Assassins Creed Odyssey

Been over a year since I've played Valhalla's main story, but most of the new gear starts out at a low level and you have to upgrade it before you can actually use it as a higher level character, right?

The upgrading in Valhalla is enough to drive anyone to madness.  You need increasingly rare materials to upgrade Tiers; Superior, Legendary, Mythical etc.  AND you need increasingly large numbers of standard materials to upgrade within the Tiers.

Well if you go back to the game you don't have to fight the Mercenary dude, it's optional to fight him at the start and he will appear in other parts of Greece if you don't.

Duris: 'you'll regret this when the Cyclops shows up...he will just kill you anyways.'

Me: *laughs in level 99 Mistios*

Though it is fun to note that I started off trying to go on hard mode for this. And that lasted all of one fire fight because well I A died and B. there is apparently no auto healing which I found a bit weird considering that Odyssey does not have Vahalla's healing system. But yes, for the moment going to be happy with normal.

And well this game is now in the lead in an important category. This is now my fourth playthrough with a game which in the PS4/5 console generation is the most times I have ever replayed a game other then BioWare and well I think this might virtually be the first time I have replayed a game after its sequel came out. Now a lot of this has been because they released a patch for it giving it some upgrades for the 5 but it is also a testement to the game's staying power. And well this game still feels so good to play. I think I know a lot of the cutscenes by now so there might be some boringness there but the combat is still pretty great, Greece is beautiful, and there is far more nostalgia to this game then a lot. That opening cinematic is still perfection.

That said two things are going to take some getting used to. 1. Simple, facial animations. After Vahalla and watching Horizon it is very noticable how stiff everything is. I hate it so much but its there. 2. the usual getting re used to controls and styles of play and what not and getting back into the flow. Just I know its come up between the two but it strikes me as interesting just how much this game is 'power' focused. Me being used to ACV I was treating this game like ACV and while I didn't die I was still struggling a bit...but then when I remembered I could go chain gun on the devestating shot it got much smother. And in general its interesting the Archery. ACV I really appreciate the flow and power of it with being able to hit the 'perfect' draw. But the thing is to in ACV it was fully manual on aim, and I noticed in ACOD there seems to be a lot of generous tracking...you still need to make adjustments but its there.

And well despite the above not sure how completionist I am going to be this time. I might not even do the DLC which is ironic since I think my HDR issues effected Atlantis so I might try Atlantis again but just not sure how much side quests I will do...but then I have already faught Talos and helped odessa...but come on that is pretty mandatory. So we will see. Lot will depend on if CDPR decides to release their patch for TW3 and if I end up enjoying Dragon's Dogma when I give it a try soon.

Continuing on I quit 'early' with me just getting to the meeting. And the big highlight of the day is I actually killed Elpenor out in the wild before getting to the Pythia. . I mean I shouldn't toot my own horn on this too much since this is my fourth PT...but I did have the hunch that he was there so I made sure to find him.

Though I probably have gotten the Pytia killed...again. That's annoying. I was a bit too confident that my crit would trigger as I was going to kill the last guard. But it didn't. From a trope perspective I always find it a fascinating how I play Kass with the Cult. She is normally kind, caring, level headed, and compasionate. She is tough but probably the character which engages the least in 'the cold calculus' of war out of any of my female characters...well no wait there is my Ryder to but then I play her completly different from any of hers. So yeah it just drives home just how seriously pissed and how much the Cult drives her under her skin when she threatens to strangle the Pytia of all things. She really hates the Cult.

In a general play through sense...well one thing Vahalla does much better then Odyssey (probably the only thing) is the whole base system and the random question marks and clearing them out. The trouble is that I am again ignoring most of them this playthrough but well again hates the cult so clearing out areas that I find which has her guards...but then despite not wanting to...it also feels weird to not actually clear it out to get it checked off and get the Xp. Its weird. And archery. It seems that this game's bow tracks the enemy far more then I gave it credit for. A cult guard was dancing all over the place and holding it with devestating shot ready and it just danced with it. Which Vahalla requires a lot more manual aim...I think...which results you in having to hold it at draw longer. So...realism. Archery realism. The Odyssey system is more realistic because you can get the shot off faster and more accurate but the Vahalla system is more accurate and feels better because of the 'perfect draw' system. If only they combine the two. . But then this is weird because I do wonder if Vahalla has more aim assist then I remembered...something I will have to keep in mind for a future PT.

