I always had a soft spot for Syndicate as well. I like the vibe, I like the music, I like the gameplay, I like the city, I think Evie and Jacob are fun characters. It’s definitely one of the more underrated AC games.
I think the soundtrack is great. One song in particular, called 'Cathedrals of Steel' is absolutely amazing, really somber and melancholic. Plus the name is very fitting for the setting too
I think k that's why I didn't care for it.the charactyers compared to the order 1886 are a morning cartoon. Ubisoft aren't known for great stories so comparing to order 1886 even though order 1886 is 8 hours I enjoyed all of them while I couldn't even play this this bore fest for 5 hours
Same. Evie and Jacob are both awesome. I'm a huge fan of Evie. I'm NOT a fan of going to far back in the past. I love the city. It's just a really fun game.
Syndicate was originally called assassins creed:victory. The leaked screenshots you can view online had a much more serious Victorian London vibe and atmosphere. It was a lot darker compared to the boring lighter tone we got with syndicate It was also only meant to have one protagonist called Samuel Fey but Ubi we’re being scrutinised for lack of female protagonists so they came up with the idea to play as the twins. I didn’t mind the twins but I’d rather have one well fleshed out character instead of two half baked ones Syndicate was a huge missed opportunity for a game set in Victorian london!
I always enjoyed Syndicate, sometimes I just turn off the HUD and walk around. Also the WW1 section with Lydia Frye wasn’t even advertised at all, it was a complete surprise for players. It came out at a perfect time because it was around Remembrance Day and I was learning about WW1 in school at the time. It holds a special place for me.
@@damhilmna special rift To the east i believe I think you need to finish game or be close to end Jump into rift and you are the descendant of jacob or evie we don't know for sure But she was trained by both
The Lydia section was such a breath of fresh air as well. With the power generators, noise and lights, I really enjoyed it. Having to change your gameplay to avoid the sharpshooters was fun, although I felt in a full game it could have become a bit restrictive if done wrong, but those parts were easily my favourite parts of the game. Syndicate also being my favourite AC game lol
When I played Syndicate, my reaction was: - The parkour actually does what I want it to do most of the time! - The stealth is actually fun! - The combat isn't great, but it's miles better than the atrociously unresponsive combat of every other entry in the series up to that point! I actually kinda got into the underground fighting missions! - So many fun ways to get around the city! The zipline, carriages, the train, doing a Frogger across the Thames - getting around the city is just a joy! - The setting felt so refreshingly unique for an AC game! - The Guy Ritchie vibe, basically blending his gangster movies with his interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, was delightful! - Evie and Jacob were charismatic and likable, and instantly became two of my favorite AC protagonists! I thought it was by far the best and most refined version of the urban-focused AC games. It had the stuff I liked about earlier games without the jank that made them hard to go back to. I was absolutely shocked when I found out it was considered an unpopular entry in the series.
I really like Evie's outfit and overall character design in the game. It has a nice crow motif that looks like traditional assassin robes, but also ones that fit the 19th century Victorian Era English setting nicely, with a feminine flair that is unique to her. Plus the large shoulder pad, adorned with a large Assassin insignia, on her outfit is a nice callback to Ezio's AC Brotherhood robes too, which is neat
Except as a Victorian era game it felt like a cartoon comapred to the order 1886.i enjoyed 8 hours of order 1886 and couldn't even finish 8 hours of sindicate because it was so boring and cartoony
They could've easily altered the stats of Evie and Jacob to make them play differently. Like make Evie run/parkour a lot faster, lower chance to get detected, but have low hp. And make Jacob a lot slower, more likely to get detected, but being able to tank hits. It would make them stand out from each other, rather than being clones.
The only difference felt is in stealth. Evie does have a more stealth heavy Stat than Jacob even without the invisibility ability. As for combat, yeah. Both twins can kick ass brutally so no much difference there. With his more brash way of doing things I thought Jacob would be more combat focused, but I really didn't feel too much a difference.
I genuinely loved my time with Syndicate. The setting was interesting, given being the most historically recent we've gotten in the series, and I think the parkour changes not only did a good job of addressing Unity's issues, but made a lot of sense given the physical differences of the setting itself. People may find the grapple to be a bit of a copout for a series about parkour, but it was a genuinely smart solution to the problem of the much larger buildings and wider streets of Victorian London, and in my opinion it never really broke up the flow or feel of the on-building parkour. It felt right and like a logical addition for the setting. It is also probably the best stealth in the series, and the most fun I had engaging with the stealth systems in moment to moment gameplay, instead of many other entries, where missions sometimes made it feel frustratingly forced. And I loved Evie as a character, and do wish she had gotten more to do in the story.
Good job addressing unitys issues? It removed half the animations and you couldn’t manually jump. Way more contextual actions too. It’s the worst in the franchise by far outside of the RPG games
@@JackycakesV2 As stated in the video, the vast majority of Unity's animations and actions simply didn't work 95% of the time. At no point during my 60 or so hours with the Syndicate did I think the parkour or animations looked any less impressive than previous games, but I *certainly* thought it looked less janky and broken than Unity did in just about any given moment of its parkour gameplay. I find that people who loved Unity's parkour and animation are more in love with the *idea* of that game's content rather than the content as we actually got it in the context of the game. So yes, it addressed the issues well, in that it was a far better game to play, while retaining the core parkour elements and smartly adapting them to the new setting.
I hated evie. I know the original plam for syndicate un development, and it was much better. Evie being added reuined the story, because certain things planned for the game when it only featured Jacob, were cut to make space for that teachers pet snooty evie.
@@chrismoore5333 Jacob was loud obnoxious and annoying with no sense of self preservation or sense of how to formulate a plan past beat everything to a pulp Evie carried that game for me cause while there were moments I found Jacob funny he was far more often a pain in the ass that I was forced to play for more than half the game.
@@theninjamaster67 that's because Jacob's the main character. Evie was a lazy, annoying, sad teachers pet. She was far worse acted, she didn't care about London's people nor defeating the templars. She was only interested in satisfying herself on pleasing her father's memory, and dating Henry. Jacob was always the intended protagonist of that game, and that's why he had the most of the story, as evie wasn't planned, and she was shoehorned into the game. It is also worth noting that Jacob is actually canon in the side missions. Roth mentions that Jacob was seen conquering the districts and defeating the gang leaders. Jacob rightly points out that evie didn't do anything helpful unless it was right in her path already, and she doesn't even try to deny it. She just complains that Jacob made 3 mistakes along the way, two of which didn't even make sense. Evie has no personality, plus she makes plenty of bad jokes like Jacob does, only she's a lot ones funny. In the final boss fight, she tells Starrick "Jesus looked better in the shroud." Which is a stupid thing to say that spoils the tension of thr scene. Jacob on the other hand is always perfectly serious during the major confrontations. Jacob is actually arguing with Starrick and thr actor is showing the hate that Jacob has for the templar grand master, while evie is making silly jokes. Jacob is also great and perfectly serious when fighting Roth or chasing down Pearl, and during the asylum mission, to name a few. Evie however, isn't serious when it matters, she's serious when it doesn't. The game is great until it forces you to play as that miserable evie. She didn't even suit the game, and she wasn't even intended to be in the game the way she is. It is also worth remembering that evie messed up and lost the shroud key twice, she barely managed to defeat one templar while Jacob got all the rest, as evie failed her attempts to defeat Lucy multiple times. Evie got captured by Starrick and pinned by snipers in the final mission, and she managed to allow Henry and the plans to the vault to get stolen. She also broke the creed in her first level when she chose not to help a man escape the blighters, only changing her mind when she heard it'd help her mission, because she is vastly selfish. Ezio made more major mistakes than Jacob did, when ezio destroyed a city, the docks, a lighthouse and many ships, defeated an ally who he only thought was a templar, and lost all the masyaf keys. Jacob never messed up that bad. Arno and Edward and Connor all messed up more than Jacob as well. Jacob's only problem and the soul reason he is so unfairly treated by fans, is because he is paired with an obnoxious hypocrite of a character, evie.
I got my enjoyment out of Syndicate by trying to force stealth as much as possible throughout my playthrough, and enjoying my exploration of the city at a observational slow pace. My most memorable session was messing around on the Thames river - going from one end to the other - in one long and extended flow (no pun) of deliberate creativity.
I genuinely think Syndicate is one of the most Fun and Complete AC game out of the franchise next to AC3/4 and also the safest as it didn't tried to risk and achieve anything groundbreaking. and I do appreciate the fact that it didn't overstayed its welcome as it wasn't as huge and bloated like the modern AC games while also wasn't as short as the old ones and it didn't played with our nostalgia for the sake of it. The main theme isn't for once not yet another remake of Ezio's theme and its actually memorable, the open world again didn't felt mighty bloated like the modern AC games and it doesn't have its stupid RPG mechanics and Colored Loot nonsense, The Gameplay and Parkour is tight and not as clunky as Unity, The Stealth works as intended without being annoying whereas the Actual Combat while repetitive is actually fun and satisfying, like as someone who loves his Arcade Beat em up games. This game is a treat. and as for the story and characters,I think the story is much more easier to digest thanks to its light hearted nature with an antagonist that's equally memorable not because he's good or well written or anything but because he's your typical cliche comic villain and idk i liked all of that plus I wholeheartedly prefer Evie and Jacob over Kassandra and Alexios and Male/Female Eivor as the Dual Protagonists. They felt like an actual fun goofball characters with personalities you can easily relate, get to laugh at their childish antics and sympathize with their actual real problems of being a grown up adult. They aren't trying to achieve anything spectacular or showing off. They just got a simple but different motives while cliche and not amazing it's still feels much more original and this game shows. while it is a shame Jacob gets all of the assassinations, I do love how even he questions that and i like how the game is being self aware of that fact while Evie gets less screen in the base game i think she shines in the DLC where she takes the center stage and the story is a gut punch cus seeing those likeable characters getting in such a dark situation just upsets me and more of all, poor Jacob :(. Plus the fact that you can seamless switch between the twins to do whatever you want is so much cooler than just choosing one character and do a full play through. While i wouldn't necessarily say it's an "Underrated" AC game, It's certainly not overrated either. If anything it's appropriately rated and generally well liked from anyone who played it with an open mindset and those who didn't are like you mentioned are usually from the ones who simply just likes the Ezio trilogy or Older AC games, for the modern AC fans it wasn't as Ambitious, Bloated and loot/RPG heavy and from those who never given it a fair chance and dumped the game mid way just because it had a grappling hook or it didn't looked as good as Unity etc. Sorry for the big comment, as you can see this is one AC game i thoroughly enjoyed for what it is.
I read allat🗣 Always felt alone on this because I never saw anyone speak on syndicate and if they did, it was mostly hate. Been seeing more positive opinions lately and it makes me happy fr
Syndicate inarguably has the best side content and black box assassination missions of the entire series. It also has probably the most interactive and immersive city out of any of the games as well. The fact that you can't go more than like a minute without having some sort of world activity near you that you can participate in is amazing and should be the standard for open world games like this. I would find myself on my way to do a mission and wind up getting sidetracked by one of the many world events and side activities. Even better, I actually enjoyed that and didn't mind it one bit since the events felt natural and flowed perfectly into the gameplay loop. None of the side content felt forced in any way to me. The various gang-related missions, the spontaneous cargo and carriage hijacks, the "protect this citizen" sort of world events that randomly pop up, etc. all work together to make the city feel vibrant, multi-layered, and alive in a way that even Unity with its inconsequential large street crowds could not accomplish. London feels like a a big playground with fun things to do everywhere you look. Yes, Unity had larger crowd sizes, but realistically what did that do in terms of gameplay? They were basically nothing more than an aesthetic choice; the crowded streets didn't really affect all that much or have any real bearing on the game itself, which is why I kinda discount that argument a bit. Sure, it does look cool to have the large crowds in Unity, but aside from that, the larger crowd sizes in the streets of Paris really doesn't mean much to me. They just stand there and yell, nothing more. I personally put Syndicate in my top 3 AC games and genuinely believe it is certainly every bit as fun to play as the OG Ezio games (not saying the story is on par with the Ezio stuff, just that the game itself is a ton of fun to play, similar to how fun the Ezio games are to play). I truly think if a real AC fan goes into Syndicate with a totally open mind, there is absolutely no way in hell that person won't have fun playing the game. While I do love Unity, I would probably put Syndicate ahead of it in my personal rankings. Shoot, I even loved the grappling hook. You can't honestly tell me that zipping around Victorian London isn't a great time lol. It's a good game, man.
Another absolute banger. Narrative section, really digging into the disconnect between the reality of social conditions and what was presented in the game was very well done. Playing the game I didn’t even register that in reality I would be costing these children their actual jobs. Big man punch problems away
Thank you. It was that article I referenced by Dr. Harris that had me thinking along those lines, which I also link in the description. I had previously included information regarding the legislation put in place to improve working conditions in Victorian London that made 1868 a weird year to choose to set the game in. A few decades older would have been more in-line with the stereotypical London we know, with its horrifying working conditions at their worst. I cited some of Dr. Bob Whitaker's old videos for the History Respawned channel going over some of this, but in the end I cut the whole section for the sake of flow. People have written entire theses on the portrayal of history in Assassin's Creed, both good and bad, so I decided to reign myself in a bit.
Edit: I really like your segment about this game's social commentary. I remember one of the trailers had the quote "when the rich steals from the poor, it's capitalism" and was like damn this game may go hard! But then I remember it's Ubisoft and their biggest brand... Having Templars as the big bad is the perfect strawman, otherwise many of Jacob and Evie's allies would be at each other's throats as they have pretty much opposing interests. I had a completionist playthrough of this game this year and it is indeed very neat. Is it derivative and safe? Yes. Is it a consistently fun game that runs well and plays well out of the box? Also yes. I like the lighthearted tone and the side content, especially with DLCs, are fantastic comparing to Unity. The crime solving missions were already solid in Unity and they are even better in this game. I hope it expands some of the systems it merely dipped toes in, like gang upgrades, duo protagonists, and the grapple hook. There are a ton of upgrades to progress toward, but most of them are just numbers going up that make an already easy game even easier. Jacob and Evie are charming contrasts of one another and being able to play as both of them highlights that rather well, but it's very obvious that Jacob gets more overall screentime. Evie only has one black box assassination which makes no sense to me as the lack of post assassination philosophy debates deprived of her valuable moments for characterizations. The grapple hook is quite disappointing imo. The trailer shows Jacob swining with it which hints immense potential of integrating grappling into parkour that keeps it relevant in the much larger London with wider steets, but instead it took away from it which is a real shame. Most of the Unity animations are still in Syndicate but the game seemingly discourages players from seeing them.
