Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China (Video Game Review)

Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is a game that tries to take the critically acclaimed series to a whole new level, which is basically the 2.5 dimension. It’s clear competitor in this regard is Mark of Ninja, with whom Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China does share many ideas, but on the other hand it is nice to see the Assassin's Creed series from another perspective.

Story
In this game you follow the story of Shao Jun, which is a Chinese assassin that tries to kill the Templar group of Eight Tigers, which presumably wreaked havoc onto the natal land. Because of that, the story gets quite personal, but thankfully there are numerous twists and turns that will make the game very interesting as you advance.

Gameplay
As mentioned earlier, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China does manage to provide you with a variety of unique challenges, that start rather easily with the introduction of 2.5D battles, but for me the most exciting stuff comes in the form of 2D assassinations, which are still very impressive and gruesome!

A downside for some however is the fact that the uniqueness of the Assassin's Creed series was the open world, and Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China diminishes that in order to fall for a more linear story.

At the same time, the game world isn’t that large, as there are only 12 levels to peruse and most of them require you to go either left or right, kill people here and there, all in order to reach the end of the level. Sure, there are some side objectives here and there, but this disambiguation is what makes the Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China lose a lot of its shine in favor of a more linear gameplay.

This doesn’t mean that the game is bad. There are many moments when the map design will impress, and there are lots of places which you will enjoy perusing at all times. In my opinion, the gameplay could have been spruced up a little bit with more stuff to do and maybe some mechanics that could have taken the experience to the next level.

There are checkpoints in Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China, which is nice, but they are inconsistent and placed in locations that most of the time don’t make sense to the story. It’s cool to play in this game world, and exploring it can be amazing at times.

Graphics and sounds
The soundtrack in Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is amazing, and it does take a few ideas from the other games in the series. The graphics are quite good too, especially since the level design is so detailed and fun, as you actually feel that you are in China, with many landmarks being present here. I particularly like the polish and the animations, but unfortunately I did find a few bugs that allowed me to stab the guards multiple times without killing them.

Conclusion
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is a nicely created game, and if you take it out of the series, it’s a nice 2.5D action game. However, for the Assassin's Creed series, this is an entry that does have a few problems finding its meaning. It can be fun, but also frustrating, and the ties to the original series aren’t that many, making the game a little scarce at times. You will like it though, especially since it’s not that long, so I do encourage you to give it a shot!

Score: 6.5 out of 10

Reviewed for PS4