My Odyssey Wish and Gripes List

Guess what?  Chicken butt!  Just kidding--but I'm about to lead off with the exact same sentiment that I've led off with for the past four weeks--I'm still playing Assassin's Creed:  Odyssey.  According to the horrible counter on Uplay's game dock, I've played for 135 hours, killed 4,389 critters/people, and travelled 1,351,217 meters (kilometers?  I don't know.).  And yet, I'm still not finished.  I'm 72% through the main storyline and still have a stubborn determination to find and complete as many locations as I can.  Oh, the pain of being such an ardent completionist...I've mostly had fun, but there have definitely been some moments of questioning the point of clearing out yet another military outpost or creeping through my billionth cave.  (FYI--There might be some spoilers.  You've probably already finished the game though, because you're not stubbornly clinging to finding and doing everything.  If so, read on!)

This is what it feels like to be the #1 mercenary.

The one major achievement I can chalk up is finally climbing to the top of the ancient Greek mercenary charts.  I mostly ignored the entire concept of gaining ranks until I noticed that some of the discounts offered at higher ranks were actually very good.  Trying to keep my gear upgraded has been a bit of a headache that has required an obscene amount of leather--stupidly, I didn't noticed that at tier 3 rank the material cost for gear upgrades is reduced by 50%.  I could've saved so much leather.....blargh.  I mostly faced off against the other mercenaries in the Pephka arena--a few I killed while they were trying to track me down.  The entire mercenary ranking system culminates with a fight against a "legendary" fighter who is one of the sage level cultists.  You get to become #1 and take out one of the high ranking cultists--bargain!  Sadly, becoming #1 doesn't really provide much in the way of rewards--legendary guy drops a huge, fiery mace and I think you get a legendary skin for your horse--some sort of flaming, underworld type of deal.  Then you get to sit happily on your throne of mercenary bodies.  Hurrah!

I've also managed to slay all four of the mythical creatures.  My favorite fight was against Medusa--you definitely need to be on your toes to avoid her petrification beam and her lightning call down (I don't know what to call it--the red circles you have to avoid).  The two other fights seemed easy compared to Medusa.  I managed to avoid fighting the Sphinx by answering its riddles correctly.

Throughout all this time playing I've been thinking about things that bug me and things that I wish were different or better.  Since I'm still not done playing, I've decided to make that list a thing outside of my own head.  I'm new to the series, so I have no idea if any of the things I'm listing are new features or unique to Odyssey.

Wishes:
1.) Relationships/flirting seems to be mostly (*with a few exceptions) pointless.  I've read that this entire aspect of the game is a new thing, so there's room for improvement.  I wish they would flesh out the relationship part of the game more--maybe something along the lines of a BioWare-esque relationship system.  For example, I think it would be nice to have unique, recruitable lieutenants for your ship.  It would be even better if those lieutenants had some sort of questline that adds backstory and can help develop the relationship between your character and the lieutenant.  To me, it just seems so weird and forced when your character has barely met someone and then they're basically hopping straight into bed with them (or they seem to happen at really awkward times--for example, when someone is sick and you offer to help...but not until after you've made the sweet, sweet love!  It just feels weird/wrong!).  Maybe that's a personal preference, but the relationships I've liked the most have been the ones that develop over the course of a chaining questline (Kyra comes to mind).

Along those same relationship related lines, I've noticed that the ratio of male to female options seems extremely skewed.  There are a ton of options to flirt with women, while there are only a few male characters open to flirtations.  I can only bring to mind four male choices--a cute doctor who wants you to kill his mother-in-law (there's an entire story--it's in one of the early zones), Alkibiades--the Greek playboy who seems to be down for whatever--a horny blacksmith who seems to want sexual favors in exchange for providing you with a sword for a quest--and Mikkos, a guy who is supposed to be taking care of Barnabas' sick nephew (but still brazenly flirts with you while you're offering to help and Neleus lays in bed--this is a prime example of the awkward situation).  I want some more male options!  (I'm not far enough into the main storyline, but I'm really feeling Brasidas--he better be an option!)

2.) More branching/detailed side quests.  I managed to find a few more notable and enjoyable branching sidequests that provided some nice stories, but I'm still finding that many zones are largely lacking in story.  The islands seem to have more to offer than the main Greek peninsula.  Exploration gets really draggy without something to spice it up and add interest.

3.) Morality system.  I will get to this under the "bugs me" section.

Bugs Me:
1.) I've been questioning whether the legendary gear sets are really worth it.  Each set seems to be crafted toward a certain playstyle and I've sided on the assassin heavy sets (the Venom set particularly.  Epic gear seems better though--you get three unique stat buffs plus an engraving.  The main challenge with epic gear is getting the correct combination of stats that you want.  I feel like the legendary gear should feel...more legendary.  There are some really nice looking items--I have to say that.

2.) Accidentally killing cultists.  I know this is a weird thing, but I feel like killing cultists should be more satisfactory and epic feeling.  It felt decidedly lackluster when I accidentally killed two cultists who I thought were guards (one of them was sleeping in a fort, I stabbed him only to discover that he didn't die and was actually quite tough--after a short scuffle, it was revealed that he was a cultist--it was simultaneously surprising and a bit disappointing).  Part of me wishes that the cultists would only appear after you have found the clues to reveal them.  One really weird thing happened with another cultist where he was already dead!  It appeared that he had wandered into a small camp of Spartan soldiers who then killed him.  Stabbing his dead corpse was anticlimactic.

Ask me to stab a cultist guard...OK.  Ask me to burn a silo....ugh.

3.)  Completing some locations requires doing things that I don't like doing.  Yes, it's true that I can choose not to do them, but then I won't get credit for completing the location.  In particular I am thinking of blowing up silos.  Destroying supplies does tie in with the entire idea of there being a war and trying to weaken one side or the other--that doesn't stop it from feeling horrible each time that I do it (I don't know why--I will literally stab a billion guards, but blowing up a silo....it just sucks).  Silos are also usually surrounded by civilians who are working in the fields and tend to get blown up in the process--I don't like that and try not to kill civilians.  I wish the civilians would scare off more easily or run away when they see me toss a torch onto a silo.  This makes me wish for some sort of more comprehensive morality system--it's true that if you are seen committing crimes that your bounty increases, but I don't feel like there is much of a penalty for killing civilians.  I also don't like that some things are stealing while others are just looting.  Maybe I'm just weird.

4.) Only being able to map 8 melee abilities.  It's true that I mostly have 3-4 go to skills, but it feels so pointless to have a bunch of abilities that I can't map because my melee bar is full.

I am hoping that by next week that I will have completed my first full playthrough and can write my review.  Thus far I've been impressed by the sheer size and scope of the game.  There is so much to do--you definitely do not need to worry about running out of tasks.  It's not perfect, but I'm finding Odyssey to be a fun RPG.

BIG SPOILER HERE--DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'RE VERY FAR ADVANCED INTO THE STORY.

I never got to make out with Brasidas and now I'm sad.  Damn you Ubisoft for ruining both Kyra and Brasidas for me!