This had to be re-uploaded due to copyright shenanigans. Sorry for the hassle. As I do with all of my big reviews, I've worked with a very talented graphic artist to produce a limited edition script exclusive to Patrons. If you'd like to get your hand on that, or just support what I do, check out my Patreon: www.patreon.com/skillupyt
Fun fact: Scholars recently discovered that Medusa was only defeated by Perseus after he spent 20 minutes running away and hiding on a rock to regenerate his health
I know this is probably a joke and I’m probably autistic but I’m almost sure he was executed for “corrupting the youth”. Or at least that was the excuse.
Mr. Problematic I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure didn’t like his teachings so they gave him a choice of being exiled or executed and he chose execution
I remember sitting in my first ever philosophy class and one of the students asked “So Socrates is the the adult version of the kid who asks ‘Why?’ To literally anything?” Pretty true.
fyfsixseven I’m actually put off playing many “AAA” games now they are to big! If they were big and interesting and genuinely needed to be so big cool but this review sums it up perfectly, each area blends into the next copy pasted assets, memorable games have very distinct areas in my eyes, I’ve took to playing shorter games, a lot of indies and 10-20 hour games not 100-200
@@markwheeler4245 The areas don't blend into each other at all. They're really quite distinct. There's deserts, swamps, plains, mountains, and even a forest full of stone corpses.
@@DisDatK9 SO true! I'm not looking forward to Socrates again :/ Playing this game through again, it's still good and it's still huge... Man I dunno if I'll finish it though, I keep getting distracted 'oh look at that question mark over there'
That's his style. He uses analogies to help him make a bigger point. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but people who like Skill Up like how in-depth his reviews are.
Also...." Don't know, ask that bloke" That bloke: " don't know ask that bloke" That bloke : " don't know, ask that woman" That woman: " Don't know, ask that bloke, BUT there will be a huge great fucking cliff in the way because reasons".
Thats all the game consists of though.. there were no set pieces where you could actually feel amazing for sneaking up through some cleverly placed pathway or higher walkways or underground areas like in any older titles. Just bandits all over the place.. makes me think how anyone survived on an honest days work in those cities
*Clicks on a game review* Starts to be informed about song lengths Just to clarify, yes I have been watching Skill Up for a while and yes I understand what he's doing and why he does it
I need to restart my playthrough because cant remember what I was doing but I dont want to play all those hours again. So I ended up shelving it indefinitely thats why I'm watching reviews again to give me motivation to play it
I fi wished everything in this game, I think it took like 200 hours. That includes DLC too... and i don't think i could tell you the names of most characters or what happened to them 😂
@@JJJBunney001 That's exactly my experience. The only character that I kind of remember is the first templar I met named Elpenor, I don't entirely remember what quest he gave me but him as a character was very mysterious and I kind of hoped he would play a bigger role. Then jump forward a few hours and I killed him... Don't really even remember most of the Cult of Kosmos people, pretty much all of them were like "you found a hint(not sure what the wording for it was)" now you know where he is... go and kill. Like 30 hours into the game, I kind of just ran around trying to complete all the fortress objectives and stuff like that and derp around and trying to sparta kick as many bastards off of high areas as possible, and with all that I somehow managed to get to the end. To end my rant Origins was more fun.
Probably the weakest story so far tbh. Since the Kosmos things becomes a side story as the game progresses. The main story is you attempting to save Deimos/find your mother. Everything else is just side stories
Ghost of tsushima had an open world map with tons of real estate, but the thing is, every location looked different. There was so much to explore, it was insanely beautiful, and it never got old. How the AC series hasnt figured this out after like twenty entries is astounding to me.
I'm considering buying this game today while it's still £16 on the store for the deluxe edition, is it shit and full of dull quests with forgettable side stories? Only asking as you're probably the most recent to comment
@@olzeess6740 yep, this game is way more boring than i first thought, have spent 80+ hours in game and I just get to middle of main storyline... So I was decide to quit playing it like 3 months ago. Funny thing is, after all those hours, I forgot what the main story of the game is. Today, after randomly watch this review, I installed it again to my ps4 and after just half hours I decide to uninstall it once and for all. Remember, you heard it from the guy who plays Death stranding and have fun with it, even Platinumed the game. Don't call men Kojima's fans, I never play Metal Gears game.
@@duitpanas lol tbh mate I thought origins was the same, just a stinking huge grind, a fetch questers dream, I didn't bother buying Odyssey in the end, got Borderlands 3 and World War Z, I also considered The Outer World's but I heard it was heavily narrative based with multiple choice conversations that go on for 25 mins and stuff like that, not my cup of tea! I've not actually played Death Stranding but I hear it's of a particular taste, if you've not seen it already give The Act Man's review of Death Stranding a watch, I'm sure you find the beginning really really funny
@@olzeess6740 ah sorry for my bad english, I mean I already platinum Death Stranding, and that game never get me bored. Honestly i burned out play ac odyssey in 30+ hours, the reason I kept playing because i brought the gold edition in launch in full price (yeah, how stupid i am). Safe to say i kept play because I don't want to feel robbed by Ubisoft. But never mind, it's just my thoughts. The purpose of the game is to make player having fun, If you have fun with it, good for you. Especially in £16 :D
@Brandon Thompson I think the problem most people (like myself) have with it is the question of why do they exist in the first place. Like SkillUp said, for multiplayer games it makes some sense to have them to cover server costs and continuous work on updates, patches, balancing, etc. For exclusive singleplayer games like Odyssey that argument doesn't work that well. Like he said, it makes you question the design philosophy of the game: did they make all that sidecontent for you to immerse yourself and enjoy the game world? or just to annoy you so that you buy the xp- and ressource boosters to skip parts of the game? If a full price, triple A singleplayer game has the same real money shop as a free-to-play online game....that's just weird and questionable. Also i think many people want to get the hate train going in an effort to make the publishers realise we don't tolerate this stuff, in a (maybe vain) attempt to prevent it from getting out of hand like it got with the lootboxes
@OzarkoBlam I am in the process of my first playthrough of AC:O. I did use Cheat Engine to give me like 20 levels, for free ofc so I could do the main quest and dlc content without grind I did not feel like doing.
Microtransactions do not belong in full priced games. End of story. It's like paying a premium price for a subscription but they still make you watch advertisements. It's unnecessary and only stems from greed. You're right that the next microtransactions battle will take place over single player games but gamers need to draw the line now before another battlefront 2 situation happens.
Hulu is paid and has ads and you have to pay more for ad free. The fact of the matter is we have micro transactions instead of a base price increase. The boosters for Odyssey are for people that want to rush through the game and not play the side content. I’d much rather have that as an option than an across the board $10 increase. The Witcher 3 has a lot of grinding if you want to stay leveled for the story, just like Odyssey. People need to get over it or be willing to cough up more cash.
@@stuartbagley2586 Microtransaction sympathiser alert! Okay buckaroo let me set you straight: I've played through the Witcher 3 8 times now varying from quick 60 hour playthrough to full on 100% completion so I know about the "grind". In order to keep up with the story line you only need to do main quests. They give you enough experience to be the same level as the recommended level for the quest and notice how I used the word recommended instead of required. The only time where you'll find quests that are higher level than you is for the sidequests and witcher contracts but the difference is that this content is actually good. Zero fetch quests or "go here and kill 10 demons" quests. They all have stories and reason. That's what makes a quest a quest instead of grind. As I said, we're already paying 60 dollars as a minimum. There are also all the collector's editions and DLC's and pre-orders on top of that. They do not need microtransactions to make a profit. AC games have turned profits ever since the first one and now that the gaming market is substantially bigger, more profit is made. At this point it's nothing but greed. People like you who defend it ARE the problem and why games like Battlefront 2 exist. In the words of Jim Sterling: "If you've made a game that people are willing to pay more money not to play it, then you have made a shitty game". Thank God for him.
Stuart Bagley funny you should mention The Witcher 3. That game neither required any microtransactions or a $10 increase for the base games RRP to make it a financial success. Same goes for games like God of War or Spider-Man. Do you think Rockstar needs microtransactions to stay afloat when GTA has become one of the biggest selling franchises in gaming? Absolutely not. They have them so they can rake in more cash than they can count.
"You see, in old AC games, the parkour system was such that you had to look for things to climb, which means that some parts of the games could be built where you couldn't climb over, so to be a way for level designers to control and enhance how you experience an event. But in Origins that system was changed to you can climb almost anything, *Character climbs a smooth statue* like what the hell am I even holding here?" THANK YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MENTIONING THAT! I hate the climb everything parkour. The other side effect of that is that your character feels like he is skating around instead of running, and you don't even have to strategize anymore since you know, you can just climb literally anything, so you always have a high ground. There are no limitations anymore.
@Steve Robertson kind of ironic that you say its ASSASSINS creed, yet you say odyssey is the best one, which in fact is the only game without assassins - or a creed
I played Odyssey (never played any AC game before) and enjoyed it so when I saw another AC on sale I bought it, it was Black Flag (heard lots of AC fans that say it is the best) and I my god it felt terrible, the parkour was horrible, the fighting mechanic just felt dumb, the character could not even crouch (a stealth game without crouching mmm). The evolution is pretty clear and having the freedom to climb over almost anything is great compared to what other AC games had before... My kid played Odyssey for hours and when he played Black Flag he quit after about an hour and said that the game sucked and has not touched it again. So I think Ubisoft needed to make the change to attract more players and new customers to the franchise... the old ways feel very clumsy and dated for new players that don’t have any nostalgia itch...
@TRISTAN KAHL The idea in the previous games is that you have to observe the environment not just run-up to any kind of obstacle and climb over it. AC Unity was the peak of the series for me when it comes to a good parkour system. Also, there is no sense of momentum when your character movement feels weightless and unnatural and looks more like getting yeeted all over the place because of the underlying system like here: 15:10.
AC:O is like getting a great meal, but in a RIDICULOUSLY MASSIVE portion... (like a 10 pound hamburger 🍔 with a shield-sized bun) after a while you don’t want to even look at it anymore. Sure you can eat a little bit tomorrow and the day after that even... but after a while, you’re just forcing yourself to eat it because it’s taking up too much space in the fridge and you don’t want to waste it. And what was INITIALLY an incredible, once in a lifetime meal becomes a punishment and a chore. Not due to quality or taste, but because the portions are unreasonably big... And what’s detrimental to getting “too much” is that you’re not going to want to eat that meal again for a VERY long time.
Brandon Wallace don’t even get me started on Ubi turning every single game into looter-shooters. If Ubi made a one-on-one fighting game they’d make it a looter-shooter.
Ubisoft released a patch yesterday that reduces the level requirement for main story quest. So to level gating has been severely reduced to the point tha xp most items are kinda laughable now. But good thay videos like this and others brought this to ubisoft attention and they took approrpiate actions.
kind xx Or maybe they actually care? Quit acting like a saint if a company screws up you bash them if a company tries to fix something and do good you bash them. No wonder you people are always mad nothing pleases entitled gamers
@Gunther Pie if i broke your jaw but paid all your medical expenses, does that make what i did any less shit? if i stole money from you that you needed to feed your family because you just lost your job but gave a referral to apply to a new job, does that make what i did less shit? publishers dont give a fuck about you, they care about their image and sales. stop defending them.
@@SG0041 Yup, it’s weirdly satisfying to hear good analyses, even when you have no intention of playing. Mark Brown’s analysis of Dark Souls did that, sending me down a rabbit hole of then playing through the series
To be honest it wasn’t too bad for me. I bought it on sale and I tend to play games over months. I’d drop it and pick it up a week or two later, grind a bit, drop it again etc. I can see how it can be frustrating if you’re actively trying to finish it though. I just don’t have the time for long gaming sessions nowadays and every replay is all about relearning the mechanics.
@@Aka_GodSpeed and the cult isn't actually related to the templars in any shape or form. It was the order of the ancients that later evolved into the templars. They were only inspired by the cult's ideologies and had the same end goal. And the assassin brotherhood/hidden ones didn't even exist yet, soooo....
