Muscle Mommy Kassandra
After 125 hours and completely 100%ing the game, I can say that the only good thing about this game is locations/atmosphere and Kassandra. Oh, also the never seen before Isu DLC. Poorly executed but still, it was interesting to experience it. It could have been WAAAAAY better but here we are. I don't even want to talk about animations and the effort put in this game.
It's not even an Assassin's Creed game, too. I just take this game at face value and subtract the "Assassin's Creed" from it and voila! it's a great game :D

Best part of the game: Muscle Mommy Kassandra :3

Started the game, as soon as I was given control my screen was plastered with Uplay rewards and unlocks from Assassin's Creed 2 (still coasting on that one, huh) that I'm not sure why I had because I had yet to actually do anything. Then I actually did anything and it was the usual turgid bollocks. I remember thinking Origins was okay, and from what I remember wasn't even that much different, but just nothing here was making me want to continue. Endless busywork and poking enemies higher level than you for 0.01 damage per second (it's very funny to me that they list "DPS" on weapons in these games nowadays). I'm sure the setting is very cool as you get further in but I think I'd rather clean the Augean stables than play and find out, thanks!

Assassin's Creed Odysssey: part grand, technological wonderment, part shallow, hellish chore. It's a lot like the gameplay of an MMORPG without any of the second M nor O and paper-thin RPG. TL;DR at the bottom.

This game is long and I think I can say a lot about it, but I'll try to keep it as brief as one can when discussing something that can offer you well over a hundred hours of content to explore. Because there is so much to Assassin's Creed Odyssey (and simultaneously, so little), I don't think you'll ever read a single review that can tell you everything about it. Much of this ocean of content is only inches deep, and depending on your definition of "fun", this could be a very good or a very disappointing thing.

Right off the bat: if you're only looking for a game that's something "to do", like you just want some sense of accomplishment and love checking off lists, there's no doubt in my mind this game is for you and you'd be hard-pressed to find a better bang for your buck. The world of Ancient Greece is insensibly expansive, with large landmasses, many islands, and an ocean between it all to explore. I don't think I've seen a bigger map than this and it's not as though half the map is featureless flatlands: there's bandit camps, forts, towns, animal caves, tombs, and more littered around frequently. The world is nicely textured, the lighting looks great, and there're more pretty vistas in this game than there probably should be. There's also DLC worlds that expand this absurdity even further.

"Okay," you're saying, "there's stuff, but what's going on?" Well, you're Kassandra (or, if you choose incorrectly, Alexios): a misthios (mercenary) who's determined to make a name for herself in this war-torn land and, if possible, find out as much as she can about her family that was torn apart by fellow Spartans at a young age. Kassandra will start on a small island and eventually command her own ship to take part in the Peloponnesian War, fighting for whichever side she chooses, on her road to self-discovery. Along the way she'll visit otherworldly cities, fight mythic beasts of yore, and take on a cult determined to control the known world. You'll like Kassandra less for what she does and more for how she's portrayed: her voice actress does the heavy lifting in terms of character building because her animations, like everybody's, are comically robotic for the most part. You will enjoy, like all of these games, becoming Death personified as you will be cutting down thousands of Greeks with (hopefully) a single button press. Kassandra will charm you in conversation and slaughter an army back to back and neither required much effort on her part. Also, if you're a gross coomer who loves stiff "romance" sequences in a game, you can easily become Greece's most ridden bicycle in no time. Love pressing the "Let's have sex" button before rigid kissing and fade to black? Play Assassin's Creed Odyssey, you can do this more times than you can count. You can even briefly kiss one of the game's "top baddies" in a very awkward moment.

The mercenary aspect of this game is probably the best part of it and I wish more games had a similar vibe. You hold no allegiances, you do whatever you wanna do and kill whoever you wanna kill. Fight this battle for the Spartans, who're willing to pay you slightly more, or side with the Athenians, whose defensive advantage guarantees an easier payout? Entirely your call and you can always make the other choice another time soon. Maybe you just want to help locals with their bandit problems? Every town has endlessly respawning timed quests. Want to fight at sea instead? Engage in naval battles until your eyeballs bleed, the pirates will always come back. You're a mercenary, this is exactly what you want in life and the quests and battles feel very natural in this setting.

Unfortunately, this is still an Assassin's Creed game, which since its inception has made the poor decision to tie its historical events to current times. The good news is Kassandra's story has as little as possible to do with the "Assassins vs Templars" and her journey is mainly one of family and revenge. However, you will still occasionally be pulled back into the real world to be reminded of the Animus, Abstergo, and whacky, alien-tech, prehistoric assholes. Because this series has to go on forever, you know there's no real point to any of it: small victories, small defeats, and the war will never end because there needs to be another game eventually. The "RPG" elements basically just mean you get to choose which skills you'll be unlocking first and, depending on who survives your odyssey due to your choices, you can land an ending that's "happy", "utterly miserable", or somewhere in the middle. There's optional dialogue for almost every quest that lets you learn a bit more, but since it's unimportant tidbits and you'll be doing this hundreds of times, you'll want to just cut to the chase.