When it comes to stealth in AC series, usually people mention Unity. In my opinion, Syndicate did stealth better, since it polished many stealth mechanics (better enemy AI, environment takedown, whistle comeback...). And alslo one thing that people seems to ignore: consistency. Compare to the buggy enemy detection of Unity, Syndicate enemy behavior & detection is a lot more consistent. The kidnapping mechanic is also a genius mechanic that should have stayed in the following games. And I haven't mentioned the fact that Syndicate has better Blackbox missions with many creative opportunities.
Yeah. Even when my stats were legendary, stealth felt inconsistent in Unity. Sometimes I could literally kill someone right next to a guard or walk up to a guard and stab them like I'm invisible. Other times it's like guards can see through wall and I get detected by enemies nowhere near my location. It doesn't help that Unity has one of the weaker versions of eagle vision. Even social stealth felt inconsistent.
This man is preachin some fire stuff Def glad to find someone else agreeing Syndicate is an improvement to Unity in some aspect and good ones at that (most notably the window thingy that was recently added to Unity by modders). Combat is okay-ish but I really wish the near-death opponents would sit still so I can set up a 3+ man finisher instead of accidentally parry killing them for trying to attack my character while in near death state. The missing ingredients are to incentivise you to do side activites and ranking up your loyalty with associates to unlock and since I did a 99% playthrough (Ubisoft wants real $ to reveal the 2 last Helix glitch in City of London district), I got most of the crafting unlocked. Goes without saying that I enjoy this game, whether it's parkour through roofs and zipping across the streets or listening to a performance in a random park in-game (also it's kinda hard to immerse yourself in these performance bc the moment you accidentally shove someone, the crowd gathering for the concert disperses and you're just awkwardly standing there taking insults from NPCs and being weird)
The thing is... I tried to replay syndicate and I do agree with what you said about stealth, london, story heck maybe even combat which I do consider significantly worse than Unity. But I can't agree at all with parkour and it hurts. Because tbh it killed my replay with how much I was bored going to anywhere with it. System just feels so limitic that I feel like either I'm doing a quicktime even or fight the to do something. And I'm sorry but it wasn't simply just time when I think about it because at the very least we could still had the jump button? It's so frustrating to be not able to jump resulting me to just press rope launcher button again again and again. After a point I gave up on any kinda parkour because do I really need to push myself? All I need is pushing one button and it's done. It "works" but working does not mean fun. Edit: Honestly ny opinions start to shift a bit as I just looked at London lol. Like you can actually look at the city without npc's just regenarate like a time lord eaxh second.
I bought ac syndicate deluxe edition a few months ago when it was on sale. Although it's not my favorite in the series, I still absolutely love this game, Victorian London is one of my favorite settings and one of the most immersive. I don't mind the less serious story and jacob is one of my favorite assassins. And I think it has some of the best stealth in the entire series despite the lack of almost any social stealth.
i always say ac syndicate is not my favorite storyline but it's my favorite in terms of gameplay. i have so many fond memories with syndicate and the gameplay of it is always the most fun i have playing a game like it just feels so good to play and evie and jacob are such fun characters to me
This will be an unpopular opinion in the AC community, but i think AC Syndicate is better than Unity in most regards. I have played both games, years ago now, and Unity was so unpolished, so unrefined and often felt unenjoyable a lot of the time, especially during stealth gameplay. Syndicate, on the other hand, felt like Unity should have been, if it wasn't rushed out of the door half-baked, and with less superfluous excess like a medieval prologue mission, and co-op multiplayer. Not to mention its nonsensically written narrative and unlikable characters. Unrelated, but a few years ago for a university project, i came up with the concept for an AC game set in 1920s Chicago during the probation era, centered around two protagonists, two rookie mafia gangsters - born and raised as members of the american mafia - who are childhood friends turned lovers (similar to the stories of Bonnie and Clyde). One of them was named Elsa Cormac (the focus character who is most prominent in the narrative), while the other was called Samuel Fei (both born in 1902) The narrative synopsis is similar to AC Unity, but much better in my opinion, with one eventually joining an assassins, while the other joins the templars
@@unicorntomboy9736 no i 100% agree !! i remember one of the most frustrating parts of unity to me too was the lack of a save button. i played for hours one day and logged on the next and all of my progress was gone :( i also loveee the historical aspect of ac like history's always been my favorite subject so the way syndicate is able to incorporate it as such a fascinating backdrop versus ac unity never touching on it and even having a story that makes no sense and the way elise was such an interesting character that they severely under-utilized makes me so sad for how the game could've been. and the parkour in ac unity and even the detection system has never worked for me :( that ac game sounds so interesting that would be so fun to play
@@MelyssaHawes I even thought about incorporating Lydia Frye in the narrative, that the two protagonists (more so Elsa) meet early on In addition, Al Capone would be an ally to the protagonists and the american assassin brotherhood
Same here. One of my favorite artists did the music for one of the trailers. While I prefer some other AC games Syndicate will always feel special to me.
I really wish evie and fry had the "Haytham and Charles" dynamic from AC3. In an early Haytham mission, you go to find a man at his house. Haytham knocks on the door but when nobody answers, he's starts to ponder and says "hmmm... he's not here. I wonder where he is." Charles then just walks up, kicks open the door, and walks in while Haytham just stands at the door kind of bewildered. That Gentleman nature coupled the rogueish bluntness was kinda cool and would've worked so well in this game.
Neat and dope vid. My favorite part about this franchise is comparing and contrasting which games nail and fail at different types of gameplays this series offers. No game is perfect (besides ac1) but each will excel in something different. There is no other series where I will memorize a set of animations and compare it to the direct sequel and geek and gawk at the slight differences.
I absolutely love Syndicate. After the Ezio trilogy, it’s my favorite. Jacob having a personality was a huge selling point for me since the last protagonist that had a personality was Edward. I love the weapon choices in Syndicate and the awesome cinematic assassinations.
Jacob is one of my favourite protagonists and so underrated. He deserves his own standalone story set after the ripper story, and focusing on a more mature Jacob. Possibly set in late 1800s paris, or still in London but dealing with the hermetic order of the golden dawn.
@@chrismoore5333 I wouldn't want the games to revisit Victorian London again (even after a few decades it wouldn't be different enough from Syndicate's map to feel new), but I really like the idea of some spinoff material or a game in a new area focusing on Jacob and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. If you've ever delved into the material from the old AC Facebook game Project Legacy, there was a lot of lore surrounding the Hermeticists and other kind of occult and esoteric stuff, and I really enjoyed that side of the AC universe.
@@SomasAcademy I know about the order of thr golden dawn, and it is a great fit for Jacob. I have also previously suggested that Jacob's sequal story take place in 1889-1899 Paris. The political struggle of the time was based on workers revolts, only this time the workers took it to far and bombed innocent people. So it would be a great conflict to test Jacob and his views on the world. The setting itself suits Jacob, perhaps even more than victorian london did, and we would have historical figures such as Van Gogh. The map would be easy for ubisoft to make, as it just needs to use assets already made for syndicate and unity. It could be an update to syndicate, or perhaps like a crossover with unity? Something of that sort maybe. I think it's necessary to create a proper sequal dtoty for Jacob, as his fans have been pretty poorly treated over the years. From not featuring Jacob in the ripper dlc, to evie and not Jacob, being available as a ally in Odyssey, despite having both bayek and aya as allies in the same game... Ubisoft treat Jacob with a harsh and unfair double standard that holds him back. Many fans do the same. So Jacob's fans are really poorly treated in general, and deserve a proper storyline with new content dedicated to just Jacob and his story.
@@chrismoore5333 At this point Syndicate and Unity are probably too old for Ubisoft to want to reuse a lot of assets from them, and definitely too old for any new expansions to be released, so they'd probably be making it mostly from scratch. Unfortunately, though, I don't think Ubisoft has any intention of revisiting old protagonists in new games, so the greatest hope for a follow up for Jacob would be something like a DLC (like how Aveline got a DLC for AC4), or spinoff material like a novel, comic/manga (like the ones about Edward and Shao Jun), or table top/trading card games (which have introduced or fleshed out lore before, including about old characters).
@@SomasAcademy this is very true, however if they re-release unity and syndicate in a collection with all their dlc and some new features, sort of like thr AC3 remaster, we could see new Jacob story content in that? But I know ubisoft won't do that. They are far to obsessed with kassandra these days, unfortunately...
Your channel has reintroduced me to assassin’s creed in such an interesting way, I wasn’t allowed to play them as a kid but I was always fascinated by them, and you looking at them through an honest and critical lens while still being genuinely passionate about them has helped me get past the current somewhat negative reputation of the series. I played black flag for the first time recently because of you and absolutely loved it, thanks for making twelve year old me happy
I definitely loved Syndicate just for how fun it was to play most of the time, the combat was really bad both in how it looked and how you couldn't feel the impact of your hits, but it had the best stealth in the entire series, probably the best black box assassinations, some surprisingly good villains even if they were dragged down by the unserious tone and the WW1 section was peak. I also really enjoyed the Jack the Ripper DLC to.
I got this game for free with the recent giveaway and it is my 2nd ac game (ac 2 being the 1st) and I love the game for what it is, it´s not the prime and serious ac game that most might want but it was so charming and enjoyable to me that I fail to understand the hate for syndicate. It´s complete with content however repetitive, it has amazing stealth, a wonderful setting and just makes you happy playing it above all. It doesn´t try to take itself seriously and thus it succeeds in being fun. It ´s such a hidden gem. I appreciate this review for acknowledging such a game and for the consistent quality, keep up the great work man ❤
Always click on your videos as soon as I see them! Only really have a passing interest in AC nowadays but your videos are always well and thoughtfully written and I love to get your take on things.
This was my first time playing an AC game. I'd just come back to gaming after an almost 20 year hiatus from it in 2017 and Syndicate was one of Xbox gold free games. It honestly blew me away; the gameplay, world and graphics were so impressive, and I loved the characters, and still do - Evie is in my top AC protagonists. I've played through it a few times and it always gives me such a vibe and a feeling of rediscovering games after so long away. Before this the last game I remembered playing properly was Ocarina of Time in 98! Got an Xbox in 2017 and played this, GTA V, and Skyrim in quick succession - quite the contrast from the N64 days!
I am curious. I really dislike evie, so I want to know why is it you and many people say they love her so much? I can't imagine there's much to her to love? Maybe I'm missing something?
@@chrismoore5333she's smart, capable, an absolute badass in combat, and there's a real sincerity to her character and her drive for knowledge of the Isu and their artifacts - her sense of wonder and discovery and thirst for knowledge is infectious. All of which is a nice contrast to Jacob's cynical snark about the whole thing. As an Assassin Evie is a believer and she's also got the skills and smarts to get shit done. She's just cool, man. But with all that said, if you can't even imagine why anyone likes her then I can't imagine anything I say will convince you otherwise.
@@FutureExitsMedia well I can see that she does have a love for the ISU, but I don't think she is very nice, as you say. She would've allowed Robert topping to die in her first level, and only saved him because she learned he could aid her. Even then, she left him tied up and surrounded by his enemies. She broke the creed almost right away. "Do not harm an innocent." Jacob does have his flaws, but he learns from them. And that's where I think evie failed. She doesn't learn. She even abandoned Jacob to fight the assassins and templars war in London, all alone, so she could live with Henry in India. And that's fine, but after all her complaining about Jacob's commitment in the main story!? God, it's hypocritical. Jacob is a character who has to wrestle between being an honourable assassin and a ruthless gang leader. He grows so much through that inner conflict and he has to contend with being a bisexual man in a time where that wasn't considered ok or even spoken about. I think I love Jacob's character because he is so complex, even though bis personality isn't that complex. Where as, evie likes complex things, but she is so simple. I used to just be ok with evie. But the more time passed and the more Jacob was misrepresented and misunderstood all to benefit evie's reputation, I've grown to realise I dislike evie a fair amount. And given that Henry is the guy who gives Jacob his targets and basic plans, it isn't right that evie always blames Jacob for things. Especially when you think evie destroyed a chunk out of Croydon, lost the shroud key twice, struggled to defeat one templar over the entire story, and nearly got shot in the final level almost straight away. Anyway, I actually wish both twins had their own separate storylines set after the main story. I hate the ripper dlc as it ruins Jacob's story and spits on all his accomplishments just to make a story out of nothing for evie. What we should've gotten is a story for Jacob set in late 1800s london, surrounding the real life cult, the hermetic order of the golden dawn, and include the ripper as a side plot. That or give Jacob a story in late 1800s paris and show the birth of modern terror, with the workers revolts and of course Vincent Van Gogh. Evie should've had 1870s India, with the revolutions that took place in that time. The twins suffer as characters all the time, because of the other twin. It's ridiculous. I guess as well, I know that the original plan for Syndicate only featured Jacob, and evie was a none playable mentor character for most the story. (Leaked development info, images and artworks, you can find online.) Because of this, I dislike evie more as her being added actually changed the story for the worse and was a similar point to when the tone changed in development. Finally the "inclusive gaming" point that upsets me. Syndicate was written by a gay man, and Jacob was supposed to be bisexual right from the beginning of his creation. He still is the first and only canon gay/bisexual man as a main protagonist, but he is forced to share with the second and one of many canon female protagonists!? It's such a double standard and a kick in the teeth for me as a gay man who loves assassin's creed. Evie is a symptom of ubisoft saying they value other people more than fans like me, essentially. So there is a lot that goes into my feelings of distaste for evie, both in the real world and in the assassins creed world. Anyway, thank you for explaining your own thinking. I understand some of it, at least.