It's actually a very deep sidequest. It's implied that the guy who messed with the old lady's house is another character from the Witcher series that doesn't appear in this game. So even the most random sidequest from Witcher 3 has lore behind it
@@bernardocarneiro1982 He appears in the game, lol. You meet him if you decide help Dijkstra with his mission regarding Radovid. He's also character in the first game.
This is coming from someone who did not play at launch and just finished. I guess growing up being a history nerd and enjoying this time period a lot made the 30 hours you spoke of very enjoyable to me. I just loved exploring, seeing the sights and hearing familiar names. Not gonna write a book but if anyone’s still visiting this video let’s talk about it.
Loved the game, the story and set piece are amazing even today. Just how far cry has became bland, far cry 3 was still able to create a beautiful fun world with a good story and that’s how a good game is made.
I feel like I'm in the minority, but I went into this purposefully forgetting it was an Assassin's Creed game, and I had the best time I've had in the whole series
Most people enjoyed it. It's rated around 90% audience score. The common complaint is that "it's not an AC game". Who cares, though? AC games were getting repetitive, ubisoft lost sales so they changed it up. We can only blame ourselves for not supporting the old model
@@cybersphere They could've but it simply wouldn't have sold as much. The franchise name is what sells at this point. They're a company so their focus is money Can't exactly blame them
@iSolvano / Games on OLED AC3 is old. Sales went downhill after that. So they changed the formula There's like 4 games after AC3 before Origins you know
AC Oddysey is my guilty pleasure. I know how much flawed this game is but I spent more than 70 hours into this game. Don't worry. I didn't buy any micro transaction
You can absolutely love a game and know that its flawed, I did it with kingdom hearts 3. Different people have that different thing that makes them stick to a game even if the game is flawed.
I really liked Oddysey, I (think) I finished it the other day lol. I unlocked new game plus but didn't see any credits roll, Will leave it there in case of spoilers. Yeah it was a lot of fun and I'm still not done with it all, but I do agree with skillup in that it felt bloated. There were some cool side stories on some islands, but I never even got to see them all in my 60 hours of gameplay. A very fun but flawed game indeed. My hopes is that they listened to the criticism and make the next AC a really good RPG with meaningful side quests. I have faith in Ubisoft these days.
@@didijunior971 I would be very surprised if we saw an AC this year, and that's perfectly ok in my books. I never played origins actually, I loved the setting but the gameplay seemed meh to me, it's on my list tho for sure, in the middle of replaying unity and with its performance issues mostly sorted, it's a really fun game.
I remember having 80+ hours before i made it to chapter 3 because I literally went around doing every location objective and side mission. No i have no life why do you ask
That is what I do...its why I love Ubisoft games even though they arent great. I rarely finish a Ubisoft game, but put insane hours into them. I just like clearing markers to be honest. Ill be headed towards a story mission and get side tracked for hours and hours
Unfortunately, most companies won’t bother to listen to a review like this. Instead, they’ll just look at all the mainstream 9’s and 10’s that offer little to no real critique and based on that, keep doing exactly the same thing next time around. After all, why change or improve when everyone seems to love what you’re doing?
most of the reviews that give this game 9 or 10 are proven to have the exp boost already enabled so these reviewers think that people are complaining about a nonissue.
They listen to sales. Random reviews on TH-cam (rightfully) mean nothing to them. Why 'rightfully'? How many large game reviewers can we name that produce anything of substance beyond circle jerking or shilling? I can only think of two. Game reviews are just as much of a corrupt and greedy business as (insert 'evil' game company here). Sales have and always will be the end-all metric of how well received a game is.
any proof for that, any posts from ex-journalists admitting that, any sort of evidence that can back up to your conspiracy theory? or is it just that - a theory? Because some people say the earth is flat and every employee of every space program in the world is paid off to lie as well.
@@MrCriistiano rofl wow that must have been really really annoying to play with not knowing!! some of those bounty hunters with flame attacks must have been infuriating ;.(
Odyssey’s parkour is the best to date. Real parkour is only limited by the climbers imagination. The less limitations in video games the more enjoyable they become to play.
@VOLD GAMER lol have u ever played ezio trilogy I think u are just a 12 year old kid who is a Fortnite player and his mommy bought him ac odyssey first play ezio trilogy
Steve Robertson my first playthrough was on the hardest difficulty. You can imagine my surprise when I couldn’t get a consistent 1-shot assassination (without using crit) past level 3 and up until level 35. Even then, my build will make me worthless in a straight up fight or while using a bow until I can reach 50+. That’s fucking pathetic. An Assassin’s Creed game that restricts you to only being competent in 1 play style at a time until near the end of a 50-100hr game. That’s not how you make a game. Harder difficulties shouldn’t restrict you to playing 1 skill tree (if you try to make a hybrid too early, I promise you’ll be unsuccessful. You’ll never 1-shot assassinate and will do chip damage as a warrior/hunter). They should make the enemies harder to fight in terms of abilities, attack frequency, etc. Not just make them damage sponges. Above all, the assassinations are super inefficient because they can take up to 3 seconds (possibly more), compared to the usual 1-1.5 in the other games. It’s just bad for any fans of the series.
After playing the game for myself, I have to say even at the repetition of particular assets, I found the scope and scale of the game world to be incredibly enjoyable. It almost helped encompass you in the story, a personal journey in a massive world populated with civilization. Your a small character in a massive world with events transpiring around you. Even the sense of scale helps the believability of the Cult and their goals in the spread and reach of their control.
If they scrapped a whole third of the size of the map and bland side quests you would still get that feeling of scope. The game is simply to big and bloated, I was almost on autopilot mode going through most of it. Give me an open world that grips me narratively ,challenges me somewhat and respects my time, odyssey hardly does any of these things.
It's also worth noting two things about myself that my personally shape my bias of the game: 1. This is the first assassins creed game I've played since Syndicate, prior to the English Entry my last played entry was Revelations to conclude the Ezio Trilogy back in the 360 days. 2. I'm a homosexual with a deep love of Greek History and Mythology. This game lets me play as a gay lady spartan running around and just battering my way through with aggression and sass.
@@declanmillar6356 Honestly ive always seen the assassins creed games as the fast food of gaming, its cheap (as in the thought that went behind the content of the games) and not very original, but its still tasty. Lots of people hate repetitive list checking activities, but something in my brain just likes to cross shit off on a map, to see something get fully complete. Of course there are limits, I love MGS 5 a lot and the way you progress and check things off your list in that game, but even it got repetitive and tiring at the last stretch of the insane amount of side ops in that game.
I spent 289 hours in this world, 100% completed it, got the platinum trophy (and all DLC trophies) and loved every minute of it. However, I totally understand that people find it all a bit too much. None of my friends even completed the main quest because of the “bloat”. Edit: I did not buy any microtransactions.
your comment inspires me to play this game, bcz i buyed gold edition and i was thinking i regreted but i don't know...... it's on downloading btw how many days taked you to complete all
Still haven't finished it. It's like a phantom that has been haunting me for years now. I feel like I need to go back to Witcher 3 to finish this one quest and get the peace of soul
@@Internetgamer420 agreed. Witcher 3's side quests actually kept me engaged, which is rare. And voice acting in both polish and English versions is great
Honestly I really enjoyed lots of the side quests in this game. Mostly because I truly love Greek mythology and anything to do with ancient Greece, but I thought lots of them were well written.
DBJ I definitely didn’t know he did that. Never seen his vids before. I’m just lucky enough to have checked the comments before getting to the spoilers.
Damn, good thing I saw your comment, but now I can't finish the video. I can get this game new for $15 ..is it worth it for someone who never played an AC game??
I agree, I'm about 60 hours in and haven't seen even half of the landscape yet and Im bored already. Will have to finish it later I guess. The only thing that keeps you going in this game is the campaign but even that can't save it. It's definitely a good game and the most fun I have had with Assassins Creed, but it's just too damn big.
I loved the Legendary beasts questline. I finished it up yesterday, before getting back to getting land back from the Spartan Kings, or solving the cult, or anything like that. I didn't even realize that would be the final arc with everything, so that's really cool! It was very sweet seeing Kassandra again in the modern day, and it was most definitely a very sweet goodbye to the character.
If someone plays AC and complains it has too much stealth and assassinations... IT IS ASSASSIN'S CREED ffs not God of War... I understand when people complain about arbitrary stealth section for action games but whole point of AC is to be an assassin not spartan warrior with flaming stick +3 and "stab sponge" enemies just to excuse "rpg stats". This is open world rpg game with tons of microtransactions and broken design to force people to buy it... That is what bothers me, just change the name, make it own IP and let someone else to do AC like Hitman in medieval times.
why the fuck would they change the name when it is about a mercenary (assassin) killing a group of corupt/ cultist leaders (templars) using an enchanted peice of eden, all while being controlled by a chick in a time/simulator machine. welcome to Assasins Creed.
@@artscorsese3203 I think you missed his point. He was talking about how gameplay and mechanics in this don't reflect the ac franchise itself anymore. Personally I agree with him, I loved the first ac games back then, but with this I was bored to death after 2 hours or so. But if so many people enjoy this, good for them.
I think these warrior focused games highlight the various factions of the brotherhood like the mercenary faction from ezio games like bartholomew and uncle mario who were more battle oriented but still technically part of assassins
I never disagreed with this review but in hindsight, he's completely right. The game is too long. I got to about 85-90% through the story then never went back to it. I felt no desire to go back to it, even with all the dlc that's released since. I didn't dislike the story but i just lost any appetite to continue which is strange considering i was in the closing stages. I don't dislike the game, i actually really enjoyed it for the most part & maybe i'll go back to it someday. It's a hard balance, i want value for my money. I want a decent, long story & vast world, however i think Odyssey is maybe 5hrs too long. I felt myself having to remember on too many occasions what happened nearer the beginning or even half-ways through the game as it'd been so long since i'd experienced those things.
Same for me,i finished it,started New game+ but quit shortly after,although im not quite sure why people are complaining about higher level quests they cant do,there's a setting in the game that sets the game to scale everything to your level so i just used that.That seems to be one of the biggest points of this video yet it's solvable in the options menu.
I really enjoyed this game overall, but always fun to see you articulate the nuisances within each title. I had planned to platinum this one but burnt out after 60 hours or so (which is still a lot of gameplay) but you nailed it as usual.
I find it sad that no one cares about the present day story anymore. I feel like without that Assassin's Creed is just another generic game. The first 3 parts really had me invested because there was a reason for why we were playing as these characters. The Desmond story was brilliant. After that there was really no need for the series to continue. Assassin's Creed died after Assassin's Creed 3 IMO. Dont get me wrong AC 3 was mediocre and AC4 is still the best game in the series for me. But was it really an Assassin's Creed game? I would say no. The series has slowly moved away from making us feel like an assassin who strikes from the shadows to just another RPG. I understand that Ubisoft needs to make money and thats why they continue. But at this point it just feels like they are just milking the AC brand rather than make the typical AC games that made them famous in the first place. If you are going to divert from the core gameplay so much i would rather that you make another new IP rather than milk everything you can out of an old one.
I am on the same boat with you where I played the AC series up to AC3 which is where Desmond Miles story ended and honestly was the only reason I played AC3 was to find out how AC 1~3 story arc ended. After that it was just milking the brand because I was wondering AC4 onwards about how the game will be like in terms of whether there is the past and present thing that they had for Desmond Miles which they sort of did but became less and less important.
@@splinteridiot glad there is atleast someone like me. And the sadder thing is that even the reviewers dont care about the present day story anymore :(
Boy am I glad to meet someone who shares my views. I’ve felt so alone. I got into AC at Brotherhood, and I loved it. I loved the historical roots and the linear storytelling that coalesced two stories into one. But in recent years, the franchise has seemed to devolve and divert from its original roots into a choose for yourself RPG. The main point of the original games is that history can’t be changed, it can only be utilized to influence the future. And that people in the present storyline were using memories to find the pieces of eden. I would have preferred it if Ubisoft decided to make the present story the main story line while using the past as a way to uncover the mysteries of the lore.
