I got this as part of the Assassin's Creed III Remasterd package, but somehow feel that this one needs its own entry; Liberation was developed for the Playstation Vita, a handheld console, and as such it is much smaller and more limited than the main titles. Yet, it is also not just a DLC for Assassin's Creed 3, even though they came out the same time, and (as far as I know) use the same engine.
Being it's own game, it gets its own setting: We're in the "French and Indian War", which in Assassins Creed III only gets touched in the Epilogue - were in New Orleans, Louisiana - the south of America - a french colony that gets attacked by the Spanish. Aveline de Grandpré is an african-french nobel born female of a rich trader; who had a child with his slave, Jeanne. The mother disappears and Aveline grows up with her father and his wife Madeleine de L'Isle; and soon gets discovered by a Voodoo priest Agaté who helps here become an Assassin. In this game, Aveline's main objective is finding out what happened to her mother. But she's also caught between the war of the Assassins and Templars, the defense of the city against the Spanish and her second agenda: freeing slaves.
This game does a few things different than other AC games before: The Assassins are not shown as the perfect order; Agaté has his doubts and does mistakes, and Aveline even has to work against him. However, he is no Templar (different to AC). Also it is the first time, we get to play a female Assassin. She got her own unique sword fighting system, which according to rumor was so good that it only afterwards got adapted to AC III. She also introduces the chain kill ability - something that we'd see reappear in games much later. And besides that she also introduces the Berserker dart, which in my humble opinion is one of the best weapons to have. We also get a much more complex trading system that needs you to pay attention. You could not only make bad trades by buying and selling goods at the wrong places - you can even make a loss. Besides the city of New Orleons we also get to play in the Bayou and there's even an "out mission" in Chichén Itzá - an old Maya city that is located on Yucatán - Mexico. This leads to an interesting mix of colonial french life, Bayou Voodoo cult and ancient Maya culture. Plus, there is a little bonus - she also get's an "out mission" in New York where she stumbles upon Connor; a small "fan favour" mission. Aveline is also the very first character that is not connected to Desmond; instead you as the player are the person in the modern-day, playing a game Abstergo invented by utilizing the DNA from Subject 1; the goal of Abstergo is not to find anything new, but actually make the Templars look good and the Assassins bad. But you got a hacked version of the game, which - similar to the glitches in previous games - will show you the changes when you find the data packages those hacker left behind.
However, the feature that is most unique for AC: Liberation and which - unfortunately never got picked up again afterwards - was her stealth and clothing system. Being situated in so many different "cultures" Aveline has a set of three different clothes: Her typical Assassin clothing which gives here the most range of movement and weapons, but also the most attention form guards and people around here.
But being of noble decent, Aveline also learned all the ways of the Lady and even has access to expensive dresses. Wearing those, she wasn't able to move the way she could as Assassin, and also she doesn't have access to nearly all here weapons. But she looses all notoriety, can move around more freely in restricted areas, flirt with guards to get access to areas you couldn't otherwise access, etc.
Last but not least there is the slave persona - dressed up as a slave she is not noticed at all - and when she is, she has easy ways to get out of visibility, by picking up a broom or carrying crates. She can move around "mostly" freely except for when slave guards are around, she has her full range of motion but of course no access to most of her weapons (but more than with the Lady persona - especially the ever so important Assassins Blade).
Not only do all three outfits let here access different areas, and need her to work with different strategies - but also the actions that make here notorious differ - as do the ways to loose notoriety again.
All in all I really enjoyed this part of the game and I am really disappointed, that it has never picked up again until now.
While all of this sounds really great, the main issue I have with this game, is that you'll see it's not a main title. Everything is much smaller, the story much shallower, and the overall game time is also really short; I cannot see any hours logged for the game, but it took me less than a week to complete the game, and that includes finding all the collectable things that are hidden in the maps. This also leads to a smaller range of usage of all the abilities that I mentioned. E.g. while it is cool that you can switch cloths and have different approaches on the missions, it would have been nice to actually have different choices to do a mission - maybe something like: "I need to kill target person": Possibility 1: I access through the slave entrance, work my way through the kitchen, etc. and get different challenges but also opportunities, as opposed to Possibility 2: I work myself in as a guest being the Lady. The reality for the game is this: "Kill target person, but you can only enter as slave". So while there could have been great potential to give you different play-styles and have different experiences and challenges, in reality you only get one way of doing things anyways, so it's rather dull, even though the idea is great and could have had so much potential.
Then again - and that's what makes it so hard for me to take into account: It's not really a main game, it wasn't intended for the main platforms that all other main games are published for, it's a mobile game - similar to all those iOS and Android games. And on that level, I think it might be an incredible game (I cannot judge it on that level though, as I never owned a Vita and have no references to other Vita games).
