed universe.
Black Flag Resynced does the thing a lot of modern remakes do: makes the new game feel like you remember the old game. After playing for a few hours, and being impressed with the graphics and quality-of-life improvements, you might find yourself thinking that not much has changed. At that point, we’d invite you to watch gameplay footage from the 2013 original, because damn – a lot has been done here to make the game feel modern and streamlined. Parkour, ship combat and melee combat have all been given a huge overhaul, although happily, they haven’t been changed to the RPG-esque endless spongy stab battles of the more recent titles.
The graphics are genuinely beautiful, the animations slick and tight and the entire aesthetic of the game feels like breath of fresh air. As for the game itself, that’s more of a mixed bag. See, although a lot of the duller aspects of the original have been amended – fail state stealth missions, endless tailing missions etc. – the game is still mostly stuck in the AC formula that you’ll either find cheerfully familiar or a bit played out. Consequently, Resynced is probably going to appeal to the nostalgia crowd more than those too young to remember the original.
Still and all, there’s something so pleasingly immediate about Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. Free from the endless gamification and narrative bloat, this is a fast-paced, rip-roaring nautical adventure with slick combat, a solid story and more booty than a Cardi B film clip. If this does well, hopefully Ubisoft will get the message that a finite story is better than a perpetual boring one and all players really need to have fun is swift kills, epic boat battles and loads of salty seamen.
