Introduction
A drop of Witcher 3, another bit of Black Flag and some mobile gaming concepts... Voila! Assassin's Creed Odyssey is born! If last year's release took us to the origins of the Assassins, now we go a bit more back in time to the Peloponnesian War in Greece, in 431 BC.
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| Meet Alexios, the male protagonist |
Gameplay & Story
The game departs even further from the classic Assassin's Creed formula and can easily be considered now a proper RPG. You are now a Misthios, a mercenary which can fight for either side in the war between Athens and Sparta while also pursuing his/her personal quest. Returning from the previous game, Layla Hassan finds the Spear of Leonidas on which she finds traces of DNA from Alexios and Kassandra and you will have to choose one of them to play for the entire game. Now except for the looks and a few lines in conversations, the story is 99% similar no matter which one you pick. But what is more interesting is that now we take decisions during our conversations with other characters. Some have a direct consequence on the moment while others can only be seen later in the game. Now don't expect the decisions to be very far reaching and very impacting for the story as in other RPGs that focus on that but it's still a nice touch.
Now for what's new and helps the game become a proper RPG.. If in Origins you could have weapons with different special abilities that could also be upgraded, in Odyssey you also have armor pieces that each offer certain benefits and can help you make builds together with the skills that can be unlocked in the skill tree, depending on which warfare part you want to focus, or you can be a jack of trades. Also you will also be captain of your own ship which can be upgraded to get stronger and you can recruit enemies you beat up to act as your officers. Or you can keep killing them, depends on your choice.
So you've probably been wondering now, especially since so far the game sounds good, what was I talking with the mobile gaming concepts. Well difficulty is very much dependent on the level, and progression feels quite unnatural. If other games like The Elder Scrolls series, Gothic, Elex,Kingdom Come: Deliverance make you feel stronger as you progress and giving you the feeling that you naturally become stronger as you work around doing activities, in Odyssey you can kill a wolf in an area of your level very easy but if you venture in a higher level area, even one level higher than you, an identical wolf can easily kill you. Same on the naval side of things. But the nasty part are the micro-transactions. you can even pay real money for an XP boost or money boost. While that might seem ok in mobile games and free2play MMORPGS, I personally think it has no place in a single player game. Yes you can reach maximum level way before finishing the game if you enjoy doing side-quests and exploring each and every bit of the place you're in. But if you only want to do one or two side quests next to the main quest and just go through it, welp.. you might end up falling a bit behind the level of the main quest and find yourself doing more side quests than intended. So if the world can be explored, it's quite limited in terms of what you explore, always hitting a level wall that feels more punishing than fighting a higher level in a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. The horse, as before, has no special attributes and you gather plenty of skins, from normal horses to unicorns, that don't do anything except changing the looks of the horse. And the ship, while there's only one ship you can have and upgrade, you have skins that change the looks of it and skins that change what crew you have. Most of them locked behind random drops from Orichalcum ore chests or purchased through the game store with real currency. Of course being something cosmetic, it can be ignored entirely, but seeing how the game wants itself to be an RPG, I would've appreciated that the certain legendary or epic gear that was in store to be something alternative in game that brings different benefits, not just changing the looks.
Okay enough about the elements in the game, what's exploration and combat like. Well traditional by now to the series, you can go explore different places, caves, natural formations, clear enemy camps, hunt strong beasts. It can keep you busy for quite a while. Combat on ground feels quite fluid, focusing on skills you unlock and can activate plus using light and heavy attacks. It's quite simplistic, and granted you have the proper level and gear, The enemies don't really present a challenge but the fighting and the occasional executions look damn good. Naval combat on the other hand looks good but except for the boarding which forces you to ground-like combat, it's quite simple, even reminds me of Assassin's Creed Pirates, which was a mobile game. you simply navigate your ship, with no actual wind influencing you, and in combat you either simply aim and shoot with arrows or at close range with javelins and when the enemy ship is low level you ram into it. It looks good but it can feel very shallow.
Now for what's new and helps the game become a proper RPG.. If in Origins you could have weapons with different special abilities that could also be upgraded, in Odyssey you also have armor pieces that each offer certain benefits and can help you make builds together with the skills that can be unlocked in the skill tree, depending on which warfare part you want to focus, or you can be a jack of trades. Also you will also be captain of your own ship which can be upgraded to get stronger and you can recruit enemies you beat up to act as your officers. Or you can keep killing them, depends on your choice.
