"Assassin's Creed: Odyssey" Review - Bless my soul, buy a pizza roll

Available for: Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows

Reviewed for: Playstation 4

(I don't actually have any comments about the whole totinos pizza roll thing, I just needed something relevant to the game that would go with a song from Hercules)
I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 2018, the month was June, and it was time for Ubisoft's press conference. Thanks to the infamous Walmart leaks, everybody knew that we were going to be getting more information on the next Assassin's Creed game, Odyssey, and that it would take place in Ancient Greece. Ancient Greece being my absolute favorite time period, I was excited to see what Ubisoft planned to do with it! But then came the part of the press conference dedicated to Odyssey, and I immediately noticed that the entirety of the UI and the gameplay had been lifted from last year's Assassin's Creed: Origins, and I was furious. Then there was the sheer smugness with which the presenter announced that you could play as a woman (which, by the way, you did in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate AND Origins, albeit to a lesser extent). If you read my E3 coverage from this year, then you may recall I was so mad about all of this that I gave Odyssey the award for worst game of E3. Well, now I've poured over 60 hours into it, so the question remains: was I right to be angry, or was I completely wrong? Let me take a step back for a second. In my review of Origins last year, I stated that it was the best Assassin's Creed game since Black Flag, but it has not aged well in my mind. When I think back to my time with Origins, the only thing I actually remember is frustration with the leveling system and the terrible story. I remember the world being beautifully rendered but contradictorily ugly to look at. I remember Bayek of Siwa being a refreshingly historically accurate protagonist, but one without any personality. Just about every positive thing I said in my review of Origins has since soured in my mind, and this really didn't help my hesitance about Odyssey after noticing just how much had been lifted from Origins. When reports of the grindy nature of the gameplay started to flood in, my hesitance only grew, as the grindy nature of Origins was my absolute biggest gripe. Why do I bring all this up? When I called Origins "the best Assassin's Creed since Black Flag," the catch to that was that after Black Flag all the games sucked, and the fact that it was decent put it above them. So when I say to you, here and now, that Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is the best Assassin's Creed ever made, you know that this includes Black Flag and II. So ready your weapons, don your togas, and join me as I break down Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

Part of what immediately makes Odyssey great is the fact that it doesn't feel like Assassin's Creed. Gone are the days of one-note Assassin protagonists with unrealistically modern senses of justice and human rights. Gone are the days of mustache-twirling Templars (with Haytham Kenway from Assassin's Creed III as an exception) rubbing their palms together and going "ahhh yes I will control the world so that I may dispatch of the poor people because I am rich and they are poor and I like to kill the poor people because they are poor, bwahahaha!" Now we have more of a blank slate protagonist in the form of either Alexios or Kassandra, who is as woke or as selfish as you so desire. Likewise, we have a villain in the form of a cult with its pockets deep in Greek politics and religion, a cult that does things like torturing infants so that they're immune to pain in adulthood and are thus better fighters, a cult with active business in the slave trade, an enemy that is truly evil rather than just "bwahaha I will save money by using child labor and dumping toxic waste in the river because I love moneeeey!" The story also benefits from deviating from the usual Assassin's Creed format of "Templars killed my family, so now I shall kill the templars!" As the story starts out, the protagonist (hereafter referred to as Alexios) is a mercenary concerned only with getting a paycheck, until he is approached by a shady benefactor named Elpenor (pronounced El pee-nor, and as a side note, I didn't realize I was 12 until I found myself snickering when Alexios said it angrily for the first time), who promises him untold riches in return for the head of a prolific Spartan general. From there, what starts off as a small-scale story about a mercenary working to save his slimy merchant father-figure from the repercussions of a deal gone sideways becomes a grand (as the title implies) Odyssey about the bonds of family and a plot to destroy the entire Greek world. I could throw in some light spoilers, but I won't. Odyssey is a constant stream of plot twists that all connect together, so I won't say any more about the contents of the story. What I will say is that the pacing is a little off. It didn't negatively impact my experience, but the moments that are supposed to be tragic aren't dwelled on and characters seem to recover from these tragedies within seconds. Likewise, characters tend to only revel in the touching moments briefly before it's back to business as usual. It isn't the type of thing that I fault Ubisoft for (after all, they're not exactly known for having touching or unpredictably tragic content in their games), but it's worth noting.

