Assassin's Creed Odyssey

I am a huge fan of the AC series.

Well, except for Liberation. While the story was engaging and the gameplay elements that were added in were cool, the issues it had being ported from the Vita to PC were horrible and I couldn't finish it. My NPC escort would get hung up on ladders, trees, whatever. Oh, so annoying, especially after I had just finished III and Black Flag, which were fantastic.

I went on to Rogue, and felt right at home, back in the familiar controls of Black Flag and III, and loved seeing characters I was familiar with, people I knew and a story that blended so well from episode to episode in North America.

I finished Rogue the other day and instead of going on to Unity, I thought I'd give Odyssey a try.

Holy crap, culture shock.

The controls are different. The graphics are different. The gameplay is different.

And in this case, different is good.

It took a little time to get used to the new controls, because they are quite a bit different than III-Rogue. Perhaps a controller would be better, but I like the fine targeting control with the mouse.

Combat is actually a skill to master, and is much more difficult. In all of the previous AC games that I played i could easily take on a group of six to ten guards and tear them apart. Now three give me trouble.

As you progress in the story you unlock large scale battles. Pro tip: make sure you take the Warrior's Second Wind ability or there is no way to heal during battle. After dying about six times in that battle I had to reset my abilities to better suit large scale combat, which cost about 500dm (the currency, Drachma, which the game tells us was used up until Greece entered the EU in the early 2000's).

Act I of Odyssey is set in Greece long before the Assassins and Templars, some time after the Battle of Thermopylae showcased in the movie 300. You take on the role of a Spartan child grown up to be a mercenary, during the Peloponnesian War. The story is very interesting and engaging, and there are a lot of side quests to keep me interested in exploring the open world.

Upgrading the armor and weapons gets tedious, however, because you have to do so every 2 or 3 levels for your kit to remain relevant, and the numbers you're dealing with for damage are ridiculous. For example, I am spec'd Assassin. My hunter damage is 250-ish, my warrior damage is about 300, my assassin damage is over 5300! And even then some enemies of the same level (though are captains or other similar elite baddies) are not killed by an assassin strike, and I have to use a charged strike which doubles the damage o.O

And it isn't just the armor and weapons you need to upgrade, you have a ship, also. And lieutenants to lead your ship. As with the other games, upgrades and style sets are available for your ship, but that requires more money and more resources, and after upgrading my kit to level 11 (i'm now 13) I didn't have enough money and resources to do any upgrades on my ship. I could spend entire days just farming resources, which isn't what i want to do.

Instead of using your assassin's vision there is some sort of telepathic connection to a golden eagle that flies ahead and marks all points of interest in your vision. Many of the skills I was comfortable with in the earlier titles seem to be getting a primitive treatment in Odyssey, which I really enjoy. It feels like the things we do in Odyssey will someday become the standard for assassins and templars.

Overall, it has a semblance of the AC feel, but easily stands on its own as an exciting RPG adventure that keeps my attention and makes me watch the clock for the time when the babies are in bed and my wife is watching crime shows so I can go play Spartan until way too late in the evening.

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