The last two Assassin's Creed titles of the last generation arrive on Nintendo Switch with a little worked port although with all the DLC.
One of Ubisoft's most emblematic sagas returns to Nintendo on Switch with a pack that includes two of the latest batch games of the last generation; Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Rogue. The compilation with the The Rebel Collection brochure arrives at the Japanese hybrid with all the downloadable content, extras in audiovisual format and new unlockable costumes through Uplay.
The Caribbean and piracy
The most interesting title of this little compilation is undoubtedly Black Flag. In it we move to the Golden Age of piracy; the 18th century With Edward Kenway as the main protagonist, the player can meet the fearsome Blackbeard pirate, Mary Read – one of the two most famous pirates in history – or Woodes Rogers himself. A rather interesting adventure and nothing boring thanks to a more than worked mapped with touches of open world where the sea and its bluish waters is its biggest claim.
We are talking about pirates and what would a pirate be without one? Viewed – and rarely used – in Assassin's Creed III, these means of transport are now a fundamental piece of the plot and are responsible for offering us some of the most beautiful landscapes of the franchise until the arrival of the current generation of consoles. Explore islands and islets, fray with British or Spanish fleets, scuba diving or simply sail aimlessly listening to the salomas from the lips of our crew; ships are important in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
This fourth iteration was the penultimate title of the last generation and the one that gets rid of the rest. It was the prelude to what we could see in Unity and later in Origins – created by the Black Flag team – and it already made clear the direction the franchise was going to take after the fourth chapter. His story was better built, the animations improved, less abuse of moments with Abstergo, the most refined gameplay and a character that did convey good vibes. He was, without a doubt, one of the Assassin's most beloved by the community.
The Seven Years War
Almost four decades later, Assassin's Creed: Rogue has Shay Patrick Cormac as the protagonist but with a somewhat different approach than usual; It is a Templar. Although the plot has just begun, it is an Assassin like any other, after certain events we see during the adventure his life is reconsidered and he decides to hunt down the most famous hooded videogames.
This is the first title in the saga in which we can take the role of a character affiliated with the opposite brotherhood and the one that was once the darkest video game of the existing ones. On this occasion the player is summoned to the Seven Years' War, between 1756 and 1763, in North America. It connects with the fourth installment and, in fact, Adéwalé appears during the adventure. The Morrigan ship is also a fundamental piece in the plot although to a lesser extent than its predecessor and instead of sailing the Caribbean we will do it in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic.
Although he added new weapons, movements and novelties in the navigation system, Assassin's Creed: Rogue sinned too much of reusing material seen in the third and fourth part and of an unsubstantiated history. It was created, according to the ideology of many of its detractors, as a reward for not bringing the next title in the franchise, Unity, created only for PC, PS4 and Xbox One to last-generation consoles. The lack of innovation, its similarities With the two previous video games and the release set for the same day that Assassin's Creed Unity relegated a title that, given its innovative theme of controlling a Templar, did little to exploit this feature.
Card content
The first thing to emphasize is that Assassin's Creed The Rebel Collection for Nintendo Switch includes both games, all downloadable content of Black Flag, trailers of both video games, conceptual designs, 55 pages of the Blackbeard novel of the fourth chapter and the Assassin's Creed manga Awakening I and II – in English. On the downloadable content we have Grito de Libertad and Aveline, two independent adventures of the fourth installment as well as the Pirates Illustrious pack and those of ship customization.
There is no trace of the multiplayer mode of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag or Rogue. In fact, the latter was not even introduced in the original. The reasons why Ubisoft has not included the online facets of the game of pirates and murderers is unknown but it would have been a point in favor of the Nintendo Online subscription service and another title to be included in the multiplayer catalog.
To further customize our avatars, it includes costumes of different protagonists of the series such as Bayek, Aguilar, Altaïr, Alexios or Jacob among others and different rewards through the Uplay portal.
While the content in general has seemed quite generous, both the price and the fact that only Black Flag is physical – rogue has to be downloaded from the Switch online store – we did not like it too much. Of course, this is quite personal, so we cannot categorize it as a negative point in this Reviews.
Port with ups and downs on Switch
It happens that with this adaptation of both titles to Nintendo Switch we have found much better one than another. In this case, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is perhaps the one that has taken the cat to the water, thus being the one that looks best and the most polished in general. We do not know why but without a doubt the adventures in the Caribbean not only look better in the hybrid but also work more fluidly than those that affect those lived in America.
Riding between the last generation and the current versions, Black Flag is an adaptation of the version for PS3 and Xbox 360 but with an increase in resolution reaching up to 900p in dock mode. Neither improvements in the resolutions, nor movement of the fauna when interacting with it or updating in the physical and visual water of the Caribbean. In fact something strange happens, that some textures are worse even than those of their homonyms of the last generation, such as Kenway's beard.
The video game runs at a resolution of 900p and 30fps connected to the TV and at a resolution of 720p and 30fps in portable mode. Although both are extremely stable in frame rate, in dock mode the rate is a more variable hair and we have even seen traces of framepacing, not being so holding the console in our hands.
The same is almost exactly the case with Rogue although, for inconclusive reasons, the title looks worse. Once again it is a direct adaptation of the original, with a greater increase in resolution – up to 900p on television – but that looks inexplicably the same as the version it carries. In fact, the shadow treatise is somewhat worse and some textures, like Black Flag, are of worse quality. It also has a worse antialiasing and more framepacing than the fourth installment although it remains stable at 30fps most of the time. Another of the failures that we have seen that only happens in Assassin's Creed: Rogue are cuts in the audio, at all hours. You open a chest, cut, open a menu, cut, advance a few meters and cut. Since the version we have analyzed is a downloadable code with both video games and both installed on an SD card, presenting one sound errors while the pirates chapter does not, we assume it is due to a game error.
Both texts and audio are in our language, the originals in fact. Of course, all voices have to be downloaded through the eShop or in the game you will only hear the music and sound effects.
CONCLUSION
Assassin's Creed The Rebel Collection is a port of the last generation versions without much affection put into it. A small increase in resolution, an adjustment in its stability in the image rate and the absence of the multiplayer mode of Black Flag. While this version is the best stop, the case of Rogue is quite different and if it was already an unattractive delivery, perhaps now it is more.
THE BEST
- Increased resolution and robust image rate.
- All Black Flag DLC plus extras.
WORST
- Port justito and with cuts in textures. No improvements beyond resolution in dock mode.
- No multiplayer in AC IV.
- AC Rogue sound failures.
- AC IV is more worked than Rogue.
Right
It is not the latest or the most original, nor does it have the best execution, but it can be fun if you like the genre. Good, but improvable.