Another departure from the norms of the series lies in the gameplay. Odyssey completes what Origins set out to do in that it's a fully-fledged RPG. Odyssey takes a slightly different approach to it than Origins did, however. Rather than rely strictly on damage and armor numbers, you have three different damage types: Hunter, Warrior, and Assassin, which different weapons and different armor pieces bolster. Hunter damage determines how much damage skills with bows do, warrior damage determines how much damage basic combat skills do, and assassin damage determines how much damage a stealth attack does. The amount of damage a weapon does or the amount of damage a piece of armor protects from is important, but when it comes to the equipment you'll choose, it'll depend on your play style. I went with a primarily stealth build, so I tended to choose equipment that bolstered my assassin damage, even at the expense of the other types. There isn't really a rhyme or reason to which pieces of equipment bolster which damage types (i.e. daggers aren't always good for assassin damage, giant clubs sometimes are good for assassin damage, etc.), but you'll want to pick your equipment wisely rather than just grabbing the highest-level item you can find. Doing this will make your preferred play style easier.

With my assassin damage-focused build, I had no problem insta-killing enemies one or two levels above me (as long as they weren't special elite types). When it came time to throw down, I could still hold my own, but fights tended to last a bit longer because my warrior damage wasn't as high. It's actually an excellent system, because while it made me a God in tall grass, it meant that I really did have to dedicate to playing stealthily. I'd reach a fort, send Ikaros (the eagle, similar to Senu from Origins) to determine the amount of enemies and targets, realize there were a couple of elite enemies that I wouldn't be able to take out without a fight, and have to put together a plan accordingly. That is the essence of great stealth. My typical modus operandi would be to circle around the fort to the wall closest to the brazier that could be lit to call reinforcements, set a trap on it, and maneuver my way around the walls taking out archers and sentries (being sure to toss the bodies over the side so there was no evidence of my being there). From there, I'd go to ground, taking out as many regular enemies as I possibly could, leaving the elites for the time being. In the event that an elite enemy ended up somewhere secluded, I'd launch a stealth attack draining most of their health and kill them in regular combat quickly enough that nobody would stumble close enough to the fight to hear or see it happening and sound the alarm. Things didn't always go according to plan, but Odyssey offers enough stealth skills to ensure you have the ability to make on-the-fly adjustments to your strategy. If I was spotted by a previously-unseen enemy, I could use the spear throw skill to stealth kill them from a distance. As I upgraded that skill, if using it got me into a bind where that distance kill got me spotted by yet another unseen enemy who wasn't far behind the first one, I could chain the throw once, twice, or three times more depending on how many enemies managed to be stealthier than me. 

When it comes to regular combat, Dragon Age: Inquisition comes to mind in that you basically chip away at a health bar and have wheels of skills you can use to speed the process along. The weapons are divided into swords, daggers, heavy blunts, heavy blades, staves, and spears, each of which having their own attack speeds. As I mentioned earlier, damage types aren't relegated to specific weapon types, so in the end the type of weapon you use will depend on the speed at which you're comfortable attacking. I tended to gravitate towards staves for their speed and crowd-control capabilities, but a heavier build might want to use heavy blunts for better staggering and more damage per swipe. In addition to your melee weapons, you also have a bow that can be used to quickly plunk off pieces of health if there's ever distance between you and an enemy. Thankfully, the bows are much more focused in Odyssey than they were in Origins, so you only have one type of bow instead of three to worry about. For both the bow and the melee weapons, you have a wheel in which skills can be assigned for quick use. As you progress through the game and kill enough cultists, you'll unlock an extra melee weapon wheel, which comes in handy if you want to have a wheel for stealthing and a wheel for combat. Like in any RPG there are a couple of skill types: buffs, afflictions, and attacks, and there are several combinations of skills you can group together to best suit your playstyle. In all things I wanted to be tactical, so the skills I chose were chosen according to that. In my stealth wheel, I had the healing skill, the spear throw skill, the spartan kick (in the event that an unsuspecting enemy stood too close to the edge of a cliff), and the shield breaker (for emergency situations). In my fighting wheel, I had the healing skill, the shield breaker, the bull rush skill (which carves into every enemy in front of you), and the poison weapons skill. Using the poison weapons, I'd cause my staff to deal lingering damage on multiple enemies (remember, crowd control capabilities), and in the event that I was severely outnumbered I could combine the bull rush with my poisoned staff to potentially chip away at the health of an entire legion at once. More traditional warrior types might go with a wheel including the battlecry of Ares (which temporarily makes you immortal and increases your damage) and more area-of-effect attacks, while a hunter build might focus on skills that put distance between them and enemies. If you have a preferred playstyle, Odyssey gives you the tools to live it to the fullest.

