Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Part 1)
Promotions
Release: The idea behind Assassin's Creed: Odyssey was leaked from a picture of a Spartan Helmet key-ring back in May 31, 2018. More information was released during E3 with the empowering trailer on June 11, 2018. Of course if you decided to choose Kassandra instead of Alexios, you might be more interested in the cinematic trailer that was released 2 months later. Honestly, I think it is one of the weaker Assassin Creed trailers compared to all the other ones. Though the game released on October 2, 2018 (unless you fit into their weird pre-release schedule), they didn't hesitate in posting a little video ahead of time for all the plans they had for the game. Not only did it cover the two DLC packages for Season Pass owners, but additional content and online challenges for the rest of us. This would continue for roughly a year until July 11, 2019 in Patch 1.4.0. Of course, that didn't stop them from patching in the new Assassin's Creed: Valhalla gear (and a couple other things) in Patch 1.5 just a couple months ago.
Editions: Boy, look at all those choices on Steam. There were a couple times they let people play for free, but they had a massive sale (75% off the game) when launching Ubisoft Forward. But then we also have editions with figurines with all kinds of specs: Alexios hopping off a pillar in Spartan Edition, Alexios hopping off a pillar with a cult member nearby in Pantheon Edition, or 3 figurines with Kassandra kneeling on a pillar, Alexios hopping off a shield, and Alexios hopping off a Medusa head statue in Medusa Edition. Certainly a lot of figurines hopping off stuff. There's also the one with a bigger Medusa head in the Legendary Alexios Edition or the cute Kassandra Edition at Gamestop.
Controversy: Poor Ubisoft just can't catch a break, can they? After the problems with Assassin's Creed: Unity excluding the chance of choosing a woman as an assassin, it comes out that they vetoed Kassandra as the main character. Their hypocritical view of Women Don't Sell and CEO resignations over sexual allegations doesn't really shine a good light on the company. I guess it gets pretty bad when micro-transactions and things that are just there that make the game a chore to play dominate their once beloved franchise. Though they did go back and actually changed the numbers in multiple patches to a more bearable level, they still will not be able to go back on reviews covering their massive cash grabs.
Settings
Setup: The first thing I had to do was rearrange the controls to something I eerily did in Assassin's Creed: Origins. However, there were a few other things I had to tack on for this game. "Soft-Locking" onto my target would be wrapped into the left trigger. While holding that button, pressing the right trigger will initiate a parry. This is important since you can parry incoming arrows. Pressing the right bumper would bring up the secondary weapon wheel. Changing the difficulty settings really didn't matter. Your choices were either to have enemies your level and above or a couple levels below you. Turning off Blood FX is a must! I also had to make sure subtitles were set properly. The game does automatically save anytime you travel or enter/exit a location. There are a total of 20 manual saves if you ever feel the need of backtracking a certain choice in the game or want to re-live a time when you were a weakling.
Technical Problems: I didn't really have a hard time getting the game going once I downloaded all 105 GB. The game still takes way too long to load but not enough to quit playing. I also miss being able to roam around whenever a loading screen came up. At least they stated that it will return for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Everything looked and felt smooth - animation, combat, interactions, movement, background, ships, oceanic waves, and animal movements. I would have liked it if they toned down the sound in some areas - wolf howling, bear growling, and ship yelling. Rarely did my computer crash or had the occasional sound get stuck in the background. It did get tough to see things during the night, especially underwater, but I figured that was on purpose. Despite all the patch fixes, I still got the occasional hiccup. The computer did have issues when running through Athens, but not as much as going through "Fog City" at Aipeia. Every now and then a Revelation wouldn't prompt an investigation magnifying glass, especially when conversing with humans. The controller vibration was out-of-control when using a fully charged bow. I also hate the fact that some resources spawn underground or behind objects you can't reach. Catching yourself on fire by your own torch while trying to move objects was a pain too.
