Table of Contents
- Greek game
- Heroes of the Odyssey
- For the love of Zeus!
- This is Sparta!
- Greek's gift
- The best of Assassin's Creed
When proposing a trip to Ancient Egypt com Assassin’s Creed Origins em 2017, a Ubisoft managed to reinvent its most famous game franchise in a surprising way. It was in this way that, taking advantage of the success of the title, the company now invites players to return to the Ancient Greece to live a beautiful, challenging and, above all, incredible adventure.
A Ubisoft provided Techlifers with a digital copy to PS4 de Assassin's Creed Odyssey for testing and, after a few weeks of intense and electrifying gameplay, we present you with a complete analysis of this game that took all the elements that made its predecessor a success.
Greek game
Assassin's Creed Odyssey was perhaps Ubisoft's most ambitious production for its most famous series in the gaming world. The game takes place in Ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between the cities of Athens e Sparta which shrouded the Greek world in bloodshed and battles for some 30 years (431 to 404 BC).
The team of developers and artists needed to carry out a dense historical and archaeological research to recreate the Greek world with the highest level of accuracy and fidelity possible, in the same way it was more than 400 years before Christ, since most of the temples and monuments is just rubble today. The result is surprising, to say the least.
Get ready to visit cities like Athens in all its glory, with the gorgeous acropolis full of temples and giant statues to admire (like the Parthenon and the statue of Athena), islands full of monuments and cities full of life that show the grandeur of Greek civilization at its peak of human and technological development.
The game has the biggest map the series has ever seen. are more than 250 km² of territory! To give you an idea of how big this map is, the map of Egypt in Assassin's Creed Odyssey came to just 90 km²! There are several islands and regions that the player will have to visit throughout the game, each with different villages, cities, challenges and enemies.
The graphic detailing of the scenarios is absurdly fantastic, from the look of the characters, through the elements of the temples and buildings to the animals and people that interact with the environment in a dynamic and more vivid way than ever before in the series.
Keen players should take advantage of the photography mode that Ubisoft brings back from Origins and snap several photos of their journey through the Greek world. I even have a folder of images taken from the most incredible angles imaginable!
Heroes of the Odyssey
In terms of gameplay, the first element that Odyssey brings out is its main character mechanics. Another game in the series, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, had already worked with the idea of two protagonists in the story. In that case, the player could switch at any time to play with one of the Frye brothers, each with a specific set of skills and characteristics.
This time, Ubisoft decided to take this idea more towards the RPG side, allowing the player to choose between starting the game as the warrior Alexios or the amazon Kassandra. Regardless of which character you choose, most of the story will develop in the same way (I chose Alexios).
The unfolding of the plot is up to the decisions that the player makes throughout the game. For this reason, the game has about 9 possible endings with about 40 hours of campaign main, so be aware of the choices you will make while traveling in Greece.
The mechanics of choices are even more evident in the game's main and secondary missions, which received special attention. The series has always been known more for its combat mechanics than the plot of its missions.
However, Ubisoft is determined to take Assassin's Creed into RPG territory, so it invested in denser and more complex missions with diversified tasks (no "do something and go to that point on the map", which occurred time in other games ).
Your character's interactions with NPC's are the most varied: you can start a confrontation, fall in love, or just make a person sad according to the type of response and action you take throughout the mission.
Also, there are cases where you can only bribe a character in order to complete a quest. The choices are many for the player, that is, who has played the incredible The Witcher 3, you'll feel right at home with Odyssey's quest system.
For the love of Zeus!
As well as other elements that Ubisoft took advantage of and improved from Origins, combat was one of them. In Odyssey, the character customization level is much higher. Not only is it possible to equip different weapons with unique characteristics, but it is also possible to choose different types of armor.
The skill tree has also undergone some modifications. The player still has the tree of Hunter (for skills with bows and arrows), from guerreiro (for weapons and combat skills) and the murderess (for stealth skills). The difference is that you can put different amounts of points in each of the skills and choose which ones will be used in combat.
In this way, the game is very similar to the classic RPGs in which you build a “build” for your character, choosing from your weapons, armor and abilities to maximize the damage you inflict on enemies and how much protection you have. And if you missed the classic hidden blade of assassins, don't worry because your character will use Leonidas' broken blade to perform sneak attacks.
As for the combat itself, there weren't many changes from what we've seen in Origins. The player needs to be aware of his opponent's movements and try to avoid facing more than one enemy at the same time, as the AI used in Odyssey is brutal and will not give the player any rest. The main difference is on account of blocking attacks with your main weapon and spear, since your character doesn't use shields.
Many people were surprised by Ubisoft's decision not to use shields in combat, but the developers explained that there were two reasons for this: first, that the mercenaries of ancient Greece, for the most part, did not carry shields; second that combat would be much more flexible that way.
