Assassin's Creed: Syndicate 1886-All

Did the grappling hook detract from the climbing? That was one of the weirdest choices to put in an AC game were the climbing feels fantastic & getting to the top of a cathedral or tower is epic.

I think I was put off by that change & like you say SallyNasty the graphics seem like they were scaled back because they overreached so much with Unity, the world seemed a lot more sparse too. Glad they took a break from it this year.

Yeah, the grappling hook, the lack of swordplay (Evie's swordcane doesn't count), and the samey missions in every district kind of turned me off. I never finished it.

I actually did like the environments and even the story, but the combat changes and overall gameplay loop didn't do it for me. Also, I have NEVER liked vehicles in an AC game. This was the best they've done them, but I just didn't like it turning into Grand Theft Carriage.

Just dipped my coal dust blackened toe into this game. It's so nice to be playing a game set in the UK and in the era of flat caps and 'obnail boots (an era that truly ended with my granddad from my father's side of the family.) Love the accents. I was really sold when a little boy called out, "I bet 'e's up to no good."

This'll be the game that I play when I'm not in the mood to play my other games.

Edit: Evie takes no prisoners.

I love Evie.

Reddit's Assassin's Creed subreddit is currently doing a playthrough of all the Assassin's Creed games (except Liberation )): ). They've done this for the past few years leading up to the release of the latest game. Since there's no game this year, they've timed it to finish up just when the Assassin's Creed movie is released. Another change this year is that they're pausing for five days when Watch_Dogs 2 releases. They do one sequence a day from each game. They're currently on day 24, in sequence 3 of Brotherhood, and I'm very tempted to do a marathon session to catch up with them!

Click to check out the meta-thread if you're interested in participating or watching a stream or chatting with the crazy people who are doing a sequence a day.

BTW, the AC subreddit is one of the better subreddits. They're helpful to newcomers, and they've got a great group of moderators.

Started this last night and just got my sweet train hideout. Kind of fumbling my way through since the controls are so different from Black Flag and Rogue. Love the brother/sister duo so far, and that it's not a revenge story (so far).

Sadly, I've had more crashes with this game than I ever had with Unity. I haven't lost any significant progress so far, but the loading times are ridiculously long so they've caused me to just go read a book or do something else instead when they occur.

I'm still really in love with the setting and general feel of this game. The grappling hook is a nice addition that helps since the streets are so much wider to accommodate the carriages. Driving the carriages is fine so far. I've liberated a few districts so far. I'm surprised how many areas within each burrough there are to free before you can do the gang war. It almost feels like this is what they want you to focus on, rather than the story. I'm still in Sequence 3, but I'm able to start Sequnce 8 from the assassination wall? I don't really understand that.

I'm guessing this will keep me happily busy for the next couple weeks.

It was starting to bug me that this game was the only one in the main series that I haven’t finished, so I found it in the bargain bin at Walmart for $16. I remember not being very impressed just after it came out, but this time everything seems to be clicking. I really love both main characters and London is probably my favorite setting of all save for colonial U.S. in AC3. The fact that it’s been patched and runs quite a bit better also helps. I think my main problem before was Assasin’s Creed burn out. I went from almost finishing Black Flag on the PC, to Unity on PS4, back to Black Flag but started over on PS4 version, to Syndicate. I think it was the better part of 6-9 months where it seemed like I was playing nothing but Assassin’s Creed games.

It’s definitely my favorite in the series. It ended up being the first game I got a Platinum trophy in.

I've got this, and I'll totally play it one day. Humble's having a sale, and the season pass for this is down to $12. Is there enough single player content that's good in there to make it worth the money?

I really like that there are two characters. Evie is spec’d purely for stealth and infiltration, while Jacob is all combat. Just had a cool moment where I ended up chasing down and killing a gang boss right after his introduction. He shows up and sends in his crew, my Rooks rush in to take them on while I slip through and chase him down. I finally caught him a couple blocks over with a blade in the back when he tried to turn a corner. It was a good feeling when he was absent during the gang war, made it pretty simple actually.

Chaz wrote:

I've got this, and I'll totally play it one day. Humble's having a sale, and the season pass for this is down to $12. Is there enough single player content that's good in there to make it worth the money?

It's a little tough to recommend. There is a large quantity of single player content, but the quality level is uneven. The Jack the Ripper expansion is somewhat meaty, but the new mechanics feel a little half baked. The India themed missions are just okay, but not really memorable. I'd say play the main game and if you love it enough that you want more excuses to play in that world, the extra content can give that to you. It's overall not quite as strong as the main game though.

