Review for Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 05/10/2018
Version for Google Stadia from 19/11/2019
"Μολὼν λαβέ" (pron. Molòn labé), that is, come and get them: this is how Leonidas welcomed Xerxes at Thermopylae: The proud and legendary king of the Spartans entered the myth, together with his 300 soldiers, thanks to their crazy but heroic gesture. The stories and legends built around him are innumerable, so much so that they still influence mass culture today starting from literature, passing through comics and then arriving at the video game, without forgetting the cinema.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey it starts from Leonidas, or rather from his descendants, to continue the journey along the GDR fold that wanted to take the series, which happened with his predecessor (even if not in the timeline of the brand) Assassin's Creed Origins.
Odyssey's goal is precisely to take advantage of the good that has been done with Origins to renew it and put it in another role, another era and let us live a new, great adventure in Ancient Greece on the brink of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war.
Odyssey in fact was developed almost parallel to Origins: Ubisoft Quebec carried out the “digital reconstruction” work of the Peloponnese just as Ubisoft Montreal recreated the dunes and oases of Bayek Egypt. For this reason we are not simply faced with a reskin of the previous chapter but with a title that has its own identity and that, while fishing from his predecessor in the structures, it does not result in a mere photocopy.
As many will already know we are not talking about the Brotherhood of the Assassins or the Templars, but about a journey that leads to the glory and victory of a Spartan, thanks to his stubbornness and some interference from the First Civilization: Odyssey has a lot to say and above all, from to demonstrate.
The craft of the Spartans
Many times an important element in the plot of Assassin's Creed has been revenge: for Ezio, Arno, Bayek and other characters, what triggered the spark, what pushed them to move was the desire to take revenge on those responsible of the death of their loved ones. In Odyssey, that's not exactly the case. Alexios and Kassandra, or rather who of the two will be chosen at the beginning of the game, will be simple mercenaries in the service of Marco, a merchant from Kefalonia, a small island in the immense Greek archipelago: The with the latter is solid and deep thanks also to the past events, even if the merchant often and willingly takes advantage of the goodness of his friends. For the first hours of the game, Kefalonia will be the backdrop to all our activities, giving us some glimpses of what awaits us later: the entire Hellenic archipelago. Among the myriads of islands that the map hosts, the great Greek cities and the travels by ship, Kefalonia will represent only a starting point: a small island in the vast world of Odyssey.
The oppressions of the Cyclops, one of the greatest bandits of Kefalonia, will be so far away and will seem so ephemeral in the face of what awaits our heroes, that it will not take much effort to forget them. Waiting for Alexios and Kassandra will be the real greatness, as well as the heavy legacy that Leonidas has, involuntarily, entrusted to them.
The adventure of Leonidas' descendants will obviously not stop at the legacy of the Spartan king: Odyssey is full of side quests and side quests. The secondary missions will also be much more varied than in the previous chapter, on which a good job had already been done from this point of view. If we had to define Odyssey in a few words, the most appropriate ones would be: varied, vast and faithful. The ancient Hellenic nation has been reported largely on the title map, which we remember being larger than that of Origins, although much of it is here occupied by the Aegean Sea. Within the game world there will be endless activities, many, many, perhaps too many but all to be discovered and, especially as regards the secondary missions, very varied and diversified. Some of these will be very simple: sometimes it will be enough to lend drachmas to end the assignment and gain experience points, other times instead it will be necessary to act in a much more complex way but we have practically never had to have experiences that are too similar to each other .
Even the management of the missions itself changes a lot depending on the choices we will make in the dialogues: these will in fact affect both the we will have with certain characters and the approach to the mission. The commitment made by Ubisoft in this sense is very visible. The reactions of our interlocutors will substantially change between one dialogue option and another, especially when selecting diplomatic or romantic variants. This element gives the title a much more RPG twist, making it much more enjoyable to play and making us, in a way, masters of our destiny. Odyssey emphasizes even more the concept of freedom by introducing the possibility of being able to kill civilians as well. In fact, by doing so we will no longer be de-synchronized, without taking away the fact that, at times, we will find ourselves faced with the possibility of having to do it to complete a mission, or at least it will be one of the possible solutions.
Furthermore, non-player characters will react not only to our words but also to actions. As Alexios and Kassandra we will also be able to steal objects and, if discovered, we will pay the consequences. All this makes Ubisoft Quebec's Ancient Greece alive, throbbing, to be explored, however from certain points of view there is still to be improved: often, in fact, especially within the system of factions (Spartans, Athenians) the soldiers they will not act in the right way, remaining helpless in the face of certain events or will go into fibrillation when, on balance, nothing has happened. The foundations are therefore there, and they are also valid and solid, but there is still room for maneuver.
Malaka, Misthios!
