Assassin’s Creed Chronicles China: How to Earn Gold Ratings

Learning a character’s moves will take time in any Assassin’s Creed game, whether you’re mastering abilities in Assassin’s Creed Unity or fulfilling contracts in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.

The latest adventure in the series, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles China, takes a new side-scrolling approach, as you guide heroine Shao Jun across a series of locations while avoiding (or killing) guards that get in your way. We already covered the basic tips and strategies for combat, but there’s more to the game, as you can earn gold, silver and bronze awards in each section depending how you perform.

That said, we’ll help you earn gold rankings for each play style in Assassin’s Creed Chronicles China with these tips and strategies.

Shadow

The first style of play is Shadow, where you don’t resort to killing and instead try to get through each section undetected. This is the trickiest style of play because guards are on constant patrol, leaving you little room to sneak around.

To earn a gold rating while playing the Shadow style, there are two main factors to keep in mind. First, you can’t get spotted by guards at all. Even the slightest detection will force you to play a different way, either by killing these guys or eluding their pursuits, and that will cost you points. Use your Eagle Vision by clicking the R3 button to check their routes and act accordingly.

The second involves getting through the section in the quickest time possible. Standing around for too long may cost you precious seconds, thus knocking your gold score down to silver. That’s not the end of the world, but if you want gold you’ll have to hustle. Fortunately, a lot of sections have hiding spots that you can use to your advantage, simply by pressing a direction on the analog stick and the main jump button. The faster you go, the closer you’ll get to achieving gold status and the more it’ll pay off in the end.

Assassin

Next up is the Assassin style of play, and this is more in line with what you could do in previous games, stealthily killing guards and making sure they don’t alert anyone else.

The key here is to not only take out guards without drawing reinforcements, but also effectively hiding their bodies. If corpses are too easily spotted during a run, you could get knocked down to a silver rating. The goal here is to isolate guards as much as possible and then hide their bodies in nearby rooms or out of patrol range.

When they’re in groups, wait for guards to separate and then quietly try to take them down and move their bodies before others come around. It helps to get an idea of what kind of patrol route they have (be sure to use that Eagle Vision), so you can act quickly and then take out the others.

Hiding in rooms and on ledges makes it easy for a guard to come within range so you can take him down. Rooms and plants are actually the best bet, as you can stab a guard and drag him into the shadows in the same shot.

Remember, you don’t want to give yourself away, so make sure you take care of those bodies.

Brawler

Finally there’s the Brawler class, where you go into a fight with a sword drawn and take out guards the old-fashioned way. It’s the best way to go for action fans, though not very assassin-like, but you can still earn a gold rating.

The first thing you want to do is make sure you don’t get hit. If you get struck in any form, even by a quick kick from being dragged out of cover, that can cost you. Use the defensive block maneuver as much as you can, and even the roll over move (where you flip over a guard’s back) if you find yourself surrounded. Don’t forget to use your defensive techniques on guards firing crossbows as well; watch out for a red aiming line, then hit the button so the arrow travels right past you.

From there, kill guards as fast as possible. A few heavy strikes should do the trick, although light attacks are also good for wearing them down, along with throwing knives if you want to get their attention. Take the time to hide a corpse or two so you don’t get ambushed by more than one foe.

Efficiency, speed and avoiding damage are the key factors here. Fight like a pro and go for that gold rating.

Master naval combat in Black Flag and get the most of Unity’s Graduation sequence with these specialized cover kills.