ASSASSIN’S CREED: ODYSSEY REVIEW

This review requires acknowledgment of two things: the first Assassin's Creed Before Odyssey, I was a player. Black Flag In 2013, the opportunity was lost.AC: Origins The first in a new style of Assassin's Creeds. This is because I will be spending a lot time discussing "new" mechanics, and changes to series formulas. These changes were most likely made in. Origins. But, I haven't played. Origins I'm not sure which mechanics are unique to this generation. Odyssey. Instead of doing my research, I'm going to pretend that it is for the duration this review. Origins It doesn't exist Everything It is brand new.

Happy? Happy.

This talk about new mechanics is important because I want to know "at what point does something not belong in a franchise?" Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is actually a very excellent game. While it is flawed, it is still a top-notch game. It isn't, however, an Assassin's Creed video game. I would argue that Syndicate was the last of them. However, it was already dying a very sad death considering how Syndicate was received.

Odyssey takes you to the world of ancient Greeks in the period after the Battle of Thermopylae, which is a time of 300 years ago. Your character is either Alexios, or Cassandra. Cassandra is a Spartan child that was abandoned at young age and must now live as a single misthios (a paid soldier). Your character is now thrown back into this world, having been rescued from hiding by a series events.

This is also happening through an animus that you have created as a modern-day Assassin, but the involvement of these modern-day characters is so small that I could not find their names without Google. However, there is still a modern-day plot, and this time the goal is to discover the hiding place of the Spear of Leonidas (which Alexios/Cassandra uses as their assassining-stabby-device).

Alexios was my choice as I am a manly, unattached man who can't relate to women. I'll refer to the protagonist from now on as a "he". Please don't @ me.

It is funny, but it is also kind of funny that Ubisoft made so much about allowing players pick their genders (and even their sexuality) within the game. I thought Syndicate allowed you both to play a man or a woman. Revisionist much?

As I mentioned, I enjoyed Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It may be a standout title in this series. It does a lot right, and many of the improvements and tweaks made to the game are positive. It feels like "a great game, but ..." Every thing seems to have an addendum which means that it isn't being realized as well as it could. Every time a game had a great idea, there was something that kept it from being realized.

Odyssey is a lot closer to the Witcher 3 than Black Flag. While there are still core mechanics, Odyssey is now more focused on RPG elements. You have the option to choose from a skill-tree and branching dialogue trees. Combat is more level-based. You are encouraged to explore hundreds of locations in order to get loot or experience. In MMO fashion, you are limited to certain areas by level-gating. This means that you must have a certain amount experience before you can move on.

Many of the new mechanics were also created to make the game more engaging and "emergent". This allows players to be more involved and gives them more opportunities for rookie success. You can raid military forts, loot sunken vessels, fight other mercenaries and hunt down cultists. You can also help in the war between Sparta or Athens by helping one side to take territory across Greece.

It is clear that Odyssey is taking a lot from the Witcher's style and hell even the dialog system is reminiscent (I.e. Gold dialogue choices advance the conversation while white ones ask for more details. Unfortunately, the issue comes down to how deep each mechanic is. This is where games begin to diverge in quality. Let's look at some examples.

On the surface, the new mercenary system looks very cool. If you are caught doing assassiny, you will be given a bounty on your head. The bounty will then be applied to other misthios' heads. If you are a particularly naughty or obnoxious boy, the bounty works in the same way as stars in GTA.

These misthios are present in a nearly constant state throughout the game in a similar fashion to the nemesis from Shadow of Mordor. You may come across the same hunters over and over again, or you might bump into them while traveling the world. There is also a ranking system that you climb as you gain renown and kill more of your opponents. It seems like an interesting emergent system that could allow you to meet rivals and kill your opponents to increase your standing.

It is then that it becomes obvious how futile it all is. Each mercenary has one strength and one weak spot, which is not at all related to the depth of their nemesis system. This knowledge will not change your strategy for fighting them. These strengths and weaknesses are not really useful. The renown tree can be climbed without much effort, unless you are willing to do so. Also, killing other mercenaries will give you some loot and experience.

A nice side-show was the constant war state in each Greek territory that you visited. Each zone is owned by one faction, Sparta, or Athens. They usually start well-defended. However, you can lower your "fortification score" by killing garrison troops and destroying war supplies. You also have the option to raid the forts, which house generals as well as zone faction chests. You can also get experience and loot from all of these actions. To weaken their grip, you can even kill the leader of the faction in that area in a targeted assassination. If the score drops below a certain point, a control battle is held. You can choose to side with the attackers/defenders. The winner will take over the territory. Epic loot is also available if you win.

This isn't supposed to be your main focus, but it did seem like something that could have allowed for some extra fun if the goal was to get some gear or kill things. There are no stakes in this bloody system. You are a misthios and have no loyalty to either side. You help Spartans in the war effort in the beginning of the game, but you then spend much more time defending Athens. At first, I believed that the game would let players roleplay and choose their own side. Or just to make some money. It turns out that by making players play on both sides of the story, you are not caring enough about one side to help the other. It can also lead to awkward situations. In the 10th hour of playtime, when I was trying my best to complete each zone, I experienced a zone switch. This was because I had decreased the fortification score. However, I wasn't finished with the missions. So I went from helping Spartans conquer the area to awkwardly stabbing Spartans in their faces in order to finish the side objectives.

