#BROKEN WATCHER CHRONICLES TRIAL#

Something else that has been carried over from previous games and which also contributes to fortifying the game’s longevity are the secrets and secondary objectives that are scattered throughout each mission. The latter represents a non-lethal, stealth heavy method, while the former embraces a more visceral, assassination focused tact, with the game scoring and rewarding medals and unlockables based on the quality of the player’s approach to each. Whatever else might be wrong with Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Russia, it certainly boasts a rather neat visual styleĪs seen previously, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Russia allows players to approach each mission with either assassin or shadow play styles. While the lack of deviation from the first two entries in the Chronicles trilogy is certainly disappointing in many regards, there are however a few elements which have been brought over from previous games that remain worthwhile. Exaggerated by the less than responsive controls and clunky character motion, not to mention the instant death scenarios that usually accompany such failure, it becomes clear that Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia is not a game you want to be trifling with lest you have some blatant disregard for your blood pressure levels.

#BROKEN WATCHER CHRONICLES TRIAL#

Intrinsic in the return of such familiar mechanics is the frustrating amounts of trial and error that accompanied them in previous games. Whether you’re disappearing into cover, climbing up walls, hiding bodies in bushes or using conveniently placed distractions to evade enemy cones of detection, the impression that Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia hasn’t meaningfully departed from its predecessors is one which is forcibly rammed home. Indeed, rather than feeling like a true Assassin’s Creed effort, this appears as an ever more difficult assault course of distraction puzzles and folks who have played either the Chinese or Indian campaigns will know what to expect here. Elsewhere, combat is just as wholly unsatisfying as it ever was your supposedly spry Assassin feeling like they’re swinging their sword through treacle whenever a direct confrontation manifests itself the choreographed grace of the combat seen in the core Assassin’s Creed titles now seemingly as far away from thought as they’ve ever been. Compounding such woes is the often accidental use of other moves when you least expect it, invariably ending up in a checkpoint-restarting death and a significant loss of hair follicles as a result. Casting players as Nikolaï Orelov, a veteran assassin who is looking to leave the order so that he might spirit his family away to safety from the conflict that plagues his country, it must be said that somewhat tragically, he doesn’t really feel like an assassin at all.Ī big reason for this is that the game is just horrendously sluggish and clumsy to control with jumps and other such manoeuvrers seemingly triggering a split-second later than you need them to. Perhaps nowhere is the lack of meaningful evolution more keenly felt than in the way the game controls. Sadly, what this also means is that everything that was wrong, broken and generally uninspired with the previous China and India entries in the Chronicles series, is also present and accounted for here. You get to do a spot of sniping in this latest Chronicles game, which is quite possibly the least Assassin’s Creed type thing ever As a result, it’s reasonable to posit that if you didn’t like the previous two games then Chronicles Russian excursion will do little to change your mind.

Given the relatively rapid release schedule that has been synonymous with each entry in the Chronicles trilogy, you wouldn’t be wrong to assume that each game was developed back to back and somewhat sadly, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia confirms this assertion as bar a few changes, this is essentially the same game that we’ve already seen twice before.

So it is then that we come to the final entry in the Chronicles trilogy, taking us from the trials and tribulations of the Punjab into early twentieth century Bolshevik-era Russia. With the core Assassin’s Creed franchise owing a transcendent debt to Jordan Mechner’s seminal Prince of Persia, crafting a trio of games that taps into the 2D dimensional shenanigans of the latter while deftly tying it into the sprawling mythology of the Assassin’s Creed franchise might have seemed a great idea, yet the execution of such a concept has thus far been consigned to sailing the seas of mediocrity to say the least. It’s easy to see the sorts of good intentions that Ubisoft and by proxy, developer Climax Studios, might have had when the ideas for Assassin’s Creed Chronicles first started flying around the boardroom.

Broken watcher chronicles