So you've probably been wondering now, especially since so far the game sounds good, what was I talking with the mobile gaming concepts. Well difficulty is very much dependent on the level, and progression feels quite unnatural. If other games like The Elder Scrolls series, Gothic, Elex,Kingdom Come: Deliverance make you feel stronger as you progress and giving you the feeling that you naturally become stronger as you work around doing activities, in Odyssey you can kill a wolf in an area of your level very easy but if you venture in a higher level area, even one level higher than you, an identical wolf can easily kill you. Same on the naval side of things. But the nasty part are the micro-transactions. you can even pay real money for an XP boost or money boost. While that might seem ok in mobile games and free2play MMORPGS, I personally think it has no place in a single player game. Yes you can reach maximum level way before finishing the game if you enjoy doing side-quests and exploring each and every bit of the place you're in. But if you only want to do one or two side quests next to the main quest and just go through it, welp.. you might end up falling a bit behind the level of the main quest and find yourself doing more side quests than intended. So if the world can be explored, it's quite limited in terms of what you explore, always hitting a level wall that feels more punishing than fighting a higher level in a MMORPG like World of Warcraft. The horse, as before, has no special attributes and you gather plenty of skins, from normal horses to unicorns, that don't do anything except changing the looks of the horse. And the ship, while there's only one ship you can have and upgrade, you have skins that change the looks of it and skins that change what crew you have. Most of them locked behind random drops from Orichalcum ore chests or purchased through the game store with real currency. Of course being something cosmetic, it can be ignored entirely, but seeing how the game wants itself to be an RPG, I would've appreciated that the certain legendary or epic gear that was in store to be something alternative in game that brings different benefits, not just changing the looks.
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| The new conversation system |
Okay enough about the elements in the game, what's exploration and combat like. Well traditional by now to the series, you can go explore different places, caves, natural formations, clear enemy camps, hunt strong beasts. It can keep you busy for quite a while. Combat on ground feels quite fluid, focusing on skills you unlock and can activate plus using light and heavy attacks. It's quite simplistic, and granted you have the proper level and gear, The enemies don't really present a challenge but the fighting and the occasional executions look damn good. Naval combat on the other hand looks good but except for the boarding which forces you to ground-like combat, it's quite simple, even reminds me of Assassin's Creed Pirates, which was a mobile game. you simply navigate your ship, with no actual wind influencing you, and in combat you either simply aim and shoot with arrows or at close range with javelins and when the enemy ship is low level you ram into it. It looks good but it can feel very shallow.
Graphics
Now the game looks gorgeous, can't really ask for more here. Everything is detailed and looks as realistic as possible. But there's a price we pay for this. The game is very, very ,very demanding. if in Assassin's Creed Origins with my ryzen 5 1600x and GTX1080ti I could easily get to an average of 56FPS at 4k with everything set to ultra/max(except Anti-Aliasing) in Odyssey I am happy with shadows tuned down to medium, ambient occlusion to high and I get an average of 38FPS at 4k. going down a notch to 1440p while keeping the same settings helps me get around 58FPS average. But as I said, the game looks gorgeous. |
| While simplistic and quite boring, Sailing does look amazing |
Audio
Honestly I'm a bit disappointed by the sound quality of this game. The music is good, the Greek shanties that are sung by the crew when sailing are pleasant to listen at but voice acting really doesn't feel up to AAA standards. Plenty of times it breaks immersion, sounding clearly as a studio recorded voice, the voice actors most of the time don't have the emotion that should come with the situation in their voice and lip-sync is almost nonexistent. Yet the background noise during camps and villages/cities feels natural and can easily make you feel like you are there.
Wrap-Up
While having some flaws as mentioned above, the game also has some strong points such as the story which is decent and the attention to detail that the world has received, really making you feel like you are exploring ancient Greece. Should you buy it? Well, yeah, the gameplay could use a little more work in being less restrictive when you adventure but given the time and dedication, the game can keep you busy for a lot of hours.
Overall Score 8.25/10
Game details:
Developer: Ubisoft Quebec
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: Windows, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch(Japan Only)
Release Date: Oct. 5, 2018
Launch Price: 59.99 Eur for Standard Edition
- Graphics 10/10
- Audio 7/10
- Features 9/10
- Gameplay 7/10
Game details:
Developer: Ubisoft Quebec
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: Windows, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch(Japan Only)
Release Date: Oct. 5, 2018
Launch Price: 59.99 Eur for Standard Edition
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