Another example is the cultist screen. Here you are given a command list of all enemy cult organisations and told that you have to hunt them down and kill them. This screen could have been the highlight of the game. You are told that you have targets. Then you need to find clues to identify them. Finally, you are granted free reign to kill them all one at a time.

Another issue is the emergent mission system. There are three levels of quest in this open-world game. The main campaign quest is the one that you must complete, along with side quests featuring recurring characters, which you are encouraged to do, and the emergent ones. There are many notice boards that allow you to grab emergent quests for killing 10 Spartans and sinking five Athenian vessels. This is a lot of filler, and I would say it isn't necessarily bad. Why is it that 90% of them have a 24 hour real-time timer? Seriously? Ubisoft, are you really convinced that the rewards of those quests are worth our time and you can turn them into dailies? What do you think?

The main reason these problems exist is because the rewards are mainly loot and experience. In that levelling up is easy and enjoyable, experience is not necessary. If you don't want to grind for it, it is worthless.

A talent-tree is an option that is generally alluring, but becomes essentially pointless in the middle of the game. There are a limited number of abilities that can be activated at once. Many abilities also require you to kill cultists to raise them to the highest levels (I.e. Story progression), it eventually reaches the point that you don't have enough talent points to get new abilities without replacing your old ones. You can't also upgrade existing abilities if you're not far enough along in the story.

Even worse is the issue of experience. Gear upgrades are a 10x greater problem. Multiple upgrades to armour and weapons are possible.Every level. The "Epic" purple gear is usually outclassed immediately by the blue gear that is one level lower, and even the rare yellow "Legendary", gear will only last for two levels. After level 10, purples are about the same as blues. This is even without considering the minor differences in gear types between levels. You change and upgrade your gear all the time so it is really not worth going out of war just to get epic loot. You'll find an upgrade by just playing around.

It doesn't make any difference, however, as combat requires you to hack and slash at even the weakest enemies. Although the combat style and abilities are great, it is a little disappointing that you can't just kill one cunt and then stab several others with a few jabs.

You EVEN have the option to spend money and crafting mats to buff your gear and make sure that it’s STILL slightly worse than just getting a new item the next time you level up… Why? Why bother buff your gear ever?

This, I believe, is the core problem behind all the problems with Odyssey. Side-activities are worthless if you don't have the motivation to obtain epic gear that will last for a few hours, or gain a lot of experience. After a while, it becomes clear that exploring is a waste of your time. Any rare rewards you get from it will only last around 20 minutes in your inventory.

Let me finish by mentioning the story. Unfortunately, I didn't finish the game. While Odyssey was a fun game, after I lost my save around 50 hours into the game, I didn't want to go back and replay what I had done. While I cannot comment on the story itself, it was entertaining and enjoyable. There were also some interesting points with the search for Alexios’ family.

So, I'm back to my earlier statement. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a fantastic game. However, there is always a "but "..." It is absolutely stunning and breathtaking to explore (I mean seriously, it's amazing to look at screenshots sometimes), but exploration is somewhat disincentivised and a lot is repetitive after a while. There are so many great mechanics in it, like a nemesis system to rivals and a perpetual war between two factions that you can choose sides in. However, these things lack depth and don't make much sense. It even promises Assassin-like stuff like hunting down and killing targets, but it is gated. The list continues.

I want to also return what I said about the franchise title at the beginning. Odyssey felt significantly closer to what it was.Dragon AgeOr theWitcherIt was more stylish in style than it was.Assassin's Creed. This means that it contains the ingredientsAssassin's CreedBut they are used in different ways. The most obvious example is climbing and free-running. This was an important feature in the past. Although you could get a horse, the main way of traversing was by free running. The game was designed to reflect this. You.e. Lots of jumping across streets, using ropes between buildings, and even famous hay bales to stop damage from 20-story drops. But, you should be careful!canThe game allows you to climb almost any object in the game, and it doesn't feel forced. The majority of the game is set in the wild, where horses are much more useful than free-running. Even if you do manage to reach a larger area, the game does not appear to have been designed for free-running. It doesn't feel like you can cross the whole city without going up to a rooftop in Athens. The bale of Hay "mechanic" can only be used for synchronisation points. However, you can actually learn a way to negate all fall damage (removing even more of the original style).

Now, let me ask you a question: Why is it called Assassin's Creed. The name is now just an excuse to play a huge Ubisoft open-world historical sandbox RPG. It is not about its roots. It is actually becoming more and more rooted in mythology than the historical accuracy (loaded word) of previous games. It's not about the Assassins anymore and it has mythological creatures!

The gradual disappearance from the core of Assassin's Creed is a good thing. I would argue that it is. But the animus thing was just an excuse to have a romp around in a vaaaaguely historic setting for years. Ubisoft might be wise to just get rid of the AC logo and make the mythological RPG that they want. At this point, nobody cares about the modern setting. Literally no one, not even you, must be done! It's not about Assassins anymore, so why not explore new territory? You can do it!

I think I am just disappointed. As much as Odyssey was enjoyable, it wasn't an Assassin's Creed video game. At the time of writing, they just released the trailer for Assassin Creed Valhalla. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun... But are the VKINGS really the good guys? The Assassins are the ones who fight for freedom and the people. Those pillaging, conquering, raping Vikings? These are the men fighting for freedom in this country, right?

The trailer is as exciting as it looks, but it does make one thing very clear. Assassin’s Creed lost its roots long ago.