The Assassins Creed main series is verging on 12 games and Odyssey is the latest in the massive Creed franchise. Hot off the heels of 2018's Egyptian Adventure, AC: Origins. Odyssey for the main part takes all of Origins mechanics and tweaks them to fit the Ancient Grecian setting.
For the first time in the series you can actually choose the character you want to play as through the main story. Choose either Kassandra or Alexios to unravel a massive island spanning Spartan story featuring love, betrayal, loss and redemption.
I chose Kassandra so for the rest of the review I will acknowledge the main character as such, although everything I say can be applied to Alexios too. When I originally started Oddyssey I actually rolled Alexios but his voice acting was so laughably forced that I then decided to start again as Kassandra and it did not disappoint. That's not to say we wont be seeing Alexios but we'll get to that shortly.
The story begins on the mountaintop peaks of Sparta and your father, the leader of the Spartan Army casts his two children off the cliff as a sacrifice to his role as Spartan leader. This leads to Kassandra being found and raised outside of Sparta. Taking the role of a Mercenary, taking jobs and bounties for coin, she ends up getting a hint that the 'Wolf of Sparta' is in fact her father and then she goes to hunt him down.
Once hunted down, 'The Wolf' presents you with a choice. The first of many throughout the story with some affecting the overall story and some affecting minor dialogue lines later. The choice at this moment is to Kill or Spare your father. This, as you might imagine, has a huge bearing on the ending but has little affect on the main questing structure.
As time goes on, Kassandra is hunted down by a series of Cultists, after receiving more information she infiltrates a secret Cultists meeting and finds that one of the leaders within this Cult is in fact Alexios, under the name of Deimos, and this is where the loss turns to betrayal.
At the risk of spoiler minor things for the storyline, I'll go on to say that very little else actually happens within the main story. It isn't nearly as grandiose and eccentric as other mainline storylines are and feels extremely muted as such. Due to the Action-RPG nature of the game every main mission in the game has a level associated with it and you wont be able to progress further until you hit that level. Although this much the norm for games these days and this may come across as slightly whiney, you can imagine my disappointment as I finish a main story mission to be told that the next mission is 15 levels above me. However, this undoubtedly kills the flow of the main story and killed any interest I really had in the later levels of the story. But don't worry! You can level up for a fee that I was go into later...
Oddyssey is very similar to Origins in terms of gameplay, this is to be expected as these games are very much year to year iterations of each other. This is noticeable in the Naval Combat within Oddyssey, as Origins had extremely basic naval navigation and perhaps some combat (I cant remember, excuse me) but it has been developed to a fully working mechanic of the game not akin to where it was before with AC4: Black Flag.
Stealth mechanics are present as you can climb on buildings and hide on a perch at the roof, hide within buses and use any boxes and set dressing to hide in the environment. It doesnt get any deeper than that and it doesnt feel as perhaps scripted as the older titles but it is a nice gamey-feel to it and it mostly works.
Combat, again is an iteration of Origins. Although Origins featured a sword and shield dynamic and the combat used a lot of timed blocking and rolling, Oddyssey takes more of an fast paced action approach to it, removing the shield dynamic and allowing for a second weapon. Instead of blocking Oddyssey features a parry mechanic that would allow you to block damage and stun the enemy opening them for massive damage.
On the subject of Combat, it should be noted that the game feels very laggy. Button inputs can take almost a second or two to react on screen. Interestingly this doesn't apply when traversing the world or during the naval combat but I couldn't help but notice that sword combat when you try doing combos or parry it ends up being a bit of a mess. For example, when an enemy is going to hit an attack you can block you will see a grey shimmering icon on screen that would allow you block if you hit the parry button in time with the attack. However, even with the strictest of reactions it will never register in time before the hit. Or later in the game you unlock a high damage limit break attack, using most of your ability points, you can press R1+R2 at the same time to trigger this attack, however you can also mix light and heavy attacks to create combos using these buttons independently too. There were times when trying to create a combo that it would register as pressing the two of them st the same time and just use the ability. Not ideal.
If you've played Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (or War) you should be familiar with the Nemesis System that would generate characters in a hierarchical system that would challenge you and see if you can reign above them all. Odyssey takes this system and messes with it ever so slightly, calling it the Mercenary System you can go against named Mercenaries and take them out. If they rank higher than you, you can claim their spot and you can become the head of the Mercenaries. It's a nice system but it doesn't reach the same personality heights that Shadow of Mordor did.
As a side note, doing bad deeds in the world with gain you some notoriety and this will raise your bounty and hunters and Mercenaries will hunt you down. Although I actually like the system and the idea of this, they can hunt you during story missions and you can be 50% down on a massive boss fight only to be flanked by two Mercenaries. Although this may sound cool in writing, in practice it's incredibly infuriating as it happens almost all the time. And its made even worse by the fact that these bosses and mercenaries are certainly not easy to beat due to high health pools, specific strategies and buffs and debuffs.
So previously, I noted that missions are level gated in that you need to be a certain level to complete them. Well, behold the "Store"! From there you can spend £15.99 on Helix Credits (which cannot be earned in game) and you can unlock a permanent EXP and Money Boost! As well as that, you can unlock your entire map too! Needless to say, I sadly did purchase this as I had zero interest in the side stories and I just wanted it over with by the end. But it has to be noted, restricting the flow of EXP for the sake of making a few extra pounds is just awful.
Overall; AC Odyssey is another in a long line of Creed games but it doesn't reach the heights of its ancestors but it doesn't carve it's own legacy, instead only offering more of what you experienced within Origins. The game systems can be extremely frustrating and the story is passable as entertainment.
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