Odyssey manages to take back all the good things that have been done in the previous chapters of the game and try to renew it by improving it. The combat system is basically that of Assassin's Creed Origins with some interesting changes. The heavy and light attack remain while the parry is now performed with the pressure of two keys, no longer just one, as a new action has been introduced, namely the one dedicated to the use of skills. These are divided into three different branches of the skill tree: Hunter, Warrior and Assassin. Many of these can be upgraded. The skills can be passive or active: if they are active they must be equipped, up to a maximum of four per type (melee or ranged).
We will therefore find ourselves having to often vary the skills equipped depending on the tests we will have to face and our style of play, managing to reach a level of customization of our character quite deep. All this will add to the benefits we will get based on our equipment. Having abandoned the shield, it will now be possible to focus on creating your perfect armor: footwear, arm guards, armor, helmet, as well as the classic sidearms and bows. Each piece of our equipment will give us statistical advantages in different ways, so much so that it will be better to keep a few pieces behind us, in order to show it off when the occasion requires it. Overall, the level of challenge is quite valid: playing in difficult mode we have been able to see that, especially when the enemies are of a higher level than ours, it will not be so easy to bring the victory home without due effort.
An important return is obviously that of exploration and naval guerrilla warfare. After a few hours of play we will take possession of the Adrestia, returning to sail the seas after a long time. We then return to the glories of Black Flag / Rogue, sailing the seas in search of abandoned resources, wild islands and Greek pirates. From this point of view there are no particular innovations, at least for the navigation system, if not for the due "temporal" precautions.
Interesting is instead the upgrading of the ship and the recruitment of various captains. Thanks to the accumulated resources, in fact, we will be able to both customize and enhance the Adrestia and its crew, in many respects: the resistance of the rowers, the power of the archers and javelins, the fairing of the ship and much more. During our raids, through the use of different abilities or by knocking out the opponents, we will be able to recruit them into our crew. We can then assign them command posts and, depending on their specialties, they will provide statistical bonuses to the crew or ship. Nothing transcendental as a novelty, but which still manages to have its own reason, giving a touch of depth to the aspect of the management of our ship.
Another novelty is the Mercenaries system: Alexios and Kassandra will have to be able to climb the top in their field, starting from the bottom and then facing the best mercenaries in the Hellenic world. As usual, depending on our actions, some principals will be able to put a bounty on our head that can rise from time to time. The higher this will be, the more mercenaries will be on our trail, putting a spoke in the wheel, at times in a decidedly annoying way such as during our infiltrations into strong enemies. Facing and beating mercenaries higher than us in rank, we will climb a sort of prestige ranking that will provide us with advantages depending on the bands we will gradually conquer: a simple but effective type of system management.
Slow flights, Icarus
As Bayek had his Senu, Alexios / Kassandra will also be accompanied by their faithful eagle Icarus. The support of our volatile trusty will be essential to prepare the various assaults on the camps and strong enemies: by passing control to Icarus we will be able to find the various treasures and points of interest, as well as highlight the various soldiers, communicating role and level, which can return. useful in terms of recruiting. Although passing control to Icarus proves to be a substantially fundamental practice, it is sometimes a bit annoying, as it happens to have to put up with additional loads, which was not the case with Senu.
An important novelty lies precisely in the identification of the objectives: once Odyssey is started, we will be asked if we want to apply the assisted mode or not. Choosing the "manual" one when you have to reach a certain area or objective related to the main story or to some secondary quests, we will only be given indications and, before using Icaro, we will at least have to go near the place. This option, in our opinion, turns out to be much more fun than the assisted mode, giving a pinch of spice to exploration.
In terms of performance, Odyssey does not turn out to be too heavy or better, in terms of loading the times are quite long, even when we go from one KO to another, reloading the game. The positive side of the coin is that there won't be any kind of drop in performance or excessive console strain during our travels, which, counting the graphic quality of the title, is certainly a good achievement. The work done also with the music and dubbing tracks is of quality, entirely in Spanish (even if we will be forced to download it separately): in the over 30 hours of recorded dialogue for Odyssey it is more unique than rare to notice a blunder or a bad interpretation by the voice actors.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey is undoubtedly a great title that manages to further improve the good that was done in Origins. Ubisoft is slowly learning from its mistakes and the GDR fold undertaken with the previous chapter is gradually getting stronger, improving in style, although there is still some room for improvement from the point of view of interaction. The strengths of the older chapters have also been treasured, with the return of navigation, but we also wink to the future, thanks to the new system of dialogue choices. This adventure, between history and myth, in ancient Greece plagued by the Peloponnesian War, is undoubtedly one of the best adventures baked by Ubisoft: do not miss it.
► Assassin's Creed Odyssey is an Adventure-Action game developed and published by Ubisoft for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 05/10/2018
Version for Google Stadia from 19/11/2019
