Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - First Reviews

Henriquejr spotted some reviews for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey:

IGN - 9.2/10

PC Gamer - 90/100

Gamespot - 8/10


Eurogamer:

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Throughout all of this, and because of all this, I was wary Odyssey would begin to feel bloated, but despite its length that's not a word I'd use. It's vast, there's no getting around that, but optional goat-hunting bounties aside the majority of your time with Odyssey is well respected. You're always a few hundred XP off a new level and new skill, or a mission away from completing an island's questline, or one Cultist kill behind upgrading your spear. Tonight I may finally track down a First Civilisation monster, or unlock another map region just to see what lies over the horizon. Odyssey is an enormous game - certainly one of the biggest, if not the biggest game Ubisoft has ever made. It's an astonishing creation, extraordinarily generous and solidly crafted, and like its namesake is something that will live long in the telling.

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Rock Paper Shotgun:

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But, if you’ve built a sufficiently nice world for me to run around in, I like just running around in it. There’s a lot of busy work, an eagle, and stabbing people brutally through the throat. Sometimes when you jump off a high thing you land in a load of hay. So, so far, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a very good Assassin’s Creed game. Which is what we were all expecting, wasn’t it? Except this one lets me ignore all that and roleplay as a big buff Greek neighbourhood hero. I’m alright with that.

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More information.

This one didn't come flying in out of left field for me - it jumped up out of a crack in the field leading down to Ubisoft Hell!

I had heard something about it, of course, but I figured it was just going to be yet another Assassin's Creed game only this time they would drop in a few RPG elements and call it a role playing game. Instead, it sounds like they made a big role playing game then dropped in a few Assassin's Creed elements!

Throughout all of this, and because of all this, I was wary Odyssey would begin to feel bloated, but despite its length that's not a word I'd use.

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!? But... you just did use that word?

If you like grindfests, you'll be over the moon. Don't expect to burn through the content after you reach around level 16ish unless your gear is up to snuff. Microtransactions are there for a reason…

Or the grind is there for a reason. I very much dislike this kind of "monetization." Keep it out of the actual game, please, and don't push your grind on me to sell your loot boxes.

fatknacker50 said:

If you like grindfests, you'll be over the moon. Don't expect to burn through the content after you reach around level 16ish unless your gear is up to snuff. Microtransactions are there for a reason…

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Just cheat. Just use cheats. Or a trainer.
I don't understand why people feel the need to pay money to somehow justify their cheating. Just freaking cheat. There's no shame in it if it makes the game more enjoyable for you!

Morbus said:

Just cheat. Just use cheats. Or a trainer.
I don't understand why people feel the need to pay money to somehow justify their cheating. Just freaking cheat. There's no shame in it if it makes the game more enjoyable for you!

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That's an interesting point, I've definitely cheated in a number of grindy or roguelite games, where the numbers held me back instead of my understanding of the mechanics. I'm not going to waste hours of my time "doing a job" in the middle of my game, I'm there to see the sights and move on, because that's what I get out of games, touring around and poking around in someone's imaginary world, not working as a landscaper in Narnia.

In line with a few previous comments, if you buy a game you can play it any way you please. Cheat away all you like, it's your game and game experience. I've done it in games if I'm chronically short of money or ammo. I'll find the cheat codes or how to use console commands. Who cares?
A game is a product, same as a car or anything else. Modify, alter, customize, or hack it any way you want.

It's a bummer, though, if they've designed the game with a grind to incentivise people to pay for microtransaction cheats, and then add complex anti-tamper DRM to try and prevent cheating by other methods.

Yeah, I guess I'm making an assumption there...but, hey, it's Ubisoft.

Although, anyone who's played other AC games knows the series is no stranger to the grind. Even then, though, it wasn't a real grind ...like you had to level to play the game. It's never been a difficult series. The AC grind is a different kind of mind-numbing repetition. It's not really required, just boring.

I think it's a pretty safe assumption that if a company wants to sell microtransactions, they will influence the game to "encourage" those sales. That's I why I always think the argument that they're not problem if you can choose not to purchase them is missing the point.

I'd really like to hear some watchers' impressions.

Grind fest and loot boxes? What kind of world are some people living in? I just don't understand it, but I guess to each their own.

I only play games that I enjoy, and a game I keep playing is never a grind fest or else I'd stop playing it. If completing quests and other goals in a game is a grind fest, why on earth play it?

There are games which I found were grind fests to me, sometimes after playing quite a while or sometimes early on, but I just stopped playing them, and I certainly wouldn't want to spend any more money (not to mention time) in trying to play it further.

Or if an otherwise enjoyable game is so tough that someone just can't progress, then loot boxes are an option for some games but I have never encountered a game like that. I understand backlash against the existence of loot boxes, but that's in my view not related to whether or not the game is enjoyable.

Morrandir said:

I'd really like to hear some watchers' impressions.

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Grind? Rocks and olive branches respawn, feel free to clear every island of them - if you can. Same goes for wildlife. But who on earth would go grind those? Dark Souls audience I guess…

I don't do that. Just as in Odyssey, all you need is received by solving sidequests/sideobjectives. Proper sidequests, not copypasted Bethesda's radiant idiocy. The randomly generated rubbish is best to avoid unless you want some achievement. In such case solve a few, but you'll gain practically nothing of importance that way.

Microtransactions? There is zero reason to spend a dime on that scam. At least I see no reason at all. The game provides everything you need.