You may have noticed that I've been talking about a "healing skill." Traditionally healing has been handled by potions and medicine in this saga, but not anymore. Now there's a specific skill that heals the player. As you land blows, you build up bars of adrenaline, and most skills require at least one bar of adrenaline to be executed. In this way, Odyssey subscribes to the gameplay format that I'm more and more convinced is the perfect gameplay format: engage with combat to survive combat. If you want to survive a difficult encounter, you can't chicken out. In order to even have the ability to heal, you need to be able to land a couple of attacks without dying. This also means that you have to consistently make decisions on how best to spend your adrenaline. Are you confident that you can use an ability to deal extra damage without needing to heal for a couple of attacks? When you and an enemy are at the tail end of your health, is it more worthwhile to spend 3 bars of adrenaline on an overpower attack that you're 95% sure will end the fight, or do you spend 1 bar to heal at the risk of being killed in the time it takes to remove the rest of the enemy's health? These are the kinds of decisions that the moment-to-moment gameplay forces you to make, and it's superb. All-in-all, combat is tactical, engaging, open to customization, and it controls well...unlike in another large AAA release whose name rhymes with Schmed Schmead Schmedemption Schmoo. 

I've made a point to emphasize crowd control as an important factor to me because in most areas where stealth isn't an option, you're completely surrounded by enemies. Nowhere is this more true than in the much-discussed "conquest battles." The game takes place in the midst of the Peloponnesian war between the glorious city-state of Athens and the knuckle-dragging primitive city-state of Sparta, and as a mercenary, you have the ability to tip the balance of power in just about every region in whatever way you choose. Different countries are controlled by either city-state, and by doing things like clearing out forts and burning war supplies, you can weaken a city-state's hold on the region enough for the opposing city-state to launch an attack. From there, you can side with whoever you want and fight to determine who controls the region from that point on. Fighting on the invading side is always harder but yields more rewards, while fighting on the defending side is the opposite. Regardless of whether you choose to fight for democracy, beauty, and philosophy or for the ancient equivalent of "Schmed Schmead Schmedemption Schmoo is Game of the Year, you cuck!!!!" the battles play out the same. You kill as many regular enemies as you can, but you make it a priority to kill as many captains and polemarchs as possible. Whichever side kills the most elites + the most regular enemies wins control of the region. Opinions on these battles have been pretty mixed. Critics of the conquest battles call them "samey," and even though I enjoyed them, I think that's an accurate description. There are some conquest battles that are naval affairs instead of large scale invasions, but for the most part, conquest battles are pretty much identical to each other. Thing is, if you're like me and you've always been sore that Athens lost the actual Peloponnesian war, you won't care because you'll be too busy trying to protect it from its historical fate. So I didn't care because I felt compelled to win all of Greece for Athens. In addition, when you're at a high level and have maxed out your favorite skills, these battles are perfect opportunities to really feel like an all-powerful badass given the sheer amount of enemies in the mix. I remember one specific point when I'd poisoned my staff and used the bull rush on a Spartan captain and all his surrounding soldiers. The bull rush ability, when fully upgraded, has Alexios slam the ground with his weapon at the end, causing area-of-effect damage. I'd also fully upgraded my poison so it only took a hit or two to cause the poisoning. In this moment, the ground slam at the end of the attack was the killing blow for the captain, so, as with every captain death in these battles, time slowed down. The combination of the bull rush and the final slam had sent about a dozen enemies flying away from me and about another dozen flying to the left and right of me, and each of these enemies had been poisoned. So in that bit of slowmo, I got to look upon my works (about 30 spartan soldiers in various rotations, all in midair, all poisoned) and smile. Obviously these conquest battles aren't for everyone (especially if you don't fantasize about a world in which Athens won the war), but at worst they're inoffensive. 

