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Assassin's Creed Odyssey, set in ancient Greece - it's definitely an RPG now

JDR13

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Nov 2, 2006
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The Swamp
I thought all the AC games were crap up until Origins.

I really wanted to like Black Flag. I loved the setting, and it was one of the most visually impressive games I had played till that point, but the repetitive and brain-dead gameplay killed it for me.
 

DayofBlow

Educated
Joined
Nov 12, 2018
Messages
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Last Week
Agreed. AC2 is elongated tutorial the game and the narrative is a step down from the philosophical aspirations of the first. To this day it's my least fav. game to actually play cause it doesn't let me free. Brotherhood was a large step up interms of freedom though.
You have it backwards, ACB started the annualisation, abhorrent pacing, Uncharted 2 style setpieces, exceedingly disjointed writing and overabundance of time wasting side content AC became a joke for. It's the game that introduced facebook time waiting management shit with the assassin recruits, ffs. And the reason it feels 'free' is because the main plot is a swiss cheese of stuff happening in a sequential order that shits game mechanics and side content on you as it rushes through introducing and reintroducing everything. Mechanical improvements aside, ACB is the blueprint for everything decent about AC1-2 becoming cynical and terrible.

AC2 on the other hand 'feels like an elongated tutorial' because it is has a firmer direction for the story, and the pacing of it and introduction of game mechanics is consistent with just enough room to breathe. You're so used to haphazard mess being the standard, ala ACB, ACR, AC3, etc, that it feels weird that a game actually gives a shit about the 20%-95% interim section of the game.

Though to be fair it loses a lot of steam once you get to Venice, routine sets in, and the secondary villains in the Pazzi are gone, while the main villain is being cockteased while also introing a different set of villains that you have no attachment to. Game has its issues, but everything bad about it is worse in ACB, while losing the good and turning the tolerable into intolerable. Novel elements in 2 that were just limited enough to not feel trashy padding like real estate, purchasing things, chests for a little extra gold, etc. are turned to 11 and become rancid. Even the inarguably 'better' elements, like UC style setpieces and Batman combat detract from it as a whole, the combat especially kills the game being about assassinating 1 dude and then hauling ass, which AC2 fucked a great deal already, and setpieces means you have to contrive scenarios for them.

tl;dr ACB is the harshest decline of the series
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
Playing RDR2 just shows how bad this game and Ubisoft's formula is in comparison.

If I was a Ubisoft writer, this sentence would read:
Playing fucking RDR2 just shows how fucking bad this fucking game and fucking Ubisoft's fucking formula is in comparison.



Riding is so much better in RDR2 and the fauna in RDR isn't on speed but behaves naturally.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
Playing RDR2 just shows how bad this game and Ubisoft's formula is in comparison.

If I was a Ubisoft writer, this sentence would read:
Playing fucking RDR2 just shows how fucking bad this fucking game and fucking Ubisoft's fucking formula is in comparison.

Riding is so much better in RDR2 and the fauna in RDR isn't on speed but behaves naturally.

You know it's bad when RDR2, which is itself a pretty shitty game, is used to shame your game.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
Playing RDR2 just shows how bad this game and Ubisoft's formula is in comparison.

If I was a Ubisoft writer, this sentence would read:
Playing fucking RDR2 just shows how fucking bad this fucking game and fucking Ubisoft's fucking formula is in comparison.



Riding is so much better in RDR2 and the fauna in RDR isn't on speed but behaves naturally.


The english voice acting is one of the funniest I ever heard :lol:
 

hexer

Guest
I remember that side quest. Pure cringe!
She's a pirate captain so obviously.. pirates = people who swear all the time

:prosper:
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
I remember that side quest. Pure cringe!
She's a pirate captain so obviously.. pirates = people who swear all the time

:prosper:

Yes, that was probably their concept, but it's embarrassingly bad and uncreative for such a huge production. And she's not they only one constantly using "fuck/fucking".
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
For all of you wasting your time on this (relax, I've been there too), or on RDR2, please allow me to reiterate that you should be playing BotW instead (or KCD, or Witcher 3, or ELEX).

Ubisoft (and to a lesser degree, Rockstar) distills everything that's wrong with open world games into a high density package, and makes people think it's a horrible genre, but then you play something like BotW and realize how amazing it can be. U7:TBG > Gothic 1/2 > BotW > ?
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,933
Also wouldn't the phrase fuck be some kind of anachronism in that setting? Sure it works in Italy not that many hundreds of years later but did classical greeks use the word?
 

Doktor Best

Arcane
Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
2,849
Even without excessive swearing that writing is just abysmal.