I'm 34 hours in. As suggested above, I'm not rushing through but doing all possible sidequests. Instead of banging my head agaist a wall by offing respawned whatnot in the same area for hours. Once any "site" is cleared I move forward and never return.
AC Odyssey is not Dark Souls. One can play it like it is. But I will never do that. And it's fun.

Ripper said:

I think it's a pretty safe assumption that if a company wants to sell microtransactions, they will influence the game to "encourage" those sales. That's I why I always think the argument that they're not problem if you can choose not to purchase them is missing the point.

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I am not too far in Odyssey yet but I will comment on AC Origins which had the same/similar microtransactions setup as Odyssey. At no point, I felt I needed to use microtransactions at all. In fact I was pretty oblivious to them. Think of it another way, take Skyrim and say skyrim also had microtransactions similar to this. Do you think you will need to use them?

Morrandir said:

I'd really like to hear some watchers' impressions.

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Very early impressions, it looks amazing! I been to Cephalonia couple of years ago and its also the starting island for the game so it was fun to discover all the famous landmarks like Myrtos Beach and Melissani Cave. Some side quest takes you to these locations. They have done an excellent job in the regards.

Combat is "action" meaning you have to parry, dodge and timing all maters. I really like this sort of combat as I find it more involving and fun. Its also a "proper" RPG in that your gear matters, get better weapons or upgrades them and you will see the results immediately. The talent tree is large and have meaningful choices but I guess at very high level you can have all the talent but I don't know.

The quality of side quest have definitely gone up. The game is giving the illusion of choices and consequences and there are multiple ways to solve quest. However, I don't know how this will play out in later game. There seems be role play opportunity as well as you can be good, evil, don't care type of responses to quest. These seems to be tied into the "consequences " bit but I am early game. These are not elaborate as the Witcher 3 but they are still very interesting.

I am playing the game in "explorer" mode where all the POI and stuff are turned off so I don't feel overwhelmed with the stuff and just random exploration. There are so many hidden places to discover and loot as well.

The game is CPU bound. I have an i5 4670K and its 100% on all 4 cores for most of the time. Worse is towns with large NPCs. I have 1080Ti but it never get pushed beyond 95% usage so I am bottleneck by CPU. Note that I am playing with all setting maxed at 3440 x 1440 and I average about 60/65 FPS so its still impressive.

Edit: To add the soundtrack is also amazing!

lostforever said:

The quality of side quest have definitely gone up. The game is giving the illusion of choices and consequences and there are multiple ways to solve quest. However, I don't know how this will play out in later game. There seems be role play opportunity as well as you can be good, evil, don't care type of responses to quest. These seems to be tied into the "consequences " bit but I am early game. These are not elaborate as the Witcher 3 but they are still very interesting.

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Won't give out any spoiler but taking the moral option won't always have the best outcome later. I'm talking about sidequests ofc. Some change the world.

One thing though. When you see a heart in front of a line, pick that one! Those just cannot fail.

lostforever said:

I am not too far in Odyssey yet but I will comment on AC Origins which had the same/similar microtransactions setup as Odyssey. At no point, I felt I needed to use microtransactions at all. In fact I was pretty oblivious to them. Think of it another way, take Skyrim and say skyrim also had microtransactions similar to this. Do you think you will need to use them?

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I don't really see what Skyrim has to do with my point - it didn't have microtransactions, so it's fairly safe to say they didn't influence the game design.

I think that when they are present, there's a good chance they do affect the design considerations. Certainly some of the reviews of this game suggest the grind does become tedious, and the fact that the level of grind is acceptable to you doesn't necessarily tell us that the influence doesn't exist.

About repetition, pwning a fortified location with 20ish opponents can become tedious after you complete 4-5 of those. But if you concentrate on major location points (killing a captain, looting a chest, releasing a prisoner, etc) and ignore irrelevant trashmobs, it's not a chore any more.

Microtransactions cannot help you, equipment you get by playing the game is on par and sometimes better than those sold in the store.
If you mean XP and item boosters, I'm swimming in both without those. Why? I'm not rushing the main story.
I guess those microtransactions are there to milk fastrunners.

In case I'm not clear, any game needs panning because of microtransactions, that applies to this one too. But unlike other games that have those bundled, this one isn't trying to abuse your potential gambling addiction.
So, I guess -1 or -2 to the overall score should do the trick of showing middlefinger to Ubisoft.

Ripper said:

I don't really see what Skyrim has to do with my point - it didn't have microtransactions, so it's fairly safe to say they didn't influence the game design.

I think that when they are present, there's a good chance they do affect the design considerations. Certainly some of the reviews of this game suggest the grind does become tedious, and the fact that the level of grind is acceptable to you doesn't necessarily tell us that the influence doesn't exist.

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Yes I too agree whether game is grind or not depends on the player. The reason why I talk about Skyrim is have common point of view for the people who have have not played AC Origins (hence Odyssey). If you find Skyrim a grind then the chances are you will also find this game grind as well and vice versa.

Yeah, and I'm quite prepared to accept that they aren't necessary, and that the grind may not be all that bad. But, I do consider the inclusion of microtransactions to have an insidious effect on gaming, as time goes on. I think it's a bit like the slowly boiling frog effect, and I don't like to encourage them by buying the games that tout them. Which is a bummer, because I quite like the look of this one. I'll probably compromise, and buy it when it's cheap.