Ship combat also makes a return in Odyssey, and it actually touts a similar "engage to survive" format. As you fire arrows and javelins at enemy ships, you build up "fire," which can be used to launch fire arrows and fire javelins to deal extra, lingering damage. It obviously isn't quite as much of a deep, tactical system as the ground combat, but it's still welcome. The ship combat is one area in which Odyssey isn't quite as good as Black Flag, however. The reason for this is simple: arrows and javelins just don't feel as powerful as cannons. It's the difference between "FIIIIIIIIREEEEEE *BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM POW BOOM*" and "FIIIIIIIIREEEEEE *thwack, thwing, thwack, shwoosh*," simple as that. It's still great stuff, but it just doesn't feel as satisfying. The ship is mainly just here as a way to get from island to island, and you know what? That's fine. Part of what made Black Flag so great was the fact that you could get in your ship and just sail to an island, and there's a ton of that here as well, so it doesn't really matter that the ship is less a central gameplay mechanic and more of an exploration aid. 

This is because exploration in Odyssey is perhaps the game's greatest quality. Most of the time I spent with this game was spent just wandering around a new area and enjoying the scenery. Greece is varied and breathtaking, and I'd often find myself wanting to do things like run up and down all the little "arms" of Macedonia just so I could get to see more. This is simply one of the best-looking games I've played in a long time, and the framerate holds up pretty darn well in spite of the gorgeous graphics and density of the populations of many of the cities. All around, Odyssey is one of Ubisoft's most technically polished games. That being said, it isn't perfect. There were a couple of times where transitioning from stealth to open combat caused the game to freeze up if I moved, and I had to restart to fix it, and it caused me to lose progress on a couple of forts. Beyond that, there were a couple of cutscenes where npcs would just pop in, and there were one or two cutscenes where one or two audio samples were missing. So it's still a Ubisoft game, but it's far more polished than most other titles, and the results are jawdropping. 

Now I've been going on about how much I enjoyed Odyssey and how fulfilling I found everything, but it's time to address the elephant in the room: the microtransactions, and more specifically the "time savers." For those who aren't in-the-know, Odyssey has a marketplace where you can buy a permanent XP booster to help you level up faster. Each story mission has a "recommended level" that determines whether or not you'll have a hard time in combat, and the reports have been that each story mission bumps up the recommended level by 2. With this in mind, the presence of an XP boosting microtransaction has led many to call this game a "grind fest." Let me just say this right off the bat: It isn't acceptable for such a microtransaction to exist in a full-priced game with multiple special editions that cost even more money. Objectively that is the case. I make a point of saying that because when I proceed to continue defending this game, I don't want it to sound like I'm justifying the business practice. Objectively the business practice is scummy...but equally objectively, Odyssey is far less of a grind than Origins was. In Origins, quests would give you a set amount of experience. In Odyssey, experience is scaled to your level. In other words, rather than give an exact number, the experience reward for a quest is color coded the same way that gear is (meaning gold xp is a lot and gray xp is a smaller amount), and the specific amount of xp earned in each color level depends on your level. So rather than having to do a bunch of side quests at level 40 that you left behind when you were level 10 for like 100xp (which would have been decent at level 10), doing such a quest would instead fill up a percentage of your xp bar. Furthermore, a two-level bump on the recommended level? That's way better than what they did in Origins. I seem to remember the level bumping up by around 3 here and there in Origins. 

