I for one have been a huge fan of the Assassins Creed Series. I remember the first real AC game that I played back on the Xbox 360 was Assassin Creed 3, as I followed the story of Connor, as he battled against the Templars in a fight to save the colonies. Since spending hours and hours progressing, through that, I have loved the most recent two for the Xbox One, Black Flag and my favourite of the whole series, Syndicate as I followed the story of Jacob and Evie Frye, and take back the city of London from Templar control, owned by the notorious Crawford Starrick. With my expectation so high, I was intrigued when they released something as a spin-off and something different to the main games. But would it keep my love up with the main games? Or should Ubisoft continue to stay with the main ones?
Assassins Creed Chronicles was released as individual titles over the last year, with the first entry, China was released in April last year, which was part of the Unity season pass for anyone who brought that, India released early this year in January, and Russia which is the latest and final release to the chronicles series, and that was released in February. The games in themselves are 2.5D side scroller platform games, and you follow the trail of three assassins, all unique to each game and the story (which I will go into each one in further detail in this review). Throughout, you are able to use your vast array of weapons and abilities, including whistling to distract guards, rope darts, daggers, and so much more. How do you approach the game and style? Do you go through like a stealth-man? Sneaking past every guard at every corner? Do you go full out assassin and wipe out every guard you see? Or do you take a shadow approach where you patiently wait for the right opportunity to make your move? For me, something that this game does incredible well that you don’t see in the main AC games, is the focus on stealth, and sneaking past opposition guards and characters. You could easily if strategically thought through, go through a whole game without killing a single guard. That`s how much the focus is on stealth, and the possibilities are endless.
Let me break down now into what is different with each game. However, all the game use the same sort of gameplay features and mechanics and I will go into this later.
Let`s go to China. 1526 China to be exact. You take control of the female protagonist Shao Jun (She is the only female protagonist out of the 3 games) and you are to return to her homeland to wipe out the Templar group Eight tigers, who had wiped out the entire Chinese brotherhood. Now, throughout the game, you`ll struggle to see any sort of storyline. The basic acting, and animated cut scenes, fail to really grasp you and tell you the story, something that in my opinion, the main games do incredibly well.
Secondly, let`s get to India, a bit later on in 1841 and follow the protagonist of Arbaaz Mir White as he follows and seeks out a master templar, who has come to India with an item that use to belong to the assassin order, Mir`s tasked with finding out why he has come, to take the item and to protect his lover and friends. You`ll be tasked with whatever approach you wish, and with the additions of some extra special weapons, including a Sikh sword, and the addition to India sees you being able to use a slingshot with pellets to take out and distract the guards. You will notice a few new features and additions to the India entry, including the ability to pickpocket guards without them noticing (or looting them when you`ve killed them) and sometimes you`ll need to do this to grab something that may progress you to the next level, i.e. a key for example. Another feature more used within this entry is the sniper sequences, where you need to take out the guards without being seen or caught. However, in my opinion this was a little thought through.
Lastly, we go to Russia, 1918, after the Russian revolution and we follow the story of protagonist Nikolai Orelov. Orelov wants to escape Russia with his family, but he is summoned to do one last mission for the assassins, to infiltrate a house where the Tsar`s family is being held captive, and steal an artefact that has been fought over for centuries by the Templars and the assassins. He witnesses the death of several characters of the Tsar`s family, but manages to save the princess Anastasia. You must now take care of Anastasia and see her to safety, as well as fighting off and avoiding the Templars. Snipers, gas explosions and more make an appearance in this entry, and more distraction methods, including phoning a telephone point to distract a guard so you can sneak through.
There are so many things that all three entries to the game follow, and they are all very similar. Let me first say that the games are beautiful. They really are, the artistic have really taken a great and fantastic approach to the game, and all three locations, China, India and Russia, really look spectacular in their own way. I cannot fault that. The game itself also follows a lot of the characteristics and traits of a full scaled Assassins Creed game. You will recognise some of the controls from the main games (the movement and running up walls are very similar to the main ones) but the brawling and combat system has changed and is different to the main game, which for me I quite liked, as it offers something new and brings something else to the table. When you get to a certain part of a sequence, you will be taken through a tutorial (which I wouldn’t recommend skipping for the first time you do it, but all three games follow the same combat system so it`s not needed after the first time) of how the combat system works. I talked about earlier though the fact that you could go an entire level without being caught or seen by a guard, as one of the main focuses in the trilogy here is stealth. You are able to hide behind pillars, in the shadows, little alcoves, and a stack of hay, as you stay out of sight from the guards and advance your way through the level. Each section is broken into parts, and you`ll get a rating based on that, Bronze, Silver, Gold. The better and more stealth you perform, the higher grade and boundary you`ll fit into i.e. Gold.
The Assassins Creed Chronicles Trilogy offers something a bit different to the main scale games, and offers something beautiful, and with some really good gameplay points. However, the lack of compelling story and engagement has the potential to put some off, but at a price of around £22.99, for three games that you`ll get a good few hours out of each (even more if you go for all the collectibles and vantage points etc) it`s truly worth a gamble.
A huge thank you to XCN for supplying us with a Review copy of Assassins Creed Chronicles: The Trilogy
