Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Part 2)
Exploration
Guided or Exploration is one of the first things the game asks you to choose between. Don't panic. Unlike choosing your character, this action can be changed later in settings. The only difference between the two is that "Guided" omits the objective tracker. This doesn't mean you have to go all Morrowind and find a rock that looks like a fish. The game practically feeds you the location by listing three highlighted locations (from the quest objective and explained through dialogue) that could be found listed on your global map. The game will also prompt you with "a quest location is nearby" whenever you get within 150meters. Calling forth Ikaros and hovering over the spot will highlight it for you. Honestly, I found the whole process pretty pointless and reverted back to "Exploration" before leaving the introduction island.
Locations: The game now has four different locations but three of them are contained in the Fate of Altantis DLC: Greece, Elysium, Underworld, and Atlantis. The numbers I include below are only from the basic game. There are 48 Animal Dens to which you can tame alphas. There are 65 Bandit Camps and 41 Temples to visit. 23 Tombs will provide you with additional ability points. 99 Military Camps will carry the Bounty Sponsors for every region. There are around 42 Underwater areas where half contain something to your ship or related to an important mission. 117 Viewpoint locations (22 new ones from Update 1.1.4) to help increase Ikaros perspective range and create fast travel points. On occasion, you will be able to grab 4 Ancient Tablets or one of 60 different Ainigmata Ostraka riddles from a spot. Oh and if you are wondering - there are 605 Orichalcum spots on the map. This doesn't even cover caves, dwellings, forts, cities, quarries, villages, ship docks, and whatever else I might be omitting. What I'm trying to say is: Don't bother trying to do them all. Only loot chests when you stumble across them. Any loot you try to steal in a public place will only give you a trifle amount of gold or a common item. Get caught and all of that will be going towards your bounty.
Traveling: You will spend a lot of time traveling from one place to another. So try and pay attention whether you are going to suddenly enter an area that is 40 levels above you. I didn't think this would be a problem, but even bumping into a level 5 wolf when you are level 1 could fatally kill you in one blow. The only way to know if you are "invisible" is whether a crossed-out eye appears over your health bar. You can pick plants and ore out in the world, but you can just as easily buy the material you need from the blacksmith. There are many things you can do with torches - shoot arrows through them to add the fire element, throw them at snakes to kill them, and carry them while on horseback. Their light radius doesn't help much in large-sized caves and for some stupid reason, you can still pick up a torch while you are holding one. It is entirely possible to pick up quest items you don't own from certain areas. This happens from time-to-time and may even be jarring when you finally get the quest and instantly turn it in. As a tool-tip states, you can perform "Peek-a-boo" and shoot arrows around corners. It is possible to "kill" your horse if you jump off a cliff too high. Don't worry, though. It will respawn after a minute or two. Locations have three phases - a question mark appears on the map at 350 meters, the actual location type at 100 meters, and you must be at the cautionary yellow-alert of about 20 meters for the objectives to appear on your screen/map.
Animals: Every animal you encounter feels unique. Dogs are loyal to their owners and will alert them of your presence. Chickens will attack you on several occasions. Lynxes are super fast and will hop on your back. Lions are quick to dodge your attack and might surprise you in battle. Bears are big health sponges that are easy to take down as long as you avoid their strikes. Wolves will growl when you get close and howl at night. Boars are unavoidable as they charge headlong into you, sometimes knocking you off your horse. However, the one creature I hate most of all is the shark. For some stupid reason you are unable to lock onto them or counter their munchable mouth without wildly swinging your weapon. Ironically, the best way to deal with a shark is to shoot arrows from the water's surface. Don't ask me how you can swim while shooting an arrow that pierces the water directly to your target. Hunting down deer isn't exactly advantageous, but your eagle Ikaros will do 40,000 damage to them, guaranteeing that they will die. Don't get too close to a caged animal or they will strike out. And no, you cannot shoot an arrow inside a cage. One last thing - kicking a bear only makes it angry. Your welcome.
Interactions
Quests: This is where things get really messy for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. In each town (and on your ship) is a message board that provides you with three types of quests. Bounties give you 24 hours the moment you accept it to accomplish a certain task, Live Quests (only obtainable if you have access to the server) give you daily and weekly quests to obtain Orichalcum for rare items, and Contracts offer a sort of achievement without any time limit. You can also find Impact Quests where a person will briefly mention something you did in the game before asking you to perform a task. If you are low in cash (which shouldn't happen after you are level 20), then doing any of these can potentially reward you ten times the drachmae what you would loot from any chest or body.