I’m so upset about this fact I’m watching reviews of Odyssey trying to find someone with the same opinion. I’m not trying to find my echo chamber but I’ve the feeling everyone is living the thing they hated a few years before. “There’s too much open world”, “I hate micro transactions”, “I hate grinding”, “I hate uncharismatic characters”, “I hate boring stories”, “I hate developers which give gender choice”, etc. Now people see Vikings, a hidden blade and the AC logo and they preorder. It’s just sad. Even as just games they’re nothing like The Witcher 3. I don’t understand the goal of making AC in an RPG in the first place anyway. They could simply have said “AC is done after Syndicate” and move on. This way the development would have been easier.
Part of the reason I come back to your reviews every few months, even though I've already watched them, is because you really wonderfully tie in other parts of our lives and worlds to the economic and artistic design of video games. Your coke-v-pepsi tangent in the Forsaken review, the album length tangent here, and the humble tangent all play such a lovely part in really selling your connection to the games you're reviewing.
They got me with the xp boost when the ultimate edition of the game went on super sale, and it definitely makes the games pacing better, I might take my time when it comes to open world, but I was 10-20 levels above you in this video on all the scenes, but they made the world scale with your level so unless youre building right its still a grind. Its dangerous territory for sure, not long before it becomes that Raid cellphone game
Something I found odd is that there is an inverse relationship between difficulty setting and skill in the combat; the higher the difficulty setting, the more likely the outcome is to be determined entirely by level. I am a Soulsborne vet and my normal approach is to learn enemy attack patterns and exploit the weaknesses I find; this involves a lot of rolling and taking a few hits to gauge enemy DPS but at higher settings an enemy more than 1 or 2 levels above you will kill you in a single combo. The only choices are to turn down the difficulty or grind up some levels.
Good point, this relation and having the levels defining the difficulty seems a poor design choice. In Fenyx Rising also an UBI game you could go to an overpowered enemy it was marked as such but if you had enough skill and patience you could win the fight. This is something why I get bored with games like the division, AC origin, odyssey, Valhalla (I tired all of them during fee weekends). And after playing for a dozen of hours or so I didn’t see a reason to continue.
the one thing that Holds odyssey back in my opinion is that it’s lost the simple joy of moving around the world... Has anyone else felt this? The parkour/climbing in odyssey is so watered down and simple that it’s become boring. There’s a huge lack of animation variety and alexios/kassandra aren’t able to perform a fraction of the cool maneuvers that You could perform in Unity or syndicate. You end up just watching them do the same little hop over absolutely everything. The pathing around the environment has lost its kinetic flow and feels clunky and unsatisfying. Even their running animations look off. this may sound nit picky but it’s hugely important when moving around makes up like 1/3 of AC’s gameplay loop. Move/kill/loot repeat. Unity was a buggy and flawed game but the movement was and still is so satisfying to play with. Odyssey does loot and combat so well but the movement part is boring and joyless compared to previous games. At least to me. I hope the next game brings back more nuance and visual flavor to the movement. If so, we could have a near perfect AC game.
Do you know that if you hold down the crouch button while running, Alexios/Kassandra will vault over things automatically like in AC3? It's nowhere like Unity's parkour, but it's there.
There is a lot about Odyssey that's boring and joyless. The repetition and lack of diversity, for example. They shouldn't have called it "Assassin's Creed". It's an okay ancient Greece hack-and-slash enemy sponge open world rpg but it's a terrible AC game.
I don’t agree that the combat is better or on par. Back in AC 3, you had to time your blocks pretty well. You had to know your enemies, because certain moves wouldn’t work on certain enemies. In Odyssey, you just mash attack and spam block. No timing required. Every single enemy is a sponge and it makes the combat feel weightless. In AC 3, every interaction was perfectly animated; each hit and block, each 2v1, etc. In Odyssey, you just spam special moves endlessly, intersperse some regular spam attacks, and repeat.
They did Unity dirty both Ubisoft AND AC fans, Ubisoft fucked up on release, no doubt, and THEY deserve The backlash, but Unity's problem was Fix VERY quickly considering The size of The problem, And make it up for The mistake by having a full expansión DLC as Free... Fans Without reason decided to keep digging ACU a grave for no reason for The whole year (The famous face and map glitches I've seen are The same 3 Screenshots and 4 or 5 clips, meaning THOSE Bugs weren't as present as they Made You believe). ACU is not My favorite, but probably The Best in the series
I've played Odyssey for a while and the game has a lot of strong points, but also many weak points. I agree with what you said. The good parts of the game are astonishing, but the not-so-good parts are meh, or just boring
I really loved your review especially when you started talking about ancient Greece.I am Greek and loved the fact that you did this historical recursion explaining the importance of greek civilization...HUGE RESPECT!!
I wish I heard more of a fuss made about this kind of thing back when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided came out. When I saw that I could purchase one time use upgrade points (praxis kits) for a single playthrough, my jaw hit the floor. I was flabbergasted at when I was seeing. Combined with how it feels like a chunk of the game was cut out and made into a pre-order mission - similar to Mass Effect 3's day one DLC with the promethean squad member - and that game went from a 9/10 to a 7/10 for me.
Disclaimer: I wrote this comment in the first video, but Shill Up must have liked the comment so much he had to take down the whole video. Absolutely love the new formula you've come up with. A seemingly random analogy somehow gets turned into a perfect parallel to the game you are reviewing. I have no idea how you come up with your analogies, but great work as always.
I didn't find this game too grindy, I enjoyed the journey and if anything, I was levelling too fast. But the video does raise very good points for future games.
And Odyssey used it perfectly well the game has over 300 story focused Witcher 3 like quests. If you only play the daily procedurally generated quests than yeah it can be repetitive.
Yes its 4 years later I got to see this. Brilliant review! I LOVE this game, so it hurt a bit to hear you say some of the things you did, but I must admit I think you are right. As for the microtransactions, I fall in neither camp. I do not defend them and I do not condemn them. I like the side quests (I think more more like 20% were memorable but I can't argue that is still too low) so I did not hate the grind as much as you did, but I cannot argue there WAS a grind. The other question you raised was what part did microtransactions play in the design of the game. I think the answer to this is the microtransactions definitely DID influence the game design as much as I would like to say it didn't. However, I think the game designers/developers tried to mitigate this somewhat. When the game first came out, the material costs for upgrading your gear was utterly outrageous. And lo... the shop had a way to buy materials. Unsurprisingly, the fans started to get very vocal about what they considered and obvious cash grab. The devs then turned around and claimed it was actually a mistake and immediately drastically reduced those requirements and claimed that the resource bundle was just there for people who hated hunting that stuff at all. Do I believe them? I am not sure. Regardless, it demonstrated the fine line they are walking either way. It's always going to be a challenge to push things just far enough to make more money and not too far to destroy the game and franchise. In the end, the money people are a double edged sword for us gamers. On the one hand, they will try to bleed us dry because that is their function. On the other hand, it is because of the real money potential in games now that we are seeing a magnificent renaissance of game investment and development. I for one am willing to "pay the price" so to speak as long as that price is literally not too high. Thanks again for such a balanced review delivered with respect and care.
The stealth system in the core AC games was always about social stealth. "Hide in plain sight, be a blade in the crowd, be a ghost among the masses, let the people mask you such that you become one with the crowd " that was the whole core idea of stealth in an Assassin's Creed game. That was the 2nd tenet of the "Creed". That used to set it apart from all the other games out their (at least for me). I can create a stealth build character in almost any RPG game, I can create a stealthy assassin build in Skyrim just like in Odyssey. Does that make Skyrim an "Assassin's Creed" game? NO. So your advocacy for this game, that you can create an Assassin build character with a bunch of bonus backstab damage perks and other generic stealth perks making it an "Assassin's Creed" game doesn't work. Just having an "Assassin" skill tree and letting you do generic stealthy stuff like any other stealth game doesn't make an "Assassin's Creed" game. I'm a sorry but I don't agree with your explanation of this being an "Assassin's Creed" game. Other than that I agree with all the other points you've made in this video. A really late response to this video but hopefully one day you will see this. Love your content. Keep it up. Peace.
*This is such a fantastic, in-depth review!* I am actively playing my way through Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey as we speak (no fast travel, so I’ve logged 110 hours so far) and it’s an amazing game but everything you said is completely true. I haven’t played The Witcher but this review makes me want to try it out. You make it sound fantastic! Side note, *I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed this content that you made* 😊🙌
@@Sams-xi7xf I haven’t played it yet but I have a friend who recommended it and said that it is an amazing experience! He said it was the best game ever played. What are your thoughts?
@@djvelocity it's fricking amazing, the main story, the DLCs and most of the side quests have solid writing and they're genuinely enjoyable... If you have time for it I strongly recommend it
@@Sams-xi7xf yeah that’s what my friend said, he said there’s not a single pointless mission in the entire game and that everything you are sent to do actually makes sense and fits in somewhere. I have to admit, between your review and his, I think I need to pick this game up in the near future 🤩
@@djvelocity that's awesome, I just want to give you a small tip. If you decide to start the Witcher 3, during the first 2 hours you'll have to talk to a seemingly unimportant individual. A bald guy that says he is a mirror merchant... Just watch out for that guy, keep him in your mind for later (DO NOT google him). This isn't a spoiler, just something to keep in mind ;) This will make the game more enjoyable for you in the long run.
I’d never bought a micro transaction and Odyssey as my first AC. As I was playing I felt like I needed to buy a few. I got the exp boost and materials for my freakin boat. I’m glad I was able to finish it though because I adored Cassandra and enjoyed the main a story.
The main thing preventing me from playing most of these types of games is the pointless bloat quests. I'd rather play 20 hours of a good game story than 60-100 hours of fetch quests
Man, I love this game. That intro music to odyssey gives me chills every time. I don't know why I like this one so much, I couldn't stand Origins or Valhalla and got sick of the grind after about 10 hours. Dunno what it is about Odyssey...I absolutely adore it lol I still play it to this day. I think it's like what you said, I just love the gameplay loop, and whenever I do decide to actually pursue the main story, it's always a treat cause it's so good XD. Maybe I need to be more critical. I haven't spent a single penny on this game outside of the initial purchase and have put in like a thousand hours, and I still find myself going back to it. Just watching this video is making me want to go and play it some more XD. That quest you highlighted always cracks me up XD getting bear nuts
Story took me about 50h - twice as long as it did to get a platinum on spider-man. But... I've never felt any drag or grind. While progressing through story and doing some sidequests i've got enough of xp and drachmae just to push forward.
LiveToLearn, I guess is the way you play the game. Some people just want to rush everything and find the game grindy, others who like to explore and do everything in a balance way do not have this problem.
In the end to do everything it took me 120 hours. If I wanted to just do some mapping, I did mapping; if I wanted to do some side quests, I did side quests. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, so much so that I prefer it over RDR2; so much that I've stopped playing RDR2.
Same.. I dont get the "grind" thing at all.. I played the game, I explored locations, only did mainstory and gold-sidequests, and didnt spend a minute grinding and ended up at lvl 50 with 40hours played.. not sure what everyone is doing..
Amazing review. It's independent journos like yourselves that allow for such nuanced, detailed critique and discussion regarding video games as a medium. Keep up the great work!
Origins was all about how the Assassin Order came to life, Odyssey doesn't even introduce anything directly related to them until you play DLC content ... I don't understand how someone can seriously say Origins is less AC than Odyssey.
Honestly I love this game, I'm only at chapter 6 and I've played 50 hours, and I'm level 49, with the xp booster. I have a feeling the Devs were forced to lower XP by the CEOs and whatnots at the top. This is one of the best games I've played in the past few years, I love it, but I can see how it isn't for everyone, and I can see how the xp boosters are "predatory" although you don't need them. My friend started his game the same time and isn't that far behind me without use of the XP booster. Only reason you would need to buy the booster is if you didn't have time to spend on the game. But then why did you buy an RPG? Because that's exactly what the Devs have intended for this series to become.