@@chrismoore5333 thanks for the comprehensive reply. Given all that, I can definitely see why you're not a fan of Evie, and you've definitely given me some food for thought, though I still have a soft spot for her. Secondly, and most importantly, I had no idea that Jacob is bisexual - your comment is the first time I've heard this info, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. I definitely got some vibes from his interactions with Roth - that kiss! But I never put 2 and 2 together. I'm bi myself, and this completely changes my view on him as a character. I've always liked him but this makes him even more compelling, and I wish it was something that was explored more in the game, but I guess for obvious reasons it wasn't at the forefront of his characterisation - hard to sell games to straight white dudes who will kick off if there's even a hint of lgbtq themes. The recent furore over a gay character in Spider-Man 2 is a sad indication of how far we still have to go. Cos there are no gay people in New York, right? Those ignorant cretins should see that city during Pride; it's absolutely wild, I loved it. I suppose Ubisoft being run by old rich white dudes doesn't help matters too much either, so it's no surprise Jacob's sexuality was buried so much.
@@FutureExitsMedia I'm a gay man from South London. Croydon specifically. So I entirely get what you mean there! Similar homophobia exists in England to America. That said my boyfriend actually owned a property in New York, and I hear a lot about the city through him. So it's nice to meet someone with some common ground on here! Anyway, yeah, Jacob and his story were written by a gay man, who was also the same gay man who wrote assassin's creed brotherhood! Evie actually had a different lead writer for her story. Some of Jacob's early black and white concept art clearly show him in a more stereotypically bisexual or gay guy look and stance, so it was probably the plan from the get go on this project. Jacob actually has many moments relating subtlety to his sexuality. He is warm to Ned, when no one else is. Jacob says and I quote "we will unite a group of disenfranchised outsiders under one banner." This relates to so many people, but also is something Jacob knows about as a bisexual man and a man who lived harshly on the streets for a time. Roth and Jacob discuss how "a man lime Starrick, builds a world around his own desires." So the pair don't think Starrick is evil, but rather that he is ignorant to others. Partly, evie's know it all attitude paired with her ignorance towards her brothers status as an oppressed bisexual man, is another frustration I have with her. And Jacob being the frist lgbtq protagonist, getting blamed for the ripper and then being locked up in a victorian asylum, feels so homophobic, even if it wasn't intended. Another reason I dislike the ripper dlc. Now on the bright side, we do have Jacob as a canon main protagonist. Even if he is extremely misunderstood and underrepresented. He is such an interesting and complex character underneath the fun and in your face exterior of his personality. Jacob let's go of his own personal fight for his own freedom as a bisexual man. Roth tells Jacob "soon you will know what it is to be free as I am" and Jacob declines, choosing to protect london and its people instead of furthering his own personal quest for liberation. This is somewhat shown in a symbolic way in the ending. Jacob who has now abandoned his own personal goals, stands alone. Just Jacob the assassin, because he lives in a world that won't allow him to love, or to freely express himself. Evie however, has Henry by her side. There is a moment of focus on that fact in the final cinimatic. Fortunately for Jacob, there is hope. He does have a granddaughter, so perhaps be falls in love with a woman after all, or even if he doesn't, (which is likely considering the frye family tree is shown in a modern day cinimatic if you look closely, and it show Jacob, evie, the twins parents, and Emmet frye, who is probably Jacob's son, but no wife.) Jacob could some day visit Paris which was a bit more relaxed for bisexual and gay people at that time in history. Anyway, you are right that straight audiences are far less likely to want to buy a game about a gay/bisexual man. This is so frustrating because those same straight buyers often talk about social progress in gaming. Regardless, I'm glad I asked about your views on these characters, because I think this has been a constructive conversation so far.
I praise you for giving Syndicate it's flowers. Even though people say Syndicate was a step back from Unity (which I mostly disagree with), it actually fixed a whole bunch of Unity's problems but not enough people give credit for that.
Same, I never say it's the best but i just like it. It's solid and had some nice additions to the formula while still being in the same style as the previous entries. Also being English probably helps, don't get too many big budget games set here.
The British accents in this game actually feel appropriate, unlike in Unity, which used them on supposedly french characters, which baffles me to this very day
As a Londoner myself, Syndicate is probably my favourite Assassin's Creed. I just love retracing my morning commute and finding my favourite lunch spots in the map. The gameplay is so refined it feels like the definitive version of what a classic AC game should be.
I played AC: Brotherhood at my friend's house when I was like 8-10 and was enthralled and when I was older and got Black Flag, I was enamored. I absolutely loved AC4 on my Xbox 360, easily sinking hundreds of hours into it and when I was in my early teens on the Xbox One I got Syndicate and MGSV for my birthday. Syndicate, while not AC4 (which didn't work on my Xbox One because it hadn't been patched and wouldn't for a long time) filled the AC hole in my heart and I very much loved the game while not being obligated to compare it to Unity and the only other AC I played just so happened to share so much in common with it. Syndicate, despite its apparent mid-ness, will remain my second favorite AC game. Easily one of the most professional and realistic reviews I've watched in a long while, hope you had a Happy New Year!
For me, unity and syndicate are the top games out of the series. But they fulfill very different purposes. While Syndicate is a game in which i can sit back and enjoy an immersive, charming beautiful London and a at times Whimsical Storyline with incredibly dark sections, Unity feels gritty to me, like a chaotic city gripped by the turmoil of revolution. Though i must admit i haven't played unitys story in a few years, i play coop with my brother basically once a week, getting familiar with its quirks and bugs, learning to skirt past them and getting frustrated when one catches me anyway is so enjoyable. Often times we still notice animations or mechanics we hadn't found in the hundreds of playhours. I feel unity oozes with potential it sadly will never fulfill, it shows love and hope from developers that weren't given enough time to complete their ambition or were simply dreaming beyond their times.
I’ve enjoyed watching your videos about Assassin’s Creed this year. Each video is very well done and thought out and I tend to agree with just about every sentiment or opinion you have on each game. Looking forward to more next year, and have a great holiday
I can't deny it has some high points, and a lot more polish than the previous title, I just wish they'd done more with the setting and period than they did. Coming off the backdrop of the French Revolution and going to a rather generic main plot disconnected from major social movements or events of the period was just disappointing.
I think one reason I didn’t perceive it that way is that I think Unity absolutely butchered the French Revolution. After the storming of the Bastille, we see almost nothing about the revolution until 2/3 of the way through the game, and even then the king doesn’t die until there are only two chapters left. Syndicate at least grapples with working conditions and inequality, albeit poorly, while Unity seemed terrified to do anything to showcase its setting outside of put in big crowds cycling through the same animations.
@@sosaysjay I guess my read was different, I took it as them acknowledging it was a messy drawn-out event, and using it as a parallel for the turmoil going on in both the Assassin and Templar orders. I wasn't overly fond of the whole Romeo and Juliet thing they tried to do though. Also, I really did miss all the historical snippets about different locations, the newspapers, the revolutionary songs (some real bangers in there!) and intersections with different characters who were important figures at the time. Huge scope for that in Syndicate, but alas all we really got was Darwin and Bell.
@@PointyHairedJedi My big problem there is that the turmoil in the Assassins and Templars is just so under baked too. Other than the attempted coup by Bellec in the middle of the game, the Assassins barely factor into the story. Arno exclusively goes after his own targets, and not a single target is acknowledged by the council after the third one. We are TOLD about turmoil, but we see so very little of it. As you said, the love story is the thing that got the most time, and even that disappears entirely for the first half of the game up until the Lafreniere assassination. I don't think we can say it was acknowledgement of how drawn out it was given that most people know the French revolution from the reign of terror (and multiple ads and cinematic trailers explicitly depict the reign of terror). But the reign of terror doesn't even start until chapter 11 out of 12 and we barely see any of it. If you actually look for moments that have to do with the French revolution in the narrative of Unity, there is shockingly little to see. Bell and Darwin aren't much, but in truth, Marquis du Sade and Napoleon are the only historical characters in Unity who really get any play, and they have 2-3 scenes each in the entire game. Obviously we have Robespierre as far as villains go, but it is baffling to me that the most recognizable figure of the revolution can be introduced and die within the span of a couple missions in the second to last chapter of the game. My apologies for the long response, a lot of this rehashes my Unity video, but I found that game borderline insulting in how it presented history and its story.
@@sosaysjay Unity with more time in the oven could have been amazing, same with Syndicate. I may also be slightly mad that I didn't get to visit the Crystal Palace.😁
@@PointyHairedJedi Crystal Palace would have been great to see. And, unfortunately, the need for more time ends up being a very common theme in these games. I appreciate you chatting with me!
I think one of my biggest points of issue with Syndicate is during the section about combat, exactly the fact that it does take turning somebody into Caesar Salad until they die. Having to hit an enemy so many times.
The wildest thing about the combat in Syndicate is it's absolutely the worst and least fun at the start of the game. Eventually, when you're level 6 or so the combat can become a lot of fun. But at level 1 it's such a boring slog.
Wow. What an amazing video. I agree with almost every point made, and it was all explained perfectly. I was expecting to see millions of subscribers after I finished watching, the production is great. Syndicate is my favourite AC game so far (I’ve played up to Origins, which I’m half way through). I love many things about it, but especially just how fun it is to play. The characters are some of the best in the series for me, as I like the more sarcastic tone. Starrick is my favourite antagonist of the series so far, too. Sure, he lacks depth, but the voice actor did an unbelievable job. By far the most intimidating AC villain for me. Add to this the crazy number of historical figures that you get to meet, which is always fun. I also love the stealth. The best in the series by a mile imo. It’s so smooth and easy to control. I also enjoyed the fast-paced combat. It’s not great, but AC combat is never great, so I didn’t mind. Plus, I suck at combat, so I didn’t find it boring lmao. The parkour sucked for me. The gaps between the buildings and the toned down animations from Unity made it boring and quite difficult. You’re the first person that I’ve heard actually give a reason for why they changed it from Unity’s system, which I can now understand. I still preferred Unity’s by a long way, tho, and I think a lot of people would’ve liked them to keep Unity’s parkour system, even if they didn’t improve on it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I know a lot of people do miss it, me included. That’s the only real negative that I can give this game, tho. I really enjoyed everything else.
AC Syndicate is one of my favorite AC games and it feels like the most complete game to me. It has the best parkour in the series, with AC: Unity's style of parkour up/down but without a lot of the jank. It has the best stealth and most complete stealth in a series where it's hard to even label some of them as stealth games. Jacob and Evie are fun characters. The combat, while not nearly as flashy or as fun as other entries in the series, is at the very least responsive and feels fair. And I like how the weapons you use aren't gigantic swords or axes, they're street weapons that make sense for the setting. My only real complaints with Syndicate is that the mutli-kill system with the combat basically doesn't work at all (which is a shame cus the multikill animations are really cool but they almost never happen organically and trying to force them to happen is still super difficult). The HP sponge approach to difficulty/progression is a little lame. No transmog system, so you have to choose between aesthetics and stats, but at least most of the equipment in the game actually looks good in comparison to all the hot garbage in AC Unity. And the writing/voice acting of side content in the game can be atrocious at times. I don't have a problem with Syndicate's lighter tone, I thought it was a refreshing change of pace, but some of the side content was silly to the point of being annoying. Like the hypnotist that hypnotises you into doing crimes, the gag is funny, but his voice acting is so terrible that I can't play that mission on repeat playthroughs because the voice is so cringe lol. Overall a great and complete game, with some minor issues here and there but definitely deserved more credit than it got.
When people say unity is a great game but hate syndicate I just don’t get it. Syndicate isn’t the best game in the series in a long run but it’s a much more well rounded and stable game out the 2
Syndicate was my first game of the genre and I had an absolute blast playing it. Right now I am working myself from 1 to mirage and have gotten to Revelation now. These old games are good and awsome, but I feel I was more addicted to Syndicate than the older ones.
I like Syndicate a lot. For me, Victorian London is one of the best settings AC ever ventured into. Then again, I very much love the literature of that era and detective novels like Sherlock Holmes. The only gripes I had with Syndicate were Jacob - he was just insufferable and I would have enjoyed having more time with Evie - and the grindy Conquer-System. Nonetheless, it's still one of the better AC games I'd probably play again. Congratz on your first yt-year. I do enjoy your content and I think that your videos are well-written and high quality. Keep up the good work and merry christmas to you.
Agree 100% Unfortunately Evie was supposed to have as much missions as Jacob but they changed the og storyline last minute (they did the same with Aya from AC origins) The irony that Evie was the only Assassin for me. Her attire, behaviour and the way she carried herself was perfect. Jacob was a Templar with an Assassin's title. Not to mention that they decided to give Jacob the stealth based missions when Evie was the one who specialised in stealth?
Definitely underrated. I find myself grinding out hours on the cargo escort and hijack side mission and clearing out the boroughs. I love the way you can cause chaos in the streets of London. The parkour is good in my opinion and I love the stealth. I would also prefer this combat gameplay over those of the newer titles like odyssey and valhalla. So happy to see that I am not the only one that has this opinion
Either you need to review all of the Assassin's Creed games or have a ranking video of them, with focus on adherence to the original vision, your own personal biases, and the most historical accuracy; I essentially want a recommended list.
This was the first one I was ever allowed to play. Got me into the series. Loved Jacob and Evie, never forgot about them after playing all the other games.
Ooookayyy...you know what, you are really good at this because I want to replay it now, even though I left it at a SOLID...5/10, with some 4/10 moments like the desperate attempt at a mystery quest of Ezio the magician, to the high highs of any main mission with open handed nature and freeing workers from gangs. I played this game twice: once in a complete Alpha (complete game but full of bugs and with some cutscenes missing) when I was playtesting for Ubi Montreuil, and once on PC but with a machine that wasn't necessarily beefy enough for it. And twice I found some parts of the game to be infuriating. But I somehow got it on PS4 (I can't help myself) so...I know what I'll do now. PS: I laughed at loud seeing the "pre-alpha footage" watermark in the cutscene. The game didn't look like this in alpha, let alone in pre-alpha...