In the end, I do not recommend doing them. Since the developers made it possible to hurt anyone, it is totally possible to "upset" the quest-giver by something as simple as accidentally running into them with your horse. Refusing to act will instantly fail the quest. Once conversing with someone, you do not have an option of procedure. Most of the time these guys just want you to go kill things. The developers missed an opportunity here where you could choose to... let's say deliver the package yourself, check out an area for any bandits, protect the camp until more guards arrive, or hunt down wolves at a cave near the path. Instead, the game arbitrarily decides for you regardless of your response. I refuse to hear my character say "Every. Last. One." one more time. Some of these quests can be painfully stupid as you must keep a certain individual alive or reimburse someone 50 drachmae for their stolen goods.
Side Quests: On the other hand, there are a number of quests you can get while going through the main campaign. These gold quests generally only appear after you reach a certain point in the story. Not only are these informative, but they can also be quite humorous. I enjoyed my time treasure hunting in Pirate Islands, chasing down the Minotaur in Pephka, and the mystery behind Diona in Kythera. I just wish I got a little more than a "treasure cache" worth 4000 drachmae from Treasure Hunting for Xenia at Keos Island or tracking down all those statues for The Blind King. At least "Art Leading Life" eventually gave me a legendary weapon at the end. Quests that influence the area around you are classified as World Quests and the quests that are repeatedly handed to you from a specific person are Character Quests.
Main Quests: There are a series of quests that constitute as campaign quests. Finding your family is perhaps the primary focus of the game. As you make certain discoveries, it slowly changes to chasing down and killing every member of a cult. You will have to find and investigation certain "clues" to figure out their locations. The game will let you know when you come 150 meters of reaching one. They mostly come from other cultists, but can also be found on dead bodies, blacksmiths, or even in chests. No matter where you go, there will always be a decent number of cultists that will require some kind of progress from the main storyline. I'd like to say that all clues are possible to obtain, except the game bugged out on me at one point and never gave me the fifth and final clue for one cultist leader. There is an entire menu dedicated to them if you want to see what they look like, read the cultists clues, check out their bio, or want to mark their location on the map.
Odyssey: The story sounds good on paper, but that's all it is... paper thin. It's probably a major contributor to why people don't like the game. A lot of things that happen don't leave a lasting impression. What would have I done differently? How about making a faction battle like in the early Assassin's Creed games where you have to choose a faction between Sparta or Athens and then fight your way through to victory? How about opening up the world a little more so you can search for your family on your own terms through the territories and ask questions to the people you run across? Then there was that weird singing event (at least the outfits looked good). Olympia was the biggest disappointment. All you get are three rounds of the same copy-paste club fights you get from Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. No QWOP mini-game. You don't even get to see the man toss the javelin in Throwing the Bet. You win your house back but you can't bother adding decorations or a fast travel point? The game sort of points you along the way and doesn't bother to take a moment to breathe between chapters. I thought things were finally going to get good when I was thrown in a cell during Doing Time, but Kleon sends in two goons to kill you while walking away like a stupid cartoon villain. Your equipment gets handed to you seconds later. Why do you forsake me game?
Dialogue: Improving on Assassin's Creed: Origins rather bland dialogue, the game's big premiere would be their new dialogue trees. You can choose to fight, threaten, flirt, lie, leave, or gain optional information. Your choices will have consequences further down the road. Unfortunately, a lot of dialogue doesn't matter. No matter if you choose Alexios or Kassandra, you can still flirt with all 15 people. All you get are some sensual conversations and a black screen. Your only choices for bounty quests is to accept their demands or cancel the quest. The worst part about all of this is that a lot of people just die regardless of your "choice" beforehand. I hate Shakespeare. At least the camera now pans back and forth between characters. I did have a minor problem where the abbreviated dialogue option didn't quite match up with what transpired on the screen. If you recall my review for Fallout 4, I had to eventually install a mod that spelled-out what you said. I don't think the disconnect was quite as severe in this case to resort to searching out for a mod.
