Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Russia is a 2D action stealth game. Third in a series of games developed by Climax Studios, Chronicles is an off-shoot of the main Assassin’s Creed series – three short-form stories about Assassin Brotherhood in Asia.
Russia is the story of Nikolai Orelov, a veteran assassin who is tired of the life in the brotherhood. He wants to quit being an assassin and flee with his family to America. Not just the Brotherhood is weighing him down. It is 1918 in Russia and the Bolshevik Revolution is swallowing the country. In order to make his escape, he agrees to do one more mission – infiltrate the home of the Tsars and take a priceless artifact, thought to be a Piece of Eden. He gets more than he bargained for as he saves Anastasia, the last remaining daughter of Nicholas II, and now must escape the Templars with both the box and the girl.
Reviewing this game essentially tore me in two. I had two sides of myself that were warring the entire time. There was the half of me that loved the art style, level design and the story. Then, there’s the other half that was so completely frustrated by some of the game mechanics and moment-to-moment game play that I wanted to tear my hair out.
The art direction and style is beautiful. All of it looks hand drawn and looks like it was pulled from storybooks. The monochromatic use of shading gives the game life, as well as player direction. The whites, blacks and grays give the player an idea of the atmosphere of the time and place. The level design is really well done. For as frustrated as I’ll explain down below, it’s easy to see how the designers thought of every section of every sequence and how you, the player, will (later I’ll say should approach it). Climax really does a good job of pacing the player to build upon the skills they’ve already learned and combine them with new skills to learn. Lastly, I really enjoyed the story. It gave me insight into the world of the Assassin Brotherhood in Russia at the time and hints to me where the franchise can go as it moves into the present day.
Now, before I get into the frustrations I felt, let me tell you about the game play types found in the game. Each section you play is scored and graded depending on your play style and how well you handled yourself. There are 3 types of game play: Shadow (all stealth), Silencer (non-lethal), and Assassin (lethal). Each of those types is then scored as to how well you did – Gold, Silver or Bronze. In sequence 1, the game shows you the Shadow method. In sequence 2, it doesn’t really tell you the other two types and dumps you out to fend on your own. I don’t know if this was explained better in the previous 2 Chronicles games, but they did not explain it to me. From that, I assumed that meant that although there were 3 styles, Shadow was the “correct” one.
That is where my frustration kicks in. Playing the Shadow method means no takedowns, no assassinations and you cannot be seen or heard. One wrong move, brrrnt, you have to start over. You almost have to start over because the game is not forgiving of mistakes. You can quickly be desynchronized by the powerful soldiers. If I don’t die after a mistake, it’s rare, but sometimes I just pushed forward because I got tired of trying to perfect everything. Almost all sequences have 10 sections. One section took me over 20 minutes to get through because I’d be seen, or shot, or both. One of the most frustrating aspects to the game play is Orelov’s inability to just stop on a dime. It’s obvious the creators loved the original Prince of Persia from 20 years ago. The protagonist in that game did the same thing our protagonist does now. I do realize stopping on a dime is not necessarily realistic, but I’m a well-trained ASSASSIN. The previous games have taught me I can do anything.
And lastly, there are sections in sequences that rely on you running from danger – a staple in the franchise. Except one problem, you must absolutely be perfect. I didn’t vault a box perfectly – dead. I didn’t jump at the very end of a platform – dead. I was slowed down by a bullet – dead. The game didn’t register me holding down the sprint button when the game initialized, so I had to momentarily release the button and repress it – dead. It was ridiculous.
Besides the main game, there are also challenge levels where you can collect helix glitches and assassination levels where you have to kill bunches of guys that are distractions at best. I will say I enjoyed playing as Anastasia. She had some assassin supernatural abilities that were nice additions to the game and would like to see them improved and maybe brought into the main franchise.
Overall, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Russia can be fun at times, but many of those times were wrought with frustration. There were plenty of things I liked about the game, but not enough to recommend except to those that love that 2D/2.5D style of a Shadow Complex or Counterspy. I’m not entirely sure I can recommend it to Assassin’s Creed fans for the story, because while it’s good, I’m still not sure it’s worth the frustration to get there (and I played on the easiest setting – Normal).
Assassin’s Creed Chronicles Russia is out now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.