Really awesome video, you really articulated why it's one of my faves in the series. Another small thing - syndicate came out during the height of gamergate...when the gaming world online was unbelievably toxic to anyone not cis het male. I remember at the time, with the diverse cast of characters and narrative, this game felt like an olive branch, showing me as a woman in the space that i am still seen and welcome, so for that aspect it always leaves me feeling warm inside and will always have a special place in my library for me. Then again, as you said, the female presence in this game was so largely policed and reduced due to executive meddling...but the bar was in hell during gamergate lol, Evie felt like peak rep for Assassins Creed at the time. Thanks for posting, really enjoyed this!
ULTRA BASED. My favorite ac right after brotherhood. 🎩🇬🇧Certified brutish accent , Temza rubber parkour, polished gameplay. Soundtrack just perfect. Love 😘
AC Syndicate was my re-introduction to AC franchise, which I bought to play in my XBox One X, and I actually enjoyed the game. I'm currently replaying AC Syndicate for PC, and am currently stuck at the mission where you have to tail Starick with Jacob navigating the rooftops & using the grappling hook.
As a big fan of Thief: The Dark Project, I've always wondered why people thought these were stealth games. I vaguely remember AC 1 made Altaïr a glass cannon that had to run away instead of getting walloped, but that's about it. I certainly don't remember any sneaking around in 1 or any AC2 sequel.
This is a great video, I never played Unity so this helped me appreciate what Syndicate improved on, and gave me a better look at what it did wrong, worse, or just not too well. Syndicate is my favourite of the pre-Origins Assassins Creed games, and I appreciate the balanced review, one can love a game in spite of its flaws rather than try to ignore them.
I couldn’t agree with you more! In fact, this was my very first Assassin’s Creed game; and the biggest reason I bought this was that you can ride the trains 🚂 all around London! After all, I am a huge train fanatic!!!
I have always loved this series as an idea but never played it. Valhalla was my first AC I played. Because of channels like this I am now playing through all of the games in order and can not wait to get to Unity and Syndicate.
really good video with very insightful opinions on syndicate (and unity - they're the only games i have played so far but im excited to get to the older ones!) but i think my favourite moment was him talking about how it sucks that you can only have your hood up while in stealth - and my immediate reaction was "but i LIKE seeing the twins' pretty faces!" even in unity i tend to put arno into bellec's or shay's templar outfit, bc they're the only options that don't have a hood or hat covering up his stupid pretty hair
So glad I found this channel. Funnily enough I starting watching from your first video and it’s crazy how consistently good your content has been since!
As someone who played from the beginning, early enough to experience the Animus surprise of AC 1 first had (from reading the manual, and actual physical manual, before I even put the disc in no less) and has statues from 2, 3, Unity, Syndicate, and Odyssey, Syndicate is my absolute favorite outside of the original trilogy, and it was in many, many ways way more fun to play than 3. I only don't jump to rate Syndicate even higher because I'm still a sucker for when both the genetic memory and present day meta narrative were still both compelling.
You have some of the most sensible takes on this franchise in my opinion. I agree with basically everything you brought up in this video. I think your closing statement "It's a game that actually wants to be fun, and I think it succeeds" is spot on. I think Quebec, while obviously a divisive developer, have proven that they are not afraid to focus on specific things that they want to achieve in their games. Even if Odyssey is controversial to many people, I find it hard to argue that most of its systems are not well made, and that the game does not have a clear identity, and the same can be applied to Syndicate. Valhalla, on the other hand, while in my view is quite underrated and misunderstood, is clearly a much more chaotic game, with many systems and gameplay and/or narrative aspects that evidently were very hard to integrate together, leading to a cloud of confusion surrounding its identity.
Certainly the most underrated game in the Assassins' Creed franchise. The graphics are not modest, and the game mechanics are enjoyable and imaginative. The setting was portrayed brilliantly and I love this game to bits...
I only have my own anecdotal experience to go on but as someone who bought Unity on PC for a hilariously low $2 at my local games shop a year after release I was completely blown away. The climbing mechanics took adjusting to after the being used to the tried and true system of the older games, but I honestly had no problems with bugs, and what graphical struggles the game had particularly with cutscenes just weren't all that noticeable for me. In contrast, buying Syndicate the following year I was plagued with saves getting corrupted and losing progress, or being trapped in side missions which would crash as soon as I load in, but without an earlier save to revert back to. When I could actually play the game, I really struggled to get into the combat system which felt so much less lethal than unity and earlier AC titles. All in all even when revisiting more recently I felt it was a fine game, but I can't really consider it a high point in the series from my personal experience of it.
The one thing I enjoyed a lot about Syndicate when it came out was actually the Jack The Ripper DLC. The idea of an assassin using fear and terror is antithetical to their whole philosophy on stealth, yet that contrast somehow aligns so much with how the original Assassins (Levantine Era) used to operate, killing their targets in broad daylight to inspire and spark rebellion during its time. It is such a callback to those old methods with its own dark twist and I was all about it.
I feel very lucky. I love Syndicate as much as I love any Assassin's creed. And my worst AC game is unity (excluding RPGs). Syndicate was a very good AC game. I gave a solid 20-25 hours and found it a very good AC game. Don't know why it gets so much hate
I think that what something people forget, or don't realize at this point, is that Unity was a launch title for the PS4. So, the PSN was just a baby, most companies hadn't figured out the value of patching their games and how to do it. Unity had to be shipped in the state it was in because it had to be packaged with consoles. With Syndicate, they weren't beholden to Sony's timeline, but by then, the burnout of the yearly AC releases, Unity's rough launch, and the microtransactions just left a lot of us uninterested.
I loved Syndicate when it came out and still do. I love the mechanic of switching between two different people that excel at different things, giving you another tool to use when planning whatever it is you need to do and I'm really glad to see that coming back in Shadows. And I disagree a bit with the idea that the grapel was just something tacked on to bypass broken parkour. Maybe I didn't hear that right, but that's what it was sounding like. I think the grapel presents a good answer to the question of how to make AC work in more modern city layouts with wider streets we can't jump across from roof to roof. Plus, why wouldn't the Assassins be working on other miniaturized devices to help them do their thing better. How long have they been depending on the hidden blade?
I remember picking up syndicate thinking it was unity(i was 14 and just saw cool moves, and didnt do research)i still enjoyed syndicate and despite what people say, i never experienced a single bug. I wouldve preferred the darker tones of what syndicate was originally gonna be (ac victory), but i dtill enjoyed it for what it was. The buildings sre nice and the rooftops are dtill okay to treveese(even if alot of it is the same valuable obstacle copy pasted),either way the game holds a special place in my heart, i still come back to it from time to time
For me, living in London, this game was already feeling great for me. I do wish it was a bit more dark and grey in its colour palate to match that victorian era darkness. Still great for me 😊
It's far and away the best game in the franchise. I've loved and love, every moment of it. Ubisoft should be applauded for how well it was put together. It's graphically very, very impressive. I return to it on a regular basis and consider it my all time favourite game. The atmosphere created is spot on.
4 months late but grats on your first year, Jay. As someone who does a lot of analysis of the AC games I really really enjoy your input. I find we agree on *most* things with a couple of divergences that honestly surprise me. Unity is in the top half of my AC rankings despite its flaws and it surprised me how many issues you had with the story. It also surprised me the issues you took with combat in Syndicate. But you're always really well thought out and even where we might disagree on the conclusion, i find myself granting and agreeing with the points that lead you to that conclusion, even if we might conclude differently. Your channel has me wanting to make a channel of my own for various games, AC series being a big part of it. Also Watch Dogs and Red Dead. Open world games in general I think. Anyway, big congrats! Glad you've been so popular, cause I think your videos are excellent!
I really appreciate that, and I’m glad you can watch the videos even when you don’t agree on everything. I find making videos fun, and if you could too then I think it could be great to start yourself a channel and talk about that stuff!
I’ve spent the last 5 weeks playing AC: Syndicate for the first time and had loads of fun going for all the achievements in this game. Only have 3 left to get for 1000G. Honestly a great game.
Syndicate is one of my favourite. Had so much fun in the open world. Loved the stealth!!!! Plus I’m from London is was cool running around familiar places
Syndicate was my first AC game, I played it about a year ago and platinumed it just the other day, and I definitely have a bias since it is the game that made me fall in love with this series and I've played almost all of them at this point, I started Unity recently and honestly don't like it nearly as much, I feel like fans tend to put Unity on a pedestal just because of the parkour and put Syndicate down alot but Syndicate was a genuinely good game
It was fine, I liked some missions, the theme and setting surprisingly worked well enough and the music was great. Sure the story could be better in places but overall it's enjoyable, I especially liked clearing the boroughs and using different playstyles for Evie and Jacob where for infiltrating the outposts I'd go stealth but for the child labour I'd go as Jacob and use max level Rooks to open with a devastating volley.
I first played Syndicate back in 2020 without knowing it was poorly reviewed. i thoroughly enjoyed it. now it was not near the quality of AC2 or AC4 but it brought me back to single player games after a long long hiatus.
that being said, the twins are some of the most forgettable protagonists of any single player game I ever played. maybe if they had more compelling character arcs, I'd have enjoyed them far more
I have grown to love this channel after binging most of the AC videos ; Jay, keep it up, man! It's so refreshing to see this format (honest, JUSTIFIED arguments in video essay form) becoming more popular, and you do it very well. Each one of your points is not only backed up, but also perfectly respectable even if one disagrees. I don't watch jay's two cents, but I far prefer your ten cents on these subjects over anyone else's, lol.
Of course, man. Excited to see what the future holds for the channel! An interesting topic to research could be, especially in the same light as your other video on what makes a "Real" AC game, the importance of the left ring finger's removal pre-Altaïr - this mark of commitment being lost to future generations could be a background/unstated cause (read: retcon) as to why the Brotherhood has such little importance to protagonists after AC1; To an aspiring Assassin after Altaïr stops that initiation ritual, there's no physical pledge, no drastic mark, just 3 pretty flexible rules and silly hoods. Oh, and murder, but most of them do that anyway. . .
I think the setting, map and visual presentation is one of the greatest in the franchise...still looks grest to this day. So detailed and the npcs felt very slive in their sctivities and behavior. If only the story and soundtrack had been as memorable..
Syndicate was my first AC game. Though I did not understand the overall story then, being in Victorian London caused me to stay... Long story, short: it's my favorite game because it was my first and holds up to me PLUS: the reason weapons are concealed when not in use, is due to era's weapons open carry laws at the time...
27:30 me seeing this screen - as someone from the UK - while you were simultaneously mentioning microtransactions... for a very brief moment my head exploded at those £-numbers 😅
I never played this one but you really made it sound interesting. It's a shame they didn't fully commit to dickensian london with all the social complexities therein because it's an honestly a great concept.
I remember playing unity on launch, and was so frustrated by the poor performance and boring plot and characters that I swore off the series. Then I played syndicate and remembered what a good game with fun characters that was within its scope. I’d rather have a game that functions and has a fun gameplay loop and plot than an overly ambitious project that fails
Also I think that the murder mysteries side content from Unity would have been far more suited to this game and its setting than Unity, so it's baffling why they were not carried over to Syndicate.
syndicate is one of my most played ac games, but not at all my favorite. it doesn't really do anything special but the gameplay is just nice and it feels satisfying to take over the boroughs. and I love the setting and the frye twins
For me, Jacob as a character and the traversal system were too much and I couldn’t enjoy the game. I found myself frustrated by being forced to play as a character I found genuinely unlikeable for most of the game when Evie should have been an option, and movement is so much of an AC game for me, so to not enjoy it was to not enjoy a huge portion of the overall experience. However, I do recognise a lot of your points regarding good stealth/black boxes. I never finished Syndicate (only AC game I have owned but not finished) but, even all these years later, I still vividly remember the asylum mission and how much I enjoyed it.
I completely agree with everything you say here. Id always take a less ambitious but actually functional piece of media over something that shoots itself in the foot with bad management at every turn
I always had a soft spot for Syndicate as well. I like the vibe, I like the music, I like the gameplay, I like the city, I think Evie and Jacob are fun characters. It’s definitely one of the more underrated AC games.
I think the soundtrack is great. One song in particular, called 'Cathedrals of Steel' is absolutely amazing, really somber and melancholic. Plus the name is very fitting for the setting too
I like it as my night late session gaming, wouldn't say it's even close to great game but I enjoy it
I think k that's why I didn't care for it.the charactyers compared to the order 1886 are a morning cartoon. Ubisoft aren't known for great stories so comparing to order 1886 even though order 1886 is 8 hours I enjoyed all of them while I couldn't even play this this bore fest for 5 hours
Same. Evie and Jacob are both awesome. I'm a huge fan of Evie. I'm NOT a fan of going to far back in the past. I love the city. It's just a really fun game.
Syndicate was originally called assassins creed:victory. The leaked screenshots you can view online had a much more serious Victorian London vibe and atmosphere. It was a lot darker compared to the boring lighter tone we got with syndicate
It was also only meant to have one protagonist called Samuel Fey but Ubi we’re being scrutinised for lack of female protagonists so they came up with the idea to play as the twins. I didn’t mind the twins but I’d rather have one well fleshed out character instead of two half baked ones
Syndicate was a huge missed opportunity for a game set in Victorian london!
I always enjoyed Syndicate, sometimes I just turn off the HUD and walk around. Also the WW1 section with Lydia Frye wasn’t even advertised at all, it was a complete surprise for players. It came out at a perfect time because it was around Remembrance Day and I was learning about WW1 in school at the time. It holds a special place for me.
Jacob is my favourite, but I wouldn't mind seeing more storylines with lyida in ww1.
Wait how to play ww1?
