Hello! Welcome to my first review here on a very recent title, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. I want to start by saying for reference, I will always note if I am being sponsored, received a title for free, or had early access for review purposes. That being said, for this review none of those are true.

I picked up the game on launch day, as I have in the past with each AC title since Brotherhood, though I was weary. As many of you may know Ubi has in the past given us some less than stellar games on launch day (Looking at you Unity). Despite this Odyssey couldn’t have done much better! In all I have played it I have hit zero game breaking bugs and had no crashes or frame drops. I haven’t even heard much on the spectrum of my friends or major players I follow about the game having issues. That being said, I actually haven’t heard much in either direction about it surprisingly. Though with major titles like Rockstar and Take Two’s Red Dead Redemption 2, Bethesda’s new take on an online RPG after ESO, Fallout 76, and Treyarch’s Black Ops IV looming or released, it may be understandable.

All in all, my final rating on AC Odyssey is a solid 9.2/10. The game is beautiful, the story gripping, and the characters memorable. Choosing your protagonist is a great change of pace. Syndicate offered two very distinct protagonists but being offered the choice and seeing the difference in mannerisms even from the start is incredible. Also every choice I made I recognized the consequences. This game pulls little to no punches and those you regularly encounter remember if you’ve helped them or turned your back on them. Next, the combat is so free-form and flowing. The game offers a lock on function but I can openly say I never used it unless I was in a one on one situation, I was able to dance from target to target dodging, parrying, and generally just fighting to survive against mounting odds. They also removed death by fall damage (finally, thank the gods) though be careful because if you jump off a mountain and land next to a predator it will not hesitate to ruin you and return you to your most recent autosave or worse, manual save if it hasn’t yet auto saved. Aesthetically the game was so pleasing. As someone very fond of Greek Myth and much of its facets, being able to speak to the characters about their perceptions of the gods and hear the stories that some believed truth and others fable was one of my favorite parts of the game. The dialect used was so smooth and though odd to get used to at first quickly became second nature and even more enjoyable to listen to.

For my more negative points, that really aren’t all that bad I only have a few. First, the male character models across the game sometimes felt like I was matching the beard to the name not the face to the name. Looking at some of them it seemed that some less important story characters were given the base structure and a modified beard. But as I continued through I can fully say it stopped bothering me. There are some points were conversation may stutter. You may select your response, they’ll reply and then you’ll almost stand still for a couple of extra seconds before finally saying something again. I will note this is not as common during the main questlines, though it does happen more in the late game than the early game, and becomes very apparent if you are someone who likes to skip dialogue.

Next, I want to touch on length. In my opening playthrough, I did a lot. I tackled all three main questlines (they do overlap at points so don’t be intimidated by plausible length). I became the best Misthios in the Greek world, champion of the arena. I fought for both Athens and Sparta in their military triumphs. I reached level 50, capped out my favorite gear set to 50 with engravings. This great Odyssey of mine took me a whopping 50 hours. It was worth every minute of it too. If you’re looking for your next big game to tackle and you want to make sure it will take time this one will. The RPG elements on top of the story content made it such an enjoyable experience. The whole game scales with you too. No need to worry about out-leveling the quests either because it will only ever drop up to four levels below you, and most of the major enemies will remain at your level. Looking at the game now though there is still so much to do. So many side quests in the world as well as places to see. There are whole islands the base game doesn’t make you explore. There is easily another 10 hours of post-game content ahead of me in caves, interesting new characters, underwater explorable locations, and so much more. If the DLC ends up anything like the base game this will even out to be a phenomenal title, enjoyable for a long time.

To close, this game was worth every drachmae and then some. For a long time Brotherhood was my favorite AC game, then Black Flag managed to topple it. I didn’t know I would see it toppled again so soon with Odyssey now claiming its spot. The game has so far been the top game I have played this year, though it faces a number of tough games ahead of it in the coming weeks and months. We shall see where it stands in my final ranking of the 2018 games I played at the end of the year, but I believe in it. For now, I just have to wait for my New Odyssey + to be released so I can try it all again later.

I hoped you enjoyed this review and that it in some way can help you make a decision on the game! As always I’m SurelyNotNoah and this has surely not been my news.