BloodRawEngine
Video Game Engine of War
Finished Freedom Cry a little while ago at about 90% total synch. Goes without saying my only real flaws with the DLC's gameplay functions and changes is that really, I think there should've been more of all of that. The map is about a sixth or so the size of the main game's with at least one or two places of the seafaring activities like harpooning and diving.
The missions in the main campaign are pretty straigtforward, but felt thankfully more open-ended than the mind-numbing tailling missions in ACIV. Bear in mind that there are still some in this game, but generally don't last nearly as long, and there's also more variety of what each mission has you do. Tailing missions and eavesdropping acts more as a means of information gathering than a tediously long precursor to stealth sections of varying quality.
There's only one city in the DLC called Port-au-Prince, with the hub being a brothel and a cove that leads to it. Chances are you won't spend much time in those particular areas outside of going to the former to initiate missions. The city itself is pretty compact, maybe a bit too much, but considering the scale of the rest of Freedom Cry, I suppose it's consistent. That, and it never really felt cripplingly small. IE, it's bigger than Nassau, for sure, but smaller than Kingston.
The city is where you'll be freeing your first chunk of slaves, by means including killing pursuers chasing after an escapee, looting a key from a pen-keeper, buying them in auctions (or killing the auctioneer if you're so inclined), or killing a slavemaster in the middle of punishing a couple of slaves. These are the kinds of ones you'll find scattered across the city, and they usually only net you one to two Maroons. The more slaves you free, the more unlockables you'll also achieve. Once you get your ship, you'll also be able to find slave ships out at sea with escort ships that you have to destroy without causing too much damage to the slave ship before you board it. This actually ain't as frustrating as it sounds so long as you can drive the escort ships away from the slave ship. It wasn't for me, anyway.
The main gist of stealth sections comes from liberating plantations across the sea and Port-au-Prince. Maybe I subconciously got better or more patient in my hiatus from the game, but honestly, compared to the stealth sections in the main game, these actually felt alot more fun to do in my opinion. The main objective is to slay about 20 of the enemies without being detected, lest they start killing off slaves. The enemies are all across the areas and you can also recruit some of your allies to fight them off for you. All the things you could do as Edward to distract guards you can do here, and the general layout of each area makes doing so a lot more ideal and generally more well-designed. There aren't many areas that have half a dozen guards crowding any one spot where they can see you at every corner, which makes sabotaging the alarm bells alot easier for example. they usually net you a good 30 or so freed slaves, so if you're low, they're worth the effort.
IGN's review pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as my opinion on Adewale and Edward go as protagonists, in terms of their respective plights, and more importantly, their manner at going about them. I've made it clear before that Edward is far from my favorite protagonist in the series on pretty much any of his merits and any sense of development for his character was insultingly rushed and contrived; Adewale seems every bit as passionate at achieving his goals as Edward seemed, but in far a more balanced way (at least as much as possible considering the length of the DLC) that really does a good job of being consistent with how Adewale kind of acted as the voice of reason that resonated the most with me personally. He's more fully-rounded from the start than Edward was, so more of his story is spent experiencing how he expresses it and the challenges he faces than him going through any major changes. There's also some off-hand dialogue that also goes into some more depth of how and why he found the Assassin Brotherhood to be more his calling. Obviously, there's only so much of all that that a 3-5 hour DLC can get across. Like the rest of the DLC, the only thing that would've made Ade's character arc here better is if there was more of it. In short, while his motives in this arc are almost redundantly in-common with the likes of Connor or Ezio circa Brotherhood (though I'd argue that was Ezio's definitive arc in his trilogy), it's also one of the reasons I have to say that I think they should've just made Adewale the protagonist of the whole game.
Also, Adewale's machete is yet another weapon that blows Edward's dual cutlasses out of the water. It functions basically like that of a heavy version of Connor's tomahawk, which I'm all for since that was my favorite weapon in the series to fight with. One or two of his kill animations are downright disturbing too. Hell, there's this one where he jams the machete into the side of his victim, lets it go and then wails on the guy before yanking it back out. Countering is alot more responsive too it seems and altogether, the weapon feels just plain smoother than Edward's swords. Ironic, considering the more brutish style, but I'm not complaining.
The soundtrack of the DLC is also surprisingly really good. I'd go as far to say that I prefer the naval battle tracks in Freedom Cry to all but one of Black Flag's.