Choices: Although my Greek was a little rusty, there were many times I caught the game actively ignoring my actions. Some choices were superficial - believing in the gods or not, being a legendary hero or a humble mercenary, shouting or kindly asking for information. I would spot characters making simple statements that went contrary to what was said in a different conversation. Your choices in On a High Horse just turns into a philosophical debate where lines like "You surprise me yet again. I truly believed you would choose the other side" can be used no matter how you answered. Delivering A Champion has a girl who says she will lose her freedom if she helps you obtain some oil... and does it anyways with no resistance? Another prime example is how I managed to lose both "heroes" to A Night to Remember because... actually I'm not exactly sure why. Don't get me started on what happened during Dagger to the Heart quest - they attacked me without any conversational prompt. I paralyzed the man, brought the guy to the couple, somehow caught him on fire while circling the quest givers for about a minute trying to progress the story, he dies, then mercenaries instantly show up and the couple die from a cutscene. Whatever. What is there is simply an illusion of choice. You don't even get to use a shield... in a game about Sparta!
Then after one of my major choices early in the game, I could feel the game openly mocking me. I confronted Nikolaos instead of killing him in the beginning of the game and then he suddenly disappears entirely. The guards all have different ideas - he abandoned his post, he died, or I killed him. I'd accept that at face value if I always responded appropriately. Then something happened and my brain broke. Mere minutes before chatting with Stentor, I ran across Nikolaos talking about returning to camp. So wouldn't it make sense that I say something about it? "Why do you say I killed your father? Did you see it happen? Oh by the way, I met him out in battle just a moment ago. He said he would be coming over to say hi. And what is this madness about me taking something from you? I brought not one but two major victories to Sparta without taking any credit for myself. I'm a champion of Olympia, brought victory over Boeotia, revealed one of the Spartan kings to be a cultist and you want to fight in front of all these Spartans?" Ubisoft does not know how to do dialogue trees properly.
Naval
Ship: You captain the Adrestia. Sadly, it isn't as fun as Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. You need to accumulate every type of material to upgrade... well everything. I felt like I was playing Agricola because I was constantly needing more wood. Not even the 50% ship upgrade discount from Mercenary Tier 4 and the price adjustments in Patch 1.0.6 will save you from these outrageous prices. You would think that boarding another ship and looting its chests would be the smart thing to do since it takes more time and effort. I had to learn from a tip during the loading screen that you get twice the amount of wood by ramming through the enemy's ship. I fail to see the logic in that. And someone tell me why I can't press the traveling button again to slow down? Amusingly, ramming each other is what they did during that era before the invention of the cannon. You won't get too far with shooting arrows or throwing javelins. You can port directly to your ship or call it from any port.
Lieutenants: I liked the idea of being given the option to recruit people after completing a quest, even though some of them don't end up joining. Hovering your cursor over a person with Ikaros reveals a person's statistics, which so happen to be what you get if you recruit them. You can actually see the four of them standing on your ship. Their "buffs" don't help your ship too much unless you happen to get one from an important questline.
Cosmetics: If you dig deep into those shark-infested waters, you might just come across some things you could use for your ship. On top of replacing the sails, your entire ship will change color schemes and include little decorative touch-ups (like different kinds of shields). There are a variety of head-pieces to choose from. One major change is the fact they allowed you switch out your crew (soldiers, bandits, and cultists to name a few). Not only this, but changing to a female crew will change the sea shanties from male to female as well. However, I felt a sort of disconnect now that the sea shanties are sung in their native language. This also cuts down the number of available songs to 11.
Missions: There is no mini-game. There are no legendary battles. There are no fleets. You can check out the message board on the ship for your typical timed quests to take down various ships. I would have avoided using the ship entirely if it wasn't for the cultist captains. There are some areas where it is sort of mandatory to partake in Conquest Battles that occur over the open sea. You can usually spot which ones these are when the rewards don't show in their tool-tip.
Miscellaneous Notes: Your ship will automatically prevent you from ramming into the shore. They added a storage chest that can hold 350 items if you ever feel the need to hold more than 350 items in your inventory (Patch 1.0.3). You can loot supplies that appear after destroying a ship or any floating about in the water. Your ship's sails will gradually rip apart the more damage to receive. One other thing, you don't shift speeds; you either accelerate or initiate "travel speed" when away from the port.
Activities
Mercenaries: Not everything is peaceful in Greece. There is a thief on the loose stealing everything. That person is you. If you perform any negative action in front of anyone, a bounty will be put on your head. Steal something in front of a prisoner in a cage? 350 coin penalty. Grab a coin purse from a quest-giver's bunk-mate? 350 coin penalty. This is only the start. You can earn penalties from "confirm kills" of cultists in public, looting a chest in the marketplace, or simply murdering a civilian with a pitchfork that got in your way while attacking a ravage boar. Too bad you can't pickpocket people like in Assassin's Creed II. If your bounty gets too high, a mercenary will come to hunt you down. Set a trap at the brazier before someone lights it. or you'll find yourself suddenly swarming with people inside the fortress and two mercenaries with their friends flooding through the gate. Did you know that killing a mercenary will just rank up more charges? There was a time I had four mercenaries on me. You could choose to visit a military camp and kill the sponsor, or you could pause the game and hold the 'Y' button to pay off that pesky bounty.
