Review: In 'Assassin's Creed Odyssey', time is at drachmas | Entertainment

But "Assassin's Creed Odyssey" can be a lot of fun to play – for some time. It honors the heavier combat introduced in "Origins" last year and accentuates the stealth of the series with a sleek movement and a perfectly alert AI, making every encounter a new thrill. And the ancient Greece where these meetings take place is even more massive and mythical than Egypt's "Origins". From the Minotaur hunt on the steep hills of Crete to the pontificate with Socrates in the shadow of the Parthenon, it is carved to captivate the imagination of anyone who has paid attention to college.

Thus, the game, like its literary namesake, tests this old adage: "It's about the trip, not the destination". Because when the trip is this for a long time, savoring it can be a struggle, no matter how much fun you sometimes have. I spent 65 hours with "Assassin's Creed Odyssey", seeing the end and the two epilogues, setting foot on every island in the Aegean Sea, killing all creatures of the myth. And I've always been through the game like Hermes. I went from goal to goal, past Greek citizens who needed the help of my character, barely treating the breathtaking scenery en route. Yes, the matches were exciting, but it was also the only part of the game that required patience. They were followed by conversations in which I skipped most of the optional questions and the context they provided, and horse riding so imprudent that my courier, Phobos, probably hated me. Guiding him repeatedly on a 100-foot cliff because it was the most direct route that could do it.

I could have played even longer at "Assassin's Creed Odyssey" if I chose his mode of exploration. It removes waypoints, forcing you to navigate by asking directions and reading the map. This is the opposite of the permanent improvement of XP experience of Ubisoft, which adds untold hours of game time. And if I had literally nothing Anything else to do during the next month, not to mention a review time, I would have loved to experience the game that way. I would have liked to absorb its magnificent ancient Greece fully, to engage its citizens as closely. I would have liked to explore, to wander, trek.

Playing "Assassin's Creed Odyssey" is like putting up with tension: wanting to do more, wanting to continue the journey and not having the time to do it. Does this mean that the game is as well large? Maybe Does this mean that there is something wrong with me and the other players who can not give a game the size of the time that it invites? May be. I just know that it's the tension itself that defines my odyssey.

You play as Alexios or Kassandra, brothers and sisters whose fate is closely linked to that of Greece, as Sparta and Athens fight the Peloponnesian War. I chose Kassandra. And despite its glaring resemblance to Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman – from the Mediterranean accent and her playful attitude to the supermodel looks and armor of Amazon – she's a much better choice. His voice, Melissanti Mahmut, realizes the character with warmth, resolution and humor, while Alexios sounds like a wild jester. "Origins" leads Bayek and Aya remain the best of the series, but Kassandra is part of the conversation.

One thing that sets Kassandra apart from his murderous predecessors is the ability to select your character's dialogue for the first time in the series. Straight from the school of Bioware and Bethesda, the only significant distinction between his answers is that one is aggressive, the other compassionate. But with many romance options – which are also new in the series – and the usual patchwork of skill trees and gears, the dialogue options let you customize your killer more than ever. The identity of the game itself takes shape in the same way. It conservatively enhances the ideas of "Assassin's Creeds" or, in the case of dialogue options, introduces ideas so universal that they are undetectable. And yet, as these ideas settle in the Greek carrier world of the game, "Odyssey" performs a kind of alchemy. Even if each of its systems evokes a dozen games you have played, it seems totally New.

What is perhaps more original than systems, is the simplistic approach of Ubisoft towards them. In "Odyssey", the developer gives priority to the depth. The only status effects in combat are fire and poison. There is no manufacturing outside arrows, nor consumables because healing is a cooldown skill that you can map to a button command. Sellers have little value to offer other than to improve your equipment or burn it with special benefits. And the skills and equipment could not be simpler on the abilities that they unlock and the statistics they improve.

With so much to do in the game, I appreciated that Ubisoft gives me so little to manage in its menus. No, the menus are more useful for following the huge list of tasks that Kassandra can pursue across the peninsula. One of the best of these tasks is a new network of mercenaries. Theft and murder allow you to get a bonus that attracts these mercenaries unless you kill the person who put it on you or you do not pay them. Kill the mercenaries place Kassandra above them on a hierarchy. And keep the mercenaries on the lookout for you to make the game encounters even more exciting.

The "Odyssey" mercenaries resemble the orcs of Monolith's "Middle Earth" games: enemies generated by procedures that follow you everywhere on the map. They can also be really difficult. So, when they try to eliminate soldiers on a fort, they can turn a reunion by heart into an epic war story. Many of mine have involved running away from the parapets, looking for a hill that would break the line of sight of my pursuers and hide in the foliage until I can blow some of them up. I repeat this brave strategy until victory, and every second seems to me stimulating.

In a change from "Origins", "Odyssey" changes the level of enemies that would otherwise be so inferior to yours that you could kill them in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, the enemies of more than two levels higher than those you can do the same for Kassandra. This is how the game forces you to perform optional activities before continuing the main quest, where the next mission can be as long as possible. five higher levels.

So even when you're up to speed, every fight is a challenge. Your most powerful defense is the parade, which has such a generous window that you can press the appropriate buttons. seconds before the sword reaches you and makes his wearer vulnerable again. The equalizer on the other side is numbers. Parts of Spartans with spears or small fleets of ships on the Aegean Sea can make land and sea combat a cracked puzzle. And with so many islands and so much distance between them, "Odyssey" spends as much time at sea as any game "Assassin's Creed" since "Black Flag".

Like the mercenaries, another game menu follows another of his best tasks: the Kosmos cult. After Kassandra met the masked conspirators at the beginning of the game, a gang of 44 of them joined your newspaper. Some appear naturally during his story and others remain hidden, unless you are looking for clues about their location or other conditions likely to attract them. Some clues are so enigmatic that they take a lot of time. But chasing them is the closest Assassin's Creed Odyssey that makes you feel like a real assassin. So, time and travel are worth it.