However, the most notorious issue I had was that dialogue would randomly cut out during a conversation. People would still move around, but their lips, subtitles, and voice would suddenly shut off. I'm not the only one experiencing this. I tried a few different things and searched the Internet for answers, but nothing solved it. Some speculate that it's just a glitch in the game that formed after Patch 1.3.0 and is still there today. I also think the "triggers" for spontaneous chatter is pretty broken. There were several times my characters shouted out to each other at sea or when the protagonist mentions something about a place after repeated visits. One time Barnabas said like 6 different lines, one after another, about all sorts of events the moment I commanded my boat instead of "flying" across multiple sync points.
Add-ons & DLC
Road Plan: It gets a little confusing when comparing what was in the "original game" and what was added-on. Ubisoft did post their roadmap for all to see. But if you go digging into their patch archive, you'll see that they did a ton of stuff to tweak the game. Patch 1.0.3 listed out a ton of fixes all over the place. Patch 1.0.7 increased the level from 50 to 70 (which was increased again to 99 in Patch 1.1.4) and made it possible to change your appearance to any previously collected item. Patch 1.1.0 added the chance to use your extra ability points into a Mastery Level System that modifies a specific category or ability. Patch 1.1.2 added Hephaistos's Workshop to improve your engravings for a fee and Steropes evil brother, the Arges. Of course in between "6 episodes" of both DLC packages, we got the wonderful quests to mix things up for us.
The Lost Tales of Greece: Speaking of which, there are 12 episodes of these quests. They run about an hour each on average. They encompass nearly every aspect of what I call are "good" quests - remembrance on details, split branch trees, multiple choices with interesting consequences, and a little bit of humor too. A couple of highlights was "A Horse, Of Course" how a woman thought her Princess Purple Pie could turn into a Pegasus while jumping off a cliff and learning history through "Socrates Trial" like how he never mentioned that he was married.
Discovery Tour: Like before, Ubisoft decided to add the "Discovery Tour" to the game in Patch 1.5.0 on August 26, 2019. If you don't have the game, you can always buy it stand-alone for $20. Unlike Assassin's Creed: Origins tour of Ancient Egypt, Ubisoft goes above and beyond this time around. Though you have a Historical Filter in the main game that briefly explains what happened in almost every significant location, the Discovery Tour portion adds 30 Tours with a short introduction with an in-game character, a set number of stations, and a light-hearted quiz at the end. Then there are a large range of "Discovery Sites" outside the bounds of the tour that usually has additional information regarding the surrounding area or choices made behind-the-scenes for the game. You gradually unlock additional characters and horses to use. The white circles in which you can take over in an NPC role has also returned (but not utilized inside the tours).
It's abundantly clear that there were a lot of improvements over its predecessor. They definitely did a lot of research despite a few problems in presentation. Not only do you have a face-to-face chat with a character, but the camera also pans across several locations as you visit each station. The additional information is better organized and provides more of a variety of still photographs. According to the data collected, there is a total of 429 points of interest. I very much like the optional quizzes at the end of the tour. The character doesn't scold you for making the wrong choice and actually let's you know why you might have chosen that option over another. Some are pretty hilarious. Too bad it doesn't compare live footage of the sites. But I must say that I learned way more information than in the actual game. I like learning about the little details, like how there is a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. Being able to go into 1st person perspective with the Right Bumper can be handy too. My only issue is that some of the Discovery Sites take way too long to travel to, especially when it simply explains how a specific banner was inspired by a specific coin from that era. There is no reward in-game for completing the whole thing. There isn't exactly a glossary you can look at with all the technical words that don't get explained. There is no way to tell how long I spent visiting most of the sites since it doesn't record played time. If you account for the voice-overs, additional text, discovery sites, travel time, quizzes, occasional wandering, and nearby historical locations, it is totally possible to spend around 30 minutes per tour and a total of 30 hours overall. A speedy reader might be able to cut that time in half.