Killing mercenaries is a necessary evil. There is this whole tier system of benefits each time you kill a certain number of mercenaries. Similar to Shadows of Mordor's Nemesis system, defeating mercenaries higher level than you will eventually give you huge perks for various things in the game. Any mercenaries within the arena can be directly challenged. Some of the higher leveled mercenaries will reward you some nifty legendary weapons with built-in elemental engravings (like Arachne's Stingers). After defeating the level 50 at the final tier, you will gain an undead horse on fire. The "special" tiers will require you to continue up to level 99. Honestly, I recommend getting the Bounty: Kill a Mercenary that will net you 5000 drachmae on top of the trivial 500 you get for defeating a marked bounty hunter.
Conquest Battles: The game quickly introduces you to the concept of changing the tide of battle for Athens or Sparta. Each zone has highlighted a red or blue outline symbolizing the type of leader that watches over the area. There is a list of actions that you can perform that loosens the grip the leader has over the city and the amount of protection he has at his place of residence. You can burn silos, loot and burn war supplies, pillage the national treasure chest, or kill members from that specific faction. When the faction drops to a certain point, you are able to initiate conquest battles. The rewards that you get will be shown on the map and will depend on whether the side is attacking or defending. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be any reason to get yourself involved. You can keep switching sides as much as you want since nothing really changes in the region.
Arena: I must say that the fights I saw in Assassin's Creed: Origins were way better than what I saw in this game. The enclosed arena in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey sets you up against a few waves of enemies and a boss at the very end. Unlike the rest of the game, these guys are at a predetermined level starting from level 32 and going up to level 50. You get to use your own weapons! Knock some guys down into the spike pit. Shoot a boss in the head until he falls for all I care. There are no fancy cutscenes, "finish him" maneuvers, or point system. There might be raging fans, but there is no fanfare.
Legendary Beasts: Right around level 13, I stumbled across a friendly woman named Daphnae at the Temple of Artemis. I didn't know what she wanted at first - something about a boar. I thought it was going to be an easy trip. Let me tell you that fighting this beast of burden was the first time I realized how quickly my equipment degraded within just a few levels. Not only can you not block against the boar's charges, but he endlessly summons minions to disrupt your focus. I spent 5 minutes trying to take down that guy, watching my weapon barely make a dent in his health, and I died with his health still sitting around 25%. The experience nearly made me rage quit. After you learn more about what the game requires of you, each of these 8 Legendary Beasts around Greece will easily die by your hands. You get plenty of nice rewards for each hide, but forcing you into some stupid fight to kill the leader of the Daughters of Artemis was really dumb. Nothing really changes if you do win and it doesn't make a lick of sense if you are Alexios. Then again, it didn't make sense being Kassandra at the games in Olympia.
Mythical Creatures: I must say that the story behind the 4 Mythical Creatures was superb. I hate to spoil them for you, but I have to talk about my experience. These creatures are inadvertently linked with the story of Atlantis. The more casual AI will talk about something about knowledge... I wasn't paying attention. But one of the data blocks over in the side chambers informs you of how the Ancient Civilization experimented with humans by combining them with their spheres. In order to seal Atlantis (and continue with the Fate of Atlantis DLC), you need to defeat all of them. Unknowingly, you actually get a glimpse of The Cyclops very early in the game. However, you need to escort a crazy man who thinks he is a god to this isolated island to reach the mighty foe. The story behind The Minotaur was cleverly hidden behind a city that tries their hardest to sell you merchandise. That whole story at Pephka is hilarious. In reality, you need to find Theseus's old gang and figure out how they managed to come face-to-face with the beast. As shiny as his armor was, it does nothing against the horned foe. On the other hand, the quests that revolved around Medusa were all rather dumb. The crazy woman blindly running inside the lair to find her woman lover almost spoiled the whole experience. At least the boss fight more than made up for it. For the last one - The Sphinx - I got too clever. I mean that by successfully solving her riddles she died without a fight. I kind of wanted to load an older save and make the wrong choice... until I realized there isn't an option to fight her. Oh well. These encounters were still the best part of the game.