But back to warring: AC: Odyssey doesn't have very good combat. Neither does AC: Valhalla and I'd bet that applies to AC: Origins, too. In fact, here the combat is most fun when it's entirely avoided; ideally, you'll one-hit assassinate all of your targets. You'll get angry at yourself when you screw up and actually have to fight your enemies with a weapon, thankfully you can earn abilities by leveling up that usually kill enemies in one button, getting that "time spent in combat" as close to zero as possible. Unfortunately, these have a cooldown, meaning sometimes you'll actually have to actually engage in the combat so you can end this nonsense and can get back to assassinating the guards in the next room who (thankfully) heard none of this battle. Higher difficulty just makes enemies less likely to die in one stab (annoying) and in combat, they hit harder (also annoying), so while I started on Hard, I eventually lowered it to Normal for a faster pace and far better experience.

The combat being pretty lackluster is especially damning considering it's basically the only thing you're ever going to do. Sometimes there's variation tossed in there, like you escort someone before you murder ambushers, or you hear criminals and their punishers plead their cases before choosing who to slaughter, but in the end? You're going to kill someone(s) 99% of the time. Like one time, I had to decide if I thought a man could ethically steal a horse. Okay, some change, yeah? A moral dilemma? Well, to hear the man's story, I had to kill 5 guards standing around him, so not really. AC: Valhalla would at least toss in some minigames, like the drinking challenges or the Viking-spin on rap battles. Even though that wasn't exactly the most fun in the world, it did add some much-needed spice to things.

So, part of me wants to call this game incredible. Its scope is nothing short of outrageous, it's a beautiful project that's just crammed (and with DLC, overflowing) with content, and really, it's insane that any of this even works. But is this content worth the potential hundreds of hours you can put into it? Is exploring Achaia any more exciting (or even any different) from exploring Messara? If you've emptied one fortress of goodies and guards, haven't you seen them all? Does anybody give a shit who leads the Cult of Kosmos? Remember when there was a time in your life where you weren't playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey? Do those days now blend together into a blur that, try as you may, you can no longer bring into focus? I would argue that while this world is gigantic, the size just makes your echoes in its hollowness even louder. I think it's simply impossible to call this game "great". The game is long and there's lots to look at, but if length was all we cared about in games, JRPGs would be doing Iron Man numbers all day long, baby.

It's wild to me that Ubisoft made a game this massive after another big Assassin's Creed game, then just released Assassin's Creed Valhalla two years later, another world almost as huge. Soon, we can expect another with Assassin's Creed Mirage. Before you can even stop to truly appreciate one of these games, games that probably should be witnessed by everyone who says they like video games, it's "just another Assassin's Creed game" and forgotten in a catalog of far too many titles. It's no surprise Ubisoft is floundering.

Again, it's tough saying whether or not this game is actually worth your time, though I'd lean towards 'barely' or maybe even 'no'. Apparently, it was worth mine, but I just feel like I was hooked on the world's most mediocre drug. Something drove me to see as much as I could stand of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but it wasn't purely enjoyment, I think I just liked how the wheel spun. You will have a largely bug-free and mediocre time with this game and you can count on it to keep delivering exactly what you're getting for a very long time. AC:O is reliably consistent, for better and for worse.

TL;DR Never pay full price for it, but on sale, this is probably worth your time if you've got nothing else going on. But really, if you're just killing time, there's better things to do. Go read "Infinite Jest". You can certainly get a lot of low-level entertainment out of this title, just don't expect anything too memorable from your time with Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I had an alright time, but I'm very happy I'm done with it.

I’m not looking for pristine, uncompromised games. And none of my favorites in 2018 was compromised quite like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. I’d only played the second and fourth in the series before starting, and Far Cry 2 was the sole Ubisoft game I’d even liked. So admittedly, I went in with my knives out. And the dull frame story did not disappoint. Pythagoras, the animus, some precursor nonsense, lord help me. It’s like they don’t even understand why people like these historical fantasies. As if worlds from the past, the details of distant lives, are not enough. Pile on some typical Ubi excess and you’d think I’d be out. There’s only so much assassination I can take.

But the excess had a curious effect. Because Odyssey also committed to a certain amount of role-playing this time, my Kassandra was able to choose. Not just which option in a quest but whether to do it at all. It gave voice to my zealous inner Bartleby. Thin the local bear population? I’d prefer not to. Turn the tide on that there battlefield? I’d prefer not to. Get revenge for a petty neighbor? Naw. I don’t fuck with that.

Odyssey’s muchness contributed to a stronger world feeling without stoking some inner completionist. I went where I wanted, followed my interests, of which there were plenty, and the whole thing unfurled. The spiraling map, the many interlocking systems, the slow unveiling of the cult, it’s actually remarkable how naturally it all unwinds before the player. Which makes the DLC’s forced hetero blood legacy choice I’ve heard about so disheartening. I generally don’t mess with DLC, but even from a distance it sours my Kassandra’s future a bit.

Because otherwise, what I’d found by the end of my odyssey was this: a gods-haunted people in landscapes of astonishing color and light centered on the best avatar in an open world game.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey gives us a layered history, a past with many pasts. The Greeks you meet are grappling with all of them — recent events, fading stories, and ancient myths alike — and asking existential questions with refreshing urgency. How do you live in a world of fickle gods? How do you live without them? There is an immediacy to these questions that humanizes almost everyone you meet. And not just famous figures like Socrates. Though Odyssey does recognize, correctly, what a sweetheart he’s always been.