@@damhilmna special rift To the east i believe
I think you need to finish game or be close to end
Jump into rift and you are the descendant of jacob or evie we don't know for sure
But she was trained by both
The Lydia section was such a breath of fresh air as well. With the power generators, noise and lights, I really enjoyed it. Having to change your gameplay to avoid the sharpshooters was fun, although I felt in a full game it could have become a bit restrictive if done wrong, but those parts were easily my favourite parts of the game. Syndicate also being my favourite AC game lol
When I played Syndicate, my reaction was:
- The parkour actually does what I want it to do most of the time!
- The stealth is actually fun!
- The combat isn't great, but it's miles better than the atrociously unresponsive combat of every other entry in the series up to that point! I actually kinda got into the underground fighting missions!
- So many fun ways to get around the city! The zipline, carriages, the train, doing a Frogger across the Thames - getting around the city is just a joy!
- The setting felt so refreshingly unique for an AC game!
- The Guy Ritchie vibe, basically blending his gangster movies with his interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, was delightful!
- Evie and Jacob were charismatic and likable, and instantly became two of my favorite AC protagonists!
I thought it was by far the best and most refined version of the urban-focused AC games. It had the stuff I liked about earlier games without the jank that made them hard to go back to.
I was absolutely shocked when I found out it was considered an unpopular entry in the series.
I really like Evie's outfit and overall character design in the game. It has a nice crow motif that looks like traditional assassin robes, but also ones that fit the 19th century Victorian Era English setting nicely, with a feminine flair that is unique to her.
Plus the large shoulder pad, adorned with a large Assassin insignia, on her outfit is a nice callback to Ezio's AC Brotherhood robes too, which is neat
Except as a Victorian era game it felt like a cartoon comapred to the order 1886.i enjoyed 8 hours of order 1886 and couldn't even finish 8 hours of sindicate because it was so boring and cartoony
@@wingedhussar1453 That game was more of a steampunk urban fantasy game
Ac3 combat was very responsive, also better than most of the series in that aspect
@@unicorntomboy9736 yet it nailed the feel and spirit of the victorian era
They could've easily altered the stats of Evie and Jacob to make them play differently. Like make Evie run/parkour a lot faster, lower chance to get detected, but have low hp. And make Jacob a lot slower, more likely to get detected, but being able to tank hits. It would make them stand out from each other, rather than being clones.
The only difference felt is in stealth. Evie does have a more stealth heavy Stat than Jacob even without the invisibility ability. As for combat, yeah. Both twins can kick ass brutally so no much difference there. With his more brash way of doing things I thought Jacob would be more combat focused, but I really didn't feel too much a difference.
@@Pooky1991Agree. While Jacob has counter skills that can instantly kill enemies, usually combat are the same with both twins.
This sounds perfect
While not perfect, I liked the polish of some of the systems in this game.
It "felt" fluid to play, and I certainly had a lot of fun with it!
I genuinely loved my time with Syndicate. The setting was interesting, given being the most historically recent we've gotten in the series, and I think the parkour changes not only did a good job of addressing Unity's issues, but made a lot of sense given the physical differences of the setting itself. People may find the grapple to be a bit of a copout for a series about parkour, but it was a genuinely smart solution to the problem of the much larger buildings and wider streets of Victorian London, and in my opinion it never really broke up the flow or feel of the on-building parkour. It felt right and like a logical addition for the setting. It is also probably the best stealth in the series, and the most fun I had engaging with the stealth systems in moment to moment gameplay, instead of many other entries, where missions sometimes made it feel frustratingly forced. And I loved Evie as a character, and do wish she had gotten more to do in the story.
Good job addressing unitys issues? It removed half the animations and you couldn’t manually jump. Way more contextual actions too. It’s the worst in the franchise by far outside of the RPG games
@@JackycakesV2 As stated in the video, the vast majority of Unity's animations and actions simply didn't work 95% of the time. At no point during my 60 or so hours with the Syndicate did I think the parkour or animations looked any less impressive than previous games, but I *certainly* thought it looked less janky and broken than Unity did in just about any given moment of its parkour gameplay. I find that people who loved Unity's parkour and animation are more in love with the *idea* of that game's content rather than the content as we actually got it in the context of the game. So yes, it addressed the issues well, in that it was a far better game to play, while retaining the core parkour elements and smartly adapting them to the new setting.
I hated evie. I know the original plam for syndicate un development, and it was much better. Evie being added reuined the story, because certain things planned for the game when it only featured Jacob, were cut to make space for that teachers pet snooty evie.
@@chrismoore5333 Jacob was loud obnoxious and annoying with no sense of self preservation or sense of how to formulate a plan past beat everything to a pulp Evie carried that game for me cause while there were moments I found Jacob funny he was far more often a pain in the ass that I was forced to play for more than half the game.
@@theninjamaster67 that's because Jacob's the main character. Evie was a lazy, annoying, sad teachers pet. She was far worse acted, she didn't care about London's people nor defeating the templars. She was only interested in satisfying herself on pleasing her father's memory, and dating Henry. Jacob was always the intended protagonist of that game, and that's why he had the most of the story, as evie wasn't planned, and she was shoehorned into the game. It is also worth noting that Jacob is actually canon in the side missions. Roth mentions that Jacob was seen conquering the districts and defeating the gang leaders. Jacob rightly points out that evie didn't do anything helpful unless it was right in her path already, and she doesn't even try to deny it. She just complains that Jacob made 3 mistakes along the way, two of which didn't even make sense. Evie has no personality, plus she makes plenty of bad jokes like Jacob does, only she's a lot ones funny. In the final boss fight, she tells Starrick "Jesus looked better in the shroud." Which is a stupid thing to say that spoils the tension of thr scene. Jacob on the other hand is always perfectly serious during the major confrontations. Jacob is actually arguing with Starrick and thr actor is showing the hate that Jacob has for the templar grand master, while evie is making silly jokes. Jacob is also great and perfectly serious when fighting Roth or chasing down Pearl, and during the asylum mission, to name a few. Evie however, isn't serious when it matters, she's serious when it doesn't. The game is great until it forces you to play as that miserable evie. She didn't even suit the game, and she wasn't even intended to be in the game the way she is. It is also worth remembering that evie messed up and lost the shroud key twice, she barely managed to defeat one templar while Jacob got all the rest, as evie failed her attempts to defeat Lucy multiple times. Evie got captured by Starrick and pinned by snipers in the final mission, and she managed to allow Henry and the plans to the vault to get stolen. She also broke the creed in her first level when she chose not to help a man escape the blighters, only changing her mind when she heard it'd help her mission, because she is vastly selfish. Ezio made more major mistakes than Jacob did, when ezio destroyed a city, the docks, a lighthouse and many ships, defeated an ally who he only thought was a templar, and lost all the masyaf keys. Jacob never messed up that bad. Arno and Edward and Connor all messed up more than Jacob as well. Jacob's only problem and the soul reason he is so unfairly treated by fans, is because he is paired with an obnoxious hypocrite of a character, evie.
Really love your gameplay analysis and it’s definitely changed the way I view the movement in this game. Excellent work once again!
That means a lot, thank you!
I got my enjoyment out of Syndicate by trying to force stealth as much as possible throughout my playthrough, and enjoying my exploration of the city at a observational slow pace. My most memorable session was messing around on the Thames river - going from one end to the other - in one long and extended flow (no pun) of deliberate creativity.
I genuinely think Syndicate is one of the most Fun and Complete AC game out of the franchise next to AC3/4 and also the safest as it didn't tried to risk and achieve anything groundbreaking.
and I do appreciate the fact that it didn't overstayed its welcome as it wasn't as huge and bloated like the modern AC games while also wasn't as short as the old ones and it didn't played with our nostalgia for the sake of it.
The main theme isn't for once not yet another remake of Ezio's theme and its actually memorable, the open world again didn't felt mighty bloated like the modern AC games and it doesn't have its stupid RPG mechanics and Colored Loot nonsense, The Gameplay and Parkour is tight and not as clunky as Unity, The Stealth works as intended without being annoying whereas the Actual Combat while repetitive is actually fun and satisfying, like as someone who loves his Arcade Beat em up games. This game is a treat.
and as for the story and characters,I think the story is much more easier to digest thanks to its light hearted nature with an antagonist that's equally memorable not because he's good or well written or anything but because he's your typical cliche comic villain and idk i liked all of that plus I wholeheartedly prefer Evie and Jacob over Kassandra and Alexios and Male/Female Eivor as the Dual Protagonists.
They felt like an actual fun goofball characters with personalities you can easily relate, get to laugh at their childish antics and sympathize with their actual real problems of being a grown up adult. They aren't trying to achieve anything spectacular or showing off. They just got a simple but different motives while cliche and not amazing it's still feels much more original and this game shows.
while it is a shame Jacob gets all of the assassinations, I do love how even he questions that and i like how the game is being self aware of that fact while Evie gets less screen in the base game i think she shines in the DLC where she takes the center stage and the story is a gut punch cus seeing those likeable characters getting in such a dark situation just upsets me and more of all, poor Jacob :(.
Plus the fact that you can seamless switch between the twins to do whatever you want is so much cooler than just choosing one character and do a full play through.
While i wouldn't necessarily say it's an "Underrated" AC game, It's certainly not overrated either.
If anything it's appropriately rated and generally well liked from anyone who played it with an open mindset and those who didn't are like you mentioned are usually from the ones who simply just likes the Ezio trilogy or Older AC games, for the modern AC fans it wasn't as Ambitious, Bloated and loot/RPG heavy and from those who never given it a fair chance and dumped the game mid way just because it had a grappling hook or it didn't looked as good as Unity etc.
Sorry for the big comment, as you can see this is one AC game i thoroughly enjoyed for what it is.
Are you saying the theme was a remake or not a remake? I haven’t the played the game for a while but I’m 99% sure it was a remake
I read allat🗣
Always felt alone on this because I never saw anyone speak on syndicate and if they did, it was mostly hate. Been seeing more positive opinions lately and it makes me happy fr
Syndicate inarguably has the best side content and black box assassination missions of the entire series. It also has probably the most interactive and immersive city out of any of the games as well. The fact that you can't go more than like a minute without having some sort of world activity near you that you can participate in is amazing and should be the standard for open world games like this. I would find myself on my way to do a mission and wind up getting sidetracked by one of the many world events and side activities. Even better, I actually enjoyed that and didn't mind it one bit since the events felt natural and flowed perfectly into the gameplay loop. None of the side content felt forced in any way to me. The various gang-related missions, the spontaneous cargo and carriage hijacks, the "protect this citizen" sort of world events that randomly pop up, etc. all work together to make the city feel vibrant, multi-layered, and alive in a way that even Unity with its inconsequential large street crowds could not accomplish. London feels like a a big playground with fun things to do everywhere you look.
Yes, Unity had larger crowd sizes, but realistically what did that do in terms of gameplay? They were basically nothing more than an aesthetic choice; the crowded streets didn't really affect all that much or have any real bearing on the game itself, which is why I kinda discount that argument a bit. Sure, it does look cool to have the large crowds in Unity, but aside from that, the larger crowd sizes in the streets of Paris really doesn't mean much to me. They just stand there and yell, nothing more.
I personally put Syndicate in my top 3 AC games and genuinely believe it is certainly every bit as fun to play as the OG Ezio games (not saying the story is on par with the Ezio stuff, just that the game itself is a ton of fun to play, similar to how fun the Ezio games are to play). I truly think if a real AC fan goes into Syndicate with a totally open mind, there is absolutely no way in hell that person won't have fun playing the game. While I do love Unity, I would probably put Syndicate ahead of it in my personal rankings. Shoot, I even loved the grappling hook. You can't honestly tell me that zipping around Victorian London isn't a great time lol. It's a good game, man.
W review🙏
Another absolute banger. Narrative section, really digging into the disconnect between the reality of social conditions and what was presented in the game was very well done. Playing the game I didn’t even register that in reality I would be costing these children their actual jobs. Big man punch problems away
Thank you. It was that article I referenced by Dr. Harris that had me thinking along those lines, which I also link in the description. I had previously included information regarding the legislation put in place to improve working conditions in Victorian London that made 1868 a weird year to choose to set the game in. A few decades older would have been more in-line with the stereotypical London we know, with its horrifying working conditions at their worst. I cited some of Dr. Bob Whitaker's old videos for the History Respawned channel going over some of this, but in the end I cut the whole section for the sake of flow. People have written entire theses on the portrayal of history in Assassin's Creed, both good and bad, so I decided to reign myself in a bit.
You’re the Batman guy 😱
@JackycakesV2 Bro, you're thinking of Burt Ward
Edit: I really like your segment about this game's social commentary. I remember one of the trailers had the quote "when the rich steals from the poor, it's capitalism" and was like damn this game may go hard! But then I remember it's Ubisoft and their biggest brand... Having Templars as the big bad is the perfect strawman, otherwise many of Jacob and Evie's allies would be at each other's throats as they have pretty much opposing interests.
I had a completionist playthrough of this game this year and it is indeed very neat. Is it derivative and safe? Yes. Is it a consistently fun game that runs well and plays well out of the box? Also yes.
I like the lighthearted tone and the side content, especially with DLCs, are fantastic comparing to Unity. The crime solving missions were already solid in Unity and they are even better in this game.
I hope it expands some of the systems it merely dipped toes in, like gang upgrades, duo protagonists, and the grapple hook. There are a ton of upgrades to progress toward, but most of them are just numbers going up that make an already easy game even easier. Jacob and Evie are charming contrasts of one another and being able to play as both of them highlights that rather well, but it's very obvious that Jacob gets more overall screentime. Evie only has one black box assassination which makes no sense to me as the lack of post assassination philosophy debates deprived of her valuable moments for characterizations. The grapple hook is quite disappointing imo. The trailer shows Jacob swining with it which hints immense potential of integrating grappling into parkour that keeps it relevant in the much larger London with wider steets, but instead it took away from it which is a real shame. Most of the Unity animations are still in Syndicate but the game seemingly discourages players from seeing them.
You condensed a lot of good points into a concise paragraph, thank you for commenting!