Legacy of the First Blade: The first DLC comes in 3 episodes that lasts about 12 hours by the end. I don't know what they were attempting to do here, but it doesn't quite fit with the rest of the game. Instead of taking you to a new area, the game fills out those large empty areas of the game that you never really had time to visit - Makedonia, Achaia, and Messania. In fact, the world is already setup for the story beforehand, as if they could have plopped the quests in with the core game. The developers obviously missed telling you stories about the assassins since the DLC will be dropping buzzwords like Magi, Order, Darius (who thinks he can suddenly disappear like Batman), bloodline, and tidbits of the creed. Each episode revolves around tracking down about 6 Persians from The Order with one primary leader - The Huntsman, The Tempest, and finally Amorges. Sadly, things get really bad when you are forced into a storyline regardless of your decision. It gets so bad that they force a romance and enough time to pass for a baby from Neema if you are playing as Alexios or Kassandra with Nakatas. Though, you do manage to get a flamethrower attached to your boat during the second episode - Chimera's Breath. Otherwise the long-winded and twisted perspective of your enemies will just have you asking, "Can I kill him now?" after every encounter. The DLC is definitely contained inside its own little bubble as nothing from the actual game, or the character that you build, matter in the end. Seeing how the free content was better than the DLC, you probably aren't going to miss much if you skip this segment.
Fate of Atlantis: After the previous disappointing DLC, there is no way they could redeem themselves... Holy Moly that's gorgeous! Ubisoft should give bonuses to whoever built this world because this clearly wasn't made by the same ones from the main game. As stated previously, this DLC was released in 3 episodes. Like Assassin's Creed: Origins Curse of the Pharaohs DLC, the content has you visiting the realms of the Greek gods - Elysium, Underworld, and Atlantis. Running at 8 hours each episode, you will be "enhancing" your abilities to unstoppable highs and obtain ability points while doing a series of tasks in each realm. As beautifully drawn each realm is, the story becomes incomprehensible. You will be forced to do quests between four factions in the first episode or suffer the consequences by their hand, watch helplessly as Hades makes a fool of you and those you try to help in the second episode, and immediately take the role as judge for Poseidon even though you have no idea how the city operates. Don't get me started on the inception of how you are becoming a god by watching someone become a god who takes orders from the primary gods who are really just Isu ("Those who came before") flaunting their superiority. I enjoyed the first couple hours exploring the sites, but I quickly grew bored. There were only so many caves and floors of stairs I could handle in one session. Other than the story points, the DLC was quite enjoyable.
Abilities
The New Trait Tree: The game has this knack of requiring certain abilities to be bare necessities to be on par with enemies. Until you get these abilities, things might be a bit rough for you leveling up. Other abilities are merely situational or fun at heart. Then there are abilities that just don't scale very well. Unlike Assassin's Creed: Origins, you can reset your abilities for a small fee. However, switching between your gear loadouts (feature added in Update 1.20) will not "remember" specific ability layouts. The good news is your ability trees are level-based. This means you can assign your points however you want in each tree, without even spending them on the abilities in the bottom row.
Weapon Wheel: Of course these abilities are no longer tied to any specific weapon or slot. You personally assign them individually. Any time you pull out your bow, a "Hunter" wheel will appear with 4 out of 7 assigned abilities, each triggered by a specific button on the controller. However, things get a little trickier when it comes to which 4 of the 15 assigned abilities you want from either the Warrior or Assassin trees. Did I say 4? I'm sorry. You see, they lock upgrades until you can defeat a certain number of cultists and upgrade your Spear of Leonidas (visually too). Then you can swap between an "Assassin" wheel that works when out of combat and a "Warrior" wheel that works when your weapons are drawn.
Mastery Level System: Introduced in Patch 1.1.0 on November 29, 2018, this system was put in place for any ability points earned above the initial level cap. After reaching level 50, you may portion out any number of ability points towards a list of passive bonuses, regardless if you used any in the core ability trees. You can reset these for a fee, but it is entirely separate of resetting the ability trees.
Hunter Abilities
Essential: Archery Master, Devastating Shot, Multi-Shot. Although enemies can still absorb the blow from Devastating Shot with their shield, the knockback can help tremendously in battle (especially when there is a death trap in the arena). There are no words to explain how awesome Multi-Shot can be when you are targeting up to 8 enemies at the same time.
