Assassin's Creed Syndicate: Undermined, Not Underrated

"Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" hailed from a long line of titles that features free-to-explore open world environments, close up assassination, and politically intrigued plots; of which, this game delivered more than required, if not less. Released in 2015, shoulder to shoulder with the likes of "Batman: Arkham Knight", Ubisoft seem to have a big rival to compete with, if not an opportunity to learn and adapt from them. Long time fans and casual gamers worldwide are offered a chance to see London in its hayday of the Industrial Revolution, while following the storylines to see how the modern day assassins continue their cat-and-mouse chase with the templars; all of which shall lead to the big debate of if "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" will satisfy, or will it flailing around as one of the games ever made.

Followed in the same art direction and graphic upscale as seen in "Assassin's Creed: Unity", London of the year 1868 is represented proudly with stunning visual: eye-appealing color palette and clear, if not quite realistic texture. The world is clear and bright, with its urban landscape varying from poor to rich, from Whitechapel to Lambeth. Even though London is not as crowded as Paris in "Assassin's Creed Unity"(which might be an improvement to some), the city is teeming with life: you can always expect a train to run pass you if you are near a railway(and you can certainly rob it, as usual); you can always expect a cargo cart passing you on the street; and on the river Thames, there will always be boats passing by, offering you to pass the river without even touching the water. Most of the important landmarks are crafted with care and represented well in the game: train stations such as St. Pancras or Victoria or Charing Cross; the Bank of England building, Saint Paul's Cathedral, the Buckingham Palace, and many more. And as usual, you can climb all of the aforementioned structures and take in the breathtaking view once you are on top. With "Assassin's Creed Syndicate", Ubisoft ticked the box with the graphical improvement and world building, leaving gamers with an excellent representation of 1868 London.

There are much to be discussed regarding the gameplay aspect of "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate". With climbing highrise buildings being the staple, Ubisoft, perhaps with an effort to humour fans, add in a certain Rope Launcher. What the rope launcher does is exactly you could expect from a Batman's gadget: it can scale you to the top of a building at minimum effort and high speed, while also let you connect the two structures with some sort of reliable, portable zipline. You could say that it's the combination of the Line Launcher and the Grappling Hook, only stopping short at the prospect of launching you into the air and let you glide down Industrial London with a majestic black cape. This tool was the subject of much scrutiny and criticism, even being the accused culprit of the erasure of climbing out of the Assassin's Creed. However, upon inspecting in-game experience, gamers could see that this Rope Launcher actually offers an alternative way of traversing the world, while also offer a more efficient travel experience and combat advantage, the same way that the Grappling Hook and the Line Launcher have made Batman such a menace over the Gotham sky, but never an overpowered character. Other than that, gamers are welcome to travel on a carriage in a civilized manner.
Other than the Rope Launcher, the protagonists make use of smaller and more concealable weapon choices: kukris, cane swords, and knuckle brasses. While being an unique arsenal in the franchise, the weapon choices in this game are also defined by a fast-paced leveling system, which made most of the items quickly become obsolete. Ranged attacks come in the form of firearms(with the combination of knuckle brasses, you're almost close to playing a modern mafia game), and some might deem them anachronistic. Other throwables such as smoke bombs and throwing knives are also available.
Clothing choice of "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" continues to make fun of traditional sartorial design, offering you outlandish outfits such as Baron Jordane's Finery and Lady Melyne's Gown to wear. They're incredibly fun to look at, exceptionally anachronistic to think about, and also one of the selling point of the Assassin's Creed franchise. It's obvious that once Ubisoft agreed to let Ezio wore a bright red and wine outfit to run around Renaissance Italy, there is no going back. Bonus point being the only Assassin's Creed game that let you put on the Shao Jun's outfit for an outing.
With the traversal and the gears all figured out sufficiently, Ubisoft fell short with combat in this game. Fighting in "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" is hindered by buggy enemies, monotoned combat style, and the overpowered system(the enemies are overpowered at the start of the game, and then you're overpowered at the end of the game). Fortunately, assassination is still an enjoyable experience, therefore making this sorry combat experience much more forgiveable.

The chase for villains by the assassins and the struggle to rule the world by the Templars persist in "Assassin's Creed Syndicate, with the fight being carried out by the twin Evie Frye and Jacob Frye, whose rivals are forwarded by Crawford Starrick(one could say he is the British version of Laureano de Torres y Ayala) and his myriads of templars. Jacob decided that London is best liberated by physical force, such as getting rid of the Blighter gang that plagued the city and the targets hovering above them, while Evie believed that is imperative to locate the Piece of Eden to prevent it from falling into the hand of the Templars. Both objectives are true and playable, and the story revolved around the twin losing and winning this tug-of-war with the opposition, with the finale of the twins coming out on top, though not without much arguments and personal failures. The story of "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" is politically intrigued, sanitized(with quite little character's personal life aspects), and well rounded. Its representation is properly structured, mostly impersonal. This kind of storytelling can be safe and highly praised, but also potentially keep the game out from being cherished by gamers who are motivated by the prospect of a good plot.

A good several years have passed since the arrival of "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate", and as both Ubisoft and the gaming world have moved on, the title has been remembered as one of the old game that is underrated by gamers. However, my personal experience with this title have led me to believe that "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" is in fact, not underrated, but undermined by Ubisoft itself. Obviously, in a game that has excellent cartography visual representation but found itself lacking an important, but basic feature such as the creation of a new save file(or even properly starting a new game), gamers could always tell there exists some serious crunch culture going on with Ubisoft. The game also suffers from several performance bugs, and gamers should expect to experience some frame stability drop even on a more intensive hardware. This title is not underrated, being a loved and cherished game by so many gamers out there, but undermined by its creator company, Ubisoft, for neglience in several aspects of game development.
"Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" remained to be one of the fun and fulfilling experience to be had by generation of gamers to come, should it avoid going down the same path as "Assassin's Creed: Liberation". "Assassin's Creed: Syndicate" is available on Steam, Xbox and Playstation, purchasable at the price of 25.99 USD for the base product.

one of best ac i've ever play

London baby

Very similar to Unity, this game made some questionable decision which ultimately worked out all right. The choice to make the world properly scaled improved the overall atmosphere but hindered parkour. It has the same system as Unity but the world is not designed as well around casual freerunning. To assist with this new obstacle there is a grappling hook to instantly climb buildings. Necessary but questionable since there's now no motivation to actually scale buildings manually. A large intrigue of parkour is exploring well designed climbing challenges which have no impact when I can aim at the sync point and basically teleport there. Despite this the game did make other welcome changes. The fully dual character system with unique upgrades as well as a fleshed out gang concept made for a very enjoyable follow to Unity. Overall I would recommend playing this title, but if you want the ultimate parkour experience check out Unity.

9/10


The perfect British Simulator

-You either stab or get stabbed
-the Thames is gross looking
-the city is hostile
-and the guy messing up everything has a mustache.

great game two of my favorite characters in the Assassin's lure with an amazing city background city of London is alive and just an easy fun game to pick up always

assins greed

u

the action looks better than newer installment

As always a nice Assassins Creed Franchise. Just a bit clunky on parkour, most of the time it's much better running on the street than weaving on top of the houses. Encounter a couple of bug where the game crashes or stuck up but overall a nice experience especially if you like steampunk theme game.