By Sam Coles:
Assassin’s Creed was a franchise that I took a sizable break
from over the years, after Syndicate I kind of got a tad tired of it where I
skipped out on Origins and Odyssey until now. Odyssey is a game that I’m
kicking myself for not playing when it first came out because it is truly a beautiful
game and dare I say it one of the best games in the series, I want to say thank
you to Ubisoft for providing me a copy to experience it. Let me preface this by
saying this is not a review, at the time of writing I’m 40 hours in with no end
in sight think of this as me just going over my experience of exploring the
world and the characters I have interacted with.
Odyssey if wasn’t obvious enough is set in Ancient Greece,
and you have the choice of picking two Spartan siblings Alexios or Kassandra. I
picked Alexios and I’m glad that I did because his personality is fantastic, he
has this dry wit and sarcasm in conversation which made me laugh a few times.
He doesn’t give a damn about what people think of him, he can put people down
with his quips and if that doesn’t work he just kicks their teeth in. I haven’t
been this invested in a main character since Ezio in Assassin’s Creed II, the
reason why he is great is because he doesn’t always take a situation seriously
he knows when to laugh and he knows when to keep his mouth shut when the
situation arises.
The game starts off really strong with an epic battle; you
could not have an Ancient Greek adventure without starting off as King Leonidas
during The Battle of Thermopylae as you impale Persians. It very much feels
like 300 even down to Leonidas having a somewhat of a Scottish accent, but I
digress. After that it slows down as you start your adventure as Alexios or
Kassandra, and this is a good thing as it lets you get acquainted with the
world that is about to unfold in front of you.
Once the game really begins you can just explore the first
island you start off on, now it’s not like Skyrim levels of exploration where
you can just go in the other direction. No this is due to the fact that game
has swapped gears and is now a role playing experience, when I first heard this
game was going in that direction I had a lot of trepidation within me. However
now that I have played 40 hours of the game it works, it was a natural
evolution of the series and yes one could argue that it doesn’t feel like an
Assassin’s Creed game but the elements are still there.
Let’s talk about the world in this game, and I have to say
to it is absolutely gorgeous Ubisoft have crafted an excellent recreation of
Ancient Greece. The world is bright, colourful and it reflects back on me with
the warm sun beating down as I traverse the world on foot or by horseback. All the
cities are grand in scale with people going about their business, not only that
each area has nooks and crannies for you to explore with different side quests
to take on. It is just absolutely staggering how much effort and detail that
has been put into this game, it is truly a stunning and immersive world to
explore!
Gameplay wise I have to say they have finally got the
climbing mechanics right in this game, the problem I had with the other games
in the series were the controls. Not that they were bad by any means, however
when running in the older games your character had a bad habit of suddenly attaching
themselves to a nearby wall like a dog in heat. It got rather arduous over time
and fortunately they fixed it in this game, it fast fluid and I never found myself
stuck on geometry. Combat too is great as it requires timing with parrying and
dodges, you can’t just stand there like a waiter waiting to be summoned to then
counter stab them. No you have to actually fight people in this game, and it
requires timing or if you can’t be bothered just Spartan Kick them off a cliff
to kill them instantly which never stops being funny.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is something that I’m glad I have
finally started playing, yes it took me over a year to get to but it is all the
more rewarding. It shows that Ubisoft are capable of crafting beautiful worlds
with fun main characters you want to stay invested with, not only that they
tweaked the gameplay to which I think is absolutely perfect. Yes the RPG
elements may come across as not Assassin’s Creed, but ultimately I think it was
a good shift for the franchise.
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