@@sosaysjayThank you! Love your channel
When it comes to stealth in AC series, usually people mention Unity. In my opinion, Syndicate did stealth better, since it polished many stealth mechanics (better enemy AI, environment takedown, whistle comeback...). And alslo one thing that people seems to ignore: consistency. Compare to the buggy enemy detection of Unity, Syndicate enemy behavior & detection is a lot more consistent. The kidnapping mechanic is also a genius mechanic that should have stayed in the following games. And I haven't mentioned the fact that Syndicate has better Blackbox missions with many creative opportunities.
Yeah. Even when my stats were legendary, stealth felt inconsistent in Unity. Sometimes I could literally kill someone right next to a guard or walk up to a guard and stab them like I'm invisible. Other times it's like guards can see through wall and I get detected by enemies nowhere near my location. It doesn't help that Unity has one of the weaker versions of eagle vision. Even social stealth felt inconsistent.
The Thames is one of the best realized areas in any AC game, I love parkouring on boats and random floatsam
This man is preachin some fire stuff
Def glad to find someone else agreeing Syndicate is an improvement to Unity in some aspect and good ones at that (most notably the window thingy that was recently added to Unity by modders).
Combat is okay-ish but I really wish the near-death opponents would sit still so I can set up a 3+ man finisher instead of accidentally parry killing them for trying to attack my character while in near death state.
The missing ingredients are to incentivise you to do side activites and ranking up your loyalty with associates to unlock and since I did a 99% playthrough (Ubisoft wants real $ to reveal the 2 last Helix glitch in City of London district), I got most of the crafting unlocked.
Goes without saying that I enjoy this game, whether it's parkour through roofs and zipping across the streets or listening to a performance in a random park in-game (also it's kinda hard to immerse yourself in these performance bc the moment you accidentally shove someone, the crowd gathering for the concert disperses and you're just awkwardly standing there taking insults from NPCs and being weird)
The thing is... I tried to replay syndicate and I do agree with what you said about stealth, london, story heck maybe even combat which I do consider significantly worse than Unity.
But I can't agree at all with parkour and it hurts. Because tbh it killed my replay with how much I was bored going to anywhere with it. System just feels so limitic that I feel like either I'm doing a quicktime even or fight the to do something.
And I'm sorry but it wasn't simply just time when I think about it because at the very least we could still had the jump button? It's so frustrating to be not able to jump resulting me to just press rope launcher button again again and again. After a point I gave up on any kinda parkour because do I really need to push myself? All I need is pushing one button and it's done.
It "works" but working does not mean fun.
Edit: Honestly ny opinions start to shift a bit as I just looked at London lol. Like you can actually look at the city without npc's just regenarate like a time lord eaxh second.
Syndicate is my very favourite AC and I feel so alone with that. So glad to see it's starting to get more love in recent years.
Same
I bought ac syndicate deluxe edition a few months ago when it was on sale. Although it's not my favorite in the series, I still absolutely love this game, Victorian London is one of my favorite settings and one of the most immersive. I don't mind the less serious story and jacob is one of my favorite assassins. And I think it has some of the best stealth in the entire series despite the lack of almost any social stealth.
i always say ac syndicate is not my favorite storyline but it's my favorite in terms of gameplay. i have so many fond memories with syndicate and the gameplay of it is always the most fun i have playing a game like it just feels so good to play and evie and jacob are such fun characters to me
This will be an unpopular opinion in the AC community, but i think AC Syndicate is better than Unity in most regards.
I have played both games, years ago now, and Unity was so unpolished, so unrefined and often felt unenjoyable a lot of the time, especially during stealth gameplay. Syndicate, on the other hand, felt like Unity should have been, if it wasn't rushed out of the door half-baked, and with less superfluous excess like a medieval prologue mission, and co-op multiplayer. Not to mention its nonsensically written narrative and unlikable characters.
Unrelated, but a few years ago for a university project, i came up with the concept for an AC game set in 1920s Chicago during the probation era, centered around two protagonists, two rookie mafia gangsters - born and raised as members of the american mafia - who are childhood friends turned lovers (similar to the stories of Bonnie and Clyde). One of them was named Elsa Cormac (the focus character who is most prominent in the narrative), while the other was called Samuel Fei (both born in 1902) The narrative synopsis is similar to AC Unity, but much better in my opinion, with one eventually joining an assassins, while the other joins the templars
@@unicorntomboy9736 no i 100% agree !! i remember one of the most frustrating parts of unity to me too was the lack of a save button. i played for hours one day and logged on the next and all of my progress was gone :( i also loveee the historical aspect of ac like history's always been my favorite subject so the way syndicate is able to incorporate it as such a fascinating backdrop versus ac unity never touching on it and even having a story that makes no sense and the way elise was such an interesting character that they severely under-utilized makes me so sad for how the game could've been. and the parkour in ac unity and even the detection system has never worked for me :(
that ac game sounds so interesting that would be so fun to play
@@MelyssaHawes I even thought about incorporating Lydia Frye in the narrative, that the two protagonists (more so Elsa) meet early on
In addition, Al Capone would be an ally to the protagonists and the american assassin brotherhood
Syndicate is what got me into this franchise. It will always have a special place in my heart
Same here. One of my favorite artists did the music for one of the trailers. While I prefer some other AC games Syndicate will always feel special to me.
I feel this way towards rogue
@@alyaasultan2172 me n u know what a good game is
At the end of the day. The grappling mechanic is dope, beyond dope. I really liked it. It’s was great for the environment.
I really wish evie and fry had the "Haytham and Charles" dynamic from AC3. In an early Haytham mission, you go to find a man at his house. Haytham knocks on the door but when nobody answers, he's starts to ponder and says "hmmm... he's not here. I wonder where he is." Charles then just walks up, kicks open the door, and walks in while Haytham just stands at the door kind of bewildered. That Gentleman nature coupled the rogueish bluntness was kinda cool and would've worked so well in this game.
Neat and dope vid. My favorite part about this franchise is comparing and contrasting which games nail and fail at different types of gameplays this series offers. No game is perfect (besides ac1) but each will excel in something different. There is no other series where I will memorize a set of animations and compare it to the direct sequel and geek and gawk at the slight differences.
Thanks for watching!
I absolutely love Syndicate. After the Ezio trilogy, it’s my favorite. Jacob having a personality was a huge selling point for me since the last protagonist that had a personality was Edward. I love the weapon choices in Syndicate and the awesome cinematic assassinations.
Jacob is one of my favourite protagonists and so underrated. He deserves his own standalone story set after the ripper story, and focusing on a more mature Jacob. Possibly set in late 1800s paris, or still in London but dealing with the hermetic order of the golden dawn.
@@chrismoore5333 I wouldn't want the games to revisit Victorian London again (even after a few decades it wouldn't be different enough from Syndicate's map to feel new), but I really like the idea of some spinoff material or a game in a new area focusing on Jacob and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. If you've ever delved into the material from the old AC Facebook game Project Legacy, there was a lot of lore surrounding the Hermeticists and other kind of occult and esoteric stuff, and I really enjoyed that side of the AC universe.
@@SomasAcademy I know about the order of thr golden dawn, and it is a great fit for Jacob. I have also previously suggested that Jacob's sequal story take place in 1889-1899 Paris. The political struggle of the time was based on workers revolts, only this time the workers took it to far and bombed innocent people. So it would be a great conflict to test Jacob and his views on the world. The setting itself suits Jacob, perhaps even more than victorian london did, and we would have historical figures such as Van Gogh. The map would be easy for ubisoft to make, as it just needs to use assets already made for syndicate and unity. It could be an update to syndicate, or perhaps like a crossover with unity? Something of that sort maybe. I think it's necessary to create a proper sequal dtoty for Jacob, as his fans have been pretty poorly treated over the years. From not featuring Jacob in the ripper dlc, to evie and not Jacob, being available as a ally in Odyssey, despite having both bayek and aya as allies in the same game... Ubisoft treat Jacob with a harsh and unfair double standard that holds him back. Many fans do the same. So Jacob's fans are really poorly treated in general, and deserve a proper storyline with new content dedicated to just Jacob and his story.
@@chrismoore5333 At this point Syndicate and Unity are probably too old for Ubisoft to want to reuse a lot of assets from them, and definitely too old for any new expansions to be released, so they'd probably be making it mostly from scratch. Unfortunately, though, I don't think Ubisoft has any intention of revisiting old protagonists in new games, so the greatest hope for a follow up for Jacob would be something like a DLC (like how Aveline got a DLC for AC4), or spinoff material like a novel, comic/manga (like the ones about Edward and Shao Jun), or table top/trading card games (which have introduced or fleshed out lore before, including about old characters).
@@SomasAcademy this is very true, however if they re-release unity and syndicate in a collection with all their dlc and some new features, sort of like thr AC3 remaster, we could see new Jacob story content in that? But I know ubisoft won't do that. They are far to obsessed with kassandra these days, unfortunately...
Your channel has reintroduced me to assassin’s creed in such an interesting way, I wasn’t allowed to play them as a kid but I was always fascinated by them, and you looking at them through an honest and critical lens while still being genuinely passionate about them has helped me get past the current somewhat negative reputation of the series. I played black flag for the first time recently because of you and absolutely loved it, thanks for making twelve year old me happy
I definitely loved Syndicate just for how fun it was to play most of the time, the combat was really bad both in how it looked and how you couldn't feel the impact of your hits, but it had the best stealth in the entire series, probably the best black box assassinations, some surprisingly good villains even if they were dragged down by the unserious tone and the WW1 section was peak. I also really enjoyed the Jack the Ripper DLC to.
Heck yeah dude. Favorite in the series for me. Such a well crafted world, full of movement and life
I want to go back to it and earn the platinum trophy for the game, since I got it for both Valhalla and Mirage
I got this game for free with the recent giveaway and it is my 2nd ac game (ac 2 being the 1st) and I love the game for what it is,
it´s not the prime and serious ac game that most might want but it was so charming and enjoyable to me that I fail to understand the hate for syndicate.
It´s complete with content however repetitive, it has amazing stealth, a wonderful setting and just makes you happy playing it above all. It doesn´t try to take itself seriously and thus it succeeds in being fun.
It ´s such a hidden gem.
I appreciate this review for acknowledging such a game and for the consistent quality, keep up the great work man ❤
Always click on your videos as soon as I see them! Only really have a passing interest in AC nowadays but your videos are always well and thoughtfully written and I love to get your take on things.
That means a lot, thank you
This was my first time playing an AC game. I'd just come back to gaming after an almost 20 year hiatus from it in 2017 and Syndicate was one of Xbox gold free games. It honestly blew me away; the gameplay, world and graphics were so impressive, and I loved the characters, and still do - Evie is in my top AC protagonists. I've played through it a few times and it always gives me such a vibe and a feeling of rediscovering games after so long away. Before this the last game I remembered playing properly was Ocarina of Time in 98! Got an Xbox in 2017 and played this, GTA V, and Skyrim in quick succession - quite the contrast from the N64 days!
I am curious. I really dislike evie, so I want to know why is it you and many people say they love her so much? I can't imagine there's much to her to love? Maybe I'm missing something?
@@chrismoore5333she's smart, capable, an absolute badass in combat, and there's a real sincerity to her character and her drive for knowledge of the Isu and their artifacts - her sense of wonder and discovery and thirst for knowledge is infectious. All of which is a nice contrast to Jacob's cynical snark about the whole thing. As an Assassin Evie is a believer and she's also got the skills and smarts to get shit done. She's just cool, man. But with all that said, if you can't even imagine why anyone likes her then I can't imagine anything I say will convince you otherwise.
@@FutureExitsMedia well I can see that she does have a love for the ISU, but I don't think she is very nice, as you say. She would've allowed Robert topping to die in her first level, and only saved him because she learned he could aid her. Even then, she left him tied up and surrounded by his enemies. She broke the creed almost right away. "Do not harm an innocent." Jacob does have his flaws, but he learns from them. And that's where I think evie failed. She doesn't learn. She even abandoned Jacob to fight the assassins and templars war in London, all alone, so she could live with Henry in India. And that's fine, but after all her complaining about Jacob's commitment in the main story!? God, it's hypocritical.
Jacob is a character who has to wrestle between being an honourable assassin and a ruthless gang leader. He grows so much through that inner conflict and he has to contend with being a bisexual man in a time where that wasn't considered ok or even spoken about. I think I love Jacob's character because he is so complex, even though bis personality isn't that complex. Where as, evie likes complex things, but she is so simple. I used to just be ok with evie. But the more time passed and the more Jacob was misrepresented and misunderstood all to benefit evie's reputation, I've grown to realise I dislike evie a fair amount. And given that Henry is the guy who gives Jacob his targets and basic plans, it isn't right that evie always blames Jacob for things. Especially when you think evie destroyed a chunk out of Croydon, lost the shroud key twice, struggled to defeat one templar over the entire story, and nearly got shot in the final level almost straight away.
Anyway, I actually wish both twins had their own separate storylines set after the main story. I hate the ripper dlc as it ruins Jacob's story and spits on all his accomplishments just to make a story out of nothing for evie. What we should've gotten is a story for Jacob set in late 1800s london, surrounding the real life cult, the hermetic order of the golden dawn, and include the ripper as a side plot. That or give Jacob a story in late 1800s paris and show the birth of modern terror, with the workers revolts and of course Vincent Van Gogh. Evie should've had 1870s India, with the revolutions that took place in that time. The twins suffer as characters all the time, because of the other twin. It's ridiculous.
I guess as well, I know that the original plan for Syndicate only featured Jacob, and evie was a none playable mentor character for most the story. (Leaked development info, images and artworks, you can find online.) Because of this, I dislike evie more as her being added actually changed the story for the worse and was a similar point to when the tone changed in development.
Finally the "inclusive gaming" point that upsets me. Syndicate was written by a gay man, and Jacob was supposed to be bisexual right from the beginning of his creation. He still is the first and only canon gay/bisexual man as a main protagonist, but he is forced to share with the second and one of many canon female protagonists!? It's such a double standard and a kick in the teeth for me as a gay man who loves assassin's creed. Evie is a symptom of ubisoft saying they value other people more than fans like me, essentially. So there is a lot that goes into my feelings of distaste for evie, both in the real world and in the assassins creed world.