Much of this humanity comes from the writing, full of pathos and good humor, warm and philosophic throughout, but always with a light touch. My Kassandra was worldweary and worldwise, nobody’s fool, but also a misthios who just plain cared. You could hear it in her voice. She saw people clearly, their dreams and their bullshit, and yet still wanted to throw in with them. She was game for the struggle, and she had the arms to prove it.

There’s just so much life in Odyssey. Such a feeling of world happening all around you. The markets and shrines, your ship with its shanties, every single dusk and dawn. They don’t announce themselves or demand your attention. When you come upon a patch of morning mist that just catches the light, the game doesn’t overdo it. It’s not there for your mission or cutscene but for world feeling alone, something that just happens. And sure it’s all background, and true you’ll run right through it, but that’s by design. This isn’t your pokey howdy ma’am realism asking questions the game cannot answer. Instead, it simply aims for beauty and adventure and a proud ancient world, with all the zip and thereness it can muster. Even when it stretches, with stunning transitions from land to ship to swelling sea, its felt sense of continuity and scale makes the speed a source of wonder. Will the illusion hold? By the gods, it will.

Odyssey asks solid game questions, for now. It attempts a world, not a stage show. This world may clearly be a videogame simulation, but it’s not trying to fool you. There’s far too much murder, but the game doesn’t ask me to mourn the assassin’s lifestyle or con me into believing it’s something it’s not. And it is this honesty, along with its writing and its misthios and its goddamned humanity, that makes it 2018’s true alternative to that malákas cowboy game.

This is my least favorite game that I have still bothered to finish anyways. It's a good setting trapped in the shittiest game ever.

Part I: Setting
The setting is the good part of this terrible game that kept me playing it for 2 fucking months. It's the ancient world. There are no games that take place in the ancient world except shitty RTS games that I don't like. Alcibiades is in the game and he's gay and hot.

Part II: Fake Ass RPG Mechanics
This game is an RPG where you're forced to play the role of an utterly insane man who wants everybody to hate him. It takes place during the Peloponessian War, and it heavily advertised that back in 2018. But you can't actually choose a side in the war. No, instead this game forces you to do something far more sinister, far more fucking stupid. Practically every other chain of quests in the main line has you switching sides, instead. You kill hordes of soldiers for both Sparta and Athens, but nobody cares. What I'm saying is that this is a game where you're forced to play as a radical centrist. It continues on into the faction conflicts within the DLC.
I'm going to guess what happened here is they originally made the game with a faction split, but the fucking AAA slop factory cowards that they are, they became afraid that players would miss content by picking a side, and it would only be 60 hours per playthrough, not 80. Since Ubisoft is run and staffed by the worst guys you know, they couldn't possibly allow this. So instead, they made a nonsensical story which they could advertise as ‘deep’ and ‘rich’ because it's just long.
Sure, RPGs aren't all about factions, but the lack of choice regarding the central tension of the game reflects its absence elsewhere. Additionally, every ‘romance’ and ‘companion’ in this game is weird as hell and hollow. You kinda just do some quests for them, maybe fuck, and they become a permanently bricked NPC on your ship with no lines of dialogue ever again. I'm not going to elaborate on side quests and shit, but just know that the game's final, true ending only gives you a single choice which is rushed and makes no sense, alongside some questions which clarify fucking nothing.

Part III: Gameplay
The combat in this game is like Dark Souls combat but really shitty. This is the first game in many years that I've decided to play on easy, because the difficulty settings don't matter if you want to make the game more skillful or interesting. They just change the health of enemies, and how the level scaling works.
And oh, the FUCKING level scaling, how I hope the fraud who worked on it breaks his hands so he never works on a game again. If an enemy is 4 levels above you, it’s fucking over. They're going to take ~20 stabs each, just for basic guys. Hard generally places enemies 2-4 levels above you, always. Medium has them 2 above or equal to you. Easy has them equal or 2 below. Sure. this fucks active melee combat, but at least stealth is fine?
No, of course not. The evil ass level scaling makes the otherwise fine stealth bad if you're not playing on easy, because you can't even stealth kill basic guys in one hit, leaving them to just go and alert everyone else.

In the assassin game, by the way.

One of my favorites in the series, no matter what other AC fans say, exploring the Greek world while killing cultists, defeating mythological creatures and sailing my ship through the sea is one of the best things in the series, I understand that there are many people who are not fan of RPG systems, but I'm personally a big fan of them in general, Kassandra is also one of my favorite protagonists, but the story is quite inconsistent, there are moments where it's a Greek drama worthy of a book, and others where it seems like a bad Marvel parody with forced jokes and strange dialogues, the presentation also suffers a little with its animations, but it is to be expected that a game with so many missions and decisions sacrifices this aspect (like most rpgs), and that is another thing that surprised me, there are actually consequences, obviously it does not reach the level of a New Vegas or a Baldur's Gate, but to be the first full RPG in the franchise, there are several decisions that affect the development of the story.

Odyssey more fully embraces the franchise's RPG turn following the success of Origins. An element of choice and consequence has been incorporated into the narrative allowing players to influence the story with their decisions. It's not as deep as something you'd get from BioWare on this front when it comes to being able to constantly define your male or female character's personality or radically change where a quest will take you, but you're given the ability to impact key events in meaningful ways and put your own personal touch on the journey.

