I played this game back when it came out in 2012 and, like a lot of people, I was very disappointed with it. I got to about the halfway point and just mainlined the story and was done with it after that. I hated the ending and haven't touched it since. So when Assassin's Creed: Odyssey came out the Gold edition came with Assassin's Creed III Remastered. I thought it was cool they remastered it but didn't think I'd actually play it. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I get the itch to play an older AC game and there it was in my Xbox library. So I dowloaded it and decided to give this game another shot!
I want to start this by talking about some of the differences between this remastered version and the original. First off it looks better but that's to be expected. This game does look really nice in HDR and the environments look very good. Some of the faces don't look great but this is a remaster not a remake so. They changed to where you can switch between all your weapons on the fly and not have to pause the game like in the original. They have changed the mini map so you can actually see what direction all the enemies are facing and they toned down the aggressiveness of the enemies when just walking around the cities. I remember in the original game it being so damn annoying that the guards would just come after you for no reason all the time and it made it so hard to get collectibles! I'm sure there are other things they changed but those were the big ones I noticed. None of them are game changing but nice quality of life changes.
I'm not going to go into details about the story in case someone hasn't played it cause the story ends up being pretty strong. I remember not being super into it when I played before but I liked it enough to finish it before. This time I took my time and really appreciated the opening, the twist after a few hours, and seeing Connor evolve into a badass. I wish we could've gotten the cool shaved head Connor sooner in the story cause you only get like 3 story missions with him like that and he's so good! Up until then he's fine. He starts out as a super boring character and it takes a while for him to get to a fine level. In a way it makes sense cause we see him grow up and he goes though a lot during the course of this game and by the end he'd seen so much betrayal and lies that he finally finds himself. I also love Haytham in this game! He has such a strong personality and he's so damn charming. And as much as I love him as a character my favorite thing is seeing his side of things. We get to see that the Assassins and Templars are much closer in the way they do things than any other game has shown before and since. I would say my favorite character thing in this game is when you take down a target and they do the assassin vision thing where it's just you and him talking as he's dying. The death speeches in this game are fantastic! Good villains have motives and all of the main people you kill have great reasons for doing what they are doing.
Now on to the overall story...it's fine. The American Revolution is a cool setting and being there when the Declaration of Independence is singed is very cool. I liked the midnight run with Paul Revere and taking place in the Boston Tea Party. As much as I thought the characters benefited from the slow start it was not great to play though. It seriously takes like 6-7 hours for things to really get going and that's far too long in my opinion! Once they do it does fall into the typical AC thing of a revenge quest but I did like the revenge quest. A thing I didn't like was that some of the characters we see early on have done a complete 180 when we see them later and I wasn't huge on that. I guess over years people can change but I still wasn't a fan of it. Like Charles Lee as an example. He's a great guy in the first half of the game and a monster later. It just felt weird. And as far as the Desmond stuff goes it's...kinda awful. Like I truly feel that all of his stuff could've just not been part of the games and I think they would've been better for it. They don't add much to the overall narrative and by the time it all wraps up in this game it's just so damn confusing just to be confusing. I'm not sure what happed but his story is one of the biggest missed opportunities in gaming!
So the gameplay of this game is pretty much classic older AC and it plays fine. I'm much more into the Origins and Odyssey play styles but there is a reason they had this older formula for so many games cause it works. Climbing feels really good and jumping between trees in wooded areas feels amazing! The mission to mission gameplay isn't much different than other AC games up to this point which is a little disappointing considering all the battlefields you are part of in this game. Although this game is more action centered than the other games to this point there are still plenty of assassination opportunities in this game but for the most part you will be going in and just killing everyone in open combat. The big thing added to this game was the navel combat. People loving the ship stuff in this game is the reason that every other AC game since this one has had ship combat in it. I liked it for the most part but I'm not gonna lie and say I loved it. Still don't really love it in the games to be honest. It controls fine and it's cool to blow up ships but I'm just more into the traditional combat and climbing stuff. There are only a few ship missions in the main game, all the others are optional.
A huge thing they added in this game is all the homestead stuff. This stuff honestly becomes it's own game at a certain point and it's pretty mixed. I love the area and the ides of it but so much of the actual stuff you are doing is so damn boring. So this is basically you building a society with how Connor thinks one should be. You meet people in Boston, New York, and the Frontier to recruit and live on the land where you live. So you get a blacksmith, lumber people, people to dig in the mines and stuff like that. The reason this becomes a game into its self is because all these characters are named and they each have mission chains to do. I think there are like 37 missions to do in all and they can take a while to complete. You need to do them in order to upgrade your ammo and to get the most powerful weapons in the game. I actually ended up really liking the story told on the homestead but getting there was a bit of a grind.
I didn't do any of the side stuff in the original game so I decided to tackle some this time. I figured I enjoyed the homestead stuff and I didn't do any of that before so why not do some of the other side stuff. I really enjoyed the Kidd side story. You find treasures and give them to a guy named Peg Leg cause...he has a peg leg and he's a pirate...yup. Once you give him enough he will unlock a side mission to get a treasure map. These are really cool cause all of them are in places not in the main story. They are all quick but vary from puzzle solving to killing everyone in a castle. It's also cool cause all these clues, treasures, and maps are from a pirate named James Kidd which is a central character in AC 4! I never knew any of this from the first time I played so I really liked doing those!
Before I wrap up I want to do a few quick hit things: I liked that we got to see the Native American upbringing of Connor and got a look into a world I know little about. I ran into quite a fews bugs! One crashed the game and also turned my Xbox off! It only happened once but it did still happen. I liked the hunting stuff they added in and apparently people did as well cause it's still in the modern games. I hated the things you needed to do to get 100%! Each mission has side things to do to get this done like don't be seen or don't use ranged weapons. Things like those were fine but some had things like finish the mission in a certain amount of time or don't push anyone in a chase and those are so damn hard! The remaster does include the King Washington dlc where it's an alternate reality where George Washington gets the apple of eden and turns into a tyrant. It seems interesting but I only played the first episode and I was good. You do get weird powers where you control like ghost wolves and bears so there's that. The remaster also includes AC: Liberation HD which I have't played but intend to cause I always wanted to.
So I'm overall glad I took this trip with this game and gave it another shot. I didn't realize how influential this game was and had forgotten how good the overall story was. Connor should have gotten another game in my opinion so maybe we will see him in a later game. I would say that if this game is on sale over Black Friday and you aren't interested in the Assassin's Creed: Valhalla then give this one a go. It's worth your time but don't expect to be blown away. It is an older game and plays like one most of the time.
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