Assassin's Creed

Here is one of the first reviews courtesy of the AV Club for Odyssey.

After a little wiki walk, I ended up reading this article about the coloration of ancient statues, and went to Origin's tour mode to look around, and I noticed something peculiar: while the temples are generally painted, a lot of the reliefs and statues are left blank, with a few exceptions. Was this a conscious choice by the studio?

Edited by Redmess on Oct 1st 2018 at 11:24:03 AM

Those statues were likely thousands of years old by the events of the game. Not every statue in Egypt was made in the same millenia.

It was probably more Theme Park Version at play with the flimsy excuse of 'The statues paint has worn off by now'. People are simply more acustomed to the 'noble and elegant greek/roman statues' rather than the colored versions we know as more historically accurate.

I don't really think so since they bothered to paint the columns, and several other things that's usually see as unpainted

I think it is. Egyptian Colums and Walls are, within the realm of popculture, seen as painted with hyroglyphics and designs. Roman/Greek statues aren't. It fits rule of popculture and rule of expectations; the audience expects things to look a certain way regardless of the accuracy. Its hardly the first time AC has done this.

Not to mention Alexandria and Kyrenaika are rather prestine and well maintained, but none of the statues are restored? That hardly makes sense.

The thing is, white supremacists are using these white marble statues as justification for their racist views. And it perpetuates the myth that the Greeks and Romans were "white" people, despite those groups not identifying as such, and the barbarian tribes to the north of them being whiter than them to begin with.

what. they do? sounds silly even for them.

I’m honestly not sure why we should care what a bunch of racists feel.

They were never the smartest batch of people to begin with.

It was mentioned in the review I linked to earlier, as well as in this article.

What Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Changes From Origins

On the differences between Origins and Odyssey.

I don't understand why these reviews are out already - isn't there supposed to be a moratorium on publishing these until the release date?

The release date was 1h21 min ago. For the Gold and Ultimate edition

Ah, I see. The release date seems to be the 5th for the Netherlands, including Gold and "Omega" editions.

Hey, look, a bear that's called a bee wolf. Wonder what that refers to.

I like the changes overall, but am a little worried that we could get an AC III situation where the player is drowned in overly elaborate side activities that boil down to little more than, as Yahtzee put it, selling more couches.

Edited by Redmess on Oct 2nd 2018 at 8:01:05 PM

isn't that a ~200 euros/dollars/whatever purchase?

So based on my first hour spoiler-free impression:

1. This feels very much like ACO met an RPG. This is a good thing.
2. It's got a much slower start than ACO did.
3. It's kinda buggy? The game froze on me once twice three times when I died and had to reload. Also had to manually uninstall and re-install uplay to get it to start.
4. Combat feels good. So far, it's probably the best combat system an Assassin's Creed game has had. So far.
5. Remember in ACO how an enemy's level was sort of a gauge. But you could take enemies within 5 levels of you rather easily. Ya, well early in Odyssey... Don't do that. If you're level 1. Level 2 wolves will fuck you up if they land a hit.

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 2nd 2018 at 7:20:41 AM

No, regular and Omega editions are both priced 59 Euro (standard game price), while the gold edition (including DLC pass) is 99.

I'd like to echo the above impressions.

Sharks will wreck you.

The mercenaries will make you weep.

Combat is great fun - the enemies are clever - archers don't just run, they move into cover and pop out to take potshots... and they have poison weapons at times. Shield enemies try to flank you, dual wielders try to mob you.

And Assassinating one hit kills even Captains (as long as they're close to your level)

The Mercenaries are TERRIFYING at low level. Because, like the Terminator, they will. not. stop. They have an unerring ability to zero in on your location (if you aren't stealthing - which I assume is to simulate people pointing you out) and will hang around if you're hiding above or below them.

The inventory is great and I love the ability to mod things. Dialogue choice is a bit limited and the conversations aren't as seamless as, say, Bioware games. But the acting is mostly decent. I'm finding Alexios quite fun. Choices are ACTUALLY quite interesting (Do you forgive a debt, save people etc)

Some rewards are immediate, some definitely have a slower burn on them. And I'm erring towards being a nice guy, but I can see how the game WILL punish you for being too kind. I haven't run into the plague family choice and not sure how I'm going to roll with that one. Because this is an ancient civilisation and minor issues will spiral.

Oh and the game is gorgeous. From the glowing jellyfish underwater, to the lit caves, to climbing massive statues. Beautiful.

