When I played
Assassin's Creed Odyssey, part of the fun for myself was that I got to see an interactove world I'd studied since I was a kid and see alot of the mythical/historical figures and creatures I've always found facinating come to life.
When this particular game was announced under the name
Gods and Monsters I was excited to see where
Ubisoft could take it. Then renamed
Immortals the team behind the aforementioned
Assassin's Creed have created a different take on the mythology. Its storyline is fun to play along. The God's have been cast down the pecking order (sorry Ares) by the legendary imprisoned Typhon (Zeus' father) and he is now destroying everything they've built in the pursuit of perfection. Now what's briliant about the script writing of this game is we get to see how shallow and fikkle the God of ancient Greece really were.
Told by Prometheus, if you're infamiliar with Greek myth, he stole fire to give to the primitive humans on Earth, that Zeus knew they weren't ready for yet. Without giving much away, the journey he takes Zeus on through the journey out protagonist Fenyx takes on herself. Really shows Zeus in a light not previously shown in myth before. It shows a side of him rarely explored.
Inside all of this is ofcourse the open world element of the game thay Ubisoft have come to be known for in recent years. What's great about it is that the world is full of interesting creatures and bosses for us as the player to explore and kill at will. What gets tiresome in places, however, is the sheer number of puzzles. Some of these are pretty fun, Odysseus myth challenges see us shooting arrows through targets (Odyessus was a master marksman as well as war hero) these are relaxing puzzles, so too are the constellation and fresco puzzles. They bring an element lf the ancient Greeks love of solving puzzles and riddles and their general fascination with intelligence.
There is a weak link in this tapistry of puzzledom though, and it comes in the form of the Vaults of Tartaros. On the face of it, these are nice little puzzles that take you to a part of the underworld with a series of puzzles and the reward is a hit of Zeus's lightning to use in upgrading your max stamina. The fault isn't with the puzzles,but with the controls. Sometimes they work great and even the hardest vaults are a cakewalk, once you get the hang of them anyway, but for some of the challenges within vaults, the controls seem to not really respind quickly enough for you to complete the challenge in time. Sometimes, the vaults are so poorly designed, you can even end up skipping most of the puzzles by accident, although this is
very rare. Controls seem to struggle when having to switch between God powers. God powers are unlocked using coins of charon, found by, you guessed it, solving puzzles like the Odesseus arrow puzzles or constellations. Holding down L1 allows you to access their menu, for example, in some vaults you need to pass through lasers. Athena's upgraded power allows you to travel through then by hitting Square with L1. sometimes you'll need to the use another power after, but it sometimes the game doen't react fast enough to the commands, for the next power, making Fenyx fall to her death. Vaults could have had their number cut down and mainly been tied to the storyline, as the storyline vaults are super fun compared to their optional counterparts, but you need to complete at least 22 for one trophy and ALL the arena vaults on top of that to compelte the platinum.
In relation to combat though, the controls are 100% fluid and allow you to do what attack you want bar what an enemy is doing.
R1 is you light attack wirh your sword, R2 is a heavy attack with your axe. L2 draws your bow in which case you can (once upgraded) use R1 for a controlled shot where you guide the arrow, or R2 for a normal shot. L1 unleshaes God powers. Square is Athena's dash, used more for quick damage that you can quickly follow up with light attacks, Circle is for you companion to attack and X is Ares wrath, which shpots spears from the ground attacking anything in theor way. You canalso parry by holding L1 and pressing R1 after, which can be upgraded to knock an ranged attack back at your enemy. Holding L1 and pressing R2 will use Hephaistos's hammer. Which is the heavy hitter of the powers. All these powers are subject to help the Gods and gaining tbeit trust.
Most vaults aren't that difficult as I said, but the vast number of them can leave you feeling a little overwhelmed, it's a good job you can leave them once exhausted of them in favour of more storyline and freeroam.
The beautiful graphics are a Godsend (sorry) it packages the whole product together. It makes the game feel like a cartoony
Assassin's Creed, which isn't a bad thing. from the georgous lands of Aprhodite and Athena to the barren, war-torn wasteland of Ares. The engine is used to full effect to show the contrast between the God's characters as well as the funny banter between the God's in their hall once you've rescued them from Typhon's grasp.
This game deserves it's four stars, although there are negatives involved in the game. The experience I've had with the overal product have been largely positive.
4.0