64hoops Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced Review

This a pretty “by the book” remaster….. but in a good way! Obviously as everyone talksd about at release… visuals are gorgeous. It’s such a night and day difference when comparing the textures, character models, shadows, and literally everything else graphical wise. They knocked it out of the park on this front. Only real thing I wish they improved was the in game lip synching. It just feels so off when listening to two characters talk and you don’t see their mouthes moving…. Kinda weird lol, but not a huge bother. Ship combat is fantastic as always, love the new officers abilities that you can use (They’re actually useful surprisingly!). I kind of wish that those officers were more involved in the main story, as their side quests were pretty mediocre, and it feels weird for all this stuff to go down in Edward’s adventure and they’re just non-reactive to all of it. Land combat is solid! It’s not super special, but I definitely prefer it over the old games combat. It feels more fluid and unpredictable than the OG version, which felt more like taking turns with one enemy at a time. I think they needed more combat/takedown animations to not have the combat feel “stale” by the end, but I never got tired of it. I do feel like the “boss” battles they have should’ve been fleshed out more, but it’s not bad. Stealth and parkour are good as ever with every assassins creed. There’s definitely those weird moments where you think “How the heck did this guy not see me murder three dudes in the bushes?” but you get used to it as time passes. You also get those momentary frustrations of Edward not parkouring the way you want him too…. But again, very minor. Story is solid! I think the main quest line takes a massive dip in the two thirds portion of the game, but it recovers itself by the end to make the adventure worth experiencing. Like I said before, the new officer quests feel pretty bleh. The premise that they offer shouldn’t seem bad, but both of theres are just boring and uninteresting when you actually play them. My biggest gripe with this is the locations. I felt like this would’ve been the perfect remaster if they made every smugglers cave, island, and small town feel unique. The problem was that they didn’t do that, which makes me want to avoid finding new locations when the previous 2 smugglers caves I encountered felt exactly the same, just slightlyyyyy tweaked. It gives off that starfield feeling of every base you find on a planet looks exactly the same, with the same enemies. And speaking of the enemies, I wish each country you were fighting (Spain, Britain, etc) had their own unique enemy that stands itself out from the other factions. I say this because every enemy faction has the same type of enemies, just reskinned. It doesn’t give each faction a personality outside of Britain is red and speaks English and Spain is yellow and speaks Spanish lol. And one of tue biggest disappointments was the underwater sections. They look beautiful to swim around (Another visual compliment) but there’s barely anything to do! Why invest so much time into the diving sections if they feel so shallow? Why didn’t you put more time into side quests, enemy designs, or anything else? Very disappointing. Like I said before, this remake feels pretty “by the book”. Personally, I think it’s a bit overrated since it’s the only great mainstream pirate game out there…. but I think Assassins Creed Black Flag Resynced is an adventure worth to take again if you’re a returning player from the original, and especially worth it if this is your first adventure with Edward Kenway.