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Assassins Creed Chronicles is the latest title in a franchise which has spawned many titles over the years since its debut in November 2007. The games are set in a fictional history while drawing inspiration from the novel Alamut by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, building upon concepts from the Prince of Persia series.
The Assassins Creed series revolves around two societies who work from the shadows; the Assassins and the Knights Templar, you play as different Assassins as each game progresses their stories throughout history. In addition, and in particular the main games, they have received mainly positive reviews from fans and critics, many of whom have called Assassins Creed “…the standout series on [the seventh generation] of consoles”, and as a whole, the series has sold well over 70 million copies.
As for this current Trilogy of chapters, I played through China first and I noticed that unlike previous Assassins Creed titles, this collection from the series consists of 2.5D side scrolling stealth platformer games. I confess that when going into these games I was a little wary as I’m not a fan of the game series, having only played the first one which I found to be repetitive and boring, reusing the same tasks over and over in similar missions which made the game feel stale in no time at all.
As a fan of retro games, this title reminded me of the original Prince of Persia game from the 8-bit era which is true to form as this is where the series draws some of its inspiration. Personally, I hold the Prince of Persia games in high regard due to the framerate set at the time as well as excellent challenging gameplay and similarities to the Aladdin Story.
How does this game hold up to someone who is not a fan of the Assassins Creed series?
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Russia Full Game Walkthrough – RabidRetrospectGames
Story:
Each of the 3 games are set in different eras, here detailing the separate story lines and locations for each of our main protagonists.
China: This one is set after the film Assassin’s Creed: Embers, in 1526 China and focusing on the female protagonist, Shao Jun. After being trained by legendary Italian assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Shao Jun returns to her homeland to exact vengeance against the Templar group Eight Tigers, who wiped out the Chinese brotherhood.
India: 1841 India features the protagonist, Arbaaz Mir. While the Sikh Empire was at war with the East India Company. When a Master Templar arrives with a mysterious item that used to belong to the Assassin Order, Mir must discover why he has come, steal back the item, and protect his friends and his lover. Some of the weapons introduced are a typical Mughal and Sikh sword resembling an Aruval, Urumi, a concealed Katara with Bagh naka, a Chakram, smoke bombs for stealth and distraction. A Slingshot with rock pellets has also been added.
Russia: This games setting is 1918 Russia during the aftermath of the October Revolution and features protagonist Nikolai Orelov. Orelov wants to leave with his family, but is required to perform one last mission for the Assassin Order: infiltrate the house where the Tsar’s family is being held by the Bolsheviks and steal an artefact that has been fought over by Assassins and Templars for centuries. Along the way, he witnesses the massacre of the Tsar Nicholas II’s children, but manages to save the princess, Anastasia. He must escape the Templars while protecting the artefact and Anastasia.
Gameplay:
All 3 games have basically the same gameplay with similar abilities, but some have different weapons and obstacles to overcome during their tasks.
The gameplay is a simplified 2D version of the original Assassins Creed play style, but feels similar to previous 2D games like Flashback and Prince of Persia as mentioned before. The gameplay can be enjoyable but stealth and patience is the key to meet your tasks – if you go in running and gunning, you are likely to die again and again. The key to the game as you would guess is Stealth; be strategic as in most instances you are best to keep an eye on your enemies and sneak past them as otherwise you may get spotted by another enemy if you try sneak attacking from behind! The games get trickier as they go on with higher numbers of enemies in close correlation to each other and more complex layouts for the surroundings tightening the window of opportunity to succeed.
The games are challenging, but for AC veterans this should be familiar ground. If you are a lover of stealth game titles, but are unfamiliar with this series, then you may wish to check this out but if you are a newcomer, you may want to try earlier titles first which you can buy in shops for dirt-cheap today.
The challenge can keep the gameplay fun but it can feel a little formulaic at times however there is still room to enjoy the games from beginning to end.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the game.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles India Full Game Walkthrough – RabidRetrospectGames
Graphics:
The graphics are attractive and the stylisation is kept to the overall theme of each individual game. The one which stood out to me most was Russia due to its contrast of Red and Grey and its grainy screen filter. It appealed to me more than either the China or India games’ style as they both seemed plain in comparison; it feels that more effort was focused on Russia’s atmosphere than those two.