This is a lot like Skyrim in that no matter where you go you'll always find something to do. The entire picture of what the main storyline is presenting is spread across three separate questlines, and that's in addition to the variety of side-stories and locations with their own checklist of objectives to complete that you'll encounter. There's a hierarchy of mercenaries you can climb through the ranks of, a secret web of cultists to uncover, and an entire ship with a crew to upgrade and collect resources for. There's a lot of flexibility in all of this too, like how you can stay on top of your gear either by upgrading your favorite pieces or ignore that option entirely in favor of just picking the next best choice out of the constant stream of newly acquired loot, and play in the immersive "Exploration mode" which removes waypoints forcing you to really pay attention to directions given by the NPCs. It's amazing how well all of these systems and really everything Odyssey does comes together. Everything except for the graphics that is...

This is far from the prettiest game on the market. That's somewhat understandable given what a MASSIVE world with an increased amount of foliage compared to the deserts of Egypt it's rendering, but it's disappointing how I was never able to be blown away by these sprawling wildernesses due to it all looking like it was made out of clay. I do have some other, more minor complaints. Such as how the romance options are almost exclusively women, uncomfortably playing into that old stereotype of all gamers being either straight dudes or lesbians and severely limiting the choices for gay men and hetero females. The biggest though has got to be the modern day portion of the series. On top of still finding the new characters unlikable, I continue to have no idea what Ubisoft is even doing with it since they killed off Desmond in III and very little actually happens in this entry at all. It looks as though the Fate of Atlantis DLC provides some much needed direction going forward on this front, but given that I couldn't bring myself to make it through the free chapter of it they were nice enough to give away it remains an aspect of the brand they could abandon altogether and I wouldn't care.

The ancient Greece segments which make up the vast majority of the experience however are fantastic. There might not be any mention of the assassin's or templars that along with the inclusion of mythological creatures has begun to make the overall AC lore kind of murky, yet I appreciate the route the property is taking from a gameplay perspective. So much content is here that even after 50+ hours of play there were still areas of the map I hadn't visited, and all of it is varied and interesting enough to justify doing for the many hours it will keep you busy. It makes for an epic adventure I would genuinely say is one of the best RPGs I've ever played and easily my new favorite Assassin's Creed.

9/10

One of those games you play for 50+ hours and have no real feelings associated with. As a ubisoft'em up its solid, I guess, there really isn't a point where I felt burdened by their systems or annoyed like I usually do. In fact the game kinda exists in this state of being lowly pleasurable and never escalates beyond that.

Sidenote: I also keep running into potential romantic partners who really dig this game, and every time I go through the process of "what do I think of this game?" before settling on the thought of "yea it's fine I guess". Not real insight here, just thought that was interesting.

Esse talvez seja o jogo singleplayer com o maior registro de horas que eu tenha aqui no site: 206 horas

Para mim, Odyssey é como comer um Big Mac, você sabe que não tem nada de especial, que no fundo ele não é aquilo tudo e que você facilmente encontra coisas melhores, mas ainda sim é bom comer de vez quando.

A história, os conflitos e os jogos de interesse fizeram a perspectiva politica ser bem interessante no game, ainda mais aliado ao cenário que o jogo se passa. A gameplay é MUITO gostosa também e a parte RPG do game, fazendo parte da árvore de habilidades é legal (essa parte pode ser comparada com o molho do BigMac que pra mim é o melhor do lanche).

Agora as partes chatas são as váaaaarias quests forçadas e repetitivas. Tipo, invada um acampamento ou forte para recuperar uma coisa x ou para libertar fulano que está lá preso. Muitas vezes isso quebrou um pouco do pace geral. Além disso, a repetitividade dos conflitos esparta x atenas que pareceu ser bem legal no começo, mas chega um ponto que é totalmente opcional você lutar ou não e de fato a força dos territórios não é tão abalada quando você começa a ferrar com eles.

Agora, o chato mesmo são os mercenários que puta que pariu, muito chato. Eles funcionam como as estrelas do GTA, então delitos vão fazer você ser procurado, só que diferente do GTA onde você pode despistar a policia, aqui você basicamente fica com eles na sua cola o tempo todo e quanto mais delito, mais mercenários vem atrás de você e alguns são mt apelativos. Assim vc pode tirar eles da sua cola de duas formas: pagando e quanto mais notoriedade mais caro fica ou indo matar a pessoa que colocou a recompensa pela sua cabeça, mas advinha onde esses caras quase sempre ficam? Sim, em fortes ou acampamentos então as vezes fica um looping chato de ter que pagar ou ir matar o alvo que mandou te matar.

Todos esses pontos negativos (vou comparar com aquela folha de papel que o MCDonalds chama de carne do BigMac) que eu citei até que contribuíram para a minha jogatina ser tão grande assim, mas o que de fato fez isso foi a parte de exploração, são muitos cenários lindos e explorar e fazer algumas sidequests são realmente interessantes (por mais que elas também sejam quase sempre iguais e em um número absurdamente desnecessário). Eu tentei ser completacionista nesse game, fiz 87% de conquistas, mas eu confesso que cansei e vou decretar como finalizada a minha experiência com esse game que já dura bastante tempo. Tipo somente a história principal + DLCs (todas bem questionáveis em aspecto de história, mas fabulosas em beleza de cenário: Campos Elísios e Atlantis S2) levam em torno de umas 100 horas, o restante fica por conta da exploração e, se esse for o seu caso, tentativa de completacionismo.

