Assassin's Creed

Despite being in the "abandoned games" thread threatening to bin Valhalla, it got its teeth back into me these past few days. Oddly it was going off and doing some of the "filler" content that helped. Some of it is really really good, and I'm loving exploring the world for its own sake. A minor character who I thought was a fucking prick got offed as well, so that helped.

I just finished the main story in Odyssey last night after the 98 hour point. I've now got the DLC, Artemis, last cultists, new mercenaries and stacks of other stuff I skipped. I've not even been to alot of the islands. My ship is Legendary in all areas, but it is going to take a long time to fill that last bar on each (if I am ever able).

I did the at level 51 and it was still edge of the seat stuff, so I'm not surprised you struggled at your level. I also did the adventures in the realm to the east of there and they were good and tied in with it.

Graphically on the Stadia, the game is amazing on a 4k TV. When I was stood on top of the ruins of Knossos Palace with the sun rising over the hills in the background, the smoke from a fire curling around the wooded hills, the birds wheeling overhead, I thought it looked incredible. THe detail on the armour and the distance you could see into the distance were unreal. Sound is also good and I love listening to my crew singing away as we head towards yet another Anthenian trireme.

With having an NG+, I could play this for months, but I see that Origins is £19 in a sale at the moment so that is tempting. Valhalla also I'll no doubt get and I've got Black Flag on the Switch (naval combat didn't work for me so far). But first I've got some blade to get and then Atlantis. I've still not seen the other mythological creatures that supposedly exist. After dealing with SPOILER, I can't say I'm looking forwards to the rest of them.

Good luck with our mutual friend. I had the poison daggers (and a poison bow) and phase two of that fight was... interesting. That said, Dark Souls material I am not.

Ref the two things you've discovered, I think I've met them too. In my case they are both dead. The one surrounded my fire was the harder of the two, especially as I had no idea what it was that I was jumping into.

On the last point, I've only just done "our mutual friend". The other three artifacts I suspect are the key to an area which I will be doing last. I've heard that you should do (1) The main game, but not all the cultists (2) the blade (and then the cultists) (3) Atlantis. I'm tempted to just wipe out the remaining four cultists I've got left because they really shouldn't have done what they did in Athens.

There's a few islands I want to go onto which I've heard are good fun and there are still people waiting for me in Athens with things to do. Lots of the world are still covered up and many of the places that I have been to have just been skimmed over. The palace was good. Once you've finished that, head East for some light relief. I beat the arena last week too. The last fight had me running around a pit for ages waiting for my abilities to recover.

I bought Valhalla at Christmas for about £22 on CDKeys. Can’t say I’ve made too much headway as there is a shitload to do and there are plenty other games on the backlog. The forthcoming Ragnarok expansion looks fun. Fingers crossed it’ll stand-alone from the main quest.

Yeah that was the stuff. I enjoyed it as I knew the reality and could tell them all...which I did....repeatedly. 


I did my virtual run today around the Acropolis. It was pretty good thinking "I've been there" and "I looted that". I'm a bit knackered now though and my wife isn't impressed that I didn't make any dumplings before I started my run. Apparently making a stew wasn't enough. 

So the next Assassins Creed game is going to be some more Valhalla dlc that they've decided to turn into a full game apparently. They're trying something new with the AC formula this time around and making it smaller (almost DLC sized you might say) and stealth focused.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. What I've seen suggests the main game is a bit grim looking and feeling, so I'd hoped for something a bit brighter and with more humour. More of wet and wild England wasn't what I was expecting. Still, I might love it when I eventually get on a long boat. 

I honestly don't think it has one anymore.

So much this. The whole first civilisation, "you have to save the world from destruction by finding all these magical artefacts" narrative is so odd. It could have been a really interesting storyline to underpin all the games but actually it's just boring and utterly directionless.

I don't care about Minerva, just let me stab Rodrigo Borgia! And frankly, in the newer games, it's got worse.

I loved the early games - I bought a PS3 to play the first one and even though it was kinda basic, it had a pace and scale that I loved and there were some genuine moments of greatness when you climbed a ridiculously tall building and looked out over Acre or executed someone without being seen and slipped away into the crowd. The setting was great (particularly as I've always loved that 2nd and 3rd Crusades period). The Ezio games took that and made it so much better and are probably some of my favourite games ever - although I didn't love Revelations as much as the first two. Again, great settings and really good characters.

I'm probably the odd one out in that I don't love Black Flag as much as everyone else, but I had great fun with Unity and Syndicate. 

Origins was fun and I quite liked the changes to the gameplay and the origin story... but as much time as I spent playing Odyssey and Valhalla (hundreds of hours), neither of them was satisfying in the way the earlier games were. Valhalla particularly is a dour and often utterly humourless grind, with characters I mostly couldn't care less about. I played it, but much of it was by rote.

I think I've probably fallen out of love with the series.

dogbot

Ha, I have the same thoughts Re: Black Flag. Unity was basically the AC game I wanted after Brotherhood. Actually. I enjoyed Revelations as well but 3 started to turn me off. So much in fact I took a long break and didn't play Black Flag til much later on. I finished it but didn't love it. Unity remains one of my favs and, in fact, I'm messing about with that and Syndicate on the One X upstairs whilst I'm pootling about in Odyssey on the PS5 (all temporarily shelved in favour of Dying Light 2 mind you) and I just love everything you do in Unity. For me, it's the perfect AC game. Paris during the revolution just oozes atmpsphere, and it's advanced enough (in terms of architecture and human engineering) so that there's some properly amazing things to climb, the city is teeming with life and the combat is perfect. Syndicate is not as good but I still really like it.

As I say, I like Odyssey too, but it's not an AC game.

If i had to say my top 3:

Unity
Brotherhood
II

Fucking heathens.

I have an assassin build, so I'm death incarnate.

Plus I am on Easy with "easy scaling", with a poison build so I am DEATH INCARNATE....or a Goddess as I keep telling people.

I find Rush Assassinate brings down 4 enemies in a row and then I use the Assassinate Damage in Melee ability, with the Ring of Chaos and Ares Warcry and that usually does the job.

I stroll in as well. Master ability of "percentage chance to inflict 25% of assassins damage in melee" and daggers tends to mean that everyone dies... including the mercenaries that turn up. Its mostly because of the mercenaries that I assassinate. Plus, assassinate is quicker.

If the new one is in a new location, then that could be good. More depth in a smaller location is better than huge and empty. That said, I won't have anything able to play it (as I doubt it will get to Stadia), so this is just theoretical.

Anyway, just finished a release, so time for some breakfast.

Put me out of my misery with Valhalla: when does the main story end? Am I literally going to have to get it level 300 or whatever and clear every single county? Or does it stop sometime before that?