Anyway, thank you for explaining your own thinking. I understand some of it, at least.
@@chrismoore5333 thanks for the comprehensive reply. Given all that, I can definitely see why you're not a fan of Evie, and you've definitely given me some food for thought, though I still have a soft spot for her. Secondly, and most importantly, I had no idea that Jacob is bisexual - your comment is the first time I've heard this info, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. I definitely got some vibes from his interactions with Roth - that kiss! But I never put 2 and 2 together. I'm bi myself, and this completely changes my view on him as a character. I've always liked him but this makes him even more compelling, and I wish it was something that was explored more in the game, but I guess for obvious reasons it wasn't at the forefront of his characterisation - hard to sell games to straight white dudes who will kick off if there's even a hint of lgbtq themes. The recent furore over a gay character in Spider-Man 2 is a sad indication of how far we still have to go. Cos there are no gay people in New York, right? Those ignorant cretins should see that city during Pride; it's absolutely wild, I loved it. I suppose Ubisoft being run by old rich white dudes doesn't help matters too much either, so it's no surprise Jacob's sexuality was buried so much.
@@FutureExitsMedia I'm a gay man from South London. Croydon specifically. So I entirely get what you mean there! Similar homophobia exists in England to America. That said my boyfriend actually owned a property in New York, and I hear a lot about the city through him. So it's nice to meet someone with some common ground on here!
Anyway, yeah, Jacob and his story were written by a gay man, who was also the same gay man who wrote assassin's creed brotherhood! Evie actually had a different lead writer for her story. Some of Jacob's early black and white concept art clearly show him in a more stereotypically bisexual or gay guy look and stance, so it was probably the plan from the get go on this project. Jacob actually has many moments relating subtlety to his sexuality. He is warm to Ned, when no one else is. Jacob says and I quote "we will unite a group of disenfranchised outsiders under one banner." This relates to so many people, but also is something Jacob knows about as a bisexual man and a man who lived harshly on the streets for a time. Roth and Jacob discuss how "a man lime Starrick, builds a world around his own desires." So the pair don't think Starrick is evil, but rather that he is ignorant to others. Partly, evie's know it all attitude paired with her ignorance towards her brothers status as an oppressed bisexual man, is another frustration I have with her. And Jacob being the frist lgbtq protagonist, getting blamed for the ripper and then being locked up in a victorian asylum, feels so homophobic, even if it wasn't intended. Another reason I dislike the ripper dlc.
Now on the bright side, we do have Jacob as a canon main protagonist. Even if he is extremely misunderstood and underrepresented. He is such an interesting and complex character underneath the fun and in your face exterior of his personality. Jacob let's go of his own personal fight for his own freedom as a bisexual man. Roth tells Jacob "soon you will know what it is to be free as I am" and Jacob declines, choosing to protect london and its people instead of furthering his own personal quest for liberation. This is somewhat shown in a symbolic way in the ending. Jacob who has now abandoned his own personal goals, stands alone. Just Jacob the assassin, because he lives in a world that won't allow him to love, or to freely express himself. Evie however, has Henry by her side. There is a moment of focus on that fact in the final cinimatic. Fortunately for Jacob, there is hope. He does have a granddaughter, so perhaps be falls in love with a woman after all, or even if he doesn't, (which is likely considering the frye family tree is shown in a modern day cinimatic if you look closely, and it show Jacob, evie, the twins parents, and Emmet frye, who is probably Jacob's son, but no wife.) Jacob could some day visit Paris which was a bit more relaxed for bisexual and gay people at that time in history.
Anyway, you are right that straight audiences are far less likely to want to buy a game about a gay/bisexual man. This is so frustrating because those same straight buyers often talk about social progress in gaming. Regardless, I'm glad I asked about your views on these characters, because I think this has been a constructive conversation so far.
I praise you for giving Syndicate it's flowers. Even though people say Syndicate was a step back from Unity (which I mostly disagree with), it actually fixed a whole bunch of Unity's problems but not enough people give credit for that.
I also replayed it recently, as Ubisoft gave it for free, and I really enjoyed it. Such a cozy atmosphere, perfect for late autumn / early winter!
Same, I never say it's the best but i just like it. It's solid and had some nice additions to the formula while still being in the same style as the previous entries. Also being English probably helps, don't get too many big budget games set here.
The British accents in this game actually feel appropriate, unlike in Unity, which used them on supposedly french characters, which baffles me to this very day
As a Londoner myself, Syndicate is probably my favourite Assassin's Creed. I just love retracing my morning commute and finding my favourite lunch spots in the map. The gameplay is so refined it feels like the definitive version of what a classic AC game should be.
you said pretty much all i think about this game, and i love to see your channel growing as it does, love
I got this game when it launched and never finished it and when I replayed it 2 years ago I enjoyed it way more and also felt like it was underrated.
I played AC: Brotherhood at my friend's house when I was like 8-10 and was enthralled and when I was older and got Black Flag, I was enamored. I absolutely loved AC4 on my Xbox 360, easily sinking hundreds of hours into it and when I was in my early teens on the Xbox One I got Syndicate and MGSV for my birthday. Syndicate, while not AC4 (which didn't work on my Xbox One because it hadn't been patched and wouldn't for a long time) filled the AC hole in my heart and I very much loved the game while not being obligated to compare it to Unity and the only other AC I played just so happened to share so much in common with it. Syndicate, despite its apparent mid-ness, will remain my second favorite AC game.
Easily one of the most professional and realistic reviews I've watched in a long while, hope you had a Happy New Year!
As a Londoner, I waited years for an AC game set in my home town, and as a result it's one of my favourites in the series.
For me, unity and syndicate are the top games out of the series. But they fulfill very different purposes.
While Syndicate is a game in which i can sit back and enjoy an immersive, charming beautiful London and a at times Whimsical Storyline with incredibly dark sections, Unity feels gritty to me, like a chaotic city gripped by the turmoil of revolution. Though i must admit i haven't played unitys story in a few years, i play coop with my brother basically once a week, getting familiar with its quirks and bugs, learning to skirt past them and getting frustrated when one catches me anyway is so enjoyable. Often times we still notice animations or mechanics we hadn't found in the hundreds of playhours. I feel unity oozes with potential it sadly will never fulfill, it shows love and hope from developers that weren't given enough time to complete their ambition or were simply dreaming beyond their times.
I’ve enjoyed watching your videos about Assassin’s Creed this year. Each video is very well done and thought out and I tend to agree with just about every sentiment or opinion you have on each game. Looking forward to more next year, and have a great holiday
I can't deny it has some high points, and a lot more polish than the previous title, I just wish they'd done more with the setting and period than they did. Coming off the backdrop of the French Revolution and going to a rather generic main plot disconnected from major social movements or events of the period was just disappointing.
I think one reason I didn’t perceive it that way is that I think Unity absolutely butchered the French Revolution. After the storming of the Bastille, we see almost nothing about the revolution until 2/3 of the way through the game, and even then the king doesn’t die until there are only two chapters left. Syndicate at least grapples with working conditions and inequality, albeit poorly, while Unity seemed terrified to do anything to showcase its setting outside of put in big crowds cycling through the same animations.
@@sosaysjay I guess my read was different, I took it as them acknowledging it was a messy drawn-out event, and using it as a parallel for the turmoil going on in both the Assassin and Templar orders. I wasn't overly fond of the whole Romeo and Juliet thing they tried to do though. Also, I really did miss all the historical snippets about different locations, the newspapers, the revolutionary songs (some real bangers in there!) and intersections with different characters who were important figures at the time. Huge scope for that in Syndicate, but alas all we really got was Darwin and Bell.
@@PointyHairedJedi My big problem there is that the turmoil in the Assassins and Templars is just so under baked too. Other than the attempted coup by Bellec in the middle of the game, the Assassins barely factor into the story. Arno exclusively goes after his own targets, and not a single target is acknowledged by the council after the third one. We are TOLD about turmoil, but we see so very little of it.
As you said, the love story is the thing that got the most time, and even that disappears entirely for the first half of the game up until the Lafreniere assassination.
I don't think we can say it was acknowledgement of how drawn out it was given that most people know the French revolution from the reign of terror (and multiple ads and cinematic trailers explicitly depict the reign of terror). But the reign of terror doesn't even start until chapter 11 out of 12 and we barely see any of it. If you actually look for moments that have to do with the French revolution in the narrative of Unity, there is shockingly little to see.
Bell and Darwin aren't much, but in truth, Marquis du Sade and Napoleon are the only historical characters in Unity who really get any play, and they have 2-3 scenes each in the entire game. Obviously we have Robespierre as far as villains go, but it is baffling to me that the most recognizable figure of the revolution can be introduced and die within the span of a couple missions in the second to last chapter of the game.
My apologies for the long response, a lot of this rehashes my Unity video, but I found that game borderline insulting in how it presented history and its story.
@@sosaysjay Unity with more time in the oven could have been amazing, same with Syndicate. I may also be slightly mad that I didn't get to visit the Crystal Palace.😁
@@PointyHairedJedi Crystal Palace would have been great to see. And, unfortunately, the need for more time ends up being a very common theme in these games. I appreciate you chatting with me!
What a great new year gift from you!
Big thanks brother and happy holidays!
After playing the first few games (1, 2 and 3) as a kid this was my first game that I got back into, and honestly I enjoyed it.
i would argue that the reason there is much less texture pop-in in syndicate is that there is very little texture TO pop-in
I think one of my biggest points of issue with Syndicate is during the section about combat, exactly the fact that it does take turning somebody into Caesar Salad until they die. Having to hit an enemy so many times.
The wildest thing about the combat in Syndicate is it's absolutely the worst and least fun at the start of the game. Eventually, when you're level 6 or so the combat can become a lot of fun. But at level 1 it's such a boring slog.
First Ac game I ever played, I just had fun. Waiting for your return next year Jay
Wow. What an amazing video. I agree with almost every point made, and it was all explained perfectly. I was expecting to see millions of subscribers after I finished watching, the production is great. Syndicate is my favourite AC game so far (I’ve played up to Origins, which I’m half way through). I love many things about it, but especially just how fun it is to play. The characters are some of the best in the series for me, as I like the more sarcastic tone. Starrick is my favourite antagonist of the series so far, too. Sure, he lacks depth, but the voice actor did an unbelievable job. By far the most intimidating AC villain for me. Add to this the crazy number of historical figures that you get to meet, which is always fun. I also love the stealth. The best in the series by a mile imo. It’s so smooth and easy to control. I also enjoyed the fast-paced combat. It’s not great, but AC combat is never great, so I didn’t mind. Plus, I suck at combat, so I didn’t find it boring lmao. The parkour sucked for me. The gaps between the buildings and the toned down animations from Unity made it boring and quite difficult. You’re the first person that I’ve heard actually give a reason for why they changed it from Unity’s system, which I can now understand. I still preferred Unity’s by a long way, tho, and I think a lot of people would’ve liked them to keep Unity’s parkour system, even if they didn’t improve on it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I know a lot of people do miss it, me included. That’s the only real negative that I can give this game, tho. I really enjoyed everything else.
AC Syndicate is one of my favorite AC games and it feels like the most complete game to me. It has the best parkour in the series, with AC: Unity's style of parkour up/down but without a lot of the jank. It has the best stealth and most complete stealth in a series where it's hard to even label some of them as stealth games. Jacob and Evie are fun characters. The combat, while not nearly as flashy or as fun as other entries in the series, is at the very least responsive and feels fair. And I like how the weapons you use aren't gigantic swords or axes, they're street weapons that make sense for the setting. My only real complaints with Syndicate is that the mutli-kill system with the combat basically doesn't work at all (which is a shame cus the multikill animations are really cool but they almost never happen organically and trying to force them to happen is still super difficult). The HP sponge approach to difficulty/progression is a little lame. No transmog system, so you have to choose between aesthetics and stats, but at least most of the equipment in the game actually looks good in comparison to all the hot garbage in AC Unity. And the writing/voice acting of side content in the game can be atrocious at times. I don't have a problem with Syndicate's lighter tone, I thought it was a refreshing change of pace, but some of the side content was silly to the point of being annoying. Like the hypnotist that hypnotises you into doing crimes, the gag is funny, but his voice acting is so terrible that I can't play that mission on repeat playthroughs because the voice is so cringe lol.
Overall a great and complete game, with some minor issues here and there but definitely deserved more credit than it got.
When people say unity is a great game but hate syndicate I just don’t get it. Syndicate isn’t the best game in the series in a long run but it’s a much more well rounded and stable game out the 2
Honestly I think syndicate is my third favourite ac game
Syndicate was my first game of the genre and I had an absolute blast playing it. Right now I am working myself from 1 to mirage and have gotten to Revelation now. These old games are good and awsome, but I feel I was more addicted to Syndicate than the older ones.
I like Syndicate a lot. For me, Victorian London is one of the best settings AC ever ventured into. Then again, I very much love the literature of that era and detective novels like Sherlock Holmes. The only gripes I had with Syndicate were Jacob - he was just insufferable and I would have enjoyed having more time with Evie - and the grindy Conquer-System. Nonetheless, it's still one of the better AC games I'd probably play again.
Congratz on your first yt-year. I do enjoy your content and I think that your videos are well-written and high quality. Keep up the good work and merry christmas to you.
Agree 100%
Unfortunately Evie was supposed to have as much missions as Jacob but they changed the og storyline last minute (they did the same with Aya from AC origins)
The irony that Evie was the only Assassin for me. Her attire, behaviour and the way she carried herself was perfect.
Jacob was a Templar with an Assassin's title.
Not to mention that they decided to give Jacob the stealth based missions when Evie was the one who specialised in stealth?
Definitely underrated. I find myself grinding out hours on the cargo escort and hijack side mission and clearing out the boroughs.
I love the way you can cause chaos in the streets of London. The parkour is good in my opinion and I love the stealth. I would also prefer this combat gameplay over those of the newer titles like odyssey and valhalla.