No fim é isso, igual comer um BigMac. É bom, mas pelo preço e pelo tempo existem coisas muito melhores.

“Yes. I used to be called the Eagler Bearer, but Ikaros is long gone.”










Oh boy where to start with this one.

This is definitely the most controversial and hated AC game and I completely understand and in parts agree with the sentiment. This is straight up not an AC game. It takes place in that universe and utilizes the established lore in some pretty cute ways even but at the end of the day there are no assassins or a creed to be found. Instead of the assassin fantasy you are a misthios, a Greek mercenary, who travels through Greece, kills cultists and has excessive amounts of gay sex.

There is definitely a hurdle to overcome here since this is one of those games you can write off on principle alone but you know I’ve come this far so I was very accepting of this diversion that I wish had stayed as a one off.






You can choose between playing as Alexios or Kassandra, with the opposite gendered sibling being used as a key character in the story similarly to something like the third and sixth Pokémon generations and their rival characters. For convenience’s sake I shall talk about Alexios as the MC since I played with him (he’s not the canon one tragically but he will forever be canon in my heart).

The best way to describe Odyssey’s narrative is cute and simple. Much like Syndicate, Ubi Quebec’s previous game, it can be pretty easily summarized as Alexios goes on an odyssey across Greece in order to find and reunite his disjointed family. This game is VERY similar to Syndicate in fact. The happy go lucky and whimsical tone that goes hand in hand with extreme violence and other horrible things to create this unhinged but very entertaining writing is very much still there and honestly better than ever since the setting of ancient Greece really fits that vibe of wonderland with a pinch of brutal way better than Victorian London did.
I was surprised by how much I liked Alexios. He has sprinkles of Jacob’s goofyness but he’s overall way more serious and dedicated which gives him that very charming sense of someone who’s not only nice and kind but also extremely brutal when needed. Michael Antonakos did a fantastic job voicing him. I really enjoyed Alexios’ odyssey and the way his story concludes is very unexpected and interesting, with the epilogue handling masterfully the way he has to cope with his newfound task and the mental fuckup that those events caused on him, gave me strong Arno from Dead Kings vibes. So yeah Alexios is shockingly kinda awesome I really really fuck with him.

The huge majority of the narrative is dedicated to the misadventures Alexios has to go through in other to find his family and destroy the Cult of Kosmos, yet another ancient rendition of the templars who in this game are pretty much cartoon evil guys so not much going on there. Due to the structure of this narrative and overall better pacing of its story beats, there was a great level of consistency achieved that I think Origins was kinda struggling to balance between its razor-sharp focused narrative and the gigantic open world necessities. The cast again just like Syndicate is very charming and likeable but always tries a bit too hard at times to remain superficial which results in a lot of characters never fully reaching their potential. The relationship Alexios had with his family was really nice tho with one of the scenes he shares with his mom and sister being particularly striking. Herodotos and Barnabas are great best buddies and the epilogue of the narrative really stood out to me with the way the bond between Alexios and those 2 was realized. Also loved the very prominent presence of the Athenian philosophers, the party scene in particular stood out as one of my favorite moments in the game, Sokrates my oomfie. The ending is very cool too and is pretty much the only scene in modern day that has compelled me since AC3.




Speaking of, man I completely forgot to mention the return of playable modern day in the Origins review because well, THERE WAS NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT. We have a new main character in modern day through Layla Hassan who is ok if not a bit cringey at times but absolutely nothing happens with her story in Origins and then in-between that and Odyssey there is a really big and weird amount of events that just happen off-screen and we never get to see them so once modern day starts in Odyssey it feels really disjointed and there are only like 4 short sections of it so it’s once again barely there.




Gameplay is definitely an improvement over Origins. The more aggressive combat is good and the addition of abilities finally gives more meat to it that helps with the feel of repetitiveness that crippled late game Origins. Ship combat is back and feels seamlessly untouched from the previous ship-based games which is pretty nice. The only downside to me was the mercenary system which starts out cute but very quickly reveals itself as an extreme annoyance that legit feels like the game harassing you whenever that inception sound goes BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOM and the mercenary Scrunky The Poop Shitter shows up to interrupt your missions. I have to mention tho that the cutscenes in this game are a step down and a step forward. There’s a lot of very simple shot and reverse shot conversations which to me are perfect for side quest dialogue since the way Origins handled those by just having the character literally standing in game and talking was awkward but the high demand of having one of those for every single convo definitely shows itself with the reduced amount of more cinematic cutscenes and the facial acting just not matching up to the quality of the previous games for the most part.

The world is fucking gorgeous, I loved this open world. It’s big but it never felt too big and I adore the way it felt like a Greek Black Flag that evolves the design of that game by making every single part of the map connected instead of locking the bigger cities behind a loading screen. It’s a great setting choice and Quebec nailed it. Also really appreciate that they managed to put mythological stuff in a way that made sense in lore so fighting the Minotaur and the Medusa was epic. The way they toyed with the fact that this is the most ancient setting in the series so far to utilize a lot more izu and mystic related shenanigans was nice.