@@Gael-x999 they don't force you to do anything. Yes, some of the quests are very fetchy, delivery, but that's like most rpgs. And this is a new RPG, and one of Ubisofts first attempts at making a story driven rpg affected by player choice, and it's a pretty great first attempt.
I feel like Odyssey is a step closer to making Triple A “mobile game like” titles. Time and level blocked progression. Artificially induced scarce materials and resources. Ubisoft gives a free 2 hour XP and Gold boost for Ubisoft Club. When I used these items it was clear the grind in this game has been inflated to push players to purchase boosts.
I haven't played an AC game since Syndicate. I'm a huge fan of 300, Spartans and the whole Greek Mythology. With that being said, I haven't been too big into AC for awhile, but this is one game I've always wanted to play. The Gold Edition is currently on sale right now for $25 and I'm thinking about picking it up. It comes with all expansions and AC3 & Liberation Remastered. Great review, I respect your opinions, but for me, I like large games, I hate spending money on a game that I'll beat in 15-20 hours that'll probably never play again after that.
Learned of you from the FF7R review and i have to say I'm really impressed with how much depth you go into in your analysis of core concepts in gaming. You have a point to say and you successfully deliver it. As for AC:Odyssey, you have to think that initially, when the developers at Ubisoft started creating Assassins Creed games, that their first speeches and talks were about not making the game bland - having unique settings with unique places that looked ... unique. Same with the game design, climbing rooftops by specifically holding onto ledges: giving each building a distinct climbing point and a path to remember. I believe it's that architecture that creates fun games. Looking at the AC: Odyssey as a whole, I believe that their are core parts of the games that the developers have loved to create; Kephalonia, the new gameplay mechanics, the Ancient bosses. But the game is damaged by the main drive of the game, Greed. Instead of making a hugely unique and re-playable world like RDR2 or The Witcher 3, or giving off that huge sense of awe at the re-creation of great buildings, they've delved into the business side of things, not realizing the wants or desires of the people that put them in the job in the first place - us, the consumer, the player. They've forgotten most of what made AC unique, and will quickly start losing their fan base if they don't change.
I bought this from the PS store for only $12 recently. I got burnt out on AC Valhalla previously, but I figured "what the hell. It's only $12." I honestly really, really enjoyed it...at first. By the time it introduced the whole "find out the cult members" thing - on top of the merchant system, the "go do all the these-type-of-things" quests, the bounty system, the side quests that were just fetch quests - I felt like I suddenly hit a brick wall. It's weird because I know that I don't *have* to do all this stuff, but something about saying "no thanks" to half the offerings in a game feels...wrong, for lack of a better term. They really could have had something special here.
I know you say you hated Origins and enjoyed Odyssey, but my god, almost everything I've seen of Odyssey looks exactly the same as Origins. Even the very few differences you mention don't seem like they would have anywhere near that much of a bearing on hating one and liking the next. I finished pretty much everything in Origins and loved it, but there's no way I'm putting another 50 hours minimum into a Greek re-skin with dialogue options. Just the fact that they were released within a year of each other (being the size that they are) has to mean they are basically identical. Surely. Enjoyed the review!
It's a shame you feel that way because Odyssey is ten times the game Origins was. Better characters, better story, better combat, better visuals, better music, far more variety in gameplay.
@@zadusto6515 odyssey is definitely more refined, but thats all it is. a more refined origins. Literally everything, rpg and combat wise, in odyssey is in origins, its just less refined. Its why I'm not understanding the reviewer's views here, because he complained about origins combat system, then went on to praise odyssey's combat system which plays almost exactly the same, just tighter and more refined. Like he praised the whole assassination damage thing,but origins did the same exact thing. It just didn't have abilities that were tied to assassination damage, thus being less refined than odyssey. Honestly it made me feel like this guy didn't play origins, or didn't really complete the game himself but rather watched someone else play it.
I enjoy the grind honestly , so much to do , so much armor and gear and weapons , you can make different load outs for different missions or forts. Different abilities you can assign. So much world to discover , legendary beats , an arena . Addicting for me .
Yakuza's map is great, I have spent over 100 hours on 0 and neither Sotenbori nor Kamurocho is even close to the size of Odessy's. Because of this, every inch of it's packed with something to do, none of it's level gated and it's all unique. It was super easy for me to master it so I knew how to get where I needed to for every mission or side mission even without the marker. I like how it worked within the context of the game considering you're supposed to be playing a street savvy gangster.
Gave up on Ubisoft upon losing motivation to complete Syndicate and Far Cry 5. Had gotten through all AC and most FC games up to that point. They're ocean sized bloated experiences that are about as deep as a puddle. Edit: Also, once you go Soulsborne you rarely go back to casual unfulfilling level gated combat.
I'm curious but how can you like grind? That just baffles me. No video game should have grind like this one does, or any sort of grind at all. Not enjoyable at all.
@@eddiefisher3093 Grind is its own reward. It stems from my love of JRPGs, where a big boss might be too tough, so you go back in the field and look for random monster encounters. Each time you level up, you feel the accomplishments. That's why grind in more modern action RPGs is great fun for me.
Phenomenal review really. In a world where the majority of reviewers are "influenced" to be more positive towards games, it's a damn pleasure to discover your channel. I literally have the same general opinion about Odyssey, it's a great game but you have to wonder how much better it could have been without the aggressive monetization. Again, really great review, you have my subscription !
Though I honestly prefer Origins as a whole. Bayek is just much more interesting, and the world design and its rusty looks appeal more to me than Odyssey's clean fantasy look.
This had to be re-uploaded due to copyright shenanigans. Sorry for the hassle.
As I do with all of my big reviews, I've worked with a very talented graphic artist to produce a limited edition script exclusive to Patrons. If you'd like to get your hand on that, or just support what I do, check out my Patreon: www.patreon.com/skillupyt
When i play a game i like it to last for awhile and this game really brought what i wanted 😊 and fell in love with it
Skill Up you gotta check the chimera prologue-in WF
I LOVE YOU
Skillup, i would love to See a review of call of duty Black ops 4 made by you. I absolutely Love your reviews.
I was watching the original video when I saw the re-upload of this one, just stopping by to get you that one view and like
Fun fact: Scholars recently discovered that Medusa was only defeated by Perseus after he spent 20 minutes running away and hiding on a rock to regenerate his health
You fight her with arrows
Lolll
They also know now that her head of snakes was actually a bad weave.
It's because in the ancient times people didn't know if they eat 8-10 cheese wheel they could heal themselves up 100%.
@@Zodroo_TintThey also didn't know you can literally shake off the petrification caused by Medusa's eyes with sheer rage.
About how annoying Sokrates is, I think it is being historically accurate because he was literally executed for being annoying.
wasn't it impiety?
If this applied on the internet the youtube comment section would be so empty
He was only annoying because he always asked ‘why’.
I know this is probably a joke and I’m probably autistic but I’m almost sure he was executed for “corrupting the youth”. Or at least that was the excuse.
Mr. Problematic I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure didn’t like his teachings so they gave him a choice of being exiled or executed and he chose execution
"it starts to wear thin after the 50th question Socrates throws at you." Yup, that's an authentic Socrates experience then.
I remember sitting in my first ever philosophy class and one of the students asked “So Socrates is the the adult version of the kid who asks ‘Why?’ To literally anything?” Pretty true.
fyfsixseven I’m actually put off playing many “AAA” games now they are to big! If they were big and interesting and genuinely needed to be so big cool but this review sums it up perfectly, each area blends into the next copy pasted assets, memorable games have very distinct areas in my eyes, I’ve took to playing shorter games, a lot of indies and 10-20 hour games not 100-200
@@markwheeler4245 Well Corona is really doing you a favor then
@@markwheeler4245 The areas don't blend into each other at all. They're really quite distinct. There's deserts, swamps, plains, mountains, and even a forest full of stone corpses.
@@DisDatK9 SO true! I'm not looking forward to Socrates again :/
Playing this game through again, it's still good and it's still huge... Man I dunno if I'll finish it though, I keep getting distracted 'oh look at that question mark over there'
When is Skill Up gonna start selling boosters to get through his review video intros?
Never knew how needed microtransactions are until now.
@@NiccoloHamlin inb4 skipping in youtube is locked behind a paywall.
8:29 you're welcome
No kidding I need a level skip for having to sit through that bullshit filler at the start.
lol I was making a joke though. I love Skill Up and love how he does all his videos.
Dude I thought I clicked on the wrong video because of the music thing 😭😭
Same here. WTF.
That's his style. He uses analogies to help him make a bigger point. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but people who like Skill Up like how in-depth his reviews are.
Yeah, honestly since music is part of a video game I kind of hate using them as an analogy.
@@ryanhenderson8908 that's stupid
bruhh frr lmao
"Bandits took it" Literally the setup for almost all sidequests in both Origin and Odyssey it would seem. lol
Also...." Don't know, ask that bloke"
That bloke: " don't know ask that bloke"
That bloke : " don't know, ask that woman"
That woman: " Don't know, ask that bloke, BUT there will be a huge great fucking cliff in the way because reasons".
Thats all the game consists of though.. there were no set pieces where you could actually feel amazing for sneaking up through some cleverly placed pathway or higher walkways or underground areas like in any older titles. Just bandits all over the place.. makes me think how anyone survived on an honest days work in those cities
@@theblackknight101 i don't think the older titles did it that well either
So true, bandits literary make 98% of the populace
Black Flag also had the same habit of throwing you into tailing missions
*Clicks on a game review*
Starts to be informed about song lengths
Just to clarify, yes I have been watching Skill Up for a while and yes I understand what he's doing and why he does it
Welcome to the channel
I was playing AC while listening to it so I didn't even remember I clicked on a game review for a bit, I was so into the music part
*clicks on a game review,*
Starts to be informed on the worlds biggest boat
x Mowatt lmao same
Gamers need that common knowledge you know.
Lol 40 hrs into this game and I completely forgot what the story is about
I need to restart my playthrough because cant remember what I was doing but I dont want to play all those hours again. So I ended up shelving it indefinitely thats why I'm watching reviews again to give me motivation to play it
Imraan Omar yeah, I managed to rack up 70 hrs into it but just gave up
I fi wished everything in this game, I think it took like 200 hours. That includes DLC too... and i don't think i could tell you the names of most characters or what happened to them 😂
@@JJJBunney001 That's exactly my experience. The only character that I kind of remember is the first templar I met named Elpenor, I don't entirely remember what quest he gave me but him as a character was very mysterious and I kind of hoped he would play a bigger role. Then jump forward a few hours and I killed him... Don't really even remember most of the Cult of Kosmos people, pretty much all of them were like "you found a hint(not sure what the wording for it was)" now you know where he is... go and kill.
Like 30 hours into the game, I kind of just ran around trying to complete all the fortress objectives and stuff like that and derp around and trying to sparta kick as many bastards off of high areas as possible, and with all that I somehow managed to get to the end.
To end my rant Origins was more fun.
Probably the weakest story so far tbh. Since the Kosmos things becomes a side story as the game progresses.
The main story is you attempting to save Deimos/find your mother.
Everything else is just side stories
Ghost of tsushima had an open world map with tons of real estate, but the thing is, every location looked different. There was so much to explore, it was insanely beautiful, and it never got old. How the AC series hasnt figured this out after like twenty entries is astounding to me.
Simple,Sucker punch took their time to craft Ghost of Tsushima.Ubisoft just pushes out mediocre games every 2 yrs
I'm considering buying this game today while it's still £16 on the store for the deluxe edition, is it shit and full of dull quests with forgettable side stories? Only asking as you're probably the most recent to comment
@@olzeess6740 yep, this game is way more boring than i first thought, have spent 80+ hours in game and I just get to middle of main storyline... So I was decide to quit playing it like 3 months ago. Funny thing is, after all those hours, I forgot what the main story of the game is.
Today, after randomly watch this review, I installed it again to my ps4 and after just half hours I decide to uninstall it once and for all.
