TLDR
Story
3.5/5
Mediocre start but likeable protagonists. Stereotypical antagonists and outstanding historical people.
Setting of the era and place is well chosen and one bonus era is also welcome but somehow underwhelming.
The dialogues are mostly filler but the voiceovers and some rare funny moments are really good.
Main protagonists evolve slightly which only shows in the late game.
Gameplay
3.5/5
All guns blazing in close combat with easy to counter attacks and combos or more tactical stealth options.
A few uninspiring missions repeat themselves too often.
Some interesting bonus objectives which promote an additional challenge.
Parkour and travelling across the city is easy and enjoyable but the combat can be abused very easily and assassinations can be over with quickly.
Some cool ideas with combat tools and upgrades.
Replay value
2.5/5
A lot of loot and experience make the game significantly easy in the end game and grinding is only required for a couple of hours at the start.
Two independent protagonists but their playstyle is almost identical.
We can't choose who to play as in main missions and we will also easily unlock all upgrades in the mid game.
We may play with a better knowledge of our opponents and mechanics in the second run and it would be a walk in the park, I don't see a real point in replaying it.
The game offers a sandbox after the end which I guess is in place because there are more missions and places to visit.
Verdict
6/10
I was very conflicted at the start and wanted this to be over quickly but in the end I started to like the protagonists more. The gameplay and missions won't blow anyone's mind. The world itself is quite nice when it opens up and options are ever present for exploration and a few unique moments in the story itself and some funny parts helped me get through thousands of mindless assassinations.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate is a 3rd person sci-fi hack and slash RPG set in the historical era of mid 19th century to early 20th London portraying real historical figures mixed with fictional stealthy assassins.
Two playable protagonists are conflicting with each other. And one of them later grows in character but initially the game doesn't start with a very good first impression.
Furthermore, the area we start is a tutorial one and the first borough of London we visit isn't impressively big or nice.
The gameplay doesn't offer much variety when it comes to two characters having their late game unique skill upgrades and that's the small problem.
Those skills aren't needed for the late game and even when they would matter I found myself playing for the second character because the game doesn't allow me to pick one for the main missions.
There are also two differences between the two characters. Evie has a cape while Jacob has a belt. They can wear their own sets of clothes and their personalities make more difference than the actual playstyles.
I've spent half of the game grinding and oblivious to understand that it wasn't even necessary to progress. I was vastly overpowered from mid to late game and I wasn't offered any real challenge, at least I made it a little more interesting by fulfilling the bonus objectives, like not killing policemen or staying undetected.
We receive experience for a lot of activities, destroying city lamps, multi kills, fancy kills, vanishing, etc. It's simple to gain a new level up and it is wise not to waste the points into something pointless at the start.
I've found a few upgrades to be pretty useful for both characters; auto looting enemies, unlocking doors, eagle vision 2 and health boosts. One line of upgrades in particular wasn't very useful; carriages.
There are seriously a lot of loot chests. They all contain money and materials, the golden ones gave me some special drafts for equipment. With eagle vision 2 it's even easier to find them, I was initially not playing with vision through walls which felt like a cheat against enemies but saved me a lot of frustration. Getting all upgrades is inevitable.
The story of activities like taking over the boroughs isn't interesting at all but the encounters may sometimes be fun and funny, especially if you're like me and take the effort to achieve some extra experience for doing objectives. This aspect of the game felt very grindy and dragged my interest in the game less.
On the contrary, the historical figures added some flavour to the otherwise tasteless world of assassinations. Almost all of them were eccentric but didn't always offer me the most interesting missions to fulfil, however taking into account all they offered, I enjoyed a small couple of them much more than the rest. My upgrades provider and my secret accomplice were quite fun.
I explored most corners of the city thanks to my early game kleptomania and too late I realized it wasn't worth my time, almost at all. The monuments are nice and big, I'm only disappointed there weren't more missions taking place inside of them. At least they were reserved for the main missions so most players won't miss them.
There are a few tools for combat, daggers, pistols, smoke, darts and bombs. My personal favourite were daggers as I did my missions stealthily and they were the most useful in most missions despite being very basic and I've often ran out of them.
Combat is hack n slash without much need of tactics unless you're fighting opponents that are a few levels higher. In the end I didn't find many enemies higher level than me and those on my level were easy targets 1 on 1.
There are quite a few nice views over the city from above. Very accessible city and easy to travel fast between buildings with a unique story upgrade in the early game.
Sadly, very few variations of enemies took me out of immersion and killing so many wasn't questioned once. They also lack intelligence. Each enemy will approach you without caution and will investigate after you disappear without calling for help.
Enemies only agro faster and call for reinforcements in their private territory or will immediately attack you if you kill one of theirs. If they find a dead body they stupidly walk towards it.
I highly recommend getting an upgrade to bribe policemen and further let the enemies ignore you, do not upgrade the rooks because they're not sneaking at all and in some missions even jeopardise your actions so you have to disband them doing everything the solo way.
When hunting or kidnapping templars, they will try to run away when alerted but kidnapping targets always stop running away when you kill all the guards. It's ridiculous how they implemented such good behaviour just to not use it on more enemies.
Even when kidnapping, enemies spawn out of nowhere and chase you, which is actually pretty fun, especially fights on top of wagons. And horses can also deal some damage or be killed, which makes a great variability compared to the rest of relatively same and simple solutions - stealthily killing everyone.
A lot of collectibles like flowers, beers, books, correspondence all give you some special outfit in the end but aren't really that good unless you like reading all those long descriptions of found items.
Not very memorable music and this factor played a big role in some of my favourite games that weren't sometimes the best in other aspects. Sometimes it annoys me slightly and I wish they invested some more time into making something unique.