Up to Andros.

Probably commented on it before now but man is it worth pointing out just how poorly put together the whole meeting scene is in the Cult's lair. It would have been interesting if they could have actually had done the same trick with Elpenor or another cultist that they did with Alexios/ Kassandra and just have them in the proper robes. No one noticed her voice? Or the fact she had very femine legs? And Deimos who none of these people trusts goes 'who are you' in front of everyone else before bashing someone else's head in? Yes sitcom logic is a thing but its always annoying to point out. Which is a shame because in an otherwise pretty great game with a great story this scene should have more weight...and it still kind of does. But this is just one of those things that I guess sticks out more in a fourth play through.


It will be interesting to that for the first time I skipped getting off at every island to get the quests in the log with Eubea and then...the one with the edipus tragedy.  Not sure I will bother to do the latter though the Eubea one is always a must do. 

Siding with Odessa is the right choice. The people against her are the Cult of Kosmos. If you don’t do her quest early, one of the members wants you to kill her in exchange for a slave you want to help. If you already did her quest and she is part of your crew, you don’t get the choice.

You recruited her, so you’re fine. You just don’t get to kill her to free a slave you met five minutes ago later. But considering you kill his owner regardless, I still think he’s free.

Got up through the symposium. This time Kass did NOT accept the dress which was weird and there was a lot of dialogue on the subject. OH YEAH and oh oops. Apparently not doing the Kepholonia plague quests counts as doing it and having negative outcomes happen because Phoibe mentioned the rumor of the blood fever spreading which I don't think I ever triggered before. Or least not unintentionally. And from a gamey perspective 'actions have consequences'...accept in this case it makes ZERO sense since if you do the quest the people there was quite content to sword the family to death and only it was your intervention that talked them out of it. So I am annoyed. Also Kass made a casual mention that she would go back and check on things just because.

Some of my memory sucking but it is an interesting disctinction which the game brings up and I do find it rather...interesting. Sokrates in like his first conversation with you mentions what our line of morality is and what we would do that would cause the line to move...or not. And well I have a line, and Kassandra has a line as I play her, and well I think in general it keeps to it. But in the back of my head it is funny because in this case 'getting to content' is the big line in these games because well gamers generally you do want to experience as much content as possible, if you get these games new you can drop anywhere between 50-100 bucks on them so naturally you want to experience a kind of heavy game with a lot of content and preferably a lot of quality contnet. Even on repeat playthroughs sometimes you want to experience a character's journey or a quest chain so you have to work through morally questionable quests where the game railroads you to get to the *good* stuff with the actual conversations. Now I'm not complaining because even the best RPGs tend to be stories so railroading to make a point does often happen. Just in this case Kassandra still sneaks into an Athenian records office, assaults a bunch of guards, and forges a signature. Of course after hearing the truth the game provides you the opprotunity to change your mind, and Sokrates waxes eloquent on the subject...but there we go.

Anyways wrapped up and killed two more Cultists and got up to Korinth. Had a lot of fun in general in this play session. First off in the aforementioned Records office I almost got caught so I retreated to an outbuilding, the guard followed me so I beat him. Then did an arrow style thing as I then charged in and knocked the two guards out with the knock down arrows. Then later on in that initial combat with the thugs attacking the Hetarae I actually did my trick from Vahalla and multi shotted all the first group, the crit damage activated so there we were on that though could have just rush assassinated everyon I suppose.

Did you kill the Monger in secret or let the ladies kill him in public?

The public execution is so much better and more deserved. 

I didn't know she displays it regardless. Then again I never listen to Brasidas (especially after the revelations in the Atlantis DLC about him). But overall I think it's better to let his victims get some catharsis as at least some form of justice over him just being swept under the rug. And yeah I know it means the one cultist later has to be killed, but he deserves it anyway after all the lives he ended or ruined (he speaks of his family, ut doesn't give a damn about any of the others he hurt). And with how I play, I still get enough evidence to expose the traitor Spartan king.