So happy to see that I am not the only one that has this opinion
Always nice to see Syndicate appreciation
Either you need to review all of the Assassin's Creed games or have a ranking video of them, with focus on adherence to the original vision, your own personal biases, and the most historical accuracy; I essentially want a recommended list.
This was the first one I was ever allowed to play. Got me into the series. Loved Jacob and Evie, never forgot about them after playing all the other games.
Ooookayyy...you know what, you are really good at this because I want to replay it now, even though I left it at a SOLID...5/10, with some 4/10 moments like the desperate attempt at a mystery quest of Ezio the magician, to the high highs of any main mission with open handed nature and freeing workers from gangs.
I played this game twice: once in a complete Alpha (complete game but full of bugs and with some cutscenes missing) when I was playtesting for Ubi Montreuil, and once on PC but with a machine that wasn't necessarily beefy enough for it. And twice I found some parts of the game to be infuriating.
But I somehow got it on PS4 (I can't help myself) so...I know what I'll do now.
PS: I laughed at loud seeing the "pre-alpha footage" watermark in the cutscene. The game didn't look like this in alpha, let alone in pre-alpha...
Really awesome video, you really articulated why it's one of my faves in the series.
Another small thing - syndicate came out during the height of gamergate...when the gaming world online was unbelievably toxic to anyone not cis het male. I remember at the time, with the diverse cast of characters and narrative, this game felt like an olive branch, showing me as a woman in the space that i am still seen and welcome, so for that aspect it always leaves me feeling warm inside and will always have a special place in my library for me. Then again, as you said, the female presence in this game was so largely policed and reduced due to executive meddling...but the bar was in hell during gamergate lol, Evie felt like peak rep for Assassins Creed at the time.
Thanks for posting, really enjoyed this!
ULTRA BASED. My favorite ac right after brotherhood. 🎩🇬🇧Certified brutish accent , Temza rubber parkour, polished gameplay. Soundtrack just perfect. Love 😘
AC Syndicate was my re-introduction to AC franchise, which I bought to play in my XBox One X, and I actually enjoyed the game. I'm currently replaying AC Syndicate for PC, and am currently stuck at the mission where you have to tail Starick with Jacob navigating the rooftops & using the grappling hook.
As a big fan of Thief: The Dark Project, I've always wondered why people thought these were stealth games.
I vaguely remember AC 1 made Altaïr a glass cannon that had to run away instead of getting walloped, but that's about it. I certainly don't remember any sneaking around in 1 or any AC2 sequel.
Jumping back into it now. Feels great when playing with a modern pc. Can't believe I played this game in 30fps.
This is a great video, I never played Unity so this helped me appreciate what Syndicate improved on, and gave me a better look at what it did wrong, worse, or just not too well. Syndicate is my favourite of the pre-Origins Assassins Creed games, and I appreciate the balanced review, one can love a game in spite of its flaws rather than try to ignore them.
I couldn’t agree with you more! In fact, this was my very first Assassin’s Creed game; and the biggest reason I bought this was that you can ride the trains 🚂 all around London! After all, I am a huge train fanatic!!!
First sentence: "I don't like using the words 'overrated' or 'underrated'"
This is why I love your video essays. I'm subscribing 😀
I have always loved this series as an idea but never played it. Valhalla was my first AC I played. Because of channels like this I am now playing through all of the games in order and can not wait to get to Unity and Syndicate.
really good video with very insightful opinions on syndicate (and unity - they're the only games i have played so far but im excited to get to the older ones!)
but i think my favourite moment was him talking about how it sucks that you can only have your hood up while in stealth - and my immediate reaction was "but i LIKE seeing the twins' pretty faces!"
even in unity i tend to put arno into bellec's or shay's templar outfit, bc they're the only options that don't have a hood or hat covering up his stupid pretty hair
So glad I found this channel. Funnily enough I starting watching from your first video and it’s crazy how consistently good your content has been since!
That is very kind of you to say, thank you
I think my favorite thing about syndicate is how free it felt, with stealth I felt like I could do just about anything
Finally some love for Syndicate! It’s one of my favorites! I never understood the Frye twins hate, I found their dynamic charming.
As someone who played from the beginning, early enough to experience the Animus surprise of AC 1 first had (from reading the manual, and actual physical manual, before I even put the disc in no less) and has statues from 2, 3, Unity, Syndicate, and Odyssey, Syndicate is my absolute favorite outside of the original trilogy, and it was in many, many ways way more fun to play than 3. I only don't jump to rate Syndicate even higher because I'm still a sucker for when both the genetic memory and present day meta narrative were still both compelling.
You have some of the most sensible takes on this franchise in my opinion. I agree with basically everything you brought up in this video. I think your closing statement "It's a game that actually wants to be fun, and I think it succeeds" is spot on.
I think Quebec, while obviously a divisive developer, have proven that they are not afraid to focus on specific things that they want to achieve in their games. Even if Odyssey is controversial to many people, I find it hard to argue that most of its systems are not well made, and that the game does not have a clear identity, and the same can be applied to Syndicate. Valhalla, on the other hand, while in my view is quite underrated and misunderstood, is clearly a much more chaotic game, with many systems and gameplay and/or narrative aspects that evidently were very hard to integrate together, leading to a cloud of confusion surrounding its identity.
Quebec still sucks cause they don’t stay true to what the franchise and even then, their games aren’t that great.
Certainly the most underrated game in the Assassins' Creed franchise.
The graphics are not modest, and the game mechanics are enjoyable and imaginative. The setting was portrayed brilliantly and I love this game to bits...
I only have my own anecdotal experience to go on but as someone who bought Unity on PC for a hilariously low $2 at my local games shop a year after release I was completely blown away. The climbing mechanics took adjusting to after the being used to the tried and true system of the older games, but I honestly had no problems with bugs, and what graphical struggles the game had particularly with cutscenes just weren't all that noticeable for me. In contrast, buying Syndicate the following year I was plagued with saves getting corrupted and losing progress, or being trapped in side missions which would crash as soon as I load in, but without an earlier save to revert back to. When I could actually play the game, I really struggled to get into the combat system which felt so much less lethal than unity and earlier AC titles.
All in all even when revisiting more recently I felt it was a fine game, but I can't really consider it a high point in the series from my personal experience of it.
The one thing I enjoyed a lot about Syndicate when it came out was actually the Jack The Ripper DLC. The idea of an assassin using fear and terror is antithetical to their whole philosophy on stealth, yet that contrast somehow aligns so much with how the original Assassins (Levantine Era) used to operate, killing their targets in broad daylight to inspire and spark rebellion during its time.
It is such a callback to those old methods with its own dark twist and I was all about it.
I feel very lucky. I love Syndicate as much as I love any Assassin's creed. And my worst AC game is unity (excluding RPGs). Syndicate was a very good AC game. I gave a solid 20-25 hours and found it a very good AC game. Don't know why it gets so much hate
I think that what something people forget, or don't realize at this point, is that Unity was a launch title for the PS4. So, the PSN was just a baby, most companies hadn't figured out the value of patching their games and how to do it. Unity had to be shipped in the state it was in because it had to be packaged with consoles. With Syndicate, they weren't beholden to Sony's timeline, but by then, the burnout of the yearly AC releases, Unity's rough launch, and the microtransactions just left a lot of us uninterested.
I loved Syndicate when it came out and still do. I love the mechanic of switching between two different people that excel at different things, giving you another tool to use when planning whatever it is you need to do and I'm really glad to see that coming back in Shadows. And I disagree a bit with the idea that the grapel was just something tacked on to bypass broken parkour. Maybe I didn't hear that right, but that's what it was sounding like. I think the grapel presents a good answer to the question of how to make AC work in more modern city layouts with wider streets we can't jump across from roof to roof. Plus, why wouldn't the Assassins be working on other miniaturized devices to help them do their thing better. How long have they been depending on the hidden blade?
I remember picking up syndicate thinking it was unity(i was 14 and just saw cool moves, and didnt do research)i still enjoyed syndicate and despite what people say, i never experienced a single bug. I wouldve preferred the darker tones of what syndicate was originally gonna be (ac victory), but i dtill enjoyed it for what it was. The buildings sre nice and the rooftops are dtill okay to treveese(even if alot of it is the same valuable obstacle copy pasted),either way the game holds a special place in my heart, i still come back to it from time to time
I totally agree that the stealth and the main black box missions are some of the absolute best in the serie, truely what makes this game shines.
For me, living in London, this game was already feeling great for me. I do wish it was a bit more dark and grey in its colour palate to match that victorian era darkness. Still great for me 😊
It's far and away the best game in the franchise. I've loved and love, every moment of it. Ubisoft should be applauded for how well it was put together. It's graphically very, very impressive. I return to it on a regular basis and consider it my all time favourite game. The atmosphere created is spot on.
4 months late but grats on your first year, Jay. As someone who does a lot of analysis of the AC games I really really enjoy your input. I find we agree on *most* things with a couple of divergences that honestly surprise me. Unity is in the top half of my AC rankings despite its flaws and it surprised me how many issues you had with the story. It also surprised me the issues you took with combat in Syndicate. But you're always really well thought out and even where we might disagree on the conclusion, i find myself granting and agreeing with the points that lead you to that conclusion, even if we might conclude differently.
Your channel has me wanting to make a channel of my own for various games, AC series being a big part of it. Also Watch Dogs and Red Dead. Open world games in general I think. Anyway, big congrats! Glad you've been so popular, cause I think your videos are excellent!
I really appreciate that, and I’m glad you can watch the videos even when you don’t agree on everything. I find making videos fun, and if you could too then I think it could be great to start yourself a channel and talk about that stuff!
I’ve spent the last 5 weeks playing AC: Syndicate for the first time and had loads of fun going for all the achievements in this game. Only have 3 left to get for 1000G. Honestly a great game.
Syndicate is one of my favourite. Had so much fun in the open world. Loved the stealth!!!! Plus I’m from London is was cool running around familiar places
Syndicate was my first AC game, I played it about a year ago and platinumed it just the other day, and I definitely have a bias since it is the game that made me fall in love with this series and I've played almost all of them at this point, I started Unity recently and honestly don't like it nearly as much, I feel like fans tend to put Unity on a pedestal just because of the parkour and put Syndicate down alot but Syndicate was a genuinely good game
It was fine, I liked some missions, the theme and setting surprisingly worked well enough and the music was great. Sure the story could be better in places but overall it's enjoyable, I especially liked clearing the boroughs and using different playstyles for Evie and Jacob where for infiltrating the outposts I'd go stealth but for the child labour I'd go as Jacob and use max level Rooks to open with a devastating volley.
I first played Syndicate back in 2020 without knowing it was poorly reviewed. i thoroughly enjoyed it. now it was not near the quality of AC2 or AC4 but it brought me back to single player games after a long long hiatus.
that being said, the twins are some of the most forgettable protagonists of any single player game I ever played. maybe if they had more compelling character arcs, I'd have enjoyed them far more
I hated Syndicate the first time I played it after launch. When I decided to go back and play the games in order, I LOVED it. It might be my favorite.
I have grown to love this channel after binging most of the AC videos ; Jay, keep it up, man! It's so refreshing to see this format (honest, JUSTIFIED arguments in video essay form) becoming more popular, and you do it very well. Each one of your points is not only backed up, but also perfectly respectable even if one disagrees. I don't watch jay's two cents, but I far prefer your ten cents on these subjects over anyone else's, lol.
That means a lot, thank you
Of course, man. Excited to see what the future holds for the channel!
An interesting topic to research could be, especially in the same light as your other video on what makes a "Real" AC game, the importance of the left ring finger's removal pre-Altaïr - this mark of commitment being lost to future generations could be a background/unstated cause (read: retcon) as to why the Brotherhood has such little importance to protagonists after AC1; To an aspiring Assassin after Altaïr stops that initiation ritual, there's no physical pledge, no drastic mark, just 3 pretty flexible rules and silly hoods. Oh, and murder, but most of them do that anyway. . .
I think the setting, map and visual presentation is one of the greatest in the franchise...still looks grest to this day.
So detailed and the npcs felt very slive in their sctivities and behavior.
If only the story and soundtrack had been as memorable..
Syndicate was my first AC game. Though I did not understand the overall story then, being in Victorian London caused me to stay...
Long story, short: it's my favorite game because it was my first and holds up to me
PLUS: the reason weapons are concealed when not in use, is due to era's weapons open carry laws at the time...
27:30 me seeing this screen - as someone from the UK - while you were simultaneously mentioning microtransactions... for a very brief moment my head exploded at those £-numbers 😅
I never played this one but you really made it sound interesting. It's a shame they didn't fully commit to dickensian london with all the social complexities therein because it's an honestly a great concept.
Just finished Unity and just purchased Syndicated. Keep making these great essays!
OK just played through to meeting Mr Green and already it's a better game than Unity.
Good selection of outfits to wear too.
I remember playing unity on launch, and was so frustrated by the poor performance and boring plot and characters that I swore off the series. Then I played syndicate and remembered what a good game with fun characters that was within its scope. I’d rather have a game that functions and has a fun gameplay loop and plot than an overly ambitious project that fails
I think it's soundtrack is fantastic too, better than Unitys in my opinion
Also I think that the murder mysteries side content from Unity would have been far more suited to this game and its setting than Unity, so it's baffling why they were not carried over to Syndicate.
syndicate is one of my most played ac games, but not at all my favorite. it doesn't really do anything special but the gameplay is just nice and it feels satisfying to take over the boroughs. and I love the setting and the frye twins
For me, Jacob as a character and the traversal system were too much and I couldn’t enjoy the game. I found myself frustrated by being forced to play as a character I found genuinely unlikeable for most of the game when Evie should have been an option, and movement is so much of an AC game for me, so to not enjoy it was to not enjoy a huge portion of the overall experience.
However, I do recognise a lot of your points regarding good stealth/black boxes. I never finished Syndicate (only AC game I have owned but not finished) but, even all these years later, I still vividly remember the asylum mission and how much I enjoyed it.
I completely agree with everything you say here. Id always take a less ambitious but actually functional piece of media over something that shoots itself in the foot with bad management at every turn