Assassin's Creed Odyssey review

Exceptional

by France Carl Colonia

Concise Review:
A really good Ubisoft checklist game with an excellent world, a fantastic protagonist, a solid progression system and a fun gameplay loop…that goes on for way way too long.

Journal Style Review:

Ooh this game feels way better than origins for some reason. The world is better. It looks a lot nicer.  I think I like the feel of the combat more. The quests have definitely been better so far. And kassandra is a better lead. It’s better in every way so far.

My biggest complaint early on is I hate the daily quests. They are so boring. Deliver an item and return. Go kill one or two regular bandits then return. Go kill three bears and return. All very unoriginal, very little fun, and not worth the time. The game has enough content without those boring endless repetitive quests. I’m not doing anymore of them anymore. Besides that I’ve been really having a lot of fun with Odyssey.

I stopped doing the daily bullshit and I’m having a blast. This game is great. I like wandering around the world clearing the objectives. The abilities tree is great and has many new unlocks I want to use. The story has been fun. The graphics are great. The world has been varied with lots of verticality. I’m a big fan so far. Maybe I’m just in the mood for an open world checklist kind of game but it’s been a really good open world checklist game.

I find myself not wanting to play Odyssey for a long period of time but it’s also really easy to just jump in and play for an hour or so and have a fun time. Check out a couple points of interest. Notice how cool the open world is. Complete a few quests. Notice how great kassandra is. And then take a break. I’m liking it

First 15 hours or so I was doing everything and clearing out the map. Then for about 10 hours I decided to mostly do quests and hit a few POIs on the way. Now at 30 hours in I’m starting to feel the slog and repetitiveness so Ive started mostly golden pathing the game. Odyssey is a really high B+ but it’s lost the A- rank.

Enemies are too spongy. I think that’s my biggest issue with the gameplay. Also its a bit too easy.

Sparta has some cool new areas. 

I can’t believe how big this game is. It’s fucking huge. Probably 150 or 200 hours to do everything. It doesn’t need to be this big. I think it’s excessive but it’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t force you to do too much extra stuff either. I’ve just been golden pathing for the last while and there isn’t a downside to that option.

Beat the main story. While I was burnt out this game is solid. Part of me wants to consider coming back and playing more at some point in the future because there’s so much stuff to do but that’s probably crazy talk. Ends a high B+. 

Final Score: B+

Solid, but easily a step back from Origins. Too much focus on combat and loot. Stealth only really works well on Easy - between the high time-to-kill for everything but yourself, the low damage of stealth attacks, and the heavy level scaling, even with a large skill tree and the right gear, some enemies won't be killed with a stealth assassination. Easy pretty much fixes that completely to the point where anybody but Mercenaries who out-level you won't be killed with a critical assassination.

Mercenaries system is a nice bonus, especially ending with that one battle at the end. But the Cultist web is even better and frankly has been a long time coming. I feel like we were promised something like that in AC2 and only just now got it.

Loot is loot. Even if it does clutter your inventory, which is bad, it does serve as a good curve: at the beginning, you're scraping together what you can, but by the end you're swapping between entire Legendary outfits. Again, surprised by how well it works, even if the clutter gets bad. Weapons are mostly fine, but too much. Too many categories - heavy sharp and heavy blunts are basically identical, as are daggers and swords - and no shields is weird. Even if you do level up your weapons constantly, which is a slog, combat has such a high TTK that it's also a slog. Hunter makes sense as an archetype, but again the damage numbers just don't make it viable so it's a slog. The only improvement over Origins is getting rid of the dumb "shotgun, sniper, SMG, generic" bow & arrow thing that game had going.

Setting is great, but again a step back from Origins. It's a cool setting in general, but the moment-to-moment action can make the locations blend together every so often. Some more forested areas are cool, some of the volcanoes are really cool, but there's not much to it. Even the dungeons are really linear, whereas in Origins they were more like Zelda dungeons than anything in Breath of the Wild even. So glad I can finally play as a woman without caveats (not able to play as Evie 100% of the time in Syndicate, Aveline in Liberation is technically a spin-off from the Vita, and Shao Jun is only in supplemental material and a 2D spin-off that I guess was a flop) and I'm glad there are finally dialogue options. While the romancing mechanics were silly - your only goal is a face-to-face and a kiss - and literally signposted, I'm surprised how often dialogue can actually serve to change scenes throughout both main and side missions.

Sailing is pointless. I thought it started off strong in Black Flag but eventually turns into a drawn-out slog, but even this is a step back from Black Flag. Customization is almost entirely gone, improvements are pure number increases, lieutenants are more number increases, combat and boarding are the same thing over and over, there's nothing to collect, there's no side missions like whaling. All it does is serve for padding for time.

All-in-all, saved by the questing and dialogue systems if anything. Some big things that hold it back like above, some major things that really round out the experience, and then some other even more minor things like the lack of pants for anybody and the removal of haystacks as even a hiding spot other than just existing beneath sync points. In a franchise that really through the years has consistently provided quality experiences, this one is just fine and that's disappointing.

It is clear that A LOT of work has been put into this game. The concept of recreating historical sights and portraying the most influential figures of ancient Greece is a great idea on its own, but if you add years of gameplay improvement in terms of its convenience, you'll get AC Odyssey. I cannot lie and have to say that I enjoyed the game. However, it is still a game I will never play again. Why? Because it fails in every genre.

For an action game, it's fights are too straightforward. They are not all easy for sure, just long and very repetitive: evade, strike, evade, strike, use skill, repeat.

For stealth game, the stealth part has become too simplified, up to the point where bodies disappear on their own on a higher levels.

And finally, my greatest disappointment. For an RPG, it's not an RPG at all. Historical figures are in a game for a too short time to emotionally connect with them. The dialogues are purposefully simplified and shortened, and sometimes ridiculed to take less time, hence, less interesting and involving.

Your choices and actions don't really matter. You go to a private audience with Sparta's most famous commander in chief and the letter dissapiers (because you killed him)? No worries, we won't keep a grudge. You are trying to get reinitiated as a spartan but want to wage war with Athenians? No beef, you're a misthios, everything's fine.

Story pieces are too far apart and too poorly connected to actually care. In the end you wind up rushing towards quest giver, taking a quest, running towards the objective, killing a few people, and off you go again. So underwhelming for a game with such a potential and such a crew.

All form, no sustenance. A shame.