The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I am VERY thrilled about this game. I just hope it doesn't cost too much. Around 15 bucks and I'll buy it.
1) You cannot mess up a 2D platformer all that much. It's 2.5D besides, so there'll be room for traditional AC gameplay.
2) I ADORED Strider and Dust: An Elysian Tail last year. This game is like them, but with an AC flavor. Love it.
3) I thought we were only getting Shao Jun and we're also getting Arbaaz and Nikolai!? I've read both of their comics and they're cool characters that I've always wanted to see.
4) The India setting looks particularly colorful.

I honestly can't wait, but I will.
April 21st isn't that far away.

I think I'd rather have these as short movies like when we saw Shao Jun the first time.

DAZ's price point is about right. more than $15, and I probably won't get it. That said, my prediction is $24.99 or so.

That's pretty brutal, Cheese. Would they have the audacity to charge that much?

$8 per mini-game. If you think of it as one DLC per assassin it's on par anyway... look how much they charged for 3 more sequences of AC3 with the King Washington pack (granted, I really liked that they took risks with that by way of completely changing the game structures). The lowest I would expect this to be is $19.99. Heaven forbid they see it as a full game at this point and not the Shao Jun DLC we were promised in the season pass and charge us more for it.

If they treat it as DLC, I could see it lower, near 15 or so. If they treat it as an independent game, then 25-30. How much did they charge for Freedom Cry? Liberations HD? Freedom Cry was 15 I think, Liberation HD 20, and King Washington 10 each or 25, I think.

I really like the visuals. A more stylized approach really helps make the more traditional assassin designs feel less out of place. I can't help but expect it won't be as interesting from a gameplay perspective, but if it is I might end up getting this instead of Victory. Also, technically this means there are going to be four AC games this year.

If we have the Season Pass, we are getting the China Chronicle for free anyway, so I'm happy about that. Things I picked out while watching the Archived First Look Stream (http://www.twitch.tv/assassinscreed/v/3976498)

"There are several Rankings you can get for Mission Segments. Immediately if you Kill someone, you'll get Assassin no matter what. Then depending on how many times you're spotted, it'll be either Assassin Gold, Assassin Silver, or Assassin Bronze. Finally, the most COVETED title is Shadow - which you'll get if you don't kill anyone and are not spotted at all."

"FLOW Levels are not based on Stealth OR Killing, they are purely based on flow, fluidity and efficiency in how you move through the environment. As soon as you start one, you're gonna wanna keep running at all costs, because the quicker you finish it, the better you'll do. I foresee a LOT of speedrun videos on YouTube of these Flow Missions, people shaving off precious seconds and whatnot."

I like all of these, now all that's left is for them to deliver upon the expectation.

Watching the 2.5D gameplay, it's actually really, really cool. It learns from games like Mark of the Ninja, and all the pillars of AC are back - except they seem to ironically work better in this kind of environment than in a full 3D one. What that says about the games I don't know, aside from the fact that Ubisoft has now allowed themselves to "perfect" their core gameplay in a more limited (and therefore less stressful to develop for) space.

I guess it's just not my style of game, but from your impressions I feel like this game will be a fun experience.

Ubisoft has outdone even my projections.

Looks like AC:Chronicles China (are they really doing 3 different ones?) is retailing for $9.99...

No comment on the price right now. So far, game is good. Already starting to up vids. Check Recent Posts for the first one.
I'll make a judgement call on whether or not it's worth it after I beat the whole thing on Normal, Plus and Plus Hard.

So the first AC with difficulty modes is an add-on gimmick?

Joke's on Ubi, this feels like more of a solid, polished, complete game than most anything they've put out recently. (It wasn't developed by Ubisoft, but by Climax Studios. It was published by Ubisoft.) Say what you want, but this is the most mechanically-sound Assassin's Creed I've ever played. It nails AC's core gameplay hard and I'm thinking Calvar should take a look at it.

It's probably because they didn't need to create a true 3D environment, so they could focus on the other things... (or the fact that they didn't do it themselves).

I still have to finish Dead Kings and 100%ing Unity. By then, the 3 Chronicles will be a package and Victory will be out!

Probably.
A 2.5D environment limits the amount of "fluff" options they have.
Instead they're forced to focus only on the most essential mechanics and make them amazing.
I earnestly hope Assassin's Creed Victory learns lessons from how great AC Chronicles is so far, and really gets is essential mechanics down before adding in unnecessary fluff. After playing a few hours of it, I'm with Calvar here in the sentiment that all the optional stuff is nice, but what really makes a difference is getting the Base Game to play well.

Saw some gameplay on YouTube. Looks pretty cool. I might get this instead of Rogue or Unity.

Mmmhmmmmmmmm.

Also, there's some creepy Assassin's Creed-type stuff in this game.
Before you all give me the Captain Obvious thing, what I mean is, things only visible in Eagle Vision.
Specifically, four-digit NUMBERS only visible in Eagle Vision. I have all their screenshots, Names of Missions in which they appear, and the Number of the missions in which they appear. I'm just super tired right now. Just 100%ed this game so I kind of feel like sleeping. When I wake up, I'll post a new thread where we can break our brains trying to figure out what they mean or correspond to.

YES. Been a while since I last spent days thinking about this stuff.

Posted