Ainigmata Ostraka: Don't ask me how they came up with that name. I just call them "riddle tablets" in my head. These are Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Scavenger Hunt devices. Any location that has one on the premises will show it in their objectives. Once you loot one, a separate category in your inventory will list all the ones you collected. There are a total of 60 of them and will generally involve a very nice riddle that will lead you to an engraving upgrade. Even the region that it's located at will be listed. There are 12 engravings with 5 possible upgrades. Although the "reward" for completing one can be debated, I must say that I felt thoroughly satisfied when finding the spot. A blue marker will appear when you use Revelation. There is usually some kind of fun Easter Egg in the world for reference too. Despite all this, I was only able to obtain about 48 of these... and 8 of them I could not solve. Not a bad ratio I say so myself.
Equipment
Statistics: I think it is time to go into the primary reason I hate this game. When you really sit down and look at what is on your equipment, it doesn't make sense from an RPG perspective. Instead, it looks like some kind of marketing ploy to keep you constantly needing more material, more money. Your weapons still give a certain amount of damage, and your clothes still gives you a certain amount of armor. This keeps you wanting better equipment with bigger numbers. The game goes one step further by providing you a means to upgrade when their numbers aren't high enough to keep up with demand. But the one thing that seems out of place is your weapon DPS and armor don't contribute to your abilities. This tears the fundamentals apart. There should be no reason why your "assassination attempt" should be glued to whether or not your clothes has "assassination damage" attached to them. Not only does this force you to make a choice between the three ability trees but it hinders what kind of equipment you can use. Depending on the rarity of the equipment and not their level, the percentage of damage increases. That, my friend, hurts the game.
Upgrades: Every time you level, a big "damage and health increased" billboard gets displayed on your screen. Don't believe it. You see, enemies level up every time you do. And if their damage and health increases as well, wouldn't that make the whole thing moot? The equipment in the game has four rarities and there is a small window of opportunity to use them for a set number of levels before they become tissue paper: common (+1), rare (+2), epic (+3), legendary (+4). This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't cost you an arm and a leg to upgrade them. No matter what level they are, there will be always two set prices for items (dependent on rarity) - within 3 levels of your current level and everything else.
To give you an example: I start noticing that I'm barely doing a centimeter to the enemy's health bar and they are somehow taking down my health an inch per strike. My equipment is about 4 levels below my current level. I go to the blacksmith to upgrade and calculate the costs of every item - 1700 metal, 2700 leather, 450 obsidian, and 35000 drachmae at level 25. That is everything I have. If you think that's scary, wait until you are level 50 and it starts costing that amount just for one item. It just doesn't make sense logistically to keep upgrading old equipment.
Engravings: Other than the primary engraving that contributes to a set percentage of a certain ability tree, certain items come with one (rare and legendary) or two (epic) additional engravings. Legendary weapons come with a unique perk that either increases a specific ability 20% or modifies other specific parameters. There are rare occasions you can find "gag" legendary items off the blacksmith, like the Thaleia Overprotective Hat with 99% sunburn resistance or Bare-Chest and Oiled that increases damage 500% when covered in black oil. Each type of equipment will have a different sub-set of available engravings. The interesting part is that once you receive an item with a unique engraving, you can use the blacksmith to add that unique engraving to any future item you use.
Things get kind of messy when trying to figure out how to increase the value of certain engravings. The good news is that most of them are listed in a Engraving Menu. Or you could, you know, check the wiki list. The semi-bad news is that it can be complicated filtering out what engravings are available in the base game and what you can get from the DLCs. When releasing the new DLC, they allowed people to pay a fine to Hephaistors' Workshop to upgrade engravings for around 30,000 for T6 and 60,000 for T7 (small discount for special mercenary tier). One very important engraving to get (which is explained in the Engraving Menu) is the Underwater Breathing at the Temple of Poseidon. Sneak past the high level lions and grab the chest. Equip it on a low-level item and slot it every time you swim underwater. It even works if it isn't on the weapon you are currently using.
Set Bonuses: There is one more thing I should cover while discussing engravings. All legendary armor (except the "gag" items) has some kind of super engraving attached to them. The problem? You must have all five items equipped for it to activate. I don't know about you, but I do not like this at all. Again, this feels like a marketing ploy to get you to complete all the tasks for each of the items and force you to upgrade each one when your level gets too high. If it was me, I'd make it possible to gradually increase the potency of the "set engraving" for each one you have equipped or make it possible to only have at least 3 items equipped instead of 5. Whatever the case, it can be a great boon to have something like a 50% increase to an ability tree (with base-percentage already contributing to) or 5% damage dealt restored as health. It's also very nice you can't accidentally sell any of the legendary items (or any premium items for that matter).
