Assassin's Creed Odyssey - the Ubisoft Quebec studio is based on the system of the previous part, and at the same time shows players a new direction in which the series starts to move.
Set in ancient Greece, the Odyssey is set several centuries before Origins. During the Peloponnese War of 431 BC, we take on the role of Alexios or Kassandra, siblings and former Spartan mercenaries. Following the tradition of the series, Odyssey has parallel storylines, and the main story takes place in the distant past and the overriding theme of modern times. After key moments of political intrigue and warfare in Greece, we return to the present day to continue the story of Layla Hassan - presented in Origins - who works to uncover the secrets of the first civilization.
As we travel through ancient Greece, we discover lost graves, engage in open sea sea battles, and kill key members of a dark conspiracy seeking control of the world. Sounds like trickery? Nothing could be further from the truth, because the main plot line and the side quests are written very well.
While wandering through the Greek land and islands of the Mediterranean, we come across a variety of places where we find statues and temples to pay homage to the old gods, which today are only ruins. The number of details packed in each place is impressive, connected by an active and dynamic ecosystem, in which local wildlife and civilians stick to their territory. But as the game continues, we see on our own the many hardships and realities of life in ancient Greece, including the horrors of slavery and the constant war between the Spartan armies and the bureaucratic Athenian army.
With a map that's more than twice the size of the previous game, Assassin's Creed Odyssey was created primarily for exploration. The game has a lot of content that makes it rewarding to discover new places. During the gameplay I often felt that my actions would have a lasting impact wherever I went. Although from time to time there are goalkeeping issues known from the previous parts (half visible walls), preventing active exploration of any region, I could still take a break from the main plot line and plunge into a huge amount of side quests. Many of these tasks are really complex, which made me very happy while playing.
Visually, the production looks really nice. Origins, already released earlier, presented a good level of visual setting. A lot of elements have been preserved and improved here. The game looks very good and the sunsets made me want to go on holiday to Greece again.
In the main thread and side quests we have to make a lot of key decisions that will later affect the story and journey of our hero. While many of the choices we have to make are largely irrelevant and end up with only slightly different quest endings, decisions that matter can lead to drastic turns of events in some stories and relationships between characters that can end up very prematurely for that reason. You can see here a strong inspiration from the native Witcher 3, and not only in terms of elections.
In the moments I least expected, I had to see the benefits for the decisions made at the beginning of history, and unfortunately I couldn't change it anymore. With nine different possible results in the conclusion of the main story, there is a surprisingly large amount of cause and effect, which made me feel like I was leading the whole story and deciding what to look like.
I would also like to point out that the choice of gender at the beginning of the game, has an interesting influence on the later game. Despite the gloomy climate, jokes and funny gags often break the tension, even during serious events. Although both Kasandra and Alexios have the same dialogues and history, their different personalities, gender and points of view offer changes in some scenes and tasks - changes more suited to a particular character.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey also offers us the opportunity to have different relationships with side characters, such as a quick romance. These are short scenes that can be triggered by appropriate dialogues. While some of these scenes can be funny, most of them are just strange shows of feelings that don't have any real purpose. These actions almost always cause a shallow reaction during the conversation, and the characters jump off the screen for quick sex and then come back to the conversation as if nothing had ever happened. As far as I remember, the creators of the game wanted to be inspired by Witcher 3 again, but it didn't work out completely. Romance in Odyssey usually appears immediately after (or during) other interesting events.
One of the most interesting features of the Odyssey, is the new exploration mode. When selected at the beginning of this optional mode, you can use your observation and deduction skills to find new destinations and interesting places without the support of icons on the map, as was the case in the previous parts of the series. By engaging in side tasks and conversations with the NPC, we get to know the details of our surroundings and slowly gather information about interesting locations and other places on the map, which we can later find on our own. This is a very interesting option. Of course, at the start we can also choose the classic exploration mode, known from previous page views.
As far as the fight is concerned, Odyssey keeps up with the latest trend based on the inclusion of statistics-based mechanics and the development of our character. Compared to previous games, we are now focusing more on adapting our character to the upcoming challenges. We can also develop our character to specialize in distance or short circuit combat. If you want to build your character as a powerful Spartan warrior with a legendary spear and a popular "Spartan kick". (This is Spaaaaaaaartaaaa!), nothing stands in our way. We may as well stay with the traditional archetype of the killer and thus develop our character. Something good for everyone.
This opens up many opportunities for experimenting with special skills and equipment, the latter of which we can improve with special upgrades. It's also worth mentioning that Odyssey doesn't contain Origins shields anymore, resulting in faster and more dynamic combat.
Sea battles and sailing have returned, opening up exploration on the high seas. Once we have pooled resources and found new members to join our crew, we can customize and upgrade our ship to take on more courageous challenges and wanderings. Like Black Flag and Rogue, shipwrecking offers us some of the more exciting and visually enjoyable moments in the game, for example by finding lost ruins in the depths of the oceans or facing increasingly aggressive enemy ships. During the journey we can constantly recruit new and better lieutenants to join the crew of our ship, which gives us the opportunity to defeat larger enemies at sea.
I have written a little bit. No wonder, because Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a great and very big game. I could write a lot more here, the question is why? I recommend this title without hesitation. Play it yourself and see what a good game it is.
Looking at Odyssey in a broader way, it often seems that the game is too big. There are many moments when exploration, mission and travel bored me a little. But that's what I had with every big game of the open world. I am the type of player who has to discover all the finds on the map and visit every place.
Despite the above mentioned, creeping in from time to time boredom, I am grateful to the creators for giving me the opportunity to play in my beloved Greece.Of course, this is ancient Greece. But here we have islands known to almost everyone, such as Crete, Santorini, Rhodes or even Zakynthos, and we can visit them and feel the atmosphere. Really worth it!