Remember, you heard it from the guy who plays Death stranding and have fun with it, even Platinumed the game.
Don't call men Kojima's fans, I never play Metal Gears game.
@@duitpanas lol tbh mate I thought origins was the same, just a stinking huge grind, a fetch questers dream, I didn't bother buying Odyssey in the end, got Borderlands 3 and World War Z, I also considered The Outer World's but I heard it was heavily narrative based with multiple choice conversations that go on for 25 mins and stuff like that, not my cup of tea! I've not actually played Death Stranding but I hear it's of a particular taste, if you've not seen it already give The Act Man's review of Death Stranding a watch, I'm sure you find the beginning really really funny
@@olzeess6740 ah sorry for my bad english, I mean I already platinum Death Stranding, and that game never get me bored.
Honestly i burned out play ac odyssey in 30+ hours, the reason I kept playing because i brought the gold edition in launch in full price (yeah, how stupid i am). Safe to say i kept play because I don't want to feel robbed by Ubisoft.
But never mind, it's just my thoughts. The purpose of the game is to make player having fun, If you have fun with it, good for you. Especially in £16 :D
"Some might say you've paid to skip, others may call you an honorless coward..." What a perfect line to describe predatory microtransactions
I don’t understand the hate for micro transactions for this game. It literally does not effect anyone who doesn’t want to buy them
@Brandon Thompson I think the problem most people (like myself) have with it is the question of why do they exist in the first place. Like SkillUp said, for multiplayer games it makes some sense to have them to cover server costs and continuous work on updates, patches, balancing, etc. For exclusive singleplayer games like Odyssey that argument doesn't work that well. Like he said, it makes you question the design philosophy of the game: did they make all that sidecontent for you to immerse yourself and enjoy the game world? or just to annoy you so that you buy the xp- and ressource boosters to skip parts of the game? If a full price, triple A singleplayer game has the same real money shop as a free-to-play online game....that's just weird and questionable. Also i think many people want to get the hate train going in an effort to make the publishers realise we don't tolerate this stuff, in a (maybe vain) attempt to prevent it from getting out of hand like it got with the lootboxes
In a quest ingame talks about that. It’s to do in doing trails and getting tokens but you can buy the tokens with coin.
@@brandonthompson7075 how so? The game is literally designed to drag on to entice people to buy them
This SMBC comes to mind: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-01-12
"hey, wanna spend some money to skip some of this game we made"?
U no it's bad when they say yes
@OzarkoBlam
I am in the process of my first playthrough of AC:O.
I did use Cheat Engine to give me like 20 levels, for free ofc so I could do the main quest and dlc content without grind I did not feel like doing.
Pay to wait
Lol u weaklings paid for shit?
@@tbd2553
I pirate TV shows /movies .. because easier.
I do not pirate games to help support single player games development.
"Bigger Isn't Always Better" Well, tell that to my ex-girlfriend
😲😲😲😞
I have 😉
He sacrificed his dignity for a good joke,god bless his soul
@@stinkytamez2525 not a good joke
cilla jendar Lol!
Microtransactions do not belong in full priced games. End of story. It's like paying a premium price for a subscription but they still make you watch advertisements. It's unnecessary and only stems from greed. You're right that the next microtransactions battle will take place over single player games but gamers need to draw the line now before another battlefront 2 situation happens.
Bearded Wonder it’s like having ad sections in that cable tv you have to pay for if you want internet.
Hulu is paid and has ads and you have to pay more for ad free. The fact of the matter is we have micro transactions instead of a base price increase. The boosters for Odyssey are for people that want to rush through the game and not play the side content. I’d much rather have that as an option than an across the board $10 increase. The Witcher 3 has a lot of grinding if you want to stay leveled for the story, just like Odyssey. People need to get over it or be willing to cough up more cash.
@@stuartbagley2586 Microtransaction sympathiser alert! Okay buckaroo let me set you straight: I've played through the Witcher 3 8 times now varying from quick 60 hour playthrough to full on 100% completion so I know about the "grind". In order to keep up with the story line you only need to do main quests. They give you enough experience to be the same level as the recommended level for the quest and notice how I used the word recommended instead of required. The only time where you'll find quests that are higher level than you is for the sidequests and witcher contracts but the difference is that this content is actually good. Zero fetch quests or "go here and kill 10 demons" quests. They all have stories and reason. That's what makes a quest a quest instead of grind. As I said, we're already paying 60 dollars as a minimum. There are also all the collector's editions and DLC's and pre-orders on top of that. They do not need microtransactions to make a profit. AC games have turned profits ever since the first one and now that the gaming market is substantially bigger, more profit is made. At this point it's nothing but greed. People like you who defend it ARE the problem and why games like Battlefront 2 exist.
In the words of Jim Sterling: "If you've made a game that people are willing to pay more money not to play it, then you have made a shitty game". Thank God for him.
@@stuartbagley2586
They created a problem only to sell you a solution. It's funny thar some people aren't seeing that blatant rip-off.
Stuart Bagley funny you should mention The Witcher 3. That game neither required any microtransactions or a $10 increase for the base games RRP to make it a financial success. Same goes for games like God of War or Spider-Man. Do you think Rockstar needs microtransactions to stay afloat when GTA has become one of the biggest selling franchises in gaming? Absolutely not. They have them so they can rake in more cash than they can count.
"You see, in old AC games, the parkour system was such that you had to look for things to climb, which means that some parts of the games could be built where you couldn't climb over, so to be a way for level designers to control and enhance how you experience an event. But in Origins that system was changed to you can climb almost anything, *Character climbs a smooth statue* like what the hell am I even holding here?"
THANK YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MENTIONING THAT! I hate the climb everything parkour. The other side effect of that is that your character feels like he is skating around instead of running, and you don't even have to strategize anymore since you know, you can just climb literally anything, so you always have a high ground. There are no limitations anymore.
At my peak with this game my mind was calculating paths over walls and buildings while walking the streets irl: "I could climb that. Oh wait..."
"... you always have a high ground"
So, you are greek Obi-Wan then?
@Steve Robertson kind of ironic that you say its ASSASSINS creed, yet you say odyssey is the best one, which in fact is the only game without assassins - or a creed
I played Odyssey (never played any AC game before) and enjoyed it so when I saw another AC on sale I bought it, it was Black Flag (heard lots of AC fans that say it is the best) and I my god it felt terrible, the parkour was horrible, the fighting mechanic just felt dumb, the character could not even crouch (a stealth game without crouching mmm). The evolution is pretty clear and having the freedom to climb over almost anything is great compared to what other AC games had before... My kid played Odyssey for hours and when he played Black Flag he quit after about an hour and said that the game sucked and has not touched it again. So I think Ubisoft needed to make the change to attract more players and new customers to the franchise... the old ways feel very clumsy and dated for new players that don’t have any nostalgia itch...
@TRISTAN KAHL The idea in the previous games is that you have to observe the environment not just run-up to any kind of obstacle and climb over it. AC Unity was the peak of the series for me when it comes to a good parkour system. Also, there is no sense of momentum when your character movement feels weightless and unnatural and looks more like getting yeeted all over the place because of the underlying system like here: 15:10.
AC:O is like getting a great meal, but in a RIDICULOUSLY MASSIVE portion... (like a 10 pound hamburger 🍔 with a shield-sized bun) after a while you don’t want to even look at it anymore.
Sure you can eat a little bit tomorrow and the day after that even... but after a while, you’re just forcing yourself to eat it because it’s taking up too much space in the fridge and you don’t want to waste it.
And what was INITIALLY an incredible, once in a lifetime meal becomes a punishment and a chore. Not due to quality or taste, but because the portions are unreasonably big...
And what’s detrimental to getting “too much” is that you’re not going to want to eat that meal again for a VERY long time.
This perfectly describes my problem with the game. That and the loot.
Brandon Wallace don’t even get me started on Ubi turning every single game into looter-shooters.
If Ubi made a one-on-one fighting game they’d make it a looter-shooter.
Very true Dougdoug
@David Christian Bru same, just bought both DLC's but thinking about playing them is giving me legit vertigo...
No. It would just be a large, shitty, ugly, disgusting burger.
Ubisoft released a patch yesterday that reduces the level requirement for main story quest. So to level gating has been severely reduced to the point tha xp most items are kinda laughable now. But good thay videos like this and others brought this to ubisoft attention and they took approrpiate actions.
Or they already planned this, gladly take the money, when it gets too much flame they turn it back to how it should be and earn a reputation.
They got the money from idiots then as only stupid people buy EXP boosts for single player games.
kind xx Or maybe they actually care? Quit acting like a saint if a company screws up you bash them if a company tries to fix something and do good you bash them. No wonder you people are always mad nothing pleases entitled gamers
@Gunther Pie if i broke your jaw but paid all your medical expenses, does that make what i did any less shit? if i stole money from you that you needed to feed your family because you just lost your job but gave a referral to apply to a new job, does that make what i did less shit?
publishers dont give a fuck about you, they care about their image and sales. stop defending them.
Pc still doesn’t have that patch
"that's a problem for tomorrow" With breakpoint, tomorrow is here!
That is so true...the conclusion of this video was foreshadowing what's been done with Breakpoint
I loved sailing in this game. Sailed from Messenia to Lesbos without fast travel more than once.
Its so amazing being able to sail to other islands/continents, accually feals like a planet and not just a map of a small world.
Windwaker inspirations baby!
I really just saw a 50min review of a game that I'm not even interested in
His narrative style is extremely satisfying
Is that because you’re interested in the design? Perhaps more than the experience
@@EmperorsNewWardrobe probably, I really like Greek metrology and like eric above you said his narrating is brilliant
@@SG0041 Yup, it’s weirdly satisfying to hear good analyses, even when you have no intention of playing. Mark Brown’s analysis of Dark Souls did that, sending me down a rabbit hole of then playing through the series
To be honest it wasn’t too bad for me. I bought it on sale and I tend to play games over months. I’d drop it and pick it up a week or two later, grind a bit, drop it again etc. I can see how it can be frustrating if you’re actively trying to finish it though. I just don’t have the time for long gaming sessions nowadays and every replay is all about relearning the mechanics.
I miss the ASSASSIN lore emphasis from the earlier games
Assassin't creed
It's showing what the assains and templars were before they were the assasins and templars. The cult is the templars and the player is the assasin
picklethepuckle the problem with that is that if we’re playing before assassins and Templar’s then we’re not really assassins and Templars....
@@Aka_GodSpeed and the cult isn't actually related to the templars in any shape or form. It was the order of the ancients that later evolved into the templars. They were only inspired by the cult's ideologies and had the same end goal.
And the assassin brotherhood/hidden ones didn't even exist yet, soooo....
Yeah I miss the actual stealth and assassination focus of the games.
I'm going to have to play Witcher 3 to see what happened with that fry pan.
good luck when you're on your 10th sidemission hours later ignoring the main story haha, Witcher 3 sidequests are sooo good!
Found the pan have ye?
It's actually a very deep sidequest. It's implied that the guy who messed with the old lady's house is another character from the Witcher series that doesn't appear in this game. So even the most random sidequest from Witcher 3 has lore behind it
@@bernardocarneiro1982 He appears in the game, lol. You meet him if you decide help Dijkstra with his mission regarding Radovid. He's also character in the first game.
@@fellowtemplar5679 really? Coulda sworn that mission was in Hearts of Stone (when I said he didn't appear I was refering to base Witcher 3)
This is coming from someone who did not play at launch and just finished.
I guess growing up being a history nerd and enjoying this time period a lot made the 30 hours you spoke of very enjoyable to me. I just loved exploring, seeing the sights and hearing familiar names. Not gonna write a book but if anyone’s still visiting this video let’s talk about it.
There's nothing to talk about you liked what you like stop looking to argue mindlessly lol
@@firelord4662 there’s a difference between discussion and arguing. A lot of people somehow can’t tell the difference
Loved the game, the story and set piece are amazing even today. Just how far cry has became bland, far cry 3 was still able to create a beautiful fun world with a good story and that’s how a good game is made.
Same!