Blacksmith: It is interesting to note that the blacksmiths offer a wide-range of items for purchase. They sell nice equipment that range from one level over to about three levels under. Most of these items will be of rare quality, but visit enough blacksmiths and you'll generally find epic quality equipment at your level. Honestly, sometimes I prefer buying my equipment over what items I get out of chests. As mentioned before, there are a couple of legendary items you can buy and even a cultist clue. Get used to scrolling to the bottom. I had to buy wood every chance I had. One time I even bought some obsidian glass. Ancient Tablets were also available for me at around level 35, though I'm not sure if it was location-based or because I was running low on them. If you asked me what kind of weapons I would use, I'd rather use a sword or dagger - depending on what engravings the blacksmith made available. My biggest disappointment is the variety and number of horses available in the game. There is a total of 8 horses, and that includes the unicorn horse and fire horse from reaching the first mercenary tier. Then there are 6 available from "premium" sources. Even Assassin's Creed" Origins had like over 30 different mounts from horses, camels, and chariots.
Miscellaneous Notes
Oikos of the Olympians: Want to get "exclusive" content from the U-Play store? Visit this guy with a handful of Orichalcum and win a prize. A daily contract rewards 10 while a weekly contract rewards 40. Then you visit this cheapskate and hope he has something valuable pop up among his 4 random items. They usually cost around 40 to 100 to buy. If you want to try for a random item, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Videos like this one or this one shows roughly a 20% drop rate for a legendary item. Although it's not possible to get a duplicate, that is a very low rate for spending 20 Orichalcum each. Maybe it was payback for that period of time people were using an exploit to get awesome rewards from every vase before it was patched May 5, 2020.
Alternate Endings: So it has come to this. Your entire story is all about getting the family back together again. I must admit that I was proud to have all 4 members sitting at the table with me. But I guess there are a variety of ways it could end with a select few surviving or none at all. It is kind of surprising that it boils down to a small number of choices. The problem I have with the game is that it shoehorns the other story endings as well. If you do make an important decision with discovering Atlantis, does that mean you stay in the depths below? And whoever put that cinematic ending in for destroying the cult needs a raise! One small problem - it spoils a pivotal moment after defeating the mythical beasts. We didn't even consider the endings from the DLC. The only way I can properly resolve the "rift" of the endings is that each one is from a parallel universe where your actions show what happens if you make a certain choice.
Little Details: There are a ton of things that I observed while playing this game. Enemies use health potions if given the opportunity. An easy way to confuse enemies is to hide on top of the roof. Using certain abilities will pan the camera around in a cinematic fashion. When you collect enough to upgrade the spear, a message will appear over the icon in your inventory. You can eventually get to the point where you receive no fall damage. Using the left trigger on the map will shift through various filters, including the historical locations from Patch 1.0.2. Although many souvenirs are kept in your inventory, there are still several items that get stowed away as "trade goods" that you will accidentally sell to the blacksmith. Almost everything gets pronounced differently for famous names, gods, and places... and it drives me crazy! Photo Mode is now shared with the world (but can be changed to private). Detailed Character Statistics was added in Patch 1.0.6. There are way too many lesbian/gay moments in the game. Oh, one last thing - you cannot return to modern day. You basically get one shot to read all the information before you enter back into the Animus. I guess the Bleeding Effect doesn't matter anymore.
Review
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is a beautiful game where you can visit real sites of Greece and learn about their history. The visual improvements from being able to choose how your gear, boat, and character looks to the smooth animation in combat makes things fun and interesting. However, your experience will be marred with a lot of tacked-on features, inconsequential dialogue choices, locations that look very similar to each other, terrible RPG elements, and highly repetitive missions that are there to waste your time. Although your abilities in combat can be very entertaining on a visual level, much of the underwire mechanics revolves around gaining back what the developers purposely cut out from the previous games. If you pass up on the quests from the bounty board, ignore any location that isn't part of the story, focus on the abilities that truly matter, and don't upgrade your equipment, you might be able to enjoy yourself. It is just too bad this game has so much substance for so little payoff. If anything, at least the content added to the game after its initial release and the worlds built in the second DLC managed to make the whole experience worthwhile.
10-8-2020