So, some ease of life tips that the game may not make explicitly clear to help you out.
You can meditate to advance time to either the daylight start or nighttime start by pressing the select key on a 360 controller. I never got a specific pop-up about that as a tutorial message or anything, but it’s there. You can see which is the meditate key for whatever control method you’re using on the abilities upgrade panel, down in the lower left. There’s a bottom row there that’s really easy to miss that shows all the commands for calling your horse, meditating, etc.
You can freely respec at any time. It feels a little cheesy to do so, but if you’re ever having trouble with something like a conquest battle, try re-speccing everything into the warrior tree, for instance, right before the battle starts.
On a 360 controller, left shoulder button lets you stand on your horse, useful for firing off arrows as needed while being chased.
WATCH YOUR QUEST LOG CLOSELY. If you finish some story quests, it’ll close off other quests that might be available to you. I think this particular “feature” has led to some complaints about people feeling underleveled and needing to grind.
Let me give an example on #4 there. Slightly spoilery – but not much – if you’ve gotten out of Chapter 1, and you’ve gone to the next area and talked to Stentor. Basically, if you’re about level 7 or so.
OK, I’ll try to keep this pretty spoiler free…but there are quests such as stealing the national treasury on Megaris that will GO AWAY COMPLETELY if you weaken the Athenian leader so much that you just sort of accidentally casually kill him. I did that, and got through the first conquest battle and I was level 10 when all was said and done.
Then I went back and did things the “right” way, and stole the national treasure, and took down that entire fort by stealth. Then I went and took care of the leader and then moved along. This time I was 11, nearly 12 when all was said and done (and I dinged 12 very quickly afterwards.)
My biggest complaint about a game I really do like a lot is that it’s never made particularly clear when you’re closing down uncompleted quests and removing them from your log. It doesn’t handle that nearly as well as The Witcher 3 did.
I’ve seen a couple of scripting weirdnesses that a big budget game should have avoided. Early in the main plot on Cepha… Keffa… you know… I’ve seen two plot triggers messed up by their not dealing with more ‘ambient’ events well. Seems like that’s open world RPG 101.
I am having a good time, but I don’t know where the references to great writing come from. The dialog trees seem to add nothing really… I almost never have any choices in what I say? Does that not make them functionally identical to the old Press A to accept quest style of dialog?
The game I finished before this was Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Lara and Kassandra must have learned how to demolish a small tree to make arrows from the same youtube :) Odyssey does feel a lot more like TR than Witcher 3 to me. Kassandra’s feet and fingers of glue do make her movements faster and safer. I don’t have that sense of fear I have with Tomb Raider, but if you told me this was the next Tomb Raider game I might have believed you.
Edit: Having got to the end of tutorial island, the writing picked up for me, on balance. Having a good time. Seaward!
So I started a new game with Kassandara instead of Alexios. She is a much better voice actor. The script is nearly identical though. I was’t far, so not a big deal - but I’m sticking with Kassandara.
My one big complaint so far is I don’t like forts and/or bandit camps repopulating, takes away any sense of accomplishment IMO from completing its location requirements.
Was really excited to play this yesterday, but couldn’t get past a crash at or just before the main menu. Bummer. Refunded and will try again in a few weeks.
We heard your feedback and are now actively working on a solution to extend the supported CPUs for our players to be able to run Assassin’s Creed Odyssey without AVX support, within the minimum requirements.
As this is an ongoing process, we are not able to provide an ETA just yet, but rest assured this is a high priority for us and we will keep you updated on the progress.
IMO, i feel like in some ways Origins was better, at least at this point. I liked the theme music in Origins, and i really liked the setting.
That is, the oasis starting city was like OMG WOW in Origins, where here it’s just “goats and hills”. And the music is definitely weaker in Odyssey so far.
Odyssey is exactly the same game except with a dialog tree. And no shields. Even the stupid bird drone. However this is fine, it’s a great looking engine, and open world games are a lot of fun, so if they crank out a ton more content for this engine, the more the merrier.
I am of an opposite opinion. While I loved my time with Origins, so far I’m finding Odyssey superior. Kassandra is more enjoyable than Bayek and the conversation choices and everything just seems better.
I had a similar experience. I played Alexios for about an hour or so. Just wasn’t feeling it and haven’t played Assassin’s Creed since XBone came out five years ago and was feeling pretty confused about what was all going on with the controls and UI elements, so I restarted as Kassandra which gave me a chance to rerun the basic tutorial stuff and haven’t looked back (now about 8 hours in).
Yeah, I found Bayek and the deadly-serious tone of Origins to be kind of wearying after a while, and the story just becomes an inscrutable, confusing mess even for this series, which has plenty of inscrutable, messy stories it can boast of.
Obviously there have to be twists and turns and meandering in a story for a 50-100 hour game. But I so far Odyssey is handling all of that so much better, I think.
I’m of the opposite opinion as well. Origins failed to grab me much. Odyssey grabbed me instantly. And while they are very similar games, the small changes actually make a big difference. Combat flows better, the skill tree is streamlined but more flexible and useful, the scenery is more lively, the main character (Kassandra) is more interesting.
Sure, I’m only 7 hours in - compared to my 16 hours in Origins so far - but yeah, in terms of engagement, Odyssey wins hands-down. Perhaps I’ll have a better idea of exactly why after I’ve played more.
Loving the setting, but Origins did feel like it pulled me in with more of a story earlier. I am enjoying this tale, but there has been even less narrative so far, though what we’ve gotten (main story, I mean, the side quests have been pretty interesting) has been good.
Gameplay this feels identical to Origins, visually it’s really close as well, though the setting helps as I really like the backdrop here so far. I think I liked the armor/weapon designs in Origins a bit more - there are some truly ugly pieces of armor I’ve been forced to use for the stats.
I vastly prefer this game’s skill tree - Origin’s was kind of stale, this has a lot more punch to it, in theory. I haven’t unlocked any late game skills of course, and only been able to put a 2nd point in one or two skills, but they ramp up fast and I like you can go deep vs. narrow here.
Overall this seems like an improved and more fun (gameplay wise) Origins, but it’s not strictly better.
I LOVE Kassandra! And I am learning to fight! I never played Origins and I am sure that is a fine open world game. The Greek milieu and a female protagonist drew me in.
Funny how different companies have a different take on open worldness. I am in exploration mode and I still think there are too many markers and gamey ness. Gorgeous open world and I have a 2d white computer marker. Is there a way just to eliminate all markers? I’ll go look. I’d rather have NO markers for anything (including the mercenary)
Ps this is a good game to get a new cpu for graphics-wise.
