My thoughts on Origin, Odyssey and Valhalla

When Origins was first announced i didnt think it looked interesting at all. I picked it up last summer on the ps4 when it was on sale, and I was totaly blown away. I think it has become one of my favorite games and to me it is what AC should always have been.

The stealth was SO MUCH FUN, really made you feel like a ninja assasins. The ability to mark the enemies with your eagle made you feel in control, you could plan how you wanted to apporoach each situation. Your character moved very fast, there was alot of places to hide, lots of opportunties to get to higher ground to drop assasinate your enemies, etc.

The old AC were always very frustrating to me, and often turned into trial and error. When following someone there was always some guard on the roof who spoted you, infiltrating places where more like pussles with one correct way of doing things. The eagle vision which turned everything blue and the enemies red always broke the immersion for me.

In Origins when assasinating the guy at the bathhouse you can sneak up and get to him from under the ceiling, and you can sneak out again the same way without being spoted. Its very easy, but its very fun and make you feel like an assasin, instead of being spoted 10 times because there are guards everywhere and you manage to solve the puzzle it on the 10th try.

The world was beautiful and diverse. The dungeons you find are so beautifuy crafted, there arent too many of them but they feel meaningful.

One of my favorite aspects of the AC games is to experience other historical times, and I think they did a great job here. The cities are awesome and each have a unique feel. I was realy hyped over getting to Alexandria and checking out the library.

I think the leveling system works great. To enjoy the game you cant realy be nerfed in one area, and you wont be because you can always max out everyhing and you seldom felt underpowered, but it was still fun to look forward to upgrade some aspect of your character.

Combat is serviceable. I never liked the way the combat looked. All the fast straffing makes it look like your fighing quake bots. Some attacks with some weapons often missed the target if though you were standing right in front of them. But the camera was immersive, the attacks felt powerful, the overpower attacks were fun.

 

Then I played Odessey, I think the core idea had great potential (going on an epic adventure in ancient greece on your ship with your companions sounds fun) but I felt the game was ruined because a number of design choises.

*Art style - and maybe the size of the world?
They went for a totaly different artstyle for the environment from other AC games with this one, instead of the realistic style its more of a gamey- cartoony style. I dont know if the reason was that it would take too much time making souch a big world with more detailed assets? The feeling of being in historical ancient greece was kinda ruined for me in part of the art style, and It didnt feel like enough time had been put into the environments.

The cities all felt and looked the same, if you had seen one you had seen them all. It didnt feel like walking around in cities at all, it felt they had taken the same handful of assets and just placed them on the ground. Kinda like you where walking around in a city or base from an rts game. The dungeons Im sad to say looked terrible. Big square shaped corridors with the same textures on all of them, flat lighting. When I first was in a dungeon i didnt realise I was in a dungeon because it looked so bland and samey. Maybe this has to do with the size of the world, not enough time to craft things with enough quality?

Aspects of the game look great. The ocean looks great. When you´re riding high atop a cliff, with a city down below, beyond that the sea and more island in the horizon it looks epic in its scale. Up close things look quite bad. Most places feels like the were proceduraly created and not like real, unique places, and everywhere looks the same. When I came to the volcanic rock island in the south it was breath of fresh air to see someting that looked different.

*The camera
The game could have been more immersive if the camera was more immersive. Its too far away and too high. You dont get to experience the world from your characters point of view, its more like youre playing some kind of isomemtric strategy game or something. I saw a short clip from the game with a mod where the camera was closer and lower and the environments felt better, not as good as other AC games, but still.
The same is true when it comes to the fighting and swiming. In odyssey the camera is at surface level, like your character, when swimming. In odessey you can barely see you character. In origins you feel like you are in the action when fighting, in Odyssey its more like sims or something.

*Fighting
My biggist issue with the fighting is that everyhing is so weak and the characters have so much health. Im doing all these super powerfull moves on enemies of about the same level as me and their health in slooowly chipping away. It just feels so unrealistic and makes you feel so under powered. The camera is farther away and isnt animated to enhance the power of of your attacks like in origins.

*Leveling system and gear
I get the fun of building a specilized characters in rpgs. Being a mage is different than a warrior etc, but it doesnt work for me in AC. I want to be an assasin and be able to use the different tools at my disposal. The problem for my was I had to have one gear set for my assaninations to work, and when I was discovered I went to the menu and equiped my warrior outfit so I could do some decent damage. Just hurts the flow of the game. They way it was designed just nerfed other aspects of you character. I want to be able to assinate these guards AND be able to snipe those guards in the towers without having to change gear.
I personaly found the amount of gear you find just to be time consuming and distracting. And whats the point of getting this legendary sword if Ill just find some rusty bandit sword which is better because it is some levels higher?

 

Valhalla
It first I liked it, and it seemed to adress most issues I had with odyssey. The artstyle was classic AC and looked great; there wasnt such a huge inflation in gear and treasures; combat seemed to feel more powerful. But after a while the game just felt like a chore.