Here's the thing: I've seen people blindly defending Odyssey in spite of the microtransactions because they enjoyed the game, completely ignoring what the game might be like for someone else. I've also seen people immediately dismiss the game due to the microtransactions without looking at how the game objectively operates. My goal is to be somewhere in the middle. I've spelled out the ways in which Odyssey is objectively less grindy than in the past titles, but I have to also point out that having a level bump at all is frustrating game design (a statement that I realize makes me a hypocrite, given my well-documented love of Dragon Age: Inquisition). I personally never had to grind. I was so preoccupied with doing side stuff and with winning the greek world for Athens that I was always well above the recommended level. With that in mind, I can't penalize the game for whatever grind it may have for others because I simply didn't experience it. The game is a major time sink, and for those with less time to dedicate or those who don't enjoy the game as much as I do, the level bump is going to come off as a grind, and I understand that. Having said all this about how I never experienced the grind and can't really report on it, don't think I've come to this proverbial table empty-handed, dear reader. I'm a journalist with some integrity, after all. 

It was around hour 60. I was around level 45, I'd completed the main story and was trying to get to the level cap so that I could finish the rest of the "story" (i.e. killing the rest of the cultists, etc), and Schmed Schmead Schmedemption Schmoo had just come out. I'd been continuing to play Odyssey for about two nights after SSSS's release 1) because I was still having fun and wanted to keep playing and 2) because I wanted to be totally finished before I wrote this review. Then, I paused for a second and had a thought: "Even though I still don't feel the grind and am still having fun, I'm in the exact position that somebody with less time or who wasn't enjoying the game would feel pressured to purchase that microtransaction. Time for some investigative journalism." So I pinched my nose, shelled out $10, and purchased the xp booster, and I set out to determine exactly what kind of impact that booster had on the game. I knew it wouldn't be the greatest investigative measure since I didn't feel pressure and I only had like 5 levels to go until the level cap, but the way I saw it, it was a way to be able to report on the microtransaction with an experienced perspective. So. Did the microtransaction have an impact on the last 5 levels of my play time? The way I'd heard this booster talked about, I expected to be blowing by levels at the speed of light now. That wasn't the case. Objectively I was leveling up faster, but I was still needing to win around 5 conquest battles (which are a nice, steady stream of xp when you're powerful enough) to make it to the next level. If I were a person who felt the pressure to buy this booster, I'd obviously be saving some time, but I'd still need to be "grinding" in the end. I thought that was interesting. You can't buy more than one xp boost, and when you buy it it's there across every saved game you have. So it's literally a one-time purchase that doesn't actually remove the problem that people have with Odyssey. To anybody who is playing this game right now and is feeling pressure, the booster won't take the problem you're facing away. It'll just make it a little smaller, so maybe you'd be better off not spending the money at all. They aren't selling you a solution, they're selling you the illusion of one. Folks, in the end, my impression here is imperfect. It could be that buying the booster at the beginning or in the middle of the game reduces grinding drastically, but from where I stood, it wasn't really worth the money. 

Now I'd like to take a section to cover the things that slipped through the cracks and weren't easy to segway into in the previous sections. This section is going to be a little more scattershot, so bare with me. 

Firstly, the romance system. It's basically just in there because that's a thing that rpgs have. The dialogue can be a little creepy, and the lead up to amorous actions is a little...baby's first romance system, but it's inoffensive otherwise. I'll say this, though...this game is much better suited to people who are attracted to women. I don't know about you, dear reader, but I'm the type of person who tends to get hung up on the idea of "dude, imagine how bad they probably smelled" whenever I experience anything dealing with ancient history. When it came to the male options I came across, that idea continuously popped into my head. I don't know, maybe it's different on the other side of the aisle, but I looked at these male options with their greasy beards and equally greasy hair and couldn't stop thinking the aforementioned thought. Not so with the women. The women were all slender brunettes with seemingly flawless makeup and perfectly groomed and washed hair, so the thought never crossed my mind. I don't really have anything else to say on that...I just found it interesting.

Secondly, the Mercenary system. It's basically the Nemesis system from the Middle Earth series, but not as good. The idea is that there are a bunch of mercenaries and you're trying to become the best mercenary by killing all the others. Each mercenary has strengths and weaknesses as well as a little backstory that indicates they aren't randomly generated, and they basically just serve to add a little extra challenge at times. They're inoffensive and provide extra, not-in-the-way content, so no reason to complain.

