Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Review: Big, Beautiful and Too Ambitious
Our Verdict
Assassin'south Creed Odyssey has everything it needs to be bigger and ameliorate than Origins. Simply in practice, information technology'south generally just bigger.
For
- Varied, fun gameplay
- Lots of famous historical characters
- Narrative choices and customization
Against
- Disjointed story
- Some underdeveloped mechanics
- Potentially game-breaking bugs
Tom's Guide Verdict
Assassin'due south Creed Odyssey has everything it needs to exist bigger and better than Origins. Simply in practice, information technology'due south mostly just bigger.
Pros
- +
Varied, fun gameplay
- +
Lots of famous historical characters
- +
Narrative choices and customization
Cons
- -
Disjointed story
- -
Some underdeveloped mechanics
- -
Potentially game-breaking bugs
Afterwards a few unambitious entries, Assassinator's Creed Origins revamped the franchise'southward combat, stripped out a lot of excess features and returned to the complimentary-grade feeling of earlier games. The title earned accolades from fans and critics alike. But Origins raised a question: Would Ubisoft continue to innovate and refine, or would Origins only be the new template going forward?
If Assassin's Creed Odyssey is whatever indication, the answer is "a piffling bit of both."
Odyssey winds the clock dorsum to 431 B.C.East. and casts players equally a Spartan mercenary during the tumultuous Peloponnesian State of war. Exploring the enormous ancient Greek globe is a delight. Fighting feels tighter and more challenging than before. Naval combat makes a triumphant return.
In theory, Odyssey has everything it needs to be bigger and improve than its predecessor — but in practice, information technology's mostly just bigger. The new gameplay systems feel underdeveloped, while the disjointed story makes exploration a more than haphazard thing. Tweaking the game's residuum also played havoc with this title's difficulty curve. While there'south nothing wrong with Odyssey'due south moment-to-moment gameplay, a lot of it just doesn't flow or delight in the aforementioned way that Origins did.
To exist fair, there'south nonetheless a neat core game underneath the padding. But like Odysseus journeying for x years before reaching his beloved Ithaca, finding this promised land can sometimes be difficult.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey review: Fight in the shade
Correct off the bat, Assassin'southward Creed Odyssey tries something new by giving players a selection of chief character: Alexios or Kassandra. (I picked Alexios, so I'll reference him throughout the piece.) The protagonists are identical from a gameplay standpoint, and nearly and then from a story standpoint, so the pick generally comes down to whether you want to play as a man or a woman. It'southward not like Syndicate, where you could switch between Jacob and Evie at volition; once you've made your option, that'south information technology.
In fact, just about everything in the game has an chemical element of choice. Like its predecessors, Assassin'southward Creed Odyssey is a stealth/action game with iii primary gameplay pillars: combat, stealth and exploration. Just about everything you do in-game — from defeating enemies, to exploring new enemies, to completing quests — gives you experience points.
As y'all level up, y'all tin invest these points in ranged combat, melee combat and stealth abilities. Considering yous can mix and match any of the three skill trees, the way you play is really up to y'all. Equally you go, you lot'll also amass an Athenian treasury's worth of weapons and armor, which change your character'south appearance and functioning.
That's a skillful affair, considering the gameplay is solid and offers a lot of valid approaches. Playing stealthily is as like shooting fish in a barrel as crouching down and finding cover, but you tin buy new skills that increase your assassination harm, reduce the corporeality of dissonance you brand and cover your weapons in poison.
Sneaking your way through an entire base of operations, taking out enemies one by 1 before leaping off a zip line to assassinate the polemarch in 1 brutal dive is just as satisfying as it sounds. (For the tape, your Assassin wields the legendary, upgradeable Spear of Leonidas rather than a hidden blade this time effectually, but the mechanics are most identical.)
Open gainsay is like to what we saw in Origins: fast-paced, chaotic battles where locking onto enemies and timing your combos correctly are vital for victory. In that location are two major changes, though, and both of them assistance make gainsay feel much more dynamic. First off, you no longer become a shield, which is fine; assassins should be lithe and evasive, not like regular soldiers.
The second change is that y'all now have a variety of active, special abilities at your disposal. As you build upwardly a yellow meter beneath your health, y'all can suspension enemies' shields, set your weapons on fire, instantaneously recover your health or (this is my personal favorite) Spartan-boot people, Leonidas style, over the nearest cliff or ship railing. You can build your meter only by attacking, so the abiding push and pull between staying alive and dishing out damage keeps battles interesting.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey review: Upping the difficulty
The trouble with Odyssey's combat, though, is that no affair how far you go far the game, it always feels a picayune aforementioned-y. That'due south because dissimilar in Origins, the entire world levels upwardly along with you. If you explore a new area, meticulously undertake every side quest, fine-tune your abilities and equip yourself with the very best gear you lot tin find, you'll find your quest to be, at best, only slightly easier than if yous had only rushed in headfirst.