I thought Syndicate was one of the best. Then again I'm one of those weird fans that enjoyed AC3 so what do I know :-p

strangederby wrote:

I thought Syndicate was one of the best. Then again I'm one of those weird fans that enjoyed AC3 so what do I know :-p

I really enjoyed Syndicate as well - wasn't quite at the Black Flag level, but was much more enjoyable than other recent AC games in the series.

Syndicate basically lacked everything I love about the AC games. Traversal via running and climbing, buckling swashes, exploration puzzles, cool outfits, alternate modes of transportation that are fun to control. So, no. Not my favorite.

For me, was the weakest of the series. Looked like a 360 game and just felt really phoned in to me.

BadKen wrote:

Syndicate basically lacked everything I love about the AC games. Traversal via running and climbing, buckling swashes, exploration puzzles, cool outfits, alternate modes of transportation that are fun to control. So, no. Not my favorite.

But....Syndicate had all of those?

Traversal is trivialized with the zip line. There's no reason to run from roof to roof, climb buildings, or even risk the streets, when you can zipline across the city. There is precious little sword fighting - it is replaced with brawling, which lacks the variety of different weapon types and tactical approaches in the other games. I don't remember any areas designed purely to reward creative traversal and exploration with minimal combat. It has a number of oddly placed collectibles, but that's not the same thing. The amount of customization is trivial compared to other AC games. Carriages suck. They are slow starting, slow moving and hard to control with what feels like massive input lag. Horseback in the AC games that had it was always much more fun.

The game has its pluses. The characters, even the secondary characters, are interesting and fun. The ability to have a stealth-focused assassin and a combat-focused assassin in the same game is cool. Some of the missions are very interesting, and some are much more free-form than other AC games. I enjoyed the "taking over zones" part of the game, and side activities you can pick up on the fly.

I just didn't find the moment-to-moment gameplay satisfying. Based on many of the pre-release developer interviews, they spent enormous time and effort changing up the combat and traversal. From my perspective, they just changed it up too much.

BadKen wrote:

Traversal is trivialized with the zip line. There's no reason to run from roof to roof, climb buildings, or even risk the streets, when you can zipline across the city.

Then don't use it?

BadKen wrote:

There is precious little sword fighting - it is replaced with brawling, which lacks the variety of different weapon types and tactical approaches in the other games.

I used various Cain swords but maybe the combat moves aren't as varied as I remember? As for variety what about the dusters? Or Kukris, guns and throwing knives?

I remember a multitude of cloaks, coats and styles of weapon on offer but again maybe that's just my memory.

BadKen wrote:

Carriages suck. They are slow starting, slow moving and hard to control with what feels like massive input lag.

Once I'd upgraded them I never had a problem but maybe that's just me.

The upgrade tree was one of my favourite parts of the game. Being able to use your growing influence to change how the world reacted to your antics was a fun.

It’s been a couple years but I remember enjoying Syndicate. I went back to try Unity after Syndicate and found the combat clunky.

I bought the season pass for Syndicate but never tried. Hmm.

Finally playing through this, and I think I'm giving up on the city conquest stuff. Specifically, the bounty hunts are the absolute worst. Getting the target out is always a pain. One of them today, I accidentally killed the target when I was up on a platform. Fine, I'll just carry him out. Except that when you're carrying the target body, you can't get it off the platform. You can't drop down while holding it, and you can't throw it off the platform. I had to run out and let that one reset.

On a different one, I got the body out, stuck it in a Rook carriage, and started driving away. During the chase, the enemy carts aggroed two cop carts. I killed the enemy carts, and got stuck in a traffic jam. Figuring it was faster, I jumped off to kill the cops. After I kill the last one, the Rook sitting in my cart just decides to drive away with the body, resetting the damn thing.

At no point in the game have I enjoyed the bounty hunts getting the target out is no fun, and the ensuing chase is never fun. So I'm not going to do them anymore, and since I'm not going to do them, the whole city conquest thing is pointless. Which is a bummer, because I like the other types of missions.

I'm somewhere in sequence 6, so I'm thinking I might just mainline the story quests and finish this off. I guess the nice thing is that I've probably gotten my fill of AC games for a while, so my urge to buy Origins has dropped way down.

I will say that Origins does not have as many annoying things as earlier Assassin's Creed games. For instance, if you and an PC need to go somewhere, usually the NPC will run at full tilt to the objective. Realistic? No. Convenient? Yes.