To an extent this comes down to me not being to fond of the setting. The environments are just rolling hills on the countryside, I cant stand most of the voice actors, sounds like swedes with bad english pronunciation. It seemed like they were inspirered by game of thrones, personaly I would rather be without dialoge like "ill rip the flesh from your bones", or "he´s in his castle warming his c**k", and I would rather be without the brutal torture scenes, but thats just me.

The biggest reasion why I dont like it is because the gameplay is really bad:

*Combat is buggy and jerky and becomes so boring and unengaging quite soon. Also the camera is so far away during combat, and the only way to tell the difference from your allys from your enemies is to activate eagle vision. I do like that your bow is actualy useful in combat.
*The sieges are a big part of the game, and they are realy boring as well. After the initial flare wears of you realise its just smoke and mirrors, and you just run past every enemy to get them over with. Same things with raids.

*In origins and odyssey you used your bird to find your target or person of interrest when you got to an area, but not in valhalla. When you get a couple of hundred meters from your target your map marker disapears, so you have to send up your bird. With the bird you can see the area is green, so from your bird you place a marker so you know where youre going since the game decided to remove the marker: manualy place the same marker the game just removed. You cant spot the target from your bird so you have to ride or walk to the area to find the person looking for. Whats the point of this? Also assasinations arent as fun because you cant plan your attack when you dont know where your target is. Also the camera auto adjust behind your stupid bird so its too much of a hassle to use the bird.

*The stealth is bad. Social stealth is totaly broken, guard notice you way to early when you´re wearing your hood. And if they notice you dont have enough time to get away before they spot you. Normal stealth is crappy as well. You dont have as many options playing stealthy, enemies are often in groups. The can see you from the back of their heads and spot you very easy. You move quite slow when sneaking, but you can sneak faster when clicking the left thumbstick. Theres a point to have a sprint button when moving normaly, but why wouldnt I want to sneak a bit faster all the time? The best stealth move is the overpowered mark of death where you take out a whole group of enemies at once with your bow.

*So much of the gameplay is basicly quicktime events masquerading as gameplay, or "roleplaying".
In one mission i got to a town, I talked to some people, then I was going trick or treating which was "go to houses with doors and click x and watch short cutscenes". After that I needed to go to someone to find info: "go to marker on map and press x, watch cutscene". After that I needed more info so I went to another mark on the map. But before I could talk to that person I needed to light some items outside his house on fire, "go to 5 items, take out torch and throw it. 5 times". After that I needed the answers to some questions before he could give him, the clues were in and around his house: "go to glowing objects, press x, then go to person the person and finaly get the info". After that I uninstalled the game and probably wont be touching it again.

Many of the missions in origins were "go to base, kill person or rescue person or steal document", but the stealth were so great so it was fun.
The things you do in an open world game needs to be fun and not much in valhalla is not fun. Not the combat, not the sieges, not the stealth, and espically not the "go to marker and press x, repeat 5 times". Im playing rage 2 now, and even though the world is bland and generic, the driving is boring, the gunplay is sooo much fun and satisisfying. Im having a blast just going to markes on the map blowing people away with my shotgun for hours. (going to places is boring, shooting people is fun).

 

Many Ubisoft games have that vibe, that board meeting design feel. I think watch dogs and that post apocalyptic far cry might be their worst games in that regard.
Also the animus might be one of the stupidest ideas in gaming. Im playing a game where Im playing a game. Its litteraly like that onion video, "world of world of warcraft". One scene in the recent games AC is especialy cringe worthy. The present time protaganist is entering the animus and she says "this is so cool!". Its like "mom" has discovered video games, gotten a job on the ubisoft design commite and want to tell us in the game that: "videogames are so cool! you can visit different places and have all kinds of adventures!". Ugh. Also that early 2000s iphone style white interface they decided to put in all the ac games. Yuk. At least they have gotten rid of that since origins.

I think the ac games are held back by the ac lore.

Anyway, I agree with you. Origins is a hell of a game though, awesome stealth. Clearing bases in fc3 and 4 is also amazing.

 

One more thing i think Valhalla did wrong: in the other AC games, if an enemy has lost track of you you can assinate them, even if the alarms have sounded. That means you could move around a corner and maybe climb atop a roof or something and then stealth kill your pursuer. In Valhalla you cant do any stealth kills once you´ve been seen.

 

If I break their line of site I should be able to stealth kill them, as long as they dont see me when I attack them. Thats how it worked in Origins and odyssey. In valhalla I cant stealth kill enemies if Ive been spoted once, even if they have lost track of me and I sneak up from behind.

 

Im glad some one agrees with me =) I seem to be one of the few people how like the original Rage as well
Origins didnt interrest me when it was unveiled, but after I started playing it it soon became one of my favorite open world games. The two biggest factors was the stealth and the world. The fighting was servicable at best, but at least it felt impactful and made you feel powerfull.

A game with the realistic artstyle of origins and unity, with the stealth from origins and the combat from tsushima. Set in a world with a lot of water (like odyssey) where your ship could be your base like in mass effect.

 

True, but lets say an enemy sees me. I run around a corner and break his line of sight, then a climb up a wall. He doesnt know where I am and when he passes the corner I should be able to drop assinate him.

 

Is it possible to edit your posts?
I want to correct some spelling in my previous post =/ "I" instead of "a".