Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India – Punjab Adventures

The Assassin’s Creed Chronicles continues with Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India. While it’s a better game on a technical, story and gameplay level, I’m not sure if I appreciated the added difficulty in the form of assassination immune units, multiple timed events, and forced stealth segments. Specifically the last one, which I think ruined a unique aspect of Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China. The mechanic that lets you continue despite your failures, but punishes you with a lower score. Now, that is still a thing, yet, way too many levels suffer from insta-restart if you make the tiniest mistake.

Man of India
In this Assassin’s Creed tale, you play as Arbaaz Mir, and wouldn’t you know it, he is an assassin working for the brotherhood. And per usual, the Templar’s control the faction opposing the brotherhood: namely the British East India Company from history. You are tasked with finding two precursor items; a diamond of size, and the mystical box that appeared in the first game (China). I can say, and it’s of no surprise, but in the end, nothing much matters. While the story is better, since it makes plenty of “deep dives” into the characters, there is no real tension or stakes. In finality, the diamond is secured, but the box is lost to the Templar’s, which does not mean much. We are never told what and who we are preventing doing something, we just know this mystery box is of importance J.J. Abrams style. The story is not one of the stronger points. 

Timing is everything
When it comes to gameplay, it plays exactly the same as Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, but with a few differences. Instead of finding urns with items to replenish your inventory, you can pick-pocket guards for items. Or just straight up murder them, to collect the items from their cold dead corpse. Another change is how many new assassination immune enemies there are now. You can still kill them, from special vantage points and using items, like the gas-bomb. The standard way of dispatching, by sneaking up to the guards, is no longer a thing. Having one or two of these dudes wouldn’t be a problem, but the later stages are full of them, making failure and combat a total waste. These guys are tough!

I understand it being a sneaking game. However, I truly enjoyed the light sandbox elements of the former game that allowed for fighting your way out. This is way more punishing, beyond getting a bad score. Seeing as most of the time, when you fail, the enemies on the map will blast your Indian ass within seconds. Combat is for the most part not viable at all, unless you are some kind of South Korean gaming god. It’s probably a skill issue from my end, but still. 

On the point system, it’s still the system in use for upgrades. It’s changed, though, making it much, much harder to get any upgrades. It’s very punishing now, forcing you to complete the maps in an almost perfect manner. This is both good and bad. Good, as the challenge has gone up considerably. Bad, as it erodes the sandbox nature of the gameplay even further. Every failure means it’s time to restart, if you want any kind of cool upgrades for your character. So, it punishes you two times. First by denying you upgrades, if you suck like me, and then secondly: It will make the game harder, since your little Indian hero never gets better in any of his skills. If you want a real challenge, going by how perfect you must complete the levels, this is the game for you.

Do it fast, and do it correctly
Another new aspect of the gameplay was how many areas were based on timing and completing the level under a specific time-limit. Now, I’m not totally against this, since the thing chasing you is always just right behind you, making for an exciting time. However, there are just so many of these segments, that if you are on my skill level, it will force plenty of restarts. There are also parts of the game, where you have to eliminate a specific amount of guards before the time runs out. It’s pretty stressful, and makes for some annoyance if you consider my other issues (immune guards, etc.). 

All this does not make it a bad game, as I found the gameplay in general fun, just like the former title in the series. It just turns Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India into a more linear experience, filled with trial and errors, which is not something I personally think is the epitome of gameplay. Otherwise, the new mechanic, like stealing stuff, for when you want to remain Mr. Sneaky, is a great addition, and adds a good challenge to the stealth.

The India look
The style of a painted looking world continues in Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India, with the addition of more color introduced, and fantastical sci-fi areas touching on the precursor era. It looks good, with great animations, and sound. Well, for the most part. The guns still sound like pop-guns for some reason. Apart from that, the audio, music, and voice acting is passable. 

Conclusion
Despite me complaining about some of the newly introduced enemies, and changes in game design, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India is an excellent 2D-platformer. It will not disappoint if you are looking for something challenging, as it can get pretty tough at certain sections of the game. Now onto the final game in the Chronicles series that takes place in Russia.

Thanks for reading.

/Thomas