This is such a baffling statement to me. The setting for Odyssey is almost a character unto itself. It’s one of the best-realized game worlds in all of the AC iterations.
And we know that in the real world setting, there are a lot of historians who specialize in classical ancient histories who fully believe that the main reason Greece was ever settled was the inherent beauty of that area of the world.
Grifman
1904
Seriously, the landscape, lore and rest of the setting are wonderful.
I kept on annoying my wife by screaming look at this! The game is just too damn pretty for it’s own good. The computer was occupied last night so because I’m insane I installed Unity on the Xbox. Amazing how different that plays, but geez it looks pretty damn good.
I plan on going back on playing the older games by trying to stick to the stories. We’ll see how that works out. I think Black Flag is as far back I’d be willing to go without a remaster though. I’m too fancy for janky crap.
Yeah, even more so than the technically more advanced Valhalla, Odyssey is awe-inspiring in its look and general atmosphere. Epic is the word, indeed, Homeric even.
Do you literally have to turn the interface elements back on? I wonder if you’re given descriptions or general areas to search? One of these days I’m going to try a hardcore no-interface playthrough.
He’s just joshing me for a) my frequent statement that Ancient Rome is the most boring period in all of history, and b) his disappointment in Odyssey for reasons that I’ll let him spell out. I think his parents were murdered by Ancient Greeks, or something.
-Tom
Of all the AC games I’ve played lately I would easily put Valhalla in dead last for looks. Unity, Origins and Odyssey are all nicer to look at.
Yeah it’s kind of amazing how much of a step backwards Valhalla was.
…and yet I bet it will run worse than Odyssey on my PC when I get around to buying it eventually.
@Octavious230 , you said you installed Unity on the Xbox. That’s the last of the pre- RPG-lite ones, right?
Odyssey ran like poo for me until I realized that one setting was pretty much murdering the framerates. No I don’t value fluffy clouds that much UBI. Some charts had it having something like a 44% performance impact lol.
I may have to shelve Valhalla for now as the eye candy in all the other games is so much better. I’m shallow sue me. ;)
A bunch of fields in England and dumpy monasteries aren’t much to look at it compared to sparkling Aegean isles and Greek megalopolises.
-Tom
I believe Syndicate was the last one, but close enough. I’m going to get around to playing that one too eventually. Between this and my Yakuza backlog I should be set for the next 4-5 years.
I think part of the perception there is based on the fact that we’ve seen medieval England a lot in other games and movies. Ancient Egypt and Greece aren’t as common as entertainment settings. That combined with the generally sunnier climes makes them more appealing, at least for me.
Heh, I know what you mean. I’ve got enough games that the question is whether the hardware to play them on will hold out.
I got Syndicate for free on the Uplay, and I liked Odyssey so much I went back to play it (part of me really wanted to see Karl Marx fight some goofy cultists) but all it did was remind me how much of a quantum leap Odyssey actually is.
The climbing and parkour stuff was so awkward and clunky, everything kinda felt thrown together without much attention to detail. There was no witty dialogue or characters to speak of.
It just reaffirmed to me that I was right to skip that noise up until Odyssey.
I disagree about Valhalla’s looks. I think it looks fabulous. The lighting and weather effects are great, the water is good, the buildings and incidental stuff are great. It’s just that it is, as noted, familiar, too familiar for many, and we sort of are jaded with medieval stuff. It is nowhere near as spectacular a visual experience as Odyssey, but it is far from being ugly or technically deficient. And there are truly sublime moments running through England.
Ah, got it.
You kids these days…don’t make me turn this car around.
Aceris
1919
I love the look and atmosphere, but found the combat tedious, which killed the game for me.
Maybe I fell into some kind of suboptimal style of shitty combat technique.
Yeah, I was kind of shocked by the comparatively low framerates (~75fps) I was getting on what is now an “older” game on my new rig.
Syndicate was great, big thumbs up from me.
One thing that’s bugging me about Odyssey (and maybe they introduced this with this game or Origins, though I don’t recall it in that game): you’ll have a battle where you have to kill a special target, like Hyrkanos the Mercenary or the Athenian Leader of Megara early on, and you die the first time you try it. Then, when you reload the last auto save, instead of facing all the opponents again, you’re facing maybe one plus the target, making it absurdly easy.
I’m playing on normal if it makes a difference.
Also, this game seems to have a lot of timed side quests which I don’t remember from Origins. Like one where a woman asks you to sink a fleet of ships for her because she oversold her abilities to get a gig. I didn’t realize it was timed and when I went to look for it in the menus it was gone.