Furthermore, enemies near your level can often withstand fifty-fifty the most devastating assassination attempt. There are always going to be numerical abstractions in games with RPG mechanics. But something just feels incorrect about stalking an enemy for minutes, finding the perfect isolated spot, sneaking upward behind him or her, using your almost powerful assassination skill to stick a spear clear through his chest — and so having your foe turn around, with one-half of his or her wellness nonetheless intact and gear up to fight. Y'all simply tin't get through this game without a fair amount of open combat.
Like the level-scaling, other additions in Odyssey take questionable effects on gameplay. Every bit you lot impale enemies, you'll attract the attending of procedurally generated mercenaries, who will hound you lot across the Greek world. You lot can even rail their locations in a carte du jour and get gameplay rewards equally yous defeat them.
It's a piddling similar the Nemesis system in Eye-earth: Shadow of Mordor, just non nearly every bit satisfying. For i thing, the mercenaries don't have any unique dialogue or abilities; they accept different weapons and names, and that's about information technology. Furthermore, they reset over fourth dimension, so at that place'south no way to rails which ones you've killed and which ones are coming to get you. Information technology'southward impossible to feel a connection with any of them.
Reducing the bounty on your head is tiresome, but if y'all don't do it, you lot could find mercenaries attacking you in the middle of a boss fight. The first time this happens, it's exhilarating; the 20th time, it'south exhausting.
Likewise, Conquest Battles are a new mechanic. As the Peloponnesian War rages on, Athens and Sparta compete for every territory in Greece. By called-for supplies, assassinating political leaders and killing soldiers, yous can spark a Conquest Battle. Here, Alexios tin side with either the defending nation (easier) or the attacking nation (harder) in a huge, open battle to determine who controls a given territory.
The problems here are twofold. First, the rewards are meager: a few pieces of epic equipment, which are also like shooting fish in a barrel enough to come past through regular quests.
Second, it'due south hypocritical, given the nature of the story. Alexios rightly decries the villains, who play both sides and want to prolong the war indefinitely for their ain ends. Off-white plenty — that's a valid criticism. Merely then he turns around and pits both sides against each other over and over, basically just to earn a shiny new sword. Yeah, he'due south a mercenary, but this particular chip of greed seems hard to justify. (Plus, it gets repetitive subsequently a while.)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey review: On the loftier seas
I area where the game excels is exploration. Odyssey'southward Hellenic republic is huge, from mainland locations like Laconia and Attica, all the way out to remote islands like Mykonos and Lesbos. In fact, the overworld in Assassin'southward Creed Odyssey positively dwarfs the 1 in Assassin's Creed Origins, particularly once you accept bounding main travel into account.
This isn't entirely a skilful affair, though. Because the globe is so enormous, it's not always clear which surface area you need to explore side by side or how you should become there. Likewise, because of the game's level-scaling, at that place'south no sense of urgency or progression equally you explore. Your 2 choices are to get bogged downwards in every side activity you meet or zippo your way through the master plot. The erstwhile means you'll spend hours and hours doing nothing to accelerate the story, while the latter ways you'll miss out on a lot of interesting content.
At least you lot go your ain transport, the Adrestia, to travel among the Greek islands. Naval combat doesn't play as central a role in Odyssey as it did back in Assassin'southward Creed IV, merely it'due south nevertheless a ton of fun. You can fire arrows, hurl javelins and ram enemy ships, and every bit you upgrade your vessel, you can light things on fire. A naval combat mission every few hours helps liven things up, and the upgrades are simply hard plenty to earn that they feel worthwhile.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey review: Greek drama
The yr is 431 B.C.Due east., and Athens and Sparta are virtually to come to blows for control of the ancient world. That means that you, as a misthios, have an opportunity to break gratis from your humdrum life on Cephalonia and brand some money on the mainland.
But your past — as the son or daughter of a prominent Spartan house — comes back to haunt you lot. Your weapon of choice, the enchanted Spear of Leonidas, has ties to a mysterious Kickoff Civilisation, a people who walked the Earth like gods, and it's time to discover how your family history, the Peloponnesian War and the Starting time Civilisation all fit together.
If you recollect that sounds similar a lot of ground to cover for a single Assassin's Creed game, and then you're not wrong. Early on in the game, you'll discover three discrete narratives: a family story, a political story and a First Civilization story.