Thirdly, the cultists. This was one of my favorite "side" things to do. Essentially, as you kill cult members in the main story, you get hints about other cultists, and it becomes a scavenger hunt/detective kind of thing where you have to follow clues in order to determine the identity of a new cultist. Some cultists will just be wandering the streets of a major city without you knowing it. Some cultists only appear as part of a side quest and you won't know until you get there. Some cultists are interwoven into other aspects of the game, and you could come across them completely by accident. The cultists, like the mercenaries, aren't randomly generated, so they each have a backstory and a specific role in Greek society, which makes them interesting. Each cultist you kill brings you closer to discovering the identity of one of the cult's sages. Each sage you kill brings you closer to discovering the identity of the cult leader, known as "the ghost." This makes for a compelling "right, who's next?!" system, and in addition, each cultist you kill gets you an "artifact fragment," which is used to upgrade your offhand spear. Upgrading the spear gets you better health, more adrenaline bars, and access to more advanced tiers of skills, so hunting down the cultists is worth doing from a practical standpoint as well.

Fourthly, the modern-day/future plot. Layla from Origins is back, and she's just as annoying as she was last time, and her new friends aren't developed at all, but I have to say, this is the least intrusive modern plot of any Assassin's Creed to date. You can go for 20 hours or more without ever seeing Layla's smug "strong women for poor character writers 101" mug, and for once, the future plot is used in a way that is actually pretty darn cool, but I won't say why. In summary, you play as Layla for about a total of 5 minutes across the whole game, and in the end, her role is actually used well. Good? Good.

Folks, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey isn't going to be for everyone. My foray into the experience booster taught me that much. If you aren't a person who really enjoys the thought of Ancient Greece, if you don't have much time on your hands and just want to get through the game, or if you can't stand the level bump system, Odyssey will not please you and even spending extra money won't save it for you. But if you don't fall into any of those categories, even if you've never played an Assassin's Creed game before, I truly believe that Odyssey is a must-play. The loot and equipment system is intricately tied to gameplay in a way I haven't seen before, and the gameplay itself is fantastic. If you're the stealthy type, Odyssey offers a decent challenge that allows you to flex your critical thinking and crisis management skills. If you're just a straightforward combat kind of person, then the skills you can have at your disposal will end up making you feel all-powerful. The story, while admittedly poorly-paced, has enough consistently surprising twists to always raise an eyebrow without becoming convoluted. If you're more of a casual gamer who isn't too into combat, then you can play on easy and just spend your time exploring the breathtaking majesty that is Ancient Greece. If you're a big RPG fan or a big fan of games that revolve around loot, then I think you'll find that Odyssey caters to either of those tastes to your satisfaction. If you're the kind of person who just wants a massive open world filled to the brim with content, then Odyssey may be your favorite game of the year. No matter who you are, Odyssey is sure to please in some way. Even if you're one of the people I described as this game not being for, I'd wager you'd walk away with something you enjoyed. To be completely honest, I regret doing my due diligence as a games journalist not just because money was spent on a microtransaction, but because it meant that my time spent fighting for the glorious city-state of Athens was cut short (not by much, granted, but it was). I find myself getting exasperated as I play Schmed Schmead Schmedemption Schmoo and yearning for the days where I was sprinting across the hills of phokis, spear in hand, eagle overheard, and starry-eyed in anticipation of the beauty, treasures, and adventures that awaited me over the next hill. Allow me to reiterate a statement I made at the start of this Odyssey of a review in a different way. Prior to 2018, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was the greatest of its saga. The ship combat and sense of exploration were unparalleled, and it was the first game in the saga that I reached 100% completion on. Now, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey respectfully takes that same crown from Black Flag as a younger military man might take up a command position from a well-respected general who is retiring. The ship combat might not be as good, but the sense of exploration and literally every other aspect is, without a doubt, improved. I haven't reached 100% completion because of the sheer overwhelming amount of content...but you know what? I'd like to. That's the key. I have to play through Schmed Schmead Schmedemption Schmoo because I need to continue putting out content if I want to have a comprehensive end-of-year list. But when I get a moment in-between releases, you can bet your bottom drachmae that I'll be making my way back to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey to continue enjoying the world, the combat, and the glorious, glorious city-state of Athens.

Let us review:

Technical issues - 1.0

The final score for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is...

9.0/10 - Fantastic

Exceptional work, Ubisoft, exceptional work