Is it just an outlier or is this quest representative of the game? I was hoping for slight incline in Odyssey as people said it would be more tongue in cheek and less serious. Would have been a welcome departure after wading through all those mindboggingly boring black and white morality goodguy slave vs meaniemean oppressive nobleman plotlines Origins threw at me constantly.
 

Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 24, 2017
Messages
9,835
Location
Free City of Warsaw
Also wouldn't the phrase fuck be some kind of anachronism in that setting? Sure it works in Italy not that many hundreds of years later but did classical greeks use the word?

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/βινέω

Ancient Greeks also had another 'slang' word for copulating, created from the name of the city of Corinth, known for its prostitutes (among them also sacred ones, priestesses of Aphrodite, although this fact is disputed by scholars).

Until today in certain languages a 'daughter of Corinth' is a more elegant way to call a prostitute.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
I think Origins is the better game, though it too is kinda shallow.

The combat is way better in Origins: enemies aren't bullet sponges, parrying actually takes skill and watching the enemy, as opposed to reacting to appropriate color flash in Odyssey, you can use shields instead of a broken spear.

The characters and story feels better, though neither is great. Bayek is kinda down to earth dude, the Odyssey guy is some Sunday network TV series caricature of Hercules.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
I prefer Origins as well, the novelty factor of "it's an RPG now" wore off pretty quickly. Odyssey is just a boring game, combat is a chore not a joy, the level scaling is atrocious and if you find a new fortress it's more of a "not again" than "let's do it" feeling. If you want to upgrade your items, you constantly have to farm pelts and other crap.
 
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Dedicated_Dark

Arbiter
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
957
Location
Beyond the Grave
Considering the vastly positive reception from critics for Odyssey. Ubisoft is only gonna get worse. Origins was good, shame the trash Odyssey is the one that got praised.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
I wouldn't say Origins was that good, it still suffered from a lot of Ubisoftinism (copy paste feeling and empty world feeling), but it's not nearly as bad in those things as Odyssey, where after a while, you are asking yourself what is the fucking point of any of this?
 

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
13,609
Location
Winter
So I've been playing this a bit and I have to say the murder hoboism is truly astounding.

Random Lady: "There's a man who made fun on my writing! He must die."
Kassandra: "Where he at bitch?"
Random Lady: "The giant diamond on your map 20 feet away you stupid bitch!"

...

Kassandra: "I just murdered a dude in the middle of the street in Athens and no one cared. Gimme my drachmas you talentless hack!"

As far as I can tell there is literally no downside to murdering anyone you want or stealing anything you want.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,103
I know that Ubisoft tried to base Odyssey (and Origins) on Witcha 3, but to me, they completely failed in all the good ways, while succeeding in all the bad ones.

In terms of copying what's bad about Witcha 3, they have this huge massive world, but most of it is just a prop filled with tons of unconnected encounters. Fortress here, fortress there, some filler quest here, some territory battle there, etc (based on all those bandit/monster camps in W3).

But Witcha 3 made up for that with outstanding writing, and interesting quests. Meanwhile in Odyssey, writing was sleep inducing. Most of the side quests were written like MMO stuff: Kill 3 of this, bro. And the main quests weren't well written either, just boring shit.

Though W3 could've been done a lot better in terms of exporation and world design, while playing it, I felt immersed into the world due to the good parts. While playing Odyssey, I felt like I was playing a single player MMO. There was no point to anything whatsoever.
 

Duralux for Durabux

Guest
But Witcha 3 made up for that with outstanding writing, and interesting quests. Meanwhile in Odyssey, writing was sleep inducing. Most of the side quests were written like MMO stuff: Kill 3 of this, bro. And the main quests weren't well written either, just boring shit.

Though W3 could've been done a lot better in terms of exporation and world design, while playing it, I felt immersed into the world due to the good parts.

But Witcha 3 made up for that with outstanding writing, and interesting quests
Most of the quest in witcher 3 sucks,only a handful of side quests were good but they are never excellent . I'm tired over the constant overhype of witcher 3's quests. Most of the time the quest consist in killing something with no consequences except some peoples died instead of other but you never gets the consequences of your choices in the characters or in the surroundings. Also most of the complain you quoted for Ubisoft's games are correct for witcher 3.
 

cvv

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Mar 30, 2013
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Ubisoft writing is boring, sterile, cliched, mass market fodder, without an iota of personality, heart or soul. Might as well be written by a sophisticated algorithm.

CDPR writing is in a totally different league.
 

Theodora

Arcane
Patron
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Feb 19, 2020
Messages
4,620
Location
anima Bȳzantiī
I haven't played it, and you can say whatever you want about the rest of the game, but it's extremely :incline: to have representations of Minoan and Mycenaean civilisation in a AAA game. In general the amount of effort Ubi goes to (read: spends to) ensure historical faithfulness — an least architecturally, and to an art historian's eye — is very cool.
 

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