Assassin's Creed Chronicles: India (2016)

ACC India is a game with a weird difficulty curve: it gets easier the more you play it. I remember reading an external review describing this characteristic as 'having a backwards sense of progression'. This is how it works: you collect points on each level, and you need a certain amount of points to unlock upgrades. The most points are awarded to a stealthy playstyle, where you move like a ghost through the environment, leaving everyone blissfully unaware except your target. To do that, you need tools (noise darts, smoke bombs and such). Those tools are unlocked via... upgrades.

Having this kind of circular logic in progression can be frustrating. This is coupled with a checkpoint system that will set you back a bit when you fail, and combat that's not quite viable as the primary playstyle. This game's predecessor, ACC China suffered from similar problems.

For me, the approach that worked for ACC China worked here as well, which is to ignore your scores on the first playthrough. The game is built for multiple playthroughs with a 'Plus' and 'Plus Hard' mode that carry over your skills and tools from the first playthrough. The second run on Plus mode was much more enjoyable for me. I was more in sync with the movement/controls and the enemy behaviour, so it was a breeze to silently infiltrate each level. I could have also jumped between levels to prioritize upgrades, but I didn't find this necessary.

I dipped a toe into the 'Plus Hard' mode and found it insane. It cuts down the abilities and assists given to your character, and enhances that of the enemies. In other words, you die with one hit, and you can no longer see the enemies' vision cones. Given how essential these were in later levels, I did not waste time attempting the impossible.

Moving on the other aspects of the game, the art style is great. ACC China had a muted palette with streaks of colour (mostly red). ACC India has a much more vibrant colour scheme and more interesting architecture.

The story of the game is very sparse, involving a tussle over the Kohinoor diamond that is also a Piece of Eden. Arbaaz is broadly sketched out as a skilled thief and assassin, but there's really nothing beyond that in terms of characterization. The game is apparently a sequel to the comic book 'Assassin's Creed: Brahman', and that story is re-told via collectible scrolls. This doesn't work very well, so the story as a whole has very little impact.

Putting all of this together, I feel that the folks who enjoyed ACC China would also enjoy ACC India. So if you're the mood for some side-scrolling parkour with a dash of violence, ACC India will work for you. If you hated the first game, it's unlikely that you'll find this one any different.

Because the games from this trilogy (China, India, Russia) are very similar, I'll just write about the the differences, you can check out my review of AC Chronicles:China here, where I've written in detail about the main gameplay elements..

This game might be even shorter than it's prequel, taking only around 4 hours, again, on the lowest difficulty.The game is set in India, in 1841. An item from the previous game appears, and you'll be chasing that for the most part of the game. If you've read my previous reviews, then you know that I don't really like to talk about the story too much, because I don't want to spoil anything involuntarily.

The main thing that I've noticed, is that the game assumes that you've played the first, China, because it's much more fast paced than its predecessor. In the first level you're introduced to most of the gameplay elements, which took quite a few levels in the previous game.

The three playstyles remained, although they are named differently:

• Shadow
• Silencer
• Assassin

The arsenal is pretty much the same too:

• Whistle
• Noise Bomb (Noise Dart equivalent)
• Chakram (Throwing Knife)
• Smoke Bomb (Firecracker)

Furthermore, you can now pickpocket enemies, and loot corpses, replenishing ammunition (you can check with eagle vision what kind of ammo an enemy holds). You can lockpick doors, and also choose to not kill an enemy, using the new non-lethal takedown. There are several new types of enemies:

• Master, which can hide, and if you pass by you get instantly killed
• Enemies which can't be assassinated or taken down right away, you must stun them beforehand

You also get some new Helix skills, beside the Helix Dash from the previous game:

• Helix Blend: Become invisible by pressing the right click (you can't move though)
• Helix Strike: You can kill enemies in one hit (this is still normal combat, you're not invulnerable, so be careful).

Some nice improvements were made to open combat, such as combat dash (a very useful gap-closer), and blocking / rolling over enemies was made much easier. However, this does not make it less frustrating that in a few places you're forced into combat.

Something I personally liked a lot, was the arcade-style sniping minigame, that was really fun.

Overall, this is a slightly better version of the previous game, and I certainly recommend trying it, but not by itself. Play the prequel first.