Fun: Rain of Destruction can be used on targets that are high up in hard-to-reach places. It is also very nice to use when you use a distraction like Call to Arms or a tamed pet. Ghost Arrows of Artemis is a very unique skill that can pierce through walls. Although this is good when trying to avoid gaining a bounty in public areas, you will still have to take in a little bounty when initializing "confirm kill" on the target. Sixth Sense can also be very beneficial to better warn you when enemies see you by slowing everything down for a few seconds.
Lacking: Predator Shot used to be a very fun and interesting ability in Assassin's Creed: Origins, but now it only allows you to curve the arrow about 5% before it hits the target; It's 600% damage and 150% distance can make it a wonderful first strike, but it is very hard to control unless you know for sure you are going to hit your target, especially a head-shot. Spread Shot does not scale well in damage. Both Rapid Fire and Overpower Bow Strike use up Adrenaline segments way too fast for their potential.
Arrow Master: It might not look like much, but it definitely does a lot more than you might think. Your bow naturally comes with basic arrows and death arrows. (1) Paralyzing, (2) Fire, Poison, (3) and Explosive are all arrows that you can unlock with this ability. Although you can still ignite your arrows by shooting through fire, equip an engraving that turns all basic arrows into fire arrows, or use Flaming Attacks, it can also be very nice to simply prepare a fire arrow ahead of time. The problem with using fire arrows that they seem to catch everything on fire... like the grass you might be hiding in. Venomous Attacks or equipping a poison engraving are a couple of other options to consider for turning your arrows into poison. Paralyzing arrows is only nice when recruiting people for your ship or trying to tame an animal. Explosive Arrows can hurt you! Only use them if you have Battlecry of Ares on or you are sure nothing, and I mean nothing will block your shot. The nice thing about explosive arrows is the ability to burn multiple targets at once simply by striking the ground by their feet. It also easily interrupts targets, including bosses. Although you can turn on the feature to automatically make more arrows (from Patch 1.0.6), this is not extended to special arrows. So make sure you have enough supplies to manually create more.
Beast Master: This requires an entire sub-section to explain as it incorporates a lot of different situations. You have the ability to tame (1) a wolf, (2) a leopard, a lion, a lynx or a (3) bear. You cannot tame a boar, a dog, or (as much as I like to) a chicken. You can now tame alpha animals, though the only difference that I could see is their physical appearance.You can only still train one animal at a time. The animal will run off somewhere and resume their standard behaviors in that area the moment you "un-train" them or train another animal. They will stick close to you anywhere outside, but will suddenly wait at the entrance of buildings, houses, and caves. They won't go swimming with you. They will remain out of combat and not alert the guards of your presence. They will only attack enemies when you are seen and can sometimes die simply by engaging with a target while you are running down the road. They don't have very much health and don't last long in battle unless you have a bow with the 100% Damage and 50% Health for Tamed Beasts engraving. Contrary to the logistics, a lioness seems to out-perform the others with its ability to quickly strike its foes and avoid being hit.
One thing you must be cautious about is their AI is really bad. They have a tendency to snuggle up in front of you and block your view. They have the potential to prevent you from moving objects. My camera always panned inside my bear and freaked me out when I saw the hollow shape of its warped eyes. Let's not forget how hard it is to try and shoot arrows when they want your attention. A single explosive arrow at your pet will kill you. Of course, your pet is invulnerable to all your blows. So go ahead and use Furry of the Bloodline on him to increase your adrenaline whenever you need it. Though I hated the fact that it is very difficult to tame a pet. You must drain a pet's health nearly to zero and only then use a paralyzing ability. The only efficient method that I could see is to use paralyzing arrows from ranking Arrow Master to Level 1. A nicely-timed Spartan Kick will work as well. There seems to be a way to "pet" your pet, but I never once found my character doing so (might be because of my control setup). Some guides say that you must face him, others state that you must be crouching, and some people say you have to use your ability. Pets will sit down if you idle for too long, especially during dialogue cutscenes. In case you worry that your character is ignoring your pet, they will state little things (Example: "we are friends now") after every port or transition.
