After about 60 hours by the in-game clock, or nearly 70 by the PS5 dashboard, I think I can safely say I got my money’s worth from Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag: Resynced.

That doesn’t look right.  I think I should probably drop a colon.  I’ll just avoid the issue from here on out.

I’ve groused enough about how I wasn’t fond of the original Black Flag for abandoning the Desmond storyline, and I think there’s even a post or two on here about how I thought ACIII was a godawful mess of systems that didn’t make any sense in the context of a Native American trying to avenge his murdered mother and tribe.  I won’t rehash those, other than to say that both of them were really good examples of how games can be a lot better if I let myself engage with them where they want to be.

Connor’s random homestead-building and naval-captaining still doesn’t make any sense, but when I went back for a second run through ACIII and actually engaged with those I found a lot to enjoy, and when I stopped critiquing Edward Kenway for Greatest-American-Heroing his way into his Assassin skills and just got down to roaming the Caribbean and stabbing mans what needed stabbing I really liked it.  That same experience carried over to the remake – it’s a big dang world full of stuff to DO while occasionally intersecting with the storyline, and even if the gameplay loop of “Discover Island – Climb Viewpoints – Find Chests and Secrets – Stab some English/Spanish dudes – Find next Island” can be repetitive, it’s fun repetitive.

My absolute favorite thing to do in an AC game continues to be walking up to an outpost and picking one random watchman or guard to leave completely unscathed while I sneak past him and scathe the HECK out of all of his friends and co-workers.  I like to imagine they finish their shift and go to clock out and are suddenly like, WHAT HAPPENED HERE.

I liked it enough to put myself through this, anyway:

Thankfully I was warned that I should probably prioritize sending out brigs as soon as I unlocked the naval mission board, so I got to avoid the most tedious part of the platinum trophy.

Though most of the changes make for Resynced are positive, I have a couple of Thoughts that I will now share with the three or four people who will ever read this:

First: The interview where Ubisoft said that they had added the option to turn off sharks for those of us who are freaked out by underwater enemies was a lie.  Yes, there is an option to automatically repel shark attacks BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT.  I want a shark free experience.  I don’t deal well with underwater enemies – heck I even have bad memories of the stupid eel in Mario 64, without even the excuse of encountering him as a youth since Mario 64 didn’t come out until I was nearly 30 years old.

I did make it through the diving sequences in the 2013 version, which didn’t have the auto-repel OR the option to turn on unlimited breath, but apparently I was made of sterner stuff back then.

Second: While Assassin’s Creed has always leaned heavily into counterattacks to break an opponent’s defenses, Resynced really sank deep into the depths of parryslop.  It slowed down fights to an interminable degree at times – but, worse still, it absolutely neutered the berserk darts that are usually one of the more fun tools in your arsenal.  Berserking a couple of brutes and watching them lay into their hapless colleagues isn’t nearly as fun when all you are seeing from your vantage point is block after block.

Third and final thought: The checkpointing before boss fights and often halfway through boss fights was very appreciated.  There should always be just a little bit of a breather where you are out of combat and can actually change your equipment, though, because I went into one fight with a couple of swords that I had just gotten and decided to try out and they were NOT my cool swords that restored health on successful takedowns and the game did NOT refill my healing items before the boss and… honestly, let’s leave it to your imagination.  I did get through it.  After a couple of tries.  Which involved sitting through unskippable cutscenes every time.

Anyway.  A lot of times, I find these posts myself, a few years after I’ve written them, when I try to decide whether I should replay something.

To future me: Yes!  Go for it!  But stick to the main storyline!  You can take a minute or ten to unlock your officers when those side quests become available, but don’t go crazy chasing dots on the map!  And always refill your tools and bullets before starting any quests!