For this reason, it is good to invest in skills that allow you to fight faster and equipment that offers you good protection. Also, don't forget to visit blacksmiths and collect items like gems so you can improve your weapons and armor. You can also engrave special damage types on your gear, which can be the difference between life and death in certain situations.
This is Sparta!
Speaking of mercenaries, be very aware of this type of enemy. As you take actions like raid forts and kill either Spartan or Athenian soldiers (and even ordinary citizens, but unintentionally), bounties are placed on you and powerful mercenaries will pursue you. Always remember to pay the rewards to avoid being hunted by these warriors that give you a lot of headache because they are always a few levels above you.
The leveling system was another modified aspect of Odyssey: enemies now level up along with you. This prevents you from visiting an early area of the game and killing combatants too easily, making the game experience more dynamic.
The best recommendation is to avoid getting into combat with higher level enemies or, if the game is too complicated, try lowering its difficulty from the main menu, as it is practically impossible to defeat an enemy with a higher level than you.
Two other new features to Odyssey's gameplay were the battles of disputes and the return of naval battles. While the first type is about you weakening the hold of Athens or Sparta in a region by burning supplies or killing leaders to trigger a field battle, the second type is an old acquaintance of the series for anyone who enjoyed the seafaring adventures of Asssassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
In dispute battles you can choose whether in the main confrontation you will go to the field combat for Athens or Sparta. However, keep in mind that fighting for the city that wants to take over the region will always be more difficult, but it will give you more and better rewards. Naval combat, on the other hand, does not have the level of complexity that existed in Black Flag (given the antiquity of naval technology), but it is still a fun and challenging way to cross the Mediterranean seas exploring new territories in the Adrestia.
Greek's gift
Last but not least, we need to talk about the game's plot. Fans of the series will be surprised that we left this item for last, since the story has always been one of (if not the) main elements of each game, but in Odyssey the plot takes on a supporting role, leaving the gameplay and side quests gain more prominence. However, that doesn't make it any less interesting. Here's the warning that this part of the review contains spoilers about the game, so read at your own risk.
The newest assassin on the block, Layla, returns from his adventures in present-day Egypt from Assassin's Creed Origins in search of artifacts First Civilization Isu, before the Templars get their hands on them. It's interesting that Layla is now the present protagonist in the series, but it's a shame that these segments with her have almost no prominence in the game, which underdeveloped a part of the story.
Basically, it's the same main plot as in all games in the series (Assassins vs Templars), only without the presence of the Assassin brotherhood – which would only be born in Egypt, years later – and the Templar Order.
Layla finds the tip of the spear of Leonidas, a great Spartan warrior, along with writings by the world's first historian, Herodotus. With these materials she is able to access the memories of Alexios or Kassandra to find out how the Greek world came into contact with the technology of the Isu.
When revisiting the characters' memories, it is discovered that because they are descendants of Leonidas and have Isu blood, both Alexios and Kassandra had their lives ruined by the cult of cosmos (a prototype of the Templars), a group destined to control the Greek world, even if it was through the bloody Peloponnesian War.
Along the journey, the player needs to help Layla uncover the mysteries surrounding Alexios and Kassandra's family and defeat all members of the Cult of Cosmos with the help of historical figures such as the philosopher. Socrates or the greek politician Pericles . Plus, get ready to face mythological monsters like the Minotaur, Medusa, Sphinx and Cyclops in epic battles as you uncover the secrets of an ancient lost city under the sea.
Dividing the story into distinct segments for the character's family secrets, the hunt for members of the Cult of Cosmos, and the mysteries of the First Civilization, Ubisoft has created a dense narrative structure that allows the player to complete the story however they see fit. Believe me, even after completing the main campaigns of the game, there is a whole world still waiting to be explored inside the game. animus.
The best of Assassin's Creed
Like many game series, Assassin's Creed is a franchise that has its ups and downs. At the risk of remaining in an old and plastered model, Ubisoft risked modifying the series formula in Origins. And it worked. It was so successful that the company knew that its “new north” for the franchise would be to invest in the RPG aspect in the way they did with Odyssey.
With a dense campaign and full of new adventures to discover in Ancient Greece, the game still awaits the release of two DLCs divided into two chapters of three episodes each, with the release of the first one scheduled for December this year. Additionally, the Odyssey Season Pass grants the player the opportunity to play a remastered version of Assassin's Creed III, which will be released in March 2019.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey It's a massive, beautiful game with characters and stories so deep and captivating that they're sure to stick in your mind long after you've turned off the game. With solid combat mechanics and a customization system that encourages the player to always explore the world and challenge themselves, the game makes some mistakes with bugs and some audio problems, but it is certainly the pinnacle of the series in terms of quality.