Some were annoyed that for story progression in Origins you need to do some side quests, as story missions can be gated by character level. You did not need to do all the side stuff, so there was usually some choice. Personally, I often found myself overleveled for the story quests.

Chaz wrote:

On a different one, I got the body out, stuck it in a Rook carriage, and started driving away. During the chase, the enemy carts aggroed two cop carts. I killed the enemy carts, and got stuck in a traffic jam. Figuring it was faster, I jumped off to kill the cops. After I kill the last one, the Rook sitting in my cart just decides to drive away with the body, resetting the damn thing.

At no point in the game have I enjoyed the bounty hunts getting the target out is no fun, and the ensuing chase is never fun.

Just don't put them in the carts. It takes a little bit longer but the drop off point is never that far away. If you carry the body or escort the person to the drop-off point you get credit and nobody will aggro you and cause the chase. This is especially true if you're just escorting the guy.

I agree, Bounty Hunts aren't fun... but it'll get a lot less annoying if you don't have the cart chase after extraction.

Agreed. Bounty hunts are no fun at all, and I skipped the carriage part altogether most often than not.
Still liberated the whole damn town though, so ... maybe I’m not he most reliable source.

Huh, I didn't realize the cart bit was optional. I've only seen a destination marker on the cart, not the final delivery point until I do the cart thing. I might try that.

Honestly, I may be about to bail on the game completely. Little things are starting to add up. Like, one mission where 3/4 of the way through, I had to talk to someone. The game spawned four blighters 10' away, staring directly at him. I had to kill them all just to talk to the guy.

In one of the big heist missions, I found an entry point that was directly above one of the special option guys you can kidnap to get a special path. I kept getting a little bit past that and then got spotted, so I'd restart, which checkpointed me back to the start of the mission. The fourth time through that, I kidnapped the guy, but he didn't give his little speech. I realized that I hadn't eagle visioned and R-clicked on him to "find out" that I had to kidnap him, and without doing that, the game wouldn't have him give the speech. And of course I couldn't click it while holding him, and now that I'd kidnapped him, I couldn't let him go, get the info, and re-grab him.

So yeah, I dunno. I'm into sequence 7 at this point, so it seems silly to bail this late, but man have I soured on this thing. I'm glad that Origins apparently has fewer annoyances, but I don't think I'm willing to take more than a $20 gamble on that being the case for me.

Chaz wrote:

Honestly, I may be about to bail on the game completely.

Yeah, no need to force it. If you're not having fun, move on.

For me, Syndicate was the pinnacle of the Assassin's Creed formula. Granted I haven't played Origins yet (I lag a year behind the AC games so I just barely finished Syndicate around Christmas). I really savor taking out every single person in a mission area, not just bee-lining it to the objective. As such, I played Evie primarily and focused on stealth over combat. I wouldn't even notice four guys staring at the objective because it would just be an expectation that I would have to kill them all... Also, I did ALL the side objectives, so I was always grossly overpowered for the main sequence.

Anyway, to each his own. Find something else! There's so much out there....

I went back in today, and it wasn't as annoying. I did try two bounty hunts without a cart. I got jumped by random mooks on the way, so I started running with a full crew of dudes, and that seemed to help. I still don't think I'll be bothering to do the full city liberation, even though I usually do all those and all the bonus objectives.

I'm more of a stealth person too, so I'm mostly using Evie. She's also a much more appealing character than Jacob. I wish I wasn't forced to use him for so many of the main missions.

Evie is the best part of that game.

To close the loop on this, I did manage to finish. I really liked all the sequence finale missions, but that was possibly because of how much they swiped from Hitman. Evie continued to be great, Jacob....was also present. The final mission was a nice capper. I didn't hit any other major points of frustration, which is good.

At this point, I've got most of two final districts I haven't finished clearing yet, along with a bunch of side person missions I skipped and the extra string that just opened up. I think I'm probably just going to say I'm done with this though. They didn't give me any really compelling reason to go finish clearing things out. I've got mostly max level gear, and since I usually go stealth, gear doesn't matter all that much anyway. I'm not sure if there's some story nuggets at the end of the different collectathons, but they haven't hinted that there is, so I'm gonna assume there isn't.

Collecting the flowers gives a nice little scene with Evie that you can probably just look up on youtube. The Jack the Ripper DLC was sort of interesting but frustrating to play. I really enjoyed being in Victorian London so I really sucked the marrow out of the game. If you don't feel the same, feel free to move on.