Loved the music btw, the main theme “Legend of the eagle bearer” is visceral as fuck, I fuck with it a lot. Lot of it is very ambience based like a lot of the more recent games but it’s good stuff.




Overall…… Yeah, I did really like this game. Once you go in with the mindset that this is a little cute game that expands another side of the AC universe it’s a good ride and even the bloated duration didn’t make my experience miserable since the xp gain was fairer than in Origins to compensate. Gud time and Alexios is a certified badass seal of approval MC.

Jogo bem bonito, ótimas mecânicas, ambientação maravilhosa e dublagem colossal, padrão de qualidade Ubisoft, que sempre capricha nesses quesitos, mas quis caprichar tanto no bolo que acabou exagerando no recheio ao ponto de deixar bastante enjoativo. Este jogo é extremamente grande, com um mapa imenso e com muita coisa pra se fazer, mas muita coisa mesmo, e não é no bom sentido, sem contar o grinding que já dá sono só de ver que pra acessar certo canto do mapa você precisa estar pelo menos no nível 40, e isso inclui missões, que vão ficar lá na sua lista de objetivos até você as cumprir, e que vai levar um bom tempo pra você ter tal oportunidade, visto que algumas delas requerem uns 20 níveis acima do seu nível atual. Gostei do jogo, como dito, é ótimo em sua gameplay, design etc, o problema mesmo é o tamanho. Creio que continuarei o jogando gradativamente, e um dia termino.

Coming off the formula-altering but pleasantly surprising Assassin’s Creed Origins, I expected Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to similarly wow me when I first played it in 2018. That year I was put off by its length, and gave it another try in 2020, finally finishing it but again falling short of completing the DLC. Now I’ve played it once more in 2023, and completed the entire story but lost motivation to 100% it. These failed attempts to experience everything the game has to offer gave me one of my most pertinent takeaways—more content doesn’t mean more fun. Odyssey is not a terrible game, but thinking about playing it gives me a headache, and that really says a lot.

Pros:

- The story isn’t god-tier level, but it's still a pretty solid tale of Kassandra (the female protagonist, who is canon in lore) trying to reunite her family, scattered across the Greek world. Her odyssey takes her through many scenic and interesting locations, and puts her on both sides of the somewhat fictionalized Peloponnesian War. It was always just short of being emotionally compelling, but is still interesting enough to enjoy, at least a little bit.

- The inclusion of choice-driven storytelling was a bit out of place in the Assassin’s Creed series, but looking at Odyssey in a vacuum, it's not all that bad. Without getting too specific, there are nine endings that differ in who’s at Kassandra’s side when her odyssey comes to a close. Most of the decisions that influence this ending are pretty noticeable when they come up, so you won’t be too blindsided once you’ve seen their effects. There are also a bunch of smaller decisions that can be made through the game that can make your life easier (or harder) in the moment that let you play Kassandra how you want…provided you’re okay with “helpful and rational” and “arrogant and boastful” being the main two shades of her personality.

- I personally don’t like many of the side quests, but I won’t lie that they are generally pretty distinct from each other, which is one major advantage this game has against its predecessor. If you pace yourself with them, they’re fairly enjoyable. One Really, Really Bad Day in Lokris was by far my favorite.

- Kassandra’s journey eventually pits her against the Cult of Kosmos; I won’t get into their relevance in the plot, but rather the system players use to hunt them down. Killing one cultist reveals clues towards the whereabouts of the others, which in turn encourages exploration and investigation at your own leisure. This game is at its best when the player isn’t constrained by specific objectives, so “hunt every cultist however you want” was very enjoyable.

- Gameplay wise, Odyssey differs from even its RPG predecessor Origins by including abilities that utilize one of three damage types: Assassin (stealth-based damage), Warrior (combat damage), and Hunter (ranged damage). Using these abilities to their fullest is imperative to having fun in this game, and with legendary gear that gives benefits to particular abilities, damage types, and playstyles, it is very easy to get insanely broken. And it is AWESOME. You can get basically every ability to one or two-shot enemies and turn Kassandra into a god. Super enjoyable experience.

- Two other game mechanics I had a lot of fun with were region allegiances and naval battles. Each region belongs to either the Delian (Athens) or Peloponnesian (Sparta) League, and by destroying supplies, killing soldiers, and assassinating leaders, you can flip allegiances at will (save for Athens and Sparta themselves, sadly). These flips are dictated by who wins a ground or naval assault, which are both a great time to fight in. Naval combat was my personal favorite, because ships are dope, and the Adrestia (Kassandra’s ship) can be upgraded to be the classical Greek equivalent of an aircraft carrier.

- One thing in Odyssey I will not tolerate criticism of is the design and attention to detail of Greece. Assassin’s Creed’s developers have always read their history, and while some things are changed for gameplay purposes, their environments are insanely good at approximating what life in the past would have been like. Strolling through Athens slowly, just taking in the atmosphere, climbing its landmarks…just amazing. The beaches on Aegean islands are honestly beautiful, and the ancient Minoan temples in Argolis and Thera have such good vibes. Though, I am a history major, so maybe I’m biased. Bonus points for including a Discovery Tour mode that feeds you actual information about classical Greek society and history.

