Sixty hours. I've put in sixty hours in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I love Greece, I love ancient Greece, I love the philosophy and culture of ancient Greece, so, when I heard that the Assassin's were headed into the Peloponnesian War, I was ecstatic. I frankly can remember playing Origins and thinking just that, "Man, wouldn't it be great to play in ancient Greece." Boy, how I was wrong. I wasn't wrong because the setting doesn't permit the possibility for enjoyable gameplay, and interesting story, and choices that are pitched as having an impact; I was wrong because the very soul of the Assassin's Creed games has been utterly lost.
When you start Odyssey, you are greeted with the great King Leonidas fighting at the Battle of Thermopylae, right before the Persians sneak around their flank and kill them. The opening is interesting, it sets the tone and tenor for the rest of the game, but the sheer scope of this game dilutes the value of the main story's themes. As is known by now, after the opening, you are given the choice between playing as Alexios or Kassandra. Both stories appear relatively the same and seem to be merely a skin and voice change for the player's character. However, neither Alexios nor Kassandra, evoke the monkish aspect of the main characters of the Assassin's games that has so permeated gaming culture for nearly a decade now. The classic assassin monk's robes that have been a staple throughout the series are replaced with a greyish-black tunic and the option to equip a helmet, bracers, a chestplate, belt and boots; not the sacred robes we all remember. You start off on the poor island of Kefalonia where you are tasked with dealing with the problems that arise as a result of your caretaker's choices to get involved with a sordid individual given the moniker of "Cyclops." You finish him off, secure the island, get a boat, and begin your apt named odyssey.
The game introduces you to its aspects on Kefalonia, such as choice, with a rather vicious affair between Spartan priests and villagers on the island whose small village has been burnt to the ground, their neighbors slaughtered, leaving them at the end of a blade and their fate in your hands. The choice here will, as the game promotes, follow you through the rest of the story, and intends to add to the power of this game; however, the model for how your choices are determined and how they affect your gameplay leaves a tremendous amount to be desired and, at particular times, leaving you going, "Wait, that's the consequence, that is not at all equal to the choice I made, I had no way to talk about that choice, and given that most choices are rather binary, it seems kind of “malakaish” to make you bear the consequences literally ten to fifteen hours later." By the time you bear the consequence to some of your choices, with just the shear size of the game, you might feel like you have no idea what you did, for example, to be kicked out of a particular city, despite having as many clues as the game can provide. As of right now, this quest line, it actually seems broken. It's not that choices are a bad thing, or a bad idea for that matter, in my opinion, these choices do not seem fully fleshed, they are not complex, and suffer from the common trope in games when choices are sold as having a profound impact, but, when making the choices, you're left with great lackluster, and due to the very size of the game, the choices are unfair. For example, there's a mission where you are tasked with killing one of the games infamous members of the Cult of Kosmos, you are given two options to do this, the one, absolutely resulting in his death, the other with the potential to get rid of him in a significantly less prolific manner. There's no indication in the game's dialogue that this choice will bear significant consequence, nor that you will not have the option to reason with him if you make one of the choices. Then, several hours later, for me, literally fifteen hours later, your choices will have a consequence that, once again, you will not see coming and have no way to reason out of if it causes you trouble and you don't like it. The game's choices certainly have consequences, but ones that will most likely leave you feeling like they're not fair; and, in a game, fairness is not trivial, it's addition is necessary. These choices won't leave you going, "Woah, that's interesting," but rather, "Woah, I didn't see that coming, it doesn't seem complementary to the choice that I made and, wait... what choice did I make that actually caused this?"
This is coupled with a combat system that, I think, quite clearly takes notes from current popular hits like the Souls games. There's dodging, parrying, and abilities, including a heal ability that is very similar to an estus flask; it's just infinite use, as long as it's cooled down and you have stamina points to activate the ability. At higher difficulties and during boss fights, the classic Assassin's combat where you would dance around your enemies, parry them, counter, and kill, is broken down into dealing damage with strong and normal attacks until they die, often leaving you feeling like your slicing and dicing an enemy that's a sponge. Your brutal stabs will merely result in your enemy getting angrier, rather than killing them. You'll have to whittle your enemies down as though the death of your enemies in this game is the result of a thousand cuts rather than a spear through the skull. While other games like God of War may have a button-mashy combat system, at least it appears as though you're actually harming your enemies, and not merely trying to cut them with a toothpick. You have a plethora of effects to help you in combat, including engravings, but these seem like a literal rip off of The Witcher 3's rune system, except that it's not as fleshed out and doesn't add cool effects to your blade. The combat leaves much to be desired and is often tedious. This leaves one to ask if this was intentional, if the combat was made to feel like a literal grind, especially given that they have booster backs for your gold and xp for each enemy that you kill and quest you complete.
The RPG elements have been compared to the Witcher's; however, to do this would lesson the significance and the power that was within the Witcher. As stated above, the choices in Odyssey seems straight up unfair; they're out of nowhere, and it doesn't seem like you had much warning; and, given that the consequence can arrive after tens-of-hours of gameplay, you will have no way to go back to fix what the game is telling you that you messed up; and yes, there are irrevocable consequences to some of the choices you've made with no way to reason about them with the interlocutors that are upbraiding you for that choice twenty hours ago, which you don't remember and no one told you would have an impact. On top of that, your combat roles, Assassin, Warrior, and Hunter, are interchangeable; and, it is quite clear that the two most used trees are assassin and warrior, for the health boosts and boosts that you get in your assassination ability. And if at any time you decide that the archery is finicky and doesn't really offer an interesting gameplay option, simply pay those drachme and reset your abilities on the fly. The RPG aspects of this game are there, but to compare them to the Witcher and the fullness by which that game implemented its RPG aspects, is to shame the entire RPG genre and diminish the steps forward that the Witcher 3 took.
The real problem with this game however is that it has lost what made it an Assassin’s Creed game in the first place. There’s no hidden blade, the game is more of an action-combat RPG, rather than a faux-historical assassin simulator, and the narrative is set so far back in the past, with no context to the original trilogy, that it is like a simulation of what an Assassin’s Creed game was, which in itself was a simulation. Trippy, I know. In sum, this leaves it feeling soulless. And unlike the Spider-man game that recently came out for the PS4, this game never lets you, allows you, to really feel like an Assassins. The combat feels like your killing sponges, the RPG elements are not fleshed out enough, and the story line, combined with the consequence system, leaves much to be desired, you perplexed and potentially vexed. There’s a lot I adore about the setting, but the mechanics and gameplay detract far too much for me to forego the bad for the good. While I did enjoy Origins more so than I have Odyssey, I will say that I think they jumped the shark on this one, and it’s unlikely, if they continue this pattern, that we will ever get an Assassin’s Creed game like we use to have in the early Naughts. It’s then ironic that I have to consider a game set in ancient Greece to be a tragedy, but truly, that is what I think this game is, despite other popular games website’s opinions.