At First Glance - Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China

I pre-ordered AC Chronicles: China. It has apparently been a part of the AC Unity Season Pass for a while, but hasn't really gotten much attention. Now being released as a stand-alone title on XBox, Playstation and PC, we have the answer to a question nobody but Ubisoft was asking: can a 2.5D platformer function and feel like an Assassin's Creed game?

After playing the opening mission (about 30 minutes of gameplay), the answer is a resounding YES. There is no illusion of an open world so far - the game feels very linear. That may be its advantage, though: Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate tried a larger, choose-your-own-direction style of platforming, and the in-game map was a mess on congested levels. But Chronicles: China has plenty of interactive environment elements and stealth opportunities, married to a great neglected-but-not-forgotten protagonist; add in a unique visual style and setting, and the game feels like a bona-fide Assassin's Creed game.

Definitely playing this one through to the end. I'm hoping for about 4-5 hours of gameplay (more would be better, of course), since AC Chronicles: China is the first game in a three-part series. The protagonist, Shao-Jun, was first encountered in the short film Assassin's Creed: Embers. If you Need MOAR Assassin's Creed, give Embers a watch. Fair warning, though: possible spoilers for Ezio Auditore games (Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, and Revelations).

Anyway, back to Shao-Jun and Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China.

Some thoughts:
+ Great job on the game's visual style. The design team eschewed absolute visual realism in favor of  a brush-stroke look inspired by ancient Chinese art. At first glance the decision was a great one. The colors a little muted, with a lot of earth-tones. Hopefully there will be a fair amount of variety as the game progresses.

+ Combat feels smooth, fluid and deadly (though you won't use it often - stealth is encouraged).

+ Shao-Jun does not have much to say (at least in the early levels), but her voice actress (is it still Angela Galuppo? Hard to confirm) really hits the "smooth, mysterious, deadly" notes very well.

+ The game is very light on system resources, making this one an easy purchase for those who want more Assassin's Creed, but don't really have the gaming rigs to run Rogue or Unity.

+ The in-game Codex entries, though brief, continue to provide the dramatic and historical backgrounds that have always enhanced the Assassin's Creed experience.

+ Customizeable difficulty levels. Usually Ubisoft presents one level of difficulty and says "have at it." Bonus points for realizing that not everyone finds their standard easy (or hard).

- Some awkward controls. Specifically, press and hold W to raise a gate, release W, gate starts closing, run (direction key + Shift) towards the lowering gate, somehow hold the direction key + Shift and hit the Ctrl key to slide under the closing gate. I regularly run out of fingers. If you get quick at transitioning from the Sprint combo to the Ctrl key, it becomes pretty effortless, but practice is required. And the keys cannot be rebound, so we're stuck with the default key bindings.

- Graphics are great, but there are jaggies everywhere. Unfortunately, there is no option in the graphics settings to set the Anti-aliasing. The jagged edges were even appearing on the button-prompts in-game. It is easy to fix; I just opened the Catalyst Control Center and created a custom graphics profile for the game. But the game would have looked so much more impressive on the first start if every edge had not had saw-teeth.

At first glance, Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China is a fun, more casual game than the massive open world experiences offered by other Assassin's Creed games. The unique lore, characters, and gameplay inspire me with great anticipation for the next two parts of the series: Chronicles India and Chronicles Russia (finally get to play as Nikolai Orelov!).

It's great to see you again, Shao-Jun. I hope it is not the last time.