I feel like I'm in the minority, but I went into this purposefully forgetting it was an Assassin's Creed game, and I had the best time I've had in the whole series
It really shouldn’t have been labeled an AC game. For a game about Ancient Greece I’d have been just fine with it.
Most people enjoyed it. It's rated around 90% audience score. The common complaint is that "it's not an AC game". Who cares, though?
AC games were getting repetitive, ubisoft lost sales so they changed it up. We can only blame ourselves for not supporting the old model
Totally. They should have started a new RPG franchise with this game.
@@cybersphere They could've but it simply wouldn't have sold as much. The franchise name is what sells at this point. They're a company so their focus is money
Can't exactly blame them
@iSolvano / Games on OLED AC3 is old. Sales went downhill after that. So they changed the formula
There's like 4 games after AC3 before Origins you know
AC Oddysey is my guilty pleasure. I know how much flawed this game is but I spent more than 70 hours into this game. Don't worry. I didn't buy any micro transaction
You can absolutely love a game and know that its flawed, I did it with kingdom hearts 3. Different people have that different thing that makes them stick to a game even if the game is flawed.
@@Joker-nh6dd Thanks man. It's good to know that I'm not alone :)
I really liked Oddysey, I (think) I finished it the other day lol. I unlocked new game plus but didn't see any credits roll, Will leave it there in case of spoilers. Yeah it was a lot of fun and I'm still not done with it all, but I do agree with skillup in that it felt bloated. There were some cool side stories on some islands, but I never even got to see them all in my 60 hours of gameplay. A very fun but flawed game indeed. My hopes is that they listened to the criticism and make the next AC a really good RPG with meaningful side quests. I have faith in Ubisoft these days.
@@Smokez360 I heard AC is getting another year break. I wish they took their time to make the next AC game as good as Origins
@@didijunior971 I would be very surprised if we saw an AC this year, and that's perfectly ok in my books. I never played origins actually, I loved the setting but the gameplay seemed meh to me, it's on my list tho for sure, in the middle of replaying unity and with its performance issues mostly sorted, it's a really fun game.
I remember having 80+ hours before i made it to chapter 3 because I literally went around doing every location objective and side mission. No i have no life why do you ask
That is what I do...its why I love Ubisoft games even though they arent great. I rarely finish a Ubisoft game, but put insane hours into them. I just like clearing markers to be honest. Ill be headed towards a story mission and get side tracked for hours and hours
@@Ryattt81 it’s a good time waster i’ll give it that
Nobody asked or gives a fuk is your life you choose to do what you want with it just wanted to only point that out
Unfortunately, most companies won’t bother to listen to a review like this. Instead, they’ll just look at all the mainstream 9’s and 10’s that offer little to no real critique and based on that, keep doing exactly the same thing next time around.
After all, why change or improve when everyone seems to love what you’re doing?
most of the reviews that give this game 9 or 10 are proven to have the exp boost already enabled so these reviewers think that people are complaining about a nonissue.
@@nothinisworthit lol so hard to your conspiracy theory. I must have a review copy too, so as my friends.
They listen to sales. Random reviews on TH-cam (rightfully) mean nothing to them.
Why 'rightfully'? How many large game reviewers can we name that produce anything of substance beyond circle jerking or shilling? I can only think of two. Game reviews are just as much of a corrupt and greedy business as (insert 'evil' game company here).
Sales have and always will be the end-all metric of how well received a game is.
any proof for that, any posts from ex-journalists admitting that, any sort of evidence that can back up to your conspiracy theory? or is it just that - a theory? Because some people say the earth is flat and every employee of every space program in the world is paid off to lie as well.
@@brokengames9020 i have no idea what Youre talking about. Havent heard of it. Got sources for this? I will love to readd further.
You know you can roll to extinguish fire? :>
(im only 12hrs in at this point)
I've learned it 100h in.
FeelsBadMan
Yes, at 38:48 --- It seems he never realized you can roll to put it out right away.
@@MrCriistiano rofl wow that must have been really really annoying to play with not knowing!! some of those bounty hunters with flame attacks must have been infuriating ;.(
Poor guy never learned Stop Drop R O L L
lol 110 hours in and just read your comment. Many painful deaths from the flaming mercenaries
The parkour system wasn't killed
It was mauled.
Odyssey’s parkour is the best to date. Real parkour is only limited by the climbers imagination. The less limitations in video games the more enjoyable they become to play.
@@monalisa-bs4zs exactly and i played since ac 2. the limitations for parkour because i had to run in specific areas to climb was pathetic to me
These aren’t reviews anymore, these are fully fledged documentaries
@Charles Lee I think he was praising, not complaining.
@Charles Lee He wasnt complaining dickhead
I found most of what he said repetitive and kinda pointless at some points in the video.
@Charles Lee dumbass
It didn't drag for me at all to be honest, but I get why people feel that way.
"People didn't like the focus on stealth and assassination"
Assassin's Creed
ASSASSIN's Creed
It's not Warrior's Creed, or Boxer's Creed
Thaddeus Hamlet agreed brother
Imagine telling the Battlefield playerbase that the next title will focus on 1v1s cause they wanna move away from large battles 🤔
@VOLD GAMER lol have u ever played ezio trilogy I think u are just a 12 year old kid who is a Fortnite player and his mommy bought him ac odyssey first play ezio trilogy
@VOLD GAMER as I said u are a 12 yr old with mommy's credit card
Steve Robertson my first playthrough was on the hardest difficulty. You can imagine my surprise when I couldn’t get a consistent 1-shot assassination (without using crit) past level 3 and up until level 35. Even then, my build will make me worthless in a straight up fight or while using a bow until I can reach 50+. That’s fucking pathetic. An Assassin’s Creed game that restricts you to only being competent in 1 play style at a time until near the end of a 50-100hr game. That’s not how you make a game. Harder difficulties shouldn’t restrict you to playing 1 skill tree (if you try to make a hybrid too early, I promise you’ll be unsuccessful. You’ll never 1-shot assassinate and will do chip damage as a warrior/hunter). They should make the enemies harder to fight in terms of abilities, attack frequency, etc. Not just make them damage sponges.
Above all, the assassinations are super inefficient because they can take up to 3 seconds (possibly more), compared to the usual 1-1.5 in the other games. It’s just bad for any fans of the series.
After playing the game for myself, I have to say even at the repetition of particular assets, I found the scope and scale of the game world to be incredibly enjoyable. It almost helped encompass you in the story, a personal journey in a massive world populated with civilization.
Your a small character in a massive world with events transpiring around you.
Even the sense of scale helps the believability of the Cult and their goals in the spread and reach of their control.
@@freakyplory5721Nah I agree with him, he put how I feel about the game pretty well.
@@freakyplory5721I agree with them too!!
If they scrapped a whole third of the size of the map and bland side quests you would still get that feeling of scope. The game is simply to big and bloated, I was almost on autopilot mode going through most of it.
Give me an open world that grips me narratively ,challenges me somewhat and respects my time, odyssey hardly does any of these things.
It's also worth noting two things about myself that my personally shape my bias of the game:
1. This is the first assassins creed game I've played since Syndicate, prior to the English Entry my last played entry was Revelations to conclude the Ezio Trilogy back in the 360 days.
2. I'm a homosexual with a deep love of Greek History and Mythology.
This game lets me play as a gay lady spartan running around and just battering my way through with aggression and sass.
@@declanmillar6356 Honestly ive always seen the assassins creed games as the fast food of gaming, its cheap (as in the thought that went behind the content of the games) and not very original, but its still tasty. Lots of people hate repetitive list checking activities, but something in my brain just likes to cross shit off on a map, to see something get fully complete. Of course there are limits, I love MGS 5 a lot and the way you progress and check things off your list in that game, but even it got repetitive and tiring at the last stretch of the insane amount of side ops in that game.
I spent 289 hours in this world, 100% completed it, got the platinum trophy (and all DLC trophies) and loved every minute of it. However, I totally understand that people find it all a bit too much. None of my friends even completed the main quest because of the “bloat”.
Edit: I did not buy any microtransactions.
your comment inspires me to play this game, bcz i buyed gold edition and i was thinking i regreted but i don't know...... it's on downloading btw how many days taked you to complete all
Ah yes, The Witcher 3 and the illusive pan. Its been years since i did that quest but i can't get it out of my head.
"Winds Howling"
Still haven't finished it. It's like a phantom that has been haunting me for years now. I feel like I need to go back to Witcher 3 to finish this one quest and get the peace of soul
Michał C. It’s a dumb quest but it speakers volumes as to how much time and effort was spent on the writing alone
@@Internetgamer420 agreed. Witcher 3's side quests actually kept me engaged, which is rare. And voice acting in both polish and English versions is great
Honestly I really enjoyed lots of the side quests in this game. Mostly because I truly love Greek mythology and anything to do with ancient Greece, but I thought lots of them were well written.
Exactly!
Fair warning: This review ventures into spoiler territory pretty hard at points.
Yeah, he just spoiled some end game locations for me. WTF?
What was spoiled?
DBJ I definitely didn’t know he did that. Never seen his vids before. I’m just lucky enough to have checked the comments before getting to the spoilers.
Tork Penderloin I’m glad I checked the comments as well. I just hit level 20 in the game so I have a ton of content left to enjoy.
Damn, good thing I saw your comment, but now I can't finish the video. I can get this game new for $15 ..is it worth it for someone who never played an AC game??
you know the witcher frying pan quest is good when i remembered EXACTLY what it was about as soon as i saw that house + npc
I agree, I'm about 60 hours in and haven't seen even half of the landscape yet and Im bored already. Will have to finish it later I guess. The only thing that keeps you going in this game is the campaign but even that can't save it. It's definitely a good game and the most fun I have had with Assassins Creed, but it's just too damn big.
I loved the Legendary beasts questline. I finished it up yesterday, before getting back to getting land back from the Spartan Kings, or solving the cult, or anything like that. I didn't even realize that would be the final arc with everything, so that's really cool! It was very sweet seeing Kassandra again in the modern day, and it was most definitely a very sweet goodbye to the character.
ShantyLady it isn‘t the „final arc“ when you can play it midway through the family „main story“. I dont know why he said it like this but yeah
Probably got copyright claimed because of some music. Freakin TH-cam lol
true
Either that or someone _REALLY_ didn't like the video.
It's always been _far_ too easy to silence a video (hell, _channel_ ) you don't like.
Or re-uploaded to get rid of the downvotes aha
When you’re on fire, roll to put it out. Fire is honestly not as devastating as poison can be
I got this game for $20. More than worth that price.
Well damn
It's worth $7 at max
Wow Skill Up that was a fantastic review. There wasn't a minute of it I didn't like. Thank you for doing these ❤
If someone plays AC and complains it has too much stealth and assassinations... IT IS ASSASSIN'S CREED ffs not God of War...
I understand when people complain about arbitrary stealth section for action games but whole point of AC is to be an assassin not spartan warrior with flaming stick +3 and "stab sponge" enemies just to excuse "rpg stats". This is open world rpg game with tons of microtransactions and broken design to force people to buy it...
That is what bothers me, just change the name, make it own IP and let someone else to do AC like Hitman in medieval times.
yeah thats like complaining that porn has too much sex scenes lol
why the fuck would they change the name when it is about a mercenary (assassin) killing a group of corupt/ cultist leaders (templars) using an enchanted peice of eden, all while being controlled by a chick in a time/simulator machine. welcome to Assasins Creed.
@@artscorsese3203 I think you missed his point. He was talking about how gameplay and mechanics in this don't reflect the ac franchise itself anymore. Personally I agree with him, I loved the first ac games back then, but with this I was bored to death after 2 hours or so.
But if so many people enjoy this, good for them.
I think these warrior focused games highlight the various factions of the brotherhood like the mercenary faction from ezio games like bartholomew and uncle mario who were more battle oriented but still technically part of assassins
That was good.
