To begin, I was sort of an Assassin's Creed fan from the beginning in 2007. The first game was simply magical, that huge open world, the uniqueness of the setting and the gameplay, the graphics, the animations, the serious story that touched on philospophical and morality topics simply amazed me. Sure, the repetitiveness of it was criticized by many but it was nothing compared to Odyssey's.
So coming from Origins (which is among my favorites in the franchise, although I don't consider it a true "Assassin" game that either) I had no high hopes for Odyssey, seeing that it was a reskinned Origins, but still I was curious because of the new setting and as I like the franchise. I was getting worried seeing some videos that left me a bad impression regarding the writing but I was not prepared to what the game offers. Got it on day one, played a few hours and it gave a bad impression. I thought I will play it later but everytime I tried I never enjoyed it. Now Valhalla is coming and I decided to play it through to know the story but I'm having a really hard time and I can't wait to finish it.
Writing
I always try to avoid judging someone based on their looks, but look at one of the main writers of this game:
[Picture removed as I only wanted to use it for demonstration purposes and after a night's sleep I realized that it's against my principles to ridicule someone because of their looks, even if I hate what that person represents by their looks. I would like to highlight that it's not because of some posters' comments, (we are incels, etc.), I don't care what some simple-minded folks think about me, but because of my conscience.]
Based on this image you would imagine the worst millennial type writing filled with obnoxious SJW bullshit in your face all the time and you would be so right. Honestly, I don't remember ever complaining about writing in a game, but this is just unbearably horrible. I'm skipping the dialogs as I can't stand them. I have never done this in any game. It has nothing to do with the deep (compared to this) topics of the original AC, it's like a (really) bad millennial TV comedy with some of the worst performances I ever saw. A lot of times there is like no connection in the delivery, the writing, and what you can see animation wise on the screen. I just can't understand how can it be so bad. Everything is trying to be funny and failing so bad I'm cringing all the time. Thanks to this and the lame performances even the scenes intended to be serious are laughable. Also Alexios acts like a typical millennial bitch. I can't say this in any nicer way. It's horrible. The most important thing is to force their SJW bullshit in your face. Some male characters always wanting to fuck Alexios and not once having me forget which hole they like.
Gameplay
Honestly, who designed this game? Did they really think it is enjoyable? You can't even play as a proper Assassin. I go into a fort and can't assassinate captains that are 5 levels below me. Wtf? Of course I'm forced to fight for an infinite amount of time as 10 soldiers start to attack me, who are made of stone and have to chip away their health for minutes, despite being 5 levels lower than me and my gear. Then some fucking mercenaries start to teleport who are even worse with posion and magic spamming and some bears and wolfs, and some fucking chickens. You can't go anywhere and enjoy the scenery for too long, as everyone and everything wants to kill you always. Fucking chickens even, lol. Infinite amount of samey forts, caves, ruins etc. How can this be considered one of the best in the series when it has 100000 times the repetitiveness of the first AC game? Also, there is this boring neverending combat always with the bad animations and you cannot even use a shield as a Spartan(!). Wtf is this again?
Remember the leaks for Origins? It said that Greece was part of that game. It's clear, lots of reused assets, lazy design in every sense. It's like they took the Greece parts out of that game, enlarged the map and made a full game of it filling with boring content. They needed a story and characters and said fuck it, who cares, just vomit and shit something, mix it well then those losers will get it anyway.
Excuse my rant but I'm baffled why so many like this game. I have never wanted something to end this much. You could ask why I'm playing it if I hate it this much. It's only because I still like the franchise and I'm interested in the story and want to know it before Valhalla and I also like to explore as the world still has some beautiful and interesting places despite having a lot of reused assets and lazy design. The graphics has some high points and the music is nice but playing it through is just a slog. Being everything so frustrating I just run into the locations, get the required loot, kill the captain etc. to complete the place and just run away instead of fighting half the world for hours.
TLDR: This is one of the must frustrating games I ever played, with boring, neverending repetitive gameplay with the worst SJW writing I ever saw. I cannot understand how this particular instalment became so popular.
You won’t convince anyone of any personal opinion if you can’t first convince yourself not to be a hypocrite.
It's better than those nerd games you play.
