Recently decided to replay this game. Back in 2017 I remembered enjoying the first several hours of the game but overtime could not find myself to enjoy it. Fast forward almost 6 years later and I decided to give the only mainline AC game that wasn't memorable to me a second chance.
I can officially say after a second full playthrough that I now love this game!
So there are a few things I should note that have more than likely made a difference in my appreciation second time around:
- Performance: Back when the game originally dropped it did suffer from performance issues for some people on multiple platforms and it was not smooth traversing through Egypt. Thankfully that is no longer the case and I was able to enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played!
- Side quest: So this for me is probably the biggest flaw of Ubisoft's first crack at RPG's for the franchise. There are many side quest throughout the very large map of Egypt and way too many of them are boring and repetitive fetch quest. If you're like me and your brain struggles to not wanna do everything you see on the map, then you may understand how disappointing that might be. Another problem with this is the game purposefully forces you to do side quest to progress in the main story as a high enough level!
That feature wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the side quest being so lackluster. So on my second playthrough (using new game plus file), I exclusively did only dlc side content as I never purchased the dlc originally when playing the game
- DLC: Now for the content that was completely new to me post the main game. I can see why Origins dlc gets all the praise that it does. Both dlc's are pretty solid for AC dlc's. The Hidden One's being my personal favorite was amazing and a beautiful conclusion to the story. Curse of the Pharaoh's on the other hand is more of a "what if" scenario and is pretty interesting with many new beautiful landscapes to visit!
Both dlc's add some really dope armor as well and it was well worth the purchase for me
Conclusion: Bayek has easily become one of my favorite Assassin's in the series after a second playthrough and I can say giving games a second chance years later can definitely be a pleasant surprise
I can officially say after a second full playthrough that I now love this game!
So there are a few things I should note that have more than likely made a difference in my appreciation second time around:
- Performance: Back when the game originally dropped it did suffer from performance issues for some people on multiple platforms and it was not smooth traversing through Egypt. Thankfully that is no longer the case and I was able to enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played!
- Side quest: So this for me is probably the biggest flaw of Ubisoft's first crack at RPG's for the franchise. There are many side quest throughout the very large map of Egypt and way too many of them are boring and repetitive fetch quest. If you're like me and your brain struggles to not wanna do everything you see on the map, then you may understand how disappointing that might be. Another problem with this is the game purposefully forces you to do side quest to progress in the main story as a high enough level!
That feature wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the side quest being so lackluster. So on my second playthrough (using new game plus file), I exclusively did only dlc side content as I never purchased the dlc originally when playing the game
- DLC: Now for the content that was completely new to me post the main game. I can see why Origins dlc gets all the praise that it does. Both dlc's are pretty solid for AC dlc's. The Hidden One's being my personal favorite was amazing and a beautiful conclusion to the story. Curse of the Pharaoh's on the other hand is more of a "what if" scenario and is pretty interesting with many new beautiful landscapes to visit!
Both dlc's add some really dope armor as well and it was well worth the purchase for me
Conclusion: Bayek has easily become one of my favorite Assassin's in the series after a second playthrough and I can say giving games a second chance years later can definitely be a pleasant surprise