I liked the intro and the conclusion,
but the middle felt a little...bloated ;)
I never disagreed with this review but in hindsight, he's completely right. The game is too long. I got to about 85-90% through the story then never went back to it. I felt no desire to go back to it, even with all the dlc that's released since. I didn't dislike the story but i just lost any appetite to continue which is strange considering i was in the closing stages. I don't dislike the game, i actually really enjoyed it for the most part & maybe i'll go back to it someday. It's a hard balance, i want value for my money. I want a decent, long story & vast world, however i think Odyssey is maybe 5hrs too long. I felt myself having to remember on too many occasions what happened nearer the beginning or even half-ways through the game as it'd been so long since i'd experienced those things.
Same for me,i finished it,started New game+ but quit shortly after,although im not quite sure why people are complaining about higher level quests they cant do,there's a setting in the game that sets the game to scale everything to your level so i just used that.That seems to be one of the biggest points of this video yet it's solvable in the options menu.
The problem I have with both Odyssey and Origins is the lack of originality of side quests.
It's not that long for me
I really enjoyed this game overall, but always fun to see you articulate the nuisances within each title. I had planned to platinum this one but burnt out after 60 hours or so (which is still a lot of gameplay) but you nailed it as usual.
I find it sad that no one cares about the present day story anymore. I feel like without that Assassin's Creed is just another generic game. The first 3 parts really had me invested because there was a reason for why we were playing as these characters. The Desmond story was brilliant. After that there was really no need for the series to continue. Assassin's Creed died after Assassin's Creed 3 IMO. Dont get me wrong AC 3 was mediocre and AC4 is still the best game in the series for me. But was it really an Assassin's Creed game? I would say no. The series has slowly moved away from making us feel like an assassin who strikes from the shadows to just another RPG. I understand that Ubisoft needs to make money and thats why they continue. But at this point it just feels like they are just milking the AC brand rather than make the typical AC games that made them famous in the first place. If you are going to divert from the core gameplay so much i would rather that you make another new IP rather than milk everything you can out of an old one.
I am on the same boat with you where I played the AC series up to AC3 which is where Desmond Miles story ended and honestly was the only reason I played AC3 was to find out how AC 1~3 story arc ended. After that it was just milking the brand because I was wondering AC4 onwards about how the game will be like in terms of whether there is the past and present thing that they had for Desmond Miles which they sort of did but became less and less important.
@@splinteridiot glad there is atleast someone like me. And the sadder thing is that even the reviewers dont care about the present day story anymore :(
Boy am I glad to meet someone who shares my views. I’ve felt so alone.
I got into AC at Brotherhood, and I loved it. I loved the historical roots and the linear storytelling that coalesced two stories into one. But in recent years, the franchise has seemed to devolve and divert from its original roots into a choose for yourself RPG. The main point of the original games is that history can’t be changed, it can only be utilized to influence the future. And that people in the present storyline were using memories to find the pieces of eden. I would have preferred it if Ubisoft decided to make the present story the main story line while using the past as a way to uncover the mysteries of the lore.
@@inertian4723 exactly!
I’m so upset about this fact I’m watching reviews of Odyssey trying to find someone with the same opinion. I’m not trying to find my echo chamber but I’ve the feeling everyone is living the thing they hated a few years before. “There’s too much open world”, “I hate micro transactions”, “I hate grinding”, “I hate uncharismatic characters”, “I hate boring stories”, “I hate developers which give gender choice”, etc. Now people see Vikings, a hidden blade and the AC logo and they preorder. It’s just sad. Even as just games they’re nothing like The Witcher 3. I don’t understand the goal of making AC in an RPG in the first place anyway. They could simply have said “AC is done after Syndicate” and move on. This way the development would have been easier.
Devs: *make single player games grindy
Cheat Engine: cute
cheat engine makes the game 100 times better. removes level gating plus you get the microtransaction armors for free.
Well well well… this is a very interesting discovery
Part of the reason I come back to your reviews every few months, even though I've already watched them, is because you really wonderfully tie in other parts of our lives and worlds to the economic and artistic design of video games. Your coke-v-pepsi tangent in the Forsaken review, the album length tangent here, and the humble tangent all play such a lovely part in really selling your connection to the games you're reviewing.
They got me with the xp boost when the ultimate edition of the game went on super sale, and it definitely makes the games pacing better, I might take my time when it comes to open world, but I was 10-20 levels above you in this video on all the scenes, but they made the world scale with your level so unless youre building right its still a grind. Its dangerous territory for sure, not long before it becomes that Raid cellphone game
Something I found odd is that there is an inverse relationship between difficulty setting and skill in the combat; the higher the difficulty setting, the more likely the outcome is to be determined entirely by level. I am a Soulsborne vet and my normal approach is to learn enemy attack patterns and exploit the weaknesses I find; this involves a lot of rolling and taking a few hits to gauge enemy DPS but at higher settings an enemy more than 1 or 2 levels above you will kill you in a single combo. The only choices are to turn down the difficulty or grind up some levels.
Good point, this relation and having the levels defining the difficulty seems a poor design choice. In Fenyx Rising also an UBI game you could go to an overpowered enemy it was marked as such but if you had enough skill and patience you could win the fight.
This is something why I get bored with games like the division, AC origin, odyssey, Valhalla (I tired all of them during fee weekends). And after playing for a dozen of hours or so I didn’t see a reason to continue.
the one thing that Holds odyssey back in my opinion is that it’s lost the simple joy of moving around the world...
Has anyone else felt this? The parkour/climbing in odyssey is so watered down and simple that it’s become boring. There’s a huge lack of animation variety and alexios/kassandra aren’t able to perform a fraction of the cool maneuvers that You could perform in Unity or syndicate. You end up just watching them do the same little hop over absolutely everything. The pathing around the environment has lost its kinetic flow and feels clunky and unsatisfying. Even their running animations look off. this may sound nit picky but it’s hugely important when moving around makes up like 1/3 of AC’s gameplay loop.
Move/kill/loot repeat. Unity was a buggy and flawed game but the movement was and still is so satisfying to play with. Odyssey does loot and combat so well but the movement part is boring and joyless compared to previous games. At least to me. I hope the next game brings back more nuance and visual flavor to the movement. If so, we could have a near perfect AC game.
Do you know that if you hold down the crouch button while running, Alexios/Kassandra will vault over things automatically like in AC3? It's nowhere like Unity's parkour, but it's there.
There is a lot about Odyssey that's boring and joyless. The repetition and lack of diversity, for example. They shouldn't have called it "Assassin's Creed". It's an okay ancient Greece hack-and-slash enemy sponge open world rpg but it's a terrible AC game.
I don’t agree that the combat is better or on par. Back in AC 3, you had to time your blocks pretty well. You had to know your enemies, because certain moves wouldn’t work on certain enemies. In Odyssey, you just mash attack and spam block. No timing required. Every single enemy is a sponge and it makes the combat feel weightless. In AC 3, every interaction was perfectly animated; each hit and block, each 2v1, etc. In Odyssey, you just spam special moves endlessly, intersperse some regular spam attacks, and repeat.
They did Unity dirty both Ubisoft AND AC fans, Ubisoft fucked up on release, no doubt, and THEY deserve The backlash, but Unity's problem was Fix VERY quickly considering The size of The problem, And make it up for The mistake by having a full expansión DLC as Free... Fans Without reason decided to keep digging ACU a grave for no reason for The whole year (The famous face and map glitches I've seen are The same 3 Screenshots and 4 or 5 clips, meaning THOSE Bugs weren't as present as they Made You believe). ACU is not My favorite, but probably The Best in the series
The setting makes the parkour difficult.
I've played Odyssey for a while and the game has a lot of strong points, but also many weak points. I agree with what you said. The good parts of the game are astonishing, but the not-so-good parts are meh, or just boring
I really loved your review especially when you started talking about ancient Greece.I am Greek and loved the fact that you did this historical recursion explaining the importance of greek civilization...HUGE RESPECT!!
I wish I heard more of a fuss made about this kind of thing back when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided came out. When I saw that I could purchase one time use upgrade points (praxis kits) for a single playthrough, my jaw hit the floor. I was flabbergasted at when I was seeing. Combined with how it feels like a chunk of the game was cut out and made into a pre-order mission - similar to Mass Effect 3's day one DLC with the promethean squad member - and that game went from a 9/10 to a 7/10 for me.
Disclaimer: I wrote this comment in the first video, but Shill Up must have liked the comment so much he had to take down the whole video.
Absolutely love the new formula you've come up with. A seemingly random analogy somehow gets turned into a perfect parallel to the game you are reviewing. I have no idea how you come up with your analogies, but great work as always.
"See this coca-cola? That is a perfect representation of this comment"
Research, my friend. Too little of it goes around these day and most people take things at face value and react to _that._
How do you play Witcher 3 with no subtitles?! MADNESS! I cant understand a word she said! 18:38
dude the accent sometime are so strong... imagine me who doesnt speak fluide english yet
My dude, your video essays could be used in a video game design class.
I didn't find this game too grindy, I enjoyed the journey and if anything, I was levelling too fast. But the video does raise very good points for future games.
Same, I reached level 50 when my main quest level requirement was 27 or something. I had to use heavy scaling as it became too easy
8 minutes and 30 seconds in: "Now here's my review: "
Big oof.
He starts talking about pop songs.... Like... Wtf
Dude seriously. Get to the fucking point
Y'all have no patience, it was an introduction to give emphasis on the monetization of the game
As somebody who loves both Video Games and Rap music, i was NEVER expecting to see clips of Hit 'em Up while watching a Skill Up review 😂😂😂😂😂
"It's not about the size but how you use it" - Shill Up 2018
(Gotta put my comment back)
And Odyssey used it perfectly well the game has over 300 story focused Witcher 3 like quests. If you only play the daily procedurally generated quests than yeah it can be repetitive.
Yes its 4 years later I got to see this. Brilliant review! I LOVE this game, so it hurt a bit to hear you say some of the things you did, but I must admit I think you are right. As for the microtransactions, I fall in neither camp. I do not defend them and I do not condemn them. I like the side quests (I think more more like 20% were memorable but I can't argue that is still too low) so I did not hate the grind as much as you did, but I cannot argue there WAS a grind.
The other question you raised was what part did microtransactions play in the design of the game. I think the answer to this is the microtransactions definitely DID influence the game design as much as I would like to say it didn't. However, I think the game designers/developers tried to mitigate this somewhat. When the game first came out, the material costs for upgrading your gear was utterly outrageous. And lo... the shop had a way to buy materials. Unsurprisingly, the fans started to get very vocal about what they considered and obvious cash grab. The devs then turned around and claimed it was actually a mistake and immediately drastically reduced those requirements and claimed that the resource bundle was just there for people who hated hunting that stuff at all. Do I believe them? I am not sure. Regardless, it demonstrated the fine line they are walking either way. It's always going to be a challenge to push things just far enough to make more money and not too far to destroy the game and franchise.
In the end, the money people are a double edged sword for us gamers. On the one hand, they will try to bleed us dry because that is their function. On the other hand, it is because of the real money potential in games now that we are seeing a magnificent renaissance of game investment and development. I for one am willing to "pay the price" so to speak as long as that price is literally not too high.
Thanks again for such a balanced review delivered with respect and care.
As someone who has completed literally every single objective in the game, down to the tiniest bandit camp, I would definitely recommend.
With the parkour system u may as well put no clip on
The stealth system in the core AC games was always about social stealth. "Hide in plain sight, be a blade in the crowd, be a ghost among the masses, let the people mask you such that you become one with the crowd " that was the whole core idea of stealth in an Assassin's Creed game. That was the 2nd tenet of the "Creed". That used to set it apart from all the other games out their (at least for me).
I can create a stealth build character in almost any RPG game, I can create a stealthy assassin build in Skyrim just like in Odyssey. Does that make Skyrim an "Assassin's Creed" game? NO. So your advocacy for this game, that you can create an Assassin build character with a bunch of bonus backstab damage perks and other generic stealth perks making it an "Assassin's Creed" game doesn't work. Just having an "Assassin" skill tree and letting you do generic stealthy stuff like any other stealth game doesn't make an "Assassin's Creed" game.