Background characters and enemies look good with decent textures and colours. Each protagonist has their typical hooded garb seen in AC games again and again but with features and colours suiting to the style of their location. Single shot drawn cut-scenes with voice overs play their part between missions to keep the flow of the narrative, and all of these look good for what is needed but a little more effort with full motion cut-scenes would have been appreciated.
All in all, the graphics do as they should – no wow factors, pretty well-rounded but are let down in that the graphics look like they could have been on previous generation consoles.
Sound:
The music, just like graphics style, is in keeping with the themes of each game’s title and, again, if I were to pick one that stood out more to me it would be Russia.
Voiceover is done well along with the correct use of accents; music keeps to their settings; animals, weapons, footsteps, environments all sound spot on, with nothing outstanding.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles China Full Game Walkthrough – RabidRetrospectGames
Final Notes:
The gameplay kept me going for an hour or two before I wanted to turn the games off and rest for a bit or play another game. This most likely impacted me because I’m not the biggest fan of the Assassins Creed franchise after not enjoying the first title in the series. I did, however, get some nostalgic enjoyment from the games due to their similarities to old favourites of mine.
I think these games should appeal to fans of the Assassins Creed franchise but are unlikely to drastically alter the opinions of those who did not enjoy the series previously or whet the appetite of any newcomers. I say this because the games seem to have been made to fill in some of the lore between the previous titles which will make it harder to pull new fans into the franchise.
If you are a fan of 2.5D games, and enjoyed titles like Prince of Persia from the 8/16-bit era, I’d say to try them out as you may enjoy the format but otherwise I would hold out unless you are an Assassins Creed fan as you may not enjoy them as much as you would hope.
You can buy the trilogy in one package or separately as downloads, but they are cheap all together. Your stance on what to buy would likely depend on if you are already a fan of the series or wish to just pick up to try it out as a casual newcomer to the series. As I’ve said as much throughout it will come as no great surprise that I’d recommend Russia, if buying individually for newcomers or curious parties, but if you are a fan pick up the Trilogy set as a whole as you may enjoy the extra lore to the stories you already experienced.
Overall Scores:
Graphics: 7/10 – Not up to the standards of the newest generation, the graphics would be just as good on an X-Box 360 or PS3.
Sound: 7/10 – Not spectacular and more enjoyable in Russia’s game setting than the others in my own opinion.
Gameplay: 8/10 – Typical gameplay mechanics seen in 2.5D platform or Stealth games, fun but played safe, gameplay in the games surroundings again is fun but nothing special.
Enjoyment/Story: 6/10 – The stories did not grab me as much as I would have liked, the diverse trio of characters have their own motivations for what they do but I found it difficult to get invested.
Thanks to the RabidRetrospectGames and Assassin’s Creed channels for their embedded footage.
All gaming footage featured is from the MKIceAndFire Youtube channel.
Assassins Creed Chronicles is out now on on Xbox One, PS4 and PS Vita.
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Trailer – Trilogy: China, India & Russia – Assassin’s Creed
Important info:
- Publisher: Ubisoft
- Players: single player
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GRAPHICS SOUND GAMEPLAY ENJOYMENT/STORY |
7 7 8 6 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Music: Aaron Miller
Voice Cast:
Arbaaz Mir: Johnny Neal
Ezio Auditore: Giovanni Noto
Alexander Burke: Kenny Blyth
Qiu Ju/Zhang Yong: Robert Vernon
Shao Jun: Annabelle Galea
Templar Officer: Howy Bratherton
Russian Guard: Andrei Lenart
Other voices: Andrew Futaishi
Other voices: Jack Goddard
Other voices: Guy Slocombe
Retro game fan, comic book reader, board game lover and film fanatic. I have loved videogames since I was 5 years old after visiting my first arcade, I have grown up with gaming since having my Atari 2600 then Commodore 64. I ended up building my own career crafting pixelised characters and have had the pleasure of meeting many of my retro gaming heroes who developed some of my absolute favourite games.
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