For me, the core of the AC experience has always boiled down to: exploration of beautifully recreated historical locations, and pulling off satisfying one shot assassinations on pretty much any enemy. Odyssey fails in both of these areas due to unnecessary RPG mechanics shoved into a game that is in no way an RPG.

The level gating completely kills this game for me. It ruins exploration by effectively roping off large chunks of the game until you've reached a high enough level (unless of course you enjoy getting fucking annihilated by hoards of enemies every 5 mins), forcing you to waste time grinding low level combat encounters. And, the greatest of all sins, it prevents you from performing an assassination on a target that is higher level than you. This kind of design in an AC game is just baffling to me. Everything else about this game is great but as a long-time AC fan, these issues are complete deal breakers for me. Idk if I'll ever actually beat this one. Damn shame.