I'm a sorry but I don't agree with your explanation of this being an "Assassin's Creed" game. Other than that I agree with all the other points you've made in this video. A really late response to this video but hopefully one day you will see this. Love your content. Keep it up. Peace.
Ubisoft would explain it away with ”but muh Hashashin no exist yet”
I don't think I've ever seen a game that let's you choose to cuck someone(17:10). That's an insta-buy from me
A year ago the average game review on TH-cam lasted 10 minutes but today it can last a grindy 47 minutes.
*This is such a fantastic, in-depth review!* I am actively playing my way through Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey as we speak (no fast travel, so I’ve logged 110 hours so far) and it’s an amazing game but everything you said is completely true. I haven’t played The Witcher but this review makes me want to try it out. You make it sound fantastic! Side note, *I just wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed this content that you made* 😊🙌
Hey dude did you manage to play Witcher 3?
@@Sams-xi7xf I haven’t played it yet but I have a friend who recommended it and said that it is an amazing experience! He said it was the best game ever played. What are your thoughts?
@@djvelocity it's fricking amazing, the main story, the DLCs and most of the side quests have solid writing and they're genuinely enjoyable... If you have time for it I strongly recommend it
@@Sams-xi7xf yeah that’s what my friend said, he said there’s not a single pointless mission in the entire game and that everything you are sent to do actually makes sense and fits in somewhere. I have to admit, between your review and his, I think I need to pick this game up in the near future 🤩
@@djvelocity that's awesome, I just want to give you a small tip. If you decide to start the Witcher 3, during the first 2 hours you'll have to talk to a seemingly unimportant individual. A bald guy that says he is a mirror merchant... Just watch out for that guy, keep him in your mind for later (DO NOT google him). This isn't a spoiler, just something to keep in mind ;)
This will make the game more enjoyable for you in the long run.
I’d never bought a micro transaction and Odyssey as my first AC. As I was playing I felt like I needed to buy a few. I got the exp boost and materials for my freakin boat. I’m glad I was able to finish it though because I adored Cassandra and enjoyed the main a story.
The main thing preventing me from playing most of these types of games is the pointless bloat quests. I'd rather play 20 hours of a good game story than 60-100 hours of fetch quests
Yip, open world games are getting tiresome, especially cause many follow the same old formula
Man, I love this game. That intro music to odyssey gives me chills every time. I don't know why I like this one so much, I couldn't stand Origins or Valhalla and got sick of the grind after about 10 hours. Dunno what it is about Odyssey...I absolutely adore it lol I still play it to this day. I think it's like what you said, I just love the gameplay loop, and whenever I do decide to actually pursue the main story, it's always a treat cause it's so good XD. Maybe I need to be more critical. I haven't spent a single penny on this game outside of the initial purchase and have put in like a thousand hours, and I still find myself going back to it. Just watching this video is making me want to go and play it some more XD.
That quest you highlighted always cracks me up XD getting bear nuts
Played ODYSSEY 3000 hours...ha ha
I swear you kind of gamers were an urban myth but here I am reading your own words 😮...😂
@@philbarton2832 is just a game
At first, I was so confused. Then, when he actually started talking about the game, I understood why he used the music analogy for context. 🤣
Story took me about 50h - twice as long as it did to get a platinum on spider-man. But... I've never felt any drag or grind. While progressing through story and doing some sidequests i've got enough of xp and drachmae just to push forward.
LiveToLearn, I guess is the way you play the game. Some people just want to rush everything and find the game grindy, others who like to explore and do everything in a balance way do not have this problem.
In the end to do everything it took me 120 hours. If I wanted to just do some mapping, I did mapping; if I wanted to do some side quests, I did side quests. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, so much so that I prefer it over RDR2; so much that I've stopped playing RDR2.
It takes like 100+ hours to do everything, not bad imo!
Same.. I dont get the "grind" thing at all.. I played the game, I explored locations, only did mainstory and gold-sidequests, and didnt spend a minute grinding and ended up at lvl 50 with 40hours played.. not sure what everyone is doing..
Amazing review. It's independent journos like yourselves that allow for such nuanced, detailed critique and discussion regarding video games as a medium. Keep up the great work!
Origins was all about how the Assassin Order came to life, Odyssey doesn't even introduce anything directly related to them until you play DLC content ... I don't understand how someone can seriously say Origins is less AC than Odyssey.
One of the best Assassin's Creed: Odyssey reviews I've seen.
Keep up the incredible work, man.
I agree!
Thanx I will :)
Honestly I love this game, I'm only at chapter 6 and I've played 50 hours, and I'm level 49, with the xp booster. I have a feeling the Devs were forced to lower XP by the CEOs and whatnots at the top. This is one of the best games I've played in the past few years, I love it, but I can see how it isn't for everyone, and I can see how the xp boosters are "predatory" although you don't need them. My friend started his game the same time and isn't that far behind me without use of the XP booster. Only reason you would need to buy the booster is if you didn't have time to spend on the game. But then why did you buy an RPG? Because that's exactly what the Devs have intended for this series to become.
Why did you pay microtransactions...
@@IWantToStayAtYourHouse I didn't, I was awarded the currency when I hit a certain chapter and it gave me enough, so I thought, screw it, may as well.
But your forced to grind crappy fetch quests just to rank up to get a high enough level to play the main story
@@Gael-x999 they don't force you to do anything. Yes, some of the quests are very fetchy, delivery, but that's like most rpgs. And this is a new RPG, and one of Ubisofts first attempts at making a story driven rpg affected by player choice, and it's a pretty great first attempt.
I REALLY miss these little anecdotes at the beginning of reviews. The new revoews are still great but this one, the bpat metaphors good times
I feel like Odyssey is a step closer to making Triple A “mobile game like” titles. Time and level blocked progression. Artificially induced scarce materials and resources. Ubisoft gives a free 2 hour XP and Gold boost for Ubisoft Club. When I used these items it was clear the grind in this game has been inflated to push players to purchase boosts.
I fucking love side quests that are just silly side stories of retrieving someone's pan or hooking up your companion with their crush
I haven't played an AC game since Syndicate. I'm a huge fan of 300, Spartans and the whole Greek Mythology. With that being said, I haven't been too big into AC for awhile, but this is one game I've always wanted to play. The Gold Edition is currently on sale right now for $25 and I'm thinking about picking it up. It comes with all expansions and AC3 & Liberation Remastered. Great review, I respect your opinions, but for me, I like large games, I hate spending money on a game that I'll beat in 15-20 hours that'll probably never play again after that.
Learned of you from the FF7R review and i have to say I'm really impressed with how much depth you go into in your analysis of core concepts in gaming. You have a point to say and you successfully deliver it.
As for AC:Odyssey, you have to think that initially, when the developers at Ubisoft started creating Assassins Creed games, that their first speeches and talks were about not making the game bland - having unique settings with unique places that looked ... unique. Same with the game design, climbing rooftops by specifically holding onto ledges: giving each building a distinct climbing point and a path to remember. I believe it's that architecture that creates fun games. Looking at the AC: Odyssey as a whole, I believe that their are core parts of the games that the developers have loved to create; Kephalonia, the new gameplay mechanics, the Ancient bosses. But the game is damaged by the main drive of the game, Greed. Instead of making a hugely unique and re-playable world like RDR2 or The Witcher 3, or giving off that huge sense of awe at the re-creation of great buildings, they've delved into the business side of things, not realizing the wants or desires of the people that put them in the job in the first place - us, the consumer, the player. They've forgotten most of what made AC unique, and will quickly start losing their fan base if they don't change.
Came for the game review, stayed for the music history lesson.
I bought this from the PS store for only $12 recently. I got burnt out on AC Valhalla previously, but I figured "what the hell. It's only $12." I honestly really, really enjoyed it...at first. By the time it introduced the whole "find out the cult members" thing - on top of the merchant system, the "go do all the these-type-of-things" quests, the bounty system, the side quests that were just fetch quests - I felt like I suddenly hit a brick wall. It's weird because I know that I don't *have* to do all this stuff, but something about saying "no thanks" to half the offerings in a game feels...wrong, for lack of a better term. They really could have had something special here.
8:35 review starts
I know you say you hated Origins and enjoyed Odyssey, but my god, almost everything I've seen of Odyssey looks exactly the same as Origins. Even the very few differences you mention don't seem like they would have anywhere near that much of a bearing on hating one and liking the next. I finished pretty much everything in Origins and loved it, but there's no way I'm putting another 50 hours minimum into a Greek re-skin with dialogue options. Just the fact that they were released within a year of each other (being the size that they are) has to mean they are basically identical. Surely. Enjoyed the review!
Odyssey feels and plays totally different from Origins.
Literally the only thing in Odyssey that reminds me of Origins is the parkour and horse animations and if that bothers you, you're a knobhead.
Origins has way more brown people.
It's a shame you feel that way because Odyssey is ten times the game Origins was. Better characters, better story, better combat, better visuals, better music, far more variety in gameplay.
@@zadusto6515 odyssey is definitely more refined, but thats all it is. a more refined origins. Literally everything, rpg and combat wise, in odyssey is in origins, its just less refined. Its why I'm not understanding the reviewer's views here, because he complained about origins combat system, then went on to praise odyssey's combat system which plays almost exactly the same, just tighter and more refined. Like he praised the whole assassination damage thing,but origins did the same exact thing. It just didn't have abilities that were tied to assassination damage, thus being less refined than odyssey. Honestly it made me feel like this guy didn't play origins, or didn't really complete the game himself but rather watched someone else play it.
discovered this channel in 2024, loving it :)
I enjoy the grind honestly , so much to do , so much armor and gear and weapons , you can make different load outs for different missions or forts. Different abilities you can assign. So much world to discover , legendary beats , an arena . Addicting for me .
Yeah...agree played odyssey 3000 hours
Yakuza's map is great, I have spent over 100 hours on 0 and neither Sotenbori nor Kamurocho is even close to the size of Odessy's. Because of this, every inch of it's packed with something to do, none of it's level gated and it's all unique. It was super easy for me to master it so I knew how to get where I needed to for every mission or side mission even without the marker. I like how it worked within the context of the game considering you're supposed to be playing a street savvy gangster.
I played 130 hours of Odyssey and only made it 2/3 of the campaign. The grind and exploration in games like this is why I play.
Gave up on Ubisoft upon losing motivation to complete Syndicate and Far Cry 5. Had gotten through all AC and most FC games up to that point. They're ocean sized bloated experiences that are about as deep as a puddle.
Edit: Also, once you go Soulsborne you rarely go back to casual unfulfilling level gated combat.
Late to the party but XP boost totally not necessary. Loved every bit of the grind and resource gathering. Perfectly balanced, for me at any rate.
I'm curious but how can you like grind? That just baffles me. No video game should have grind like this one does, or any sort of grind at all. Not enjoyable at all.
@@eddiefisher3093 Grind is its own reward. It stems from my love of JRPGs, where a big boss might be too tough, so you go back in the field and look for random monster encounters. Each time you level up, you feel the accomplishments. That's why grind in more modern action RPGs is great fun for me.
Phenomenal review really. In a world where the majority of reviewers are "influenced" to be more positive towards games, it's a damn pleasure to discover your channel. I literally have the same general opinion about Odyssey, it's a great game but you have to wonder how much better it could have been without the aggressive monetization.
Again, really great review, you have my subscription !
46:21 Spot on. Just look at what happened with breakpoint a year later. Ubisoft is garbage now.
"bigger isn't always better"
Tell that to my girlfriend
Oooh self burn. That's rare.
How long is it? 3 cm? Tremenda Tula bro
Sorry for taking her brother
One of the major reasons the length of albums is increasing is that streaming apps jack up long albums in their recommendation algorithms
At least this time, unlike the wasted empty spaces in Origins, the world is absolutely filled to the brim with content.
Though I honestly prefer Origins as a whole. Bayek is just much more interesting, and the world design and its rusty looks appeal more to me than Odyssey's clean fantasy look.
Shitty recycled content