Assassin's Creed 4 (IV): Black Flag: Aveline DLC Review

Aveline de Grandpré

"I stand with those who stand with me."

     Today marks the HD release of the previously only available on the Playstation Vita Assassin's Creed III: Liberation.  As the only Creed I've really liked and the only character I've had a full interest in, I figure I'd post a little review on the Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag: Aveline DLC.


Initializing

An awesome new team?

     As a nice little break from all the plank running pirate parkour, we Playstation users got an exlcusive small 3 memory sequence story with Aveline de Grandpré.  Players are able to access her memories due to Abstergo Entertainment's wide spread genetic memory retrievals.  Clearly they are up to no good in the now, while simultaneously allowing us to revisit an amazing character.

     In this short tale Aveline is asked by well known Assassin Conner to aid and rescue the captured Patience Gibbs.  A wonderful, albeit overly headstrong character, Gibbs has a mysterious charm that allows her short peeks into the future that she has been taken captive by Dr. Edmund Judge for.
     The three sequences are pretty simple- locate, free, and recruit.  Not much, but sometimes the brevity is a good thing.


Desynchronized

Normally I play stealth, but there's something about the sugar cane machete...

     Being touted as 60 minutes of story might be pushing it.  I completed it in that amount of time after numerous glitches, such as escorting Patience and she won't move- forcing you to kill yourself and begin the segment over- guards getting stuck on things, and for some reason everyone refers to the two women as "he/him."
     I did enjoy that it was a tight little story, neatly done.  It just felt a bit empty- there were no collectibles, no extra history or information items to gather at all.  Which is the complete opposite of Black Flag, where 90% of the game world is comprised solely of collectibles- leaving you wondering where all the story went because it's buried under all the distractions on your map.
     It might have been nice to have more exploration available, and not just one straight path from beginning to end in the 3 sequences.  Shorter games are something I've recently enjoying, but this one felt too abrupt.  Just a tiny bit more filler might've made this better.

     Now for the one big issue I've had with the AC series as a whole, and this is because the out of place parkour is a necessary game mechanic, you'd think they'd have polished it up by now- that being said- the same issues plaguing controls crop up time and again and this DLC is no different.  Running dead stop into non-existent objects, the character randomly jumping in a direction you aren't pointing, and oddly enough the character just dangling despite holding all the proper buttons.  It is infuriating when this happens constantly, frequently resulting in death.  The chase controls are clunky- they've needed to clean it up for years.


Future with the Brotherhood

Oddly enough, this was a beautiful view of Newport Tower

     While I appreciate the ability to play as Aveline and wield the machete again- this short DLC felt like an unpolished, re-skin afterthought to AC 4.  All the interesting ideas Liberation brought to the table (ie- the 3 personas) seem to have been left, replaced by quick action and a light story.  Perhaps we'll get more of both Aveline and Patience in a future game?  I certainly hope so, they are an intriguing pair.  In fact, I would love to see Patience getting on Aveline's nerves with all the finishing-your-sentences-with-a-magic-charm-banter.  A piece of me held onto the line from Conner at the start of this DLC- "Aveline, do you still call yourself Assassin?"  Maybe we'll get a Sisterhood?