Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India Reviews
The second episode in the Chronicles spin-off series is as good-looking and well thought-out as the first, but marred by frustrating stealth and platform sections and flawed controls. While the visuals are impressive and the mechanics mostly solid, the level design will test your patience yet leave you oddly underwhelmed. Here's hoping the last part, Russia, brings some big improvements.
Despite an obligatory narrative, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is an excellent continuation of this unique spinoff and I can't wait to get my hands on the third game next month.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles India is a bland instalment to an otherwise OK series. The inclusion of bad performance, mediocre controls and lackluster graphics certainly doesn't help.
This Indian Chronicle holds few surprises for those who played China, meaning frustration and contentment in roughly equal measure. Plus some half-decent artistic flair.
An improvement on its predecessor, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is a more varied game that at it's best, is pretty damn good. But a handful of poor choices and underdeveloped ideas hold it back.
By remaining focused and paring down the extra content, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is a stealth game through and through.
As a departure from the typical Assassin's Creed series, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is as colourful as they get. Unfortunately, the controls and limited story fail to really deliver a compelling gameplay experience.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India learned from the missteps of its predecessor, as gameplay is more varied and its colorful, vibrant levels are both pleasing to the eye and fun to interact with in most cases. Open combat is to be avoided at all costs, however, limiting how you play the game—and some of the puzzle-platforming levels drag in term of pacing.
Like it always has, your fandom with Assassin's Creed will determine your level of interest. Despite being a side-show from the annual attractions, it's still business as usual. Standard stealth with a null story amidst an interesting and unventured historical period. Like me, that last part may be enough to entice. Just don't expect the former to feel as novel.
Not quite the diamond in the rough, India is at times sumptuous but often shallow in almost every other way.
Good ideas assassinated by terrible design
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is a stealth game with Assassin's Creed adornment. Its story barely invites you to understand more about Arbaaz Mir and Climax Studios completely fails at telling one, but if you are desperate for a stealth game, you will be challenged and fairly compensated for your time and money.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India starts off making you feel like an elite assassin, able to tackle scenarios and obstacles as you see fit, but increasingly you begin to feel like a dog being berated into learning how to go through an obstacle course, or even just a rat in a maze.
If you enjoyed Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China and hankering for more of the same, then India definitely delivers on that level and if you missed the previous game but enjoy some classic platforming with a next-gen twist, this is definitely a title you should check out. The gameplay is sturdy, the graphics mirror painted art and audio create an enjoyable adventure (albeit short) through another part of the Assassin's Creed franchise. In terms of replay value and once you've completed the main game, the title does give the player more challenging modes to complete the game again and fine-tune your assassin skills.
Unless you're a hardcore Assassin's Creed fan, the stellar art direction and a unique setting isn't enough to warrant purchasing Assassin's Creed Chronicles India at the moment. There are makings of a good game buried underneath, but you're better off waiting for a price drop or the inevitable retail release later this year.
A simplistic but beautiful take on the Assassin's Creed formula, one that might've benefited from being unshackled from the series it's based on.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India has competent gameplay and a vibrant touch of colour. However, lacking level design with cheap tactics designed to cause instant fail-states and tedious trailing missions take away from what could be a fantastic experience. Nevertheless, I still look forward to the next Chronicles game, Russia.
The absolute beauty of the painting-like art style also helped. There's one thing that India has that was just as amazing as it was in China.
'Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India' takes a step back from the modest success of 'China'. The narrative adds little to the overall 'Assassin's Creed' storyline, most of the characters are thin, and the gameplay is inexplicably disheartening. Perhaps Ubisoft can eke out a victory with the Russian installment next month, but this entry isn't worth the price of admission.
In the end, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India is a perfect example of "woulda, coulda, shoulda." There are so many highlights glinting out from this pile of mediocrity; if only the developers could've tied them all together, then we'd be treated to a more vivid and consistent display. But serious drawbacks like poor storytelling and acting, questionable AI and gameplay responsiveness, and a definite lack of pacing drag the whole production down.