- Of the two DLCs, The Fate of Atlantis is indisputably the better one, with three mythical locations to explore, a vastly more interesting story, sick new abilities, and a dump truck of Assassin’s Creed lore if that’s why you’re playing. The realms (Elysium, the underworld, and Atlantis) are amazingly designed and unlike many locations in the main game, have much more parkour-ability reminiscent of older titles. Unlike Legacy of the First Blade, I actually enjoyed playing through this one.

Cons:

- The dialogue and delivery for major characters is nothing to write home about, save for Kassandra’s voice actress herself who is pretty good—though I don’t think Alexios (the male protagonist) matches up. He sounds a little goofy. The dialogue writing and delivery for other NPCs is not terribly good. It’s serviceable at best and bland at worst. If you’re going for the 100% you’re going to hear the same voices (and sometimes the same models) over and over again.

- Facial expressions and animations are a little stiff and definitely repetitive, which isn’t helped by the fact that this game has a single-digit number of real cutscenes. By “real cutscenes”, I mean cutscenes that don’t just consist of two characters standing and speaking face-to-face in real time. I will concede that these types of cutscenes are more economical for such a massive game, but nevertheless they are pretty visually uninteresting.

- It's no question that the RPG-styled Assassin’s Creed games deviate from the traditional experience, with an open-world, abilities, simplified control scheme, and quest system. If you don’t think these mechanics belong in an Assassin's Creed game, then Odyssey probably isn’t for you. On this playthrough, I tried to embrace the “Greece RPG” side of this game more, but still found mechanics I didn’t think belonged. Hunter damage should not be split from stealth damage, since it makes bows hit with the force of a wet napkin if you don’t build for it. Some abilities also cheapen the stealth experience, including Death Veil (which straight up deletes corpses), Critical Assassinate (you have to HOLD a button to one-shot assassinate some enemies), and Leap of Faith (you don’t take any fall damage??? what’s the risk in jumping off buildings?). These three abilities were fun from a RPG standpoint, but not an Assassin’s Creed standpoint.

- The parkour animations in the RPG Assassin’s Creed games is not as artsy and satisfying as it has been in previous games since it's now tied to only one button instead of several, and almost all surfaces can be climbed regardless if they look like they’re missing holds. The simplification has phased out many cool moves like side jumps and back ejects, and while it’s easier to pull off, the parkour is occasionally unresponsive. Trying to freerun forward instead of up or down is virtually impossible. Jumping on beams and vertical poles was especially finicky in my experience.

- While I did praise how unique some of the side quests are, many of those (along with some parts of the main quest) essentially amount to “go here and do thing.” This is a mission structure I wouldn’t dislike so much if the map for this game wasn’t so big, with some many locations that play the exact same as every other one. This game is probably one of the most checklist-y Ubisoft games out there, with virtually every location having x amount of chests, war supplies, and captains to plunder, destroy, or maim. Combined with the main quest, the 100% for this game is at least 120 hours or more. Hard pass, though I got close.

- There are a bunch of tiny things that aren’t that bad on their own, but kept wearing down on me since I played this game for so long. You can’t ping Daughter of Artemis (a faction) after completing their questline, dead mercenaries still trick the unread indicator above their tab in the menu, some bushes have gaps that break stealth, enemies sometimes climb up ladders at wonky times (which can lead to the spotting you), the Adrestia takes WAY too long to upgrade fully (don’t do it. please), wild animals just attack you whenever you want and grab the attention of enemies, and oil vases randomly break when you ever so slightly bump into them. Those were the main things I noticed.

- To my utter despair, the Legacy of the First Blade DLC, despite showcasing one of the most significant characters in the Assassin’s Creed lore (at least in-universe), was super boring. The DLC runs on for way too long, doesn’t have very many compelling characters, and forces the protagonist into a straight romance with the blandest man/woman on the planet. Don’t buy it.

Objective rating: 3.5 stars
Subjective rating: 3 stars

Feels like I should have so many opinions and comments after one hundred and fifty-four hours (154!), but at this point I'm just exhausted. There is such a thing as too much game, and this is it. It's also a very good game, but a tiring one that overstays its welcome.

This game is, script-wise, a prequel to Origins and the entirety of the Assassin's Creed backstory, even more so than Origins, but on a gameplay level, it's really just Origins again, except a little bit worse in many ways. Like Origins, the environment is incredible and riding around on your horse and just absorbing the tranquility as frail rays of sunshine find their way through leaves and leaves and motes of dust dance in the wind is eerily close in feeling to actually being on that vacation yourself. Like all of the games in the series, this one made me routinely stop and wonder if this is what Athens actually looked like, or if this is how Greece society actually functioned. As far as recreating ancient Greece, this game is a resounding success and it's getting almost scary just how good games can be at tricking your mind into thinking that you're actually there. The humans and animals still have some ways to go, graphically, but the environment looks incredible, and an environment like ancient, obviously massively historical, ancient Greece can only serve to elevate it.

The story is also fine for the most part. I don't want to dig too deep and uncover spoilers, but I never agreed with Origins being the, well, origins of the whole story, but this game does a good enough job of explaining why that is. For the first time in the series, we get rather enormous info dumps about the First Civilization and other information. Juno, who I don't think we've seen for like ten games by now, even makes a re-appearance. I haven't been able to care too much about this story for however many entries into the series, as Ubisoft clearly didn't care for the longest time either, but it does seem like their trying to find their way back to lore that makes sense. They get a passing grade on this one.

