Assassins Creed Odyssey is a fresh and engaging look at the AC Universe, while occasionally slumping into the mediocrity that constantly plagues the franchise.
The story in Odyssey can either be played by Kassandra or Alexios. The game takes place in between two battling armies, the Spartans and the Athenians. What you do in this world is up to you, and that is a very refreshing take on the Assassins Creed franchise. You can either take a contract for free or demand to be paid. You can find a hostage and set him free, or show no mercy and kill them. All of these options build up to a wonderful overarching narrative that is the most interesting since Assassins Creed 2. It deals with family, hope, revenge, and desire all in a way that is engaging and realistic.
Some of the NPC’s look rough though. I played as Kassandra, and her model looked great. I would say 70% of the NPC’s encountered was really thrown together, with some agitating voice acting. Some side quests were a little phoned in as well, and I eventually resulted in pushing through the main storyline most of the time.
This narrative wouldn’t be so interesting if it wasn’t for the beautiful world its surrounded by. Greece is a wonderful and vast location to explore, and locations don’t cheap out on design. I thoroughly enjoyed setting sail, climbing mountains, and invading bandit camps. Draw distance had some issues, but for a world this big it didn’t bother me too much.
The combat in this Odyssey is great. It welcomes variety and tactic, while also remaining challenging and methodical. I was frustrated through the beginning of the game because I was continuously dying. Instead of getting upset, I was appreciative because it forced me to really take my time and learn the nuances. Evading and parrying are key to survival, and constantly being aware of your upgrades is a must.
The constant skill tree upgrades felt great to plow through during my time with the game.
Besides the general assassination missions and sword-fighting, Odyssey offers the wonderful “ship and crew” mechanic again. It was a blast upgrading my ship and destroying enemy boats that passed by my way. Another great integration into the gameplay was the large-scale battles that were introduced, allowing you to help conquer different areas and gain exclusive loot. Some minor combat issues that bothered me were that when I would be hunting down a target, it would attract a much higher-level enemy randomly. I would then get destroyed immediately by some random bounty hunter passing by. The same went for ship battles, where I’d be focused on one boat and then a boat five levels higher than me would slam into me. I understand these things on side missions or explorations, but whenever it’s happening in main missions that I can’t bypass, it seems a tad unfair.
This narrative wouldn’t be so interesting if it wasn’t for the beautiful world its surrounded by. Greece is a wonderful and vast location to explore, and locations don’t cheap out on design. I thoroughly enjoyed setting sail, climbing mountains, and invading bandit camps. Draw distance had some issues, but for a world this big it didn’t bother me too much.
Assassins Creed Odyssey all in all is a really great game. I think that my only fundamental issue is that it falls prey to the things that typically mess up AC games. Glitchy design flaws and poor side quests sometimes drain the joy out of moments that could be landed perfectly. I believe this comes down to the annual release schedule. I would have loved to see Odyssey with another six months of work behind it, just to add that small amount of polish. But with all my gripes, I had a ton of fun playing this vivid and well-executed game. This game is a complete success, and I hope the best for the franchise moving forward.
