After the disaster that was Unity for the debut of the series onto new hardware, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate helps redeem that tarnished reputation. It is the ninth mainline installment to the long running series and is set in Victorian London. It retains the familiar stealth gameplay with its biggest draw being the free-running. The free-running builds upon from Unity and pressing the right trigger button will cause either Jacob or Evie to start running. If you want to climb up then you combine it with a press of the X button and if you want to climb down, then it’ll be a combination with the circle button. While it takes a short amount of time in the beginning to adjust, it becomes quite intuitive and works well. It’s easy to overlook the always present instances where you will end up climbing something or jumping somewhere you didn’t want to. The controls are at their worst when you’re in confined spaces and the characters absolutely refuses to do what you want, it’s really frustrating.
The game adds in a rope launcher, which allows you to create a zip-line between buildings. This allows you to quickly travel between rooftops, or stay on the zipline and assassinate from above, allowing a bit of variety (and making it easier) to dispatch your foes. Furthermore, you can use the rope launcher to rappel up buildings, making it much faster than if you had climbed it manually.
Victorian London is one of the most modern settings that have been featured in Assassin’s Creed. Factories spewing smoke and machinery are commonplace, and it gives the game a unique feel. The world is expectedly large, and in addition to fast travel points, there are carriages that you can drive around. The music surprisingly captures your attention (mainly due to the violin). This is an Ubisoft open world game so there are definitely a lot of familiar elements. There are the numerous collectibles scattered all over the place, as well as high structures to climb in order to survey and defog the map of the surroundings.
The story stars the twins Jacob and Evie Frye. Their personalities are different leading to different approaches, and this reflects in their play-styles. While both plays exactly the same, Jacob favors combat more while Evie favors stealth. Their bantering is pretty good and the clash of their way of approaching things is featured within the story. The story focuses upon the hidden war between the Assassins and Templars again. Jacob and Evie are assassins who are aiming to recover the Pieces of Eden that the Templars have in their control. The Templars are the main enemies, although Jacob and Evie will face off against the police from time to time.
The pair arrives in London in order to find the Piece of Eden that takes on the form of a shroud this time. They track down Crawford Starrick ,a Templar in control of London, and slowly find a way to crumble his power. It’s a simple structure in which you kill off his main associates one by one, but because of this, it works well. Wrapped into all of this is the present day story. Like a lot of the games after Assassin’s Creed III, it is minimal and seemingly goes nowhere. The Assassins are constantly in the losing side although the final scene has a fairly big revelation which makes it interesting again if they can keep it up in the next game.
There are light RPG elements. Nearly everything you do will give you experience points. These points are then used to unlock new moves, abilities and other passive bonuses. Furthermore, you collect money in order to craft and unlock other types of abilities, which can be addictive. You’re able to swap between Jacob and Evie at any time, although missions may force you to use one over the other.
Unfortunately, despite the improvements, the gameplay is definitely feeling stale. The mission structures have been made less restrictive than Unity, with more variety, meaning it is definitely more fun. However, you can’t help but feel that there is nothing new in how it approaches and presents things. Each mission has various ways to complete, so you’re not railroaded into as linear a experience. For example, there are various entry points into the buildings you’re supposed to infiltrate. Ultimately, stealth will always work but you can brute force your way into winning if you wish. You’re not actively discouraged from combat anymore unlike Unity. While it is still encouraged to be avoided, at least you stand a good fighting chance and won’t die from a few hits. The combat is pretty basic since you use a button to punch, can counter, and break your opponent’s guard.
There is no multiplayer mode, the game focuses purely on single player and puts all of its quality into that mode. Thankfully, the single player missions are solid, and outside of that, the huge map provides heaps of things to do. It is easy to get distracted, even during a mission. However, there are still a few duds, such as the tailing missions which are terrible. Furthermore, Assassin’s Creed never really had good final “boss” fights and Syndicate is no exception. The final fight against the villain actually drags out for far too long, with repetitive phases and a bulletspongey boss. It leads to a tedious fight.
Overall, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is a return to form for the franchise. Yes, it feels like an iteration to the series’ formula rather than massive improvements like a sequel. You can’t shake off the feeling that everything is familiar but once you get into the rhythm of the game, it is a lot of fun.
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