Warrior Abilities
Essential: Weapons Master, Second Wind, Gear Master, and Furry of the Bloodline are all abilities I think every person should have on-hand. Every person should be using Furry of the Bloodline every chance they have. You use your spear to attack the enemy up to 6 times, dealing damage, and also generating up to 4 Adrenaline segments. This ability will not use any special elements or weapon legacies. One thing that might be overlooked from Second Wind is its final form heals 50% and removes fire and poison.
Neat Abilities: Sparta Kick is a down-right hilarious ability that can send people flying off the cliff. Sadly, you will still need to reach the body if you want the loot or need to "confirm kill" special targets. Battlecry of Ares does not consume adrenaline and can increase damage 50% damage for 20 seconds in its final form while ensuring that you will not die. Flaming Attacks and Fire Mastery will of course fuse fire into all your weapons (if they don't already have an elemental engraving).
Lacking Abilities: There are a few abilities that do help in certain situations, but were easily forgettable down the road. Bull Rush and Ring of Chaos are two of these that don't really do much in battle. I had a hard time figuring out a good use for Charged Heavy Attack when it requires me to withhold my strikes briefly just to add one or two swings with a chance to break the enemy's guard. Shield Breaker is a decent enough ability when you get rank 2 to break through stronger guard shields, but by that time it's probably better to simply break through their guard with stronger weapons or abilities.
Overpower Attacks: Contrary to Assassin's Creed: Origins, the Overpower ability isn't exactly as glamorous as it used to be. Swords and Daggers both receive the same treatment by locking onto a single target and dealing additional blows. Heavy Bladed and Blunt Weapons both allow you to "play golf" as you lock onto one target at a time and toss them flying through the air. Staves and Spears do not lock onto the target and has you mindlessly swing your weapon around like some Dynasty Warrior. Equipping the -1 Adrenaline Cost for Overpower Abilities engraving will benefit you greatly if you plan to go this route.
Assassination Abilities
Essential: Let me first say that I hate the fact you don't instantly kill people anymore. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey simply nerfed your basic abilities and forced you to use trait points to accumulate what should have been there from the start. You will need Revelation, Shadow Assassin, Rush Assassination, Critical Assassination, and Stealth Master just to get back to where you were before. Revelation was cut down to a mere 15 meters in its first phase! And did they have to make you hold down the button to use your scan ability? Don't bother trying to assassinate without Level 3 Shadow Assassin and Stealth Master. Any high-ranking soldier will also require a full-fledged Critical Assassination. Though at the heart of all this, the game really makes things difficult with how quickly you are detected and how long they search for you so much so that Rush Assassination is required to stand a chance. Not only does it chain to multiple targets, but you can also re-acquire a previous target that didn't initially die from your first strike.
Interesting: Venomous Attacks and Poison Mastery becomes your bread-and-butter warrior ability when things get tough. Hero Strike is super-deadly when used in combat. Death Veil is very helpful when you don't have time to carry bodies into the bushes. If even a single guard sees a dead body, they will probably go and light the brazier. Not only does it increase your bounty tremendously, but it will alert everyone in the fortress. Slow Time, even for 10 seconds, helps when things get difficult. Call to Arms only works out-of-combat as a form of distraction. The funny part of this ability is it always calls the lieutenant in the top-left corner of your ship roster. After you complete the main campaign, you can call forth any of your family members to come help you out.
Lacking: You would think that the ability at the very top of the tree would be the best. Copied straight over from Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Shadow of the Nyx only works out of combat and drains adrenaline a little too fast in its earlier ranks. Adding a couple of Reduced Movement while Crouching engravings will help smooth things over, but breaking out of stealth for any action is very easy to do. The only time I liked this ability was during a main mission that required me to collect an item without being seen. It's also pretty decent when you want to run head-on to a guard or inside a tent without being seen. If only I was able to get that -40% Adrenaline Consumed by Shadow of Nyx engraving. Vanish is nigh-useless when you have better options, like Ring of Chaos.
10-7-2020