In the end I think it's a game worth playing - today you'll get it for free with AC III, it's treated as an DLC (which it never was - but if it where, then it is a much better DLC than most of the other DLCs), and it fits perfectly between AC III and Black Flag - so for any other competitionist out there: Give it a try; view it as a DLC and you won't be disappointed.
Being it's own game, it gets its own setting: We're in the "French and Indian War", which in Assassins Creed III only gets touched in the Epilogue - were in New Orleans, Louisiana - the south of America - a french colony that gets attacked by the Spanish. Aveline de Grandpré is an african-french nobel born female of a rich trader; who had a child with his slave, Jeanne. The mother disappears and Aveline grows up with her father and his wife Madeleine de L'Isle; and soon gets discovered by a Voodoo priest Agaté who helps here become an Assassin. In this game, Aveline's main objective is finding out what happened to her mother. But she's also caught between the war of the Assassins and Templars, the defense of the city against the Spanish and her second agenda: freeing slaves.
This game does a few things different than other AC games before: The Assassins are not shown as the perfect order; Agaté has his doubts and does mistakes, and Aveline even has to work against him. However, he is no Templar (different to AC). Also it is the first time, we get to play a female Assassin. She got her own unique sword fighting system, which according to rumor was so good that it only afterwards got adapted to AC III. She also introduces the chain kill ability - something that we'd see reappear in games much later. And besides that she also introduces the Berserker dart, which in my humble opinion is one of the best weapons to have. We also get a much more complex trading system that needs you to pay attention. You could not only make bad trades by buying and selling goods at the wrong places - you can even make a loss. Besides the city of New Orleons we also get to play in the Bayou and there's even an "out mission" in Chichén Itzá - an old Maya city that is located on Yucatán - Mexico. This leads to an interesting mix of colonial french life, Bayou Voodoo cult and ancient Maya culture. Plus, there is a little bonus - she also get's an "out mission" in New York where she stumbles upon Connor; a small "fan favour" mission. Aveline is also the very first character that is not connected to Desmond; instead you as the player are the person in the modern-day, playing a game Abstergo invented by utilizing the DNA from Subject 1; the goal of Abstergo is not to find anything new, but actually make the Templars look good and the Assassins bad. But you got a hacked version of the game, which - similar to the glitches in previous games - will show you the changes when you find the data packages those hacker left behind.
However, the feature that is most unique for AC: Liberation and which - unfortunately never got picked up again afterwards - was her stealth and clothing system. Being situated in so many different "cultures" Aveline has a set of three different clothes: Her typical Assassin clothing which gives here the most range of movement and weapons, but also the most attention form guards and people around here.
But being of noble decent, Aveline also learned all the ways of the Lady and even has access to expensive dresses. Wearing those, she wasn't able to move the way she could as Assassin, and also she doesn't have access to nearly all here weapons. But she looses all notoriety, can move around more freely in restricted areas, flirt with guards to get access to areas you couldn't otherwise access, etc.
Last but not least there is the slave persona - dressed up as a slave she is not noticed at all - and when she is, she has easy ways to get out of visibility, by picking up a broom or carrying crates. She can move around "mostly" freely except for when slave guards are around, she has her full range of motion but of course no access to most of her weapons (but more than with the Lady persona - especially the ever so important Assassins Blade).
Not only do all three outfits let here access different areas, and need her to work with different strategies - but also the actions that make here notorious differ - as do the ways to loose notoriety again.
All in all I really enjoyed this part of the game and I am really disappointed, that it has never picked up again until now.
While all of this sounds really great, the main issue I have with this game, is that you'll see it's not a main title. Everything is much smaller, the story much shallower, and the overall game time is also really short; I cannot see any hours logged for the game, but it took me less than a week to complete the game, and that includes finding all the collectable things that are hidden in the maps. This also leads to a smaller range of usage of all the abilities that I mentioned. E.g. while it is cool that you can switch cloths and have different approaches on the missions, it would have been nice to actually have different choices to do a mission - maybe something like: "I need to kill target person": Possibility 1: I access through the slave entrance, work my way through the kitchen, etc. and get different challenges but also opportunities, as opposed to Possibility 2: I work myself in as a guest being the Lady. The reality for the game is this: "Kill target person, but you can only enter as slave". So while there could have been great potential to give you different play-styles and have different experiences and challenges, in reality you only get one way of doing things anyways, so it's rather dull, even though the idea is great and could have had so much potential.
Then again - and that's what makes it so hard for me to take into account: It's not really a main game, it wasn't intended for the main platforms that all other main games are published for, it's a mobile game - similar to all those iOS and Android games. And on that level, I think it might be an incredible game (I cannot judge it on that level though, as I never owned a Vita and have no references to other Vita games).
In the end I think it's a game worth playing - today you'll get it for free with AC III, it's treated as an DLC (which it never was - but if it where, then it is a much better DLC than most of the other DLCs), and it fits perfectly between AC III and Black Flag - so for any other competitionist out there: Give it a try; view it as a DLC and you won't be disappointed.