“Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag” was one of the most awaited games of 2013 as it launched for the current and next-generation game consoles at the time. The game looked cool and it was about some months back when I finally had the chance to play it, the gameplay was new and strange for me;But, I got the hang of it.
It was also announced that there would be a manga concerning the events of the game; But, the manga would include an original character who would be the boy who controlled the Animus and played out the memories of his ancestor, Edward Kenway.
The manga follows the story from the videogame loosely. So that’s one of the points that works well and it doesn’t at the same time, let me explain: The series was serialized in a Japanese magazine in August, 2013. So, it was two months before the international launch for the videogame and they thought it would be good to differentiate them to avoid spoilers for the actual game; But, it would’ve worked well if the manga came after the release of the game.
I bought the series when it was being released in México. The series was published by “Panini Manga” and it had colored pages and a great detail given to the quality of the pages inside the volumes.
Recently, Titan Comics announced that they will publish the manga at the “San Diego Comic-Con International 2016” as one of its main licenses from this year. They got into the game a little bit late in my opinion, as the manga has been around for almost 3 years.
The manga features an original character, Masato Yagyu, who relives the memories of the “Assassin” in hand. The character is an uninteresting protagonist and I prefer the silent protagonist from the game, this character only whines and tries to be a bad-ass towards the end; But, he always messes up and doesn’t keep the interest you should give the character, unlike “Desmond Miles” from the previous games. “Desmond Miles” at least had some games to develop and that’s the only thing I can say that can differentiate them.
The art of the manga is cool, it has some interesting designs to the characters from the game; The manga does take some liberties to differentiate the designs from the game and the manga.
The length of the manga was short and it didn’t help our main protagonist to develop over the course of the series and it takes some points away from the final score of the series.
Overall, the series falls short on expectations. The game has a far superior story and designs, the artwork also falls short of the beauty given in-game. If you are a fan of the game and a fan of manga: Give it a try. If you only read manga, then you are gonna have a plain story based off a game franchise.
El Rincón de Yayo 