Assassin's Creed Odyssey features a pretty solid main character and one of the better Assassin's Creed stories that gets so bogged down an insane amount of sidequests, collectibles, a huge map, and just loads and loads of content that has become standard with Ubisoft titles.
You get the choice between a male and female character for the first time. I played as Kassandra for my playthrough and she was a pretty dope bad ass throughout the game. Her story and family drama becoming the crux to most of the story of AC: Odyssey, the game does a solid job of positioning the story around a fairly intriguing conflict while doing the standard AC thing of introducing famous historical figures to fit and weave into the main plot points.
The main side quest in the game, the Cult of the Kosmos, is also pretty good. Having the ability to accidentally uncover these cult members by running into them and killing them inadvertently is also a nice touch that makes the game feel a bit more lived in and organic.
The game also does a good job of introducing a bit of the Greek Mythology to the game in some of the side quests without going too overboard with it. It does take some time (like most things) to really get to the bottom of the side quests to uncover these events though so for a while.
Overall though, this game is just too much and really bogs down the good stuff.
There are just so many quests to do and areas to explore. I put over 90 hours into AC: Odyssey and I still have areas that went unexplored and side quests that I completely ignored. So many caves and outposts and other nonsense to explore that, at times, to do the cool stuff like the Cult of the Kosmos side stuff, you have to go through and explore in order to get farther into those quests.
Because there are soooo many characters attached to sooo many random side quests, it bogs everything down when you do get the occaisonal returning character from earlier on in the game.
For instance, there's a big reveal when you finally finish the Cult side stuff, the only problem is that the big reveal didn't really hit for me because I couldn't remember who the person was since I hadn't seen them in nearly 80 hours and sifted through so many others in that timespan.
It's just way too much and makes a game that could've been a really delightful entry into the AC series if it were under 40 hours and makes it a chore to even attempt to beat.
The modern stuff returns once again as well and for the most part feels once again tacked on and fairly unnecessary. It's hard to say though if there is stuff from the modern timeline that I'm missing since I didn't complete all the quests in the game and maybe if you hit the 100+ hour mark there's more, who knows. It's not worth finding out though.
Overall, AC: Odyssey is a bit of a disappointment more than anything because buried deep under a ton of unnecessary gameplay additions, there is a good game with a good story and good protagonist.
The game would even have replay value since there are decisions you can make throughout that do actually effect future events. If the game were a lot shorter, exploring these other options might be worth it, especially since there is a New Game+ mode you can play after beating the main story. In a game that's packed to the brim with other nonsense though, it's really tough to find the motivation to replay it and see what changes I could make.
You get the choice between a male and female character for the first time. I played as Kassandra for my playthrough and she was a pretty dope bad ass throughout the game. Her story and family drama becoming the crux to most of the story of AC: Odyssey, the game does a solid job of positioning the story around a fairly intriguing conflict while doing the standard AC thing of introducing famous historical figures to fit and weave into the main plot points.
The main side quest in the game, the Cult of the Kosmos, is also pretty good. Having the ability to accidentally uncover these cult members by running into them and killing them inadvertently is also a nice touch that makes the game feel a bit more lived in and organic.
The game also does a good job of introducing a bit of the Greek Mythology to the game in some of the side quests without going too overboard with it. It does take some time (like most things) to really get to the bottom of the side quests to uncover these events though so for a while.
Overall though, this game is just too much and really bogs down the good stuff.
There are just so many quests to do and areas to explore. I put over 90 hours into AC: Odyssey and I still have areas that went unexplored and side quests that I completely ignored. So many caves and outposts and other nonsense to explore that, at times, to do the cool stuff like the Cult of the Kosmos side stuff, you have to go through and explore in order to get farther into those quests.
Because there are soooo many characters attached to sooo many random side quests, it bogs everything down when you do get the occaisonal returning character from earlier on in the game.
For instance, there's a big reveal when you finally finish the Cult side stuff, the only problem is that the big reveal didn't really hit for me because I couldn't remember who the person was since I hadn't seen them in nearly 80 hours and sifted through so many others in that timespan.
It's just way too much and makes a game that could've been a really delightful entry into the AC series if it were under 40 hours and makes it a chore to even attempt to beat.
The modern stuff returns once again as well and for the most part feels once again tacked on and fairly unnecessary. It's hard to say though if there is stuff from the modern timeline that I'm missing since I didn't complete all the quests in the game and maybe if you hit the 100+ hour mark there's more, who knows. It's not worth finding out though.
Overall, AC: Odyssey is a bit of a disappointment more than anything because buried deep under a ton of unnecessary gameplay additions, there is a good game with a good story and good protagonist.
The game would even have replay value since there are decisions you can make throughout that do actually effect future events. If the game were a lot shorter, exploring these other options might be worth it, especially since there is a New Game+ mode you can play after beating the main story. In a game that's packed to the brim with other nonsense though, it's really tough to find the motivation to replay it and see what changes I could make.