Another thing that was as excellent as it was unexpected was the amount of player choices and real consequences this game has. Conversations can at least play out differently in every single scenario, depending on what dialogue option you chose, and in some cases you make large changes to either the surrounding area or the story, whether it be a side quest or the main campaign. There are choices with actual consequences literally the game constantly, and they're not fake choices where every choice just leads to the same outcome either. Quests seem to play out so wildly differently that it almost feels worth re-playing this game to see the other outcomes, until you remember that it's a 154-hour game. Ubisoft should definitely get more praise than I've heard for how deep the conversations and consequences actually are in this game. Feels like I have to make some kind of comment about how Fallout 4's dialogue system was basically one of those devices that lets dogs "talk", and they just repeat "let's go park now!" over and over, but Ubisoft are the ones delivering true choices with true consequences. Genuinely good work that kept me guessing and made me reload a few times when I wasn't satisfied with how my choice played out.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I'll add some praise for the fact that this game lets you play the entire thing without map markers or other Ubisoft-style hints. If you pick exploration mode and turn some settings off, this game quickly becomes an oldschool-style game where you have to solve every single clue yourself, and even if you play in guided mode, the game expects you to think much more than I think more or less any previous game has. I chose guided mode as I prefer to turn my brain off with these games, but even that mode made me really look at and investigate the situation several times. Reminded me of how Unity and Syndicate would expect similarly of the player.

However, there are also so many problems... The game is simply too bloody large and long. Ain't nobody got time for this. It's time developers start building smaller worlds with more interactivity, because this has just gotten ridiculous. More Deus Ex-style neighborhoods where every single door and drawer can be opened, less entire countries where you can really only marvel at how pretty everything is while nothing can be interacted with.

I don't like how the simplified and sped up combat by removing the shield and speeding up various animations. That just felt like it removed a layer of strategy and made combat more confusing for no real gain. I hate how they introduced a new movement glitch that I don't think was present in Origins, where the code that's supposed to determine whether or not you're allowed to sprint or jog (which is determined by whether or not you're in a city) constantly glitches out and forces you to ride your horse at a slow trot in the middle of nowhere. With the sprintbutton entirely removed, this can become enormously frustrating as you try to traverse the entirety of Greece. It doesn't help that this game introduces absolutely savage load times on the PS4; upwards of several minutes every time you fast travel. This rather severe downgrade of your movement options, as the player, is a constant disappointment for me, as these games tend to require you to zip back and forth in the world to complete tasks, and doing so with this murderously slow fast travel just isn't enjoyable. Thankfully, Odyssey is mostly linear while you're on the ground and you rarely have to fast travel to do something, but I hear Valhalla is more or less the same except it adds a loading screen every time you visit a merchant, which sounds like a bad time all around. And, hey, where'd crafting go and why are there so few types of animals in this game compared to Origins?

I also kind of really hated all of the DLC. Hated how the First Blade forces you into a romantic situation that you are offered no control over and all of a sudden your character just takes a several-year break from your adventure and settles down no matter what dialogue options you chose, just so the DLC can end with their dramatic death. Cheap and lame. Then it was off to Elysium, Hades and Atlantis and I was pretty excited, only to be quickly disappointed. Elysium was fine, Hades was dreary and boring and Atlantis was pretty and boring. Each area has a new mechanic that just makes the game suck, and the worst for that was the previously unmentioned freebie DLC on Korfu. Elysium had "wings of Hermes", the name of which had me pumped for the idea that we would be allowed to fly, but they're really just teleport pads with fancy names that let you skip climbing. Hades has some lame barrier system where you have to gather armor pieces before you can fully explore. Atlantis has another barrier system that works slightly differently. Korfu commits the to me cardinal sin of not just taking your abilities away for a short while, but keeping them away for most of the expansion. Absolutely loathe that in every game that does it and this was no exception. It was like the game wanted to give me one final fuck you after several dozen hours of mediocre DLC content.

Special mention also has to go to how they ruined the sense of progression in this game by making everything scale to your level. As early as level 35 or so, the game scales the entire world up and continues to do so. This resulted in my character not feeling like she grew very much, as there were times when the enemies outpaced me and only took MORE damage the more I leveled and that just felt wrong. I really don't know why they thought max level 99 made sense, since doing literally everything left me at the frustrating final level of 91.

Very good game with some huge flaws that bring it down for me. I think this is the best world in AC so far, but the game and the changes they've made since Origins doesn't live up to it and Origins still beats this game as the overall experience. Now to wait like four more years to finally play on Valhalla, and that one will definitely be played on an SSD so that I can actually enjoy it and not spend half the time staring at loading screens.

What an amazing game. Don't listen to the haters, this game is as close to perfection as you can get from Ubisoft. And for those who moan about the modern day sci-fi storyline, you may not like it but some of us do, so get off your high horse and let us just enjoy it. This game has everything, action, stealth, mythology, history, Spartan kicking, even philosophical and ethical problems. Why so many reviews complain about the setting is beyond me, it's an amazing part of history, with such a fascinating cast and legendary historical figures. Also, don't choose Alexios, he is lame, Kassandra's character is ten times better, female protag ftw.