It's Witcher: Greek edition to some extent.

Using the unguided version so far and it's proving more involved - basically turns most quests into a version of the papyrus objectives from Origins - get to a general area, find your target the hard way (looking) or you can use the eagle if it's a person you're after.

It doesn't. I've had one rando mook survive an assassination with 1% of his health.

Those Assassination damage buffs? They matter.

By Mercenaries I assume you mean the Bounty Hunters? I've not had TOO much trouble with them. The Combat system is fun, but it's not too hard to get a grip of, and when you do, combat does become easier. Though enemy levels and gear levels matter ALOT. Seriously, if you level up, have your gear upgraded.

Naval Combat can be very unforgiving when it comes to Boarding. Unlike Black Flag, if you board a ship, you have to kill everyone on it. And while your crew will help, they will retreat if injured. As such, military ships, even if they are your level, can be a PAIN to clear out if they are full of armorer, shielded soldiers or elites.

Oh, the crew recruiting mechanic is hilarious. Choke someone out. Then recruit them. It can be just some rando mook.

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:23:09 AM

tbh I think Assassinations should be instakills. It's kinda the theme of the series even if it kinda moved away from it.

interesting. Must be because it was only level 1 / 2 captains on the first island. Haven't run into any bigger guys yet, so that is probably it (One of the smaller bandit camps where, basically, a mook is made a "Captain".)

Still getting to grips with the damage types. And interesting step, but part of me misses how weaponry used to be the main influence on combat, not stats.

Well they aren't

Weapon types do matter in that like ACO, they determine attack motions and speeds.

They changed how poison work, for example, and poison benefits from fast weapons (as you need to build up the dose before enemies take damage)

And the guy who survived assassination wasn't even a brute either.

Oh, and Bounty Hunters have a Nemesis system of sorts. Look at their cards and you can see their strength and weaknesses.

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 3rd 2018 at 8:31:58 AM

Haven't tackled a bounty hunter / merc yet (Bounty hunter as he has a red icon) - got one following me is all.

The damage types are more varied now - with enemies being vulnerable. So, a lightly armoured enemy, makes sense they're probably more vulnerable to Assassination damage. Heavy armour - maybe a resistance. But, again, this is where RPG numbers run into the historical precedence of realistic (ISH) combat - sword fights being flashy but relatively quick.

I can see why they've done it. Counter combat got a BIT rote - though I loved the feeling of just reeling through groups of enemies by parry-counter-parry. A bit like building a great combo in Mordor, Arkham, Spiderman.

Parrying here is a bit trickier, but rewarding.

Yeah, poison in Origins was quite overpowered, especially once someone dies from it and they start the death cloud. And then random passers by start dying, too, and it becomes this hilariously dark chain of poison death, long after the actual fight is over.

It gets easier when you recognize the visual cues. White circle means it's parryable. Red means unblockable so dodge. Green means poison attack.

Parries are actually easy in that you can just hold down the parry and let the enemy attack into it and they'll always be staggered by that. Dodges are more tricky because you can long dodge or short dodge, and the enemy only really staggers if you time the dodge just right (And it's possible to dodge into the blow if you don't know what's coming or do it wrong).

None of which is criticism, it just means you wanna know how enemies attack.

Combat is still sort of parry base in that you want to stagger an opponent before hitting them so they don't hit you back and wreck you so waiting for them to move so you can parry/dodge is preferable. Many enemies will chain attacks IF the first hit connects so a mistake can snowball. The game rewards carefulness over aggression.

Poison (At least so far, might be further down the skill tree) doesn't make clouds anymore. And like I said, poison does nothing until you achieve a sufficient dose. So you poison your weapons, and for 15 seconds, the weapons do poison damage. Each hit adds a dose to an enemy. If an enemy's doseage is filled out, they take poison damage over time, and deal less damage and have less armor.

Oh, and Archers will be glad that arrow starvation is over. the standard quiver is 40. You can craft arrows in the inventory. Bow types also are gone, they are rolled into various type of skill shots. Predator Bow shots for example now use adrenaline.

Oh, one criticism. The UI for the inventory sucks. Agressively so.

Remember the Papyrus? Well they have a counterpart here. And to see them, you need to open the menu, go to the inventory section, select your character's bag (Which is listed as a piece of gear) to open it, and then you can review your non-equipment items, including quest items.

It's an awful system

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 3rd 2018 at 10:05:59 AM

Sounds like they wanted to give the UI a roleplay feel.