Assassin’s Creed Odyssey - Worth it in 2020?

The question that lingers in the mind of the people who still don’t own a copy of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is, “Is this game worth it when Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is on the horizon?”. I am here to answer that question.

About Game

If you are an Assassin’s Creed franchise fan, no more reading is required, it’s a must-buy game and this game goes on sale for CA $19 often. For others who are venturing into the game for the first time, I have a few questions for you:

1. Do you like RPG games?
2. Are you okay to spend a lot of hours playing side missions to build your character?
3. Are you fine with moderate quick control navigation like parrying an incoming attack, scramble to hang on a ledge or quick crawl up the wall when spotted by the enemies, etc….
4. Most of all, are you a fan of stealth gameplay?

Assassin’s Creed is a huge series, the story is vast and would take hours if you wanna play through every game to understand the story. Instead, you could find lots of videos on YouTube explaining the story so far. Since the last Assassin’s Creed game, Ubisoft has not been concentrating enough about the original storyline; rather immersing the player on the beautiful world they have built, so knowing the story is not a must.

This game focuses on ancient Greek time between 431 - 422 BCE, specifically Greek during the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans and Athens are in a war that is influenced by a secret society known as Cult of Kosmos. Your character fled the Spartans and now tries to find his/her mother and father, in the process uncovers the secrets about the cult.

Game Play

The Assassin’s Creed gameplay follows different styles but predominantly Role Playing Game style. There are ship battles, stealth battles, war partakes, political decisions, civilian squabbles, and the list keeps going. The merit system is well rewarding, by that I mean that you would find experience points, materials, and loots abundantly the world and missions.

The game provides multiple endings and game progressions based on the choice throughout the game. It also gives gender options at the beginning of the game, Kassandra or Alexios. There is also a notoriety system which punishes player when crimes are committed by sending other mercenaries who carries rare items which are rewarded when they are defeated.

There is a skill tree which is segregated by three styles you would like to play. You can concentrate being on a stealthy Assassin or a powerful range weapons handlers by choosing Hunter skills or an untouchable melee by choosing Warrior skills. You can also mix and match the skills based on your play type, I prefer a balanced gameplay. These skills are upgraded by gaining experience points which as I aforementioned are easy to get by various activities. The best part is, you can always reset the spent points and build from the scratch to your liking as you learn the game, the maximum level is capped at 99.

The weapons selections could be overwhelming, there is a tier system in the weapons choice (normal, rare, epic, and legendary). You can engrave the weapons with skills and upgrade the weapon levels when your character level increases. The weapon looks can also be customized so you don’t have to discard your favorite weapon just to have a powerful one.

The ship battle in this game takes you back to the roots of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, you find loots, shipwrecks, pirates, etc. The battles are not just naval combat, you can also board the enemy ship to kill its occupants and grab the loot from them. You can upgrade the ship’s stats with all these loots as well as cosmetics. You can also hire lieutenants for the ship which would increase the ship’s stats based on the type of lieutenant you hired.

Other nitty-gritty details can be things like you can hunt animals for loots, raid forts and camps to get rare items, kill mercenaries to get perks at shops, fight in wars to capture or defend the land for the faction of your preference, take a tour throughout ancient Greek to learn its history, and you get decisions to make in missions that can avoid or end up in conflicts, love, or turning points in the game story progression.

Review

In my opinion, there are many things to like about this game than not to, music in this game is mind-blowing especially the sea shanties and background scores. Though the sound effects are a little dull during fights and I don’t get the full surround sound feeling in my 5.1 audio system or on my headphone. The graphics are really good for a 2018 Ubisoft game (I am looking at you Watch_Dog from E3 demo), and the game plays at a solid 60 fps if you have a good gaming rig or 30 fps on a console. The combat system has improved compared to the predecessor game but still, the combat system lacks a flow like the one you would see in Batman Arkham series or 2018’s God of War. Also, I don’t understand why Ubisoft decided to remove the shield option completely from Odyssey but has given enemies the ability to shield your attacks.

Verdict

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is one of the best game in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, it has a lot of hours worth of gameplay and different game styles which will keep you hooked. There are so many activities and side missions that can go for hours and hours which can be done even if you straight on finish doing only the story missions. For a CA $19 game that’s a lot to bargain, so I would suggest picking up the game even if the next game in the series is a few months away.

Decision: Buy