moonscented's review of Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.

where the other games in this franchise I felt strongly different about, my thoughts on this mostly stay the same. I love the stealth in this game, probably the best it’s been in the franchise. There’s several tools to use, the grappling hook offers a lot of vertical advantages, enemies won’t see you through walls, detection feels fair and the black box missions feel like there’s a lot of choice in approach. Mission design, like unity, is stellar! Key difference here though is a lot of regression instead of progression from unity’s systems. The crowd was scared off by intricate parkour and difficult combat, so Ubisoft said instead of improving those things, just scrap it altogether! Combat is fuckin brain dead easy again and it’s disappointing for sure. Parkour is also HEAAAVILY downplayed, which is so so so unfortunate. Unity’s parkour wasn’t perfect, but this shouldn’t have been the answer to it. The grappling hook is a bandaid, not a cure. The hook is used exclusively to AVOID parkour instead of actually enhancing it. London is really nice looking, can’t come close to Paris for me but the insane difference in aesthetic and thematic visuals is great, foggy streets lit by lamps, carriages perusing by, Big Ben ringing in the background, ubi continues to shine in that department. Story I think is better than Unity, and I think that’s largely due to co-op being scrapped and RPG elements taking a back seat. Specific pieces of gear is gone and honestly? I like this better. Outfits and colors I think works better and let’s the player dress as they want. AC has always had great character design IMO and it shines when these customization options are as fluid as they are here. I think it used to be my one of my favorites, if not my all time favorite, since replaying I think I can confidently put unity above it, but its still pretty good. Side note! Last Maharaja DLC is some of the absolute worst pieces of developed side content I’ve ever consumed, it’s rushed, boring, overly long and terribly fucking made. I have no reservations at all in saying that this dlc alone brings the entire game down and it is a shame to actually play.