These story lines intersect occasionally, only information technology's more accurate to say that they compete. Each 1 demands Alexios' attention, and it'southward usually unclear which narrative is supposed to take precedence. Is it more than pressing to aid rebels on Mykonos or investigate your lineage? Should you upgrade the Spear of Leonidas and reveal its mysteries or chase down ancient artifacts that could reveal a hidden undercover of the Ancient Earth?
Assassin's Creed Odyssey seems to call up that you'll get around to all of this somewhen — and maybe it's right — but subsequently 36 hours with the game, I'one thousand notwithstanding not sure which is the "main" plot and which narratives simply accelerate Alexios' personal story.
And the story will become very personal, because in a series-kickoff, you can at present choose your ain dialogue responses during cutscenes. This can assistance shape your character or have major impacts on the story, including who lives and who dies. You lot can cull different quest rewards or romance a scattering of potential partners. Information technology'due south not as deep equally a full-fledged RPG, just the customizability is a nice bear on.
At that place's one more tangle in the plot knot. At a certain point in the game, you lot'll encounter a mortiferous cult and set out on a long-term quest to electrocute the group's fundamental members. That's fine; that's how Assassin'south Creed games normally work. But this time around, you tin't just advance the story and wait for the cultists to reveal themselves. Instead, you lot have to hunt down minor cultists, all effectually the earth, finding clues about their masters.
In theory, this provides an organic style for you to find out the game's secrets for yourself, rather than have them handed to you. But in practice, information technology's confusing, disjointed and tedious. Rather than a dozen or and then targets, yous'll at present have more than 40, and very few of them get any kind of personality beyond basic, broad strokes. Information technology boils down to a lot of fast traveling around the world, killing someone, finding a clue and repeating the process.
And it doesn't always work equally intended. I was standing effectually, minding my own business in Athens, and I happened to be standing adjacent to one of the most powerful cultists in the game. She attacked me without provocation, and I defeated her — before I'd uncovered any of her servants. And the quest withal fabricated me hunt downwardly all of her subordinates before I could turn it in.
On the brilliant side, though, Ubisoft crammed but well-nigh every notable Greek figure who was alive during this time into the game. Yous'll cross paths with Socrates, Thrasymachus, Alcibiades, Pericles, Aspasia, Cleon, Demosthenes, Anaxagoras, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Brasidas and more than. Encountering real-life historical figures is i of the joys of Assassin'southward Creed, and there are plenty of these individuals here.
Assassinator's Creed Odyssey review: Aegean aesthetics
Like Origins, Assassin's Creed Odyssey looks and sounds great — every bit long every bit information technology's running properly. I reviewed the game on a regular PS4 on a 1080p TV and loved exploring the lush Greek mountainsides and wine-dark seas. The terrain this time around is very hilly, and in that location'due south a lot of wilderness (like in Assassinator's Creed 3), which sometimes makes platforming difficult. But the trade-off is that we become a varied landscape with a lot more than greens, blues and reds than last time around.
The music is besides up to par, with enough of bouzouki and chimes. (A lot of the soundtrack has a distinct Age of Empires feel to information technology, which is always a plus in my book.) Vox acting for Alexios and Kassandra comes courtesy of Michael Antonakos (Warcraft) and Melissanthi Mahut (In Transit), who both infuse their characters with intensity, drama and just the right amount of wry humor. (Bonus points: Both are actually from Hellenic republic.)
My only issue with the game's production values is in its performance. The game has long load times and can lag tremendously, particularly in big cities like Athens. It's not uncommon for your character (or your send) to freeze for up to 10 seconds at a time, then motility a bit, so freeze again until the system finishes rendering the expanse.
The game froze up on me completely at least once; another time, I encountered a game-breaking problems in a vital plot mission, considering I had missed an encounter with an of import grapheme. If I'd lacked a save to reload, I would take been out of luck; in that location is no easy way to restart missions in progress.
Assassinator'south Creed Odyssey review: Verdict
I like Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and I appreciate that all of its shortcomings came from a place of ambition. The serial has never had a bigger, more detailed, more customizable game. But its size can feel daunting, its plot tin feel disruptive, and its open up-endedness tin can experience aimless. What Odyssey has gained in scope, it'due south lost in focus.
Still, there'southward no denying that there is a meaty, well-made game at the center of all this, complete with only almost everything that fans accept loved most previous entries. Stealth, exploration, fifty-fifty naval combat — it's all here, and it's all more refined than before.
I don't know if Assassin'due south Creed Odyssey will last throughout the ages, similar a Homeric verse form. But I do know that it'south a pleasant companion for a lazy weeknight, like a moderately priced canteen of Greek vino. If you've already played Origins and its DLC, this is your side by side logical terminate. Στην υγειά σας!
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/assassins-creed-odyssey,review-5794.html
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