{"id":548,"date":"2018-11-30T23:13:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T04:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=548"},"modified":"2018-11-30T23:13:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T04:13:45","slug":"game-ramblings-77-assassins-creed-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=548","title":{"rendered":"Game Ramblings #77 &#8211; Assassin&#8217;s Creed: Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/assassinscreed.ubisoft.com\/game\/en-us\/home\">More Info from Ubisoft<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Genre<\/strong>: Action RPG<\/li>\n<li><strong>Platform<\/strong>: PS4<\/li>\n<li><strong>Also Available On<\/strong>: Windows, Xbox One<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>TL;DR<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Another great entry in the series that iterates on the new AC style established in\u00a0<em>Origins<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Stealth was still the most fun way to play, but both melee and bow combat were not detriments<\/li>\n<li>Ancient Greek environment is a lot of fun to run through, especially for history nerds<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_551\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-551\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_sailing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_sailing-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_sailing-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_sailing-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_sailing-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_sailing.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-551\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sailing is back, and it&#8217;s gorgeous.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While it would be easy to look at this game and assume it&#8217;s simply a mashup of\u00a0<em>Origins<\/em> and the sailing from\u00a0<em>Black Flag<\/em>, there&#8217;s a lot more going on under the hood here.\u00a0 Where last year&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Origins\u00a0<\/em>explored the starting point of the assassins, this year&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Odyssey<\/em> explores where some of the series artifacts come from.\u00a0 In doing so, the game leans way into the supernatural\/alien elements that have been hinted at for so long in the series&#8217; back story, and really give us a game that fans of Greek mythology can dig into.<\/p>\n<p>The place to start really is to just point at my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=379\">ramblings about\u00a0<em>Origins<\/em> <\/a>last year as it covers a lot of what I normally would have said about combat.\u00a0 That&#8217;s not to say that\u00a0<em>Odyssey<\/em> is a straight copy, but really this is a solid iteration on the ideas from last year.\u00a0 What this does differently is brings back the large scale sailing of\u00a0<em>Black Flag<\/em> and really leans into the RPG side of things through skill trees, even more emphasis on gearing, and a lot less hand holding if you decide to go with the developer&#8217;s recommended options.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_549\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-549\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_locations.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-549\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_locations-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_locations-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_locations-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_locations-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_locations.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-549\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The game generally gives you an idea of where to go, but it&#8217;s up to you to find the goal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It&#8217;s going to sound weird that such a simple change drastically changes the game, but the default style of this game doesn&#8217;t really give you goal locations.\u00a0 Because of story reasons, you&#8217;ll often have a rough idea of where to, but if something isn&#8217;t in the dialog options presented to you, it&#8217;s often up to you to find the location.\u00a0 What this ends up doing is really encouraging the thing that\u00a0<em>Origins<\/em> started; the push to simply explore.\u00a0 On your way towards a general area, you&#8217;ll run into any number of areas that can be cleared out of enemies and treasure, and it&#8217;s generally worth going through them.\u00a0 One of the systems that was added to this game to also encourage exploration is a series of hunts against the\u00a0<em>Cult of Kosmos<\/em>, which is basically a precursor to the series&#8217; templars.<\/p>\n<p>These cult leaders are the driving force behind the game&#8217;s story, and a number of them simply show up as targets during the story.\u00a0 However, the rest have to be found.\u00a0 They might simply be leaders of the various cities.\u00a0 They may be out living on their own, taking care of a fort or a farm.\u00a0 They may also be mercenaries sent to try and kill you.\u00a0 However, behind all of it are clues that you can find by completing the small invasion areas; clues that lead you to the cultists location so you can take them out.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_550\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-550\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_war.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-550\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_war-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_war-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_war-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_war-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_war.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-550\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">War is active, and it&#8217;s up to you to fight in it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There&#8217;s also a large emphasis on war in this game, and you can generally get yourself directly involved in the battles.\u00a0 This game takes place a few decades after the events of the movie\u00a0<em>300<\/em>, and Athens and Sparta are nipping at each other&#8217;s heels.\u00a0 One of the consequences of you taking soldiers out is that the regions you&#8217;re in become weaker, exposing their leaders to be killed, and eventually the region for invasion.\u00a0 In doing so, you can open up battles like the above screenshot for extra rewards, as well as to potentially turn over the region to the opposite side.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a neat system that exists effectively as a distraction, but offers up something to do as a result of all the sneaking around you&#8217;re doing.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_552\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-552\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_medusa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-552\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_medusa-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_medusa-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_medusa-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_medusa-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/acodyssey_medusa.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-552\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mythology comes to life here, including a really fun fight against Medusa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>However, the lore behind the world is also a huge driving factor in exploring.\u00a0 There&#8217;s fights against creatures like Medusa or Theseus&#8217; minotaur.\u00a0 There&#8217;s an entire segment of lore around the city of Atlantis and how it ties into the greater <em>Assassin&#8217;s<\/em> story.\u00a0 There&#8217;s also the historic locations to see like the Parthenon in Athens or the famous people you meet like Sokrates or Hippokrates.\u00a0 Basically, the entire game is a historian buff&#8217;s dream, and you&#8217;ll consistently be seeing things that you&#8217;d only ever seen in books.<\/p>\n<p>All said, this is another great entry in the series.\u00a0 It takes everything that worked about\u00a0<em>Origins<\/em> and iterates in great ways.\u00a0 The game has really leaned further into RPG territory than ever before, but it&#8217;s working out well for the series.\u00a0 The fact that I can sit here having played it for 80 hours and still want to do more is a testament to them having really perfected their formula.\u00a0 I guess I&#8217;m basically recommending this, especially if you liked\u00a0<em>Origins <\/em>or\u00a0<em>Black Flag.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Also for what it&#8217;s worth, sync points are still great.<\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" align=\"left\" data-lang=\"en\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is a good sync point.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0oBdw2BpNL\">https:\/\/t.co\/0oBdw2BpNL<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XmCwf7o1EI\">pic.twitter.com\/XmCwf7o1EI<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Dan Weiss (@schenksmill) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/schenksmill\/status\/1061662103977840640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 11, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Info from Ubisoft Genre: Action RPG Platform: PS4 Also Available On: Windows, Xbox One TL;DR Another great entry in the series that iterates on the new AC style established in\u00a0Origins Stealth was still the most fun way to play, but both melee and bow combat were not detriments Ancient Greek environment is a lot &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=548\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Game Ramblings #77 &#8211; Assassin&#8217;s Creed: Odyssey&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,6],"tags":[18,48,34,29,16],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arpg","category-ps4","tag-action","tag-arpg","tag-assassins-creed","tag-ps4","tag-rpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}