Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: assassin's creed, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, game review, ubisoft

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Gets as Much Wrong as it Does Right

Published Mon, 11 Mar 2019 08:40:02 -0500

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Much like Origin, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is more of a sandbox RPG than it is a traditional Assassin's Creed game. Which is pretty fantastic, except for the fact that, until you play the Legacy of the First Blade, it doesn't feel like an AC game at all.

In fact, so much of Odyssey feels like other RPGs it's practically a pastiche.

Because honestly, the dialogue, sound design, clue tracking system, and combat feel like they were ripped straight from The Witcher III.

The ship combat is very much like Black Flag but in Ancient Greece.

It has a Mercenary system that works like the Mordor games' Nemesis System, plus you track down a fuck ton of cultists with investigation and a crime web system which fits in well with Mordor.

There's even a legendary beast hunt questline that's basically Divine Monster Hunter.

Odyssey even has a sad ripoff of Bioware's usual flirting and romance options. Half the dialogue choices are binary, but also not in proper opposition, which makes the choices frustratingly restrictive.

What Odyssey does incredibly well is worldbuilding. The game feels grounded in Ancient Greece, as if firmly rooted in the time period. Ubisoft also did an admirable job portraying the various historical figures. They nailed Protagoras so well, but turned Aristophanes into a sad stereotype.

Then there's the future and ancient aliens bits which feel shoehorned into the game because Ubisoft needed a gear upgrade system.

And then there's the First Blade DLC story, which takes Odyssey in a completely different direction. First Blade not only starts to bring in the actual assassin portion of Assassin's Creed, but it also returns the game to a more restrictive plotline. Even with the patch update that changes the ending of First Blade episode 2, the DLC story is still heavily structured for the player in a way that feels nothing like the rest of the game.

Which leaves you with a game that doesn't seem to know whether it is an RPG at all.

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