Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is a fun game about antiheroic criminals who met historical figures and took down the evil Templars, with a well-written bisexual Mad Love story, good gang and fight mechanics, and fun protagonists.
Jack the Ripper decided to say "piss off" to most of that and came up with the darkest entry yet, took away the Fun Personified protagonist Jacob, threw in some mechanics that were unnecessary and took away from the fun, although well-implemented, I'll admit. The plot is worthy of a full-on film, with Evie having to track down Jack, and sequences done as Jack. And believe me, a good bit of it is excellent. I'm not huge on the mystery sections, but the extremely well-done letter sections were pretty cool.
The fear mechanics were a waste of a good idea, though. Rather than the mere presence of the Fryes inspiring fear in the Rooks (Who are all evil now, by the way), one must use "gas" and "spikes" to inspire hallucinations, because apparently seeing bad dudes scare people and watching somebody take their comrades down in fisticuffs one by one by one by one by one by one by one is apparently not scary.
The atmosphere is scary, though. I'll give it that. It makes a fairly good horror game on its own, and it feels a little wasted on the lightest game in the series, honestly. Additionally, the Adorkable Jacob is no longer Adorkable, doesn't get many lines, barely shows up, and takes an utter beating, up to and including Eye Scream, from a playable Jack. In the tutorial. This reeked of Character Shilling for Jack and Badass Decay. Oh, and I don't want him playable for the DLC (It's Evie's DLC after all) but I wanted a bit more of Jacob than what he received.
It also feels oddly hopeless. Everything you've done with the Rooks in the main storyline? How you saved London? Yeah... and it has no sense of humor. I mean, it's Jack the Ripper, but it's also Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, a mostly comedic, fun game.
The "playing as Jack" sections were a huge split for me. On the one hand, the artistic direction is awesome, the feeling of invulnerability makes Jack a total beast, but its allowance to kill civilians gets you a warning, which prompts the question of why they added that anyways, and they're a bit too easy for the Sequel Difficulty Spike this delivered.
And the Puzzle Boss against Jack was pretty lame. It opens like a Duel Boss, with you two showing down, but then it turns out he's invulnerable, and you have to repeatedly do Brutal Takedowns on him until you finish him off, which does give you a Duel Boss.
Jack the Ripper review
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate is a fun game about antiheroic criminals who met historical figures and took down the evil Templars, with a well-written bisexual Mad Love story, good gang and fight mechanics, and fun protagonists.
Jack the Ripper decided to say "piss off" to most of that and came up with the darkest entry yet, took away the Fun Personified protagonist Jacob, threw in some mechanics that were unnecessary and took away from the fun, although well-implemented, I'll admit. The plot is worthy of a full-on film, with Evie having to track down Jack, and sequences done as Jack. And believe me, a good bit of it is excellent. I'm not huge on the mystery sections, but the extremely well-done letter sections were pretty cool.
The fear mechanics were a waste of a good idea, though. Rather than the mere presence of the Fryes inspiring fear in the Rooks (Who are all evil now, by the way), one must use "gas" and "spikes" to inspire hallucinations, because apparently seeing bad dudes scare people and watching somebody take their comrades down in fisticuffs one by one by one by one by one by one by one is apparently not scary.
The atmosphere is scary, though. I'll give it that. It makes a fairly good horror game on its own, and it feels a little wasted on the lightest game in the series, honestly. Additionally, the Adorkable Jacob is no longer Adorkable, doesn't get many lines, barely shows up, and takes an utter beating, up to and including Eye Scream, from a playable Jack. In the tutorial. This reeked of Character Shilling for Jack and Badass Decay. Oh, and I don't want him playable for the DLC (It's Evie's DLC after all) but I wanted a bit more of Jacob than what he received.
It also feels oddly hopeless. Everything you've done with the Rooks in the main storyline? How you saved London? Yeah... and it has no sense of humor. I mean, it's Jack the Ripper, but it's also Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, a mostly comedic, fun game.
The "playing as Jack" sections were a huge split for me. On the one hand, the artistic direction is awesome, the feeling of invulnerability makes Jack a total beast, but its allowance to kill civilians gets you a warning, which prompts the question of why they added that anyways, and they're a bit too easy for the Sequel Difficulty Spike this delivered.
And the Puzzle Boss against Jack was pretty lame. It opens like a Duel Boss, with you two showing down, but then it turns out he's invulnerable, and you have to repeatedly do Brutal Takedowns on him until you finish him off, which does give you a Duel Boss.
8/10 for good story, good atmosphere, bad mechanics and Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.
Oh, and the reason I barely mentioned Fear combat? That's how much it matters to gameplay. Not at all.