SNEAKY SNEAKY

I liked being an assassin. I liked hiding in crowds, throwing poison darts etc. Playing Assassins Creed Odyssey feels very much like you’re pushed to being a brawler. This does make sense given the period it’s set and the type of character you play as, but it still feels odd to have no real desire to play stealth in an AC game.

With that out of the way, I did enjoy playing as a brawler once I got over my AC franchise misgivings. The combat is as simple as previous AC game with an emphasis on counters, dodges and strikes but with more reason to change up your weapons for certain enemies. At first, I wondered why I’d ever use a spear over a fast sword or dagger, but you quickly learn that having the distance between yourself and a raging bull, for example, can be a huge deal. 

#EVERYTROPHYCOUNTS

The world is large and full of missions. I did a lot of them since I got the Platinum trophy but even then, there were so many missions I hadn’t even touched. I don’t mind there being so many as knowing I’m aiming for the plat helps limit my completionist persona to at least having a goal, but it certainly does feel like the majority of them are here simply to make the game bigger. Most of the side mission stories were bland and forgettable aside from the Atlantis and cult-related missions. The cult in this game is the early stages of the Templars in the future games, so they’re obviously super-important. Yet… kinda pushed to the side weirdly.

On Atlantis: I knew coming into this it was part of the game. It wasn’t very exciting and maybe the DLC adds more to the Atlantis storyline, but I’m not planning on playing the DLC because the price is too high for me to justify at the moment.

I had a complete confusion attack when it came to the games main plot. For some reason, the cultists’ missions, which the game sets up clearly as being the main story path, suddenly become side-content when the game ‘finishes’ at a weird point. To tie this back into The Witcher 3 again, imagine you spend the whole game hearing about The Hunt, and then you save Ciri, but fighting The Hunt was a side mission optionally available post-game. That’d be very odd and unfulfilling in the main campaign structure.

KASSANDRA IS BAD-ASS

My Kassandra was great. A bad-ass warrior who had sexy-times with various ladies across Greek before ultimately settling down with a young lady I met on a warrior island. But the overall narrative never truly hits a high. Even with a tragic ending that I got (there are multiple endings) it just felt weird to get a “there’s a lot more to do in AC: Odyssey” message and Kassandra so easily returns to the seas in search of more adventure.

I had a weird experience with the game technically. On my PS4 Pro texture pop-in was common, and the games draw-distance, while large, often turned to mush further. Load times were also doing my head in. Several times I’d cling to 30 seconds or slightly higher. Often I’d simply click talk on an NPC to return a mission and it’d take 10-15 seconds to load that. Whoever says we don’t need next-generation consoles isn’t dealing with this nonsense. 

ALWAYS A SUCKER FOR PHOTO MODE

If you stopped to smell the roses however you could make some beautiful photos thanks to the games photo mode. Which, by-the-way was set to L3 & R3 from the get-go. A must-have for all games IMO. Anyway, all the pictures in this article I took using the games photo mode. Several I shared on my Twitter and you may, or may not, have seen already. They look better here anyway because Twitter turns all photos to crap.

I really enjoyed playing Assassins Creed Odyssey. I just didn’t think its story was particularly interesting or feature anywhere near as strong a cast of characters when compared to the majority of the past AC titles.

My horse is a unicorn though so I dunno, 10/10 I guess.

I’m looking forward to Assassins Creed: Valhalla hopefully being a better mix of this new AC material and some of the original mechanics that made the franchise what it is.