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oh is that where the movie went?
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Jul 25, 2023 01:39
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Yes. Naturally it went full Black Legend but nobody on set was smart enough to understand the Black in Black Legend is metaphorical, so every time they set foot inside it's darker than Dracula's sensory deprivation tank, and you can't see anything of the action which might admittedly be for the best, but still. An entire nation of lugubrious Popists who spent their lives in poorly-lit palaces, churches and hovels, plotting to suppress progress and bumping into furniture. Swift would be so proud.
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Jul 25, 2023 01:53
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Ugh I forgot that thing existed Still. Done properly, it could be terrific. I mean, hell; Revelations retroactively made Altair a tragic and compelling character
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Jul 25, 2023 02:50
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Altair was already an interesting character in 1 imo
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Jul 25, 2023 03:06
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Dapper_Swindler posted:keep the first dlc because it adds more ships in the world but yeah it sucks no matter who you play as. 2nd dlc sucks worse mechanically though I quite liked the second DLC - I wanted more Odyssey and it was more Odyssey  It is pretty hard to navigate and the plot is kind of incoherent but that is also more Odyssey. Even then it has some nice touches, even it does veer into the least interesting parts of Assassin's Creed lore.
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Jul 25, 2023 05:40
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Origins and Odyssey expansions are significantly more interesting than DLCs for previous games that all felt cheap or poorly thought out. But the issue with more Odyssey is that Odyssey itself is so massive. New maps might be some of the most beautiful open worlds I've ever seen, but they also cut a lot of mechanics (no cult hunt, no roaming mercenaries, no ship combat) so I feel gameplay is a little bit more samey even if you get new abilities and the level design is wild. Valhalla's DLC are much more boring - they literally feel like just another chapter in the game - but they try to add interesting twists to gameplay.
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Jul 25, 2023 07:21
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ilitarist posted:Origins and Odyssey expansions are significantly more interesting than DLCs for previous games that all felt cheap or poorly thought out. Dead Kings was okay but it felt like once they decided to release it for free they stopped working on it, leaving some elements a bit unfinished/unpolished.
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Jul 25, 2023 07:35
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I haven't played Freedom Cry yet (but bought it recently for some reason, so I'll probably win) and Ripper was exactly what I thought of when I talked about poorly thought out DLC. This one does not feel cheap, but it's very pointless and nonsensical both in terms of story and gameplay.
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Jul 25, 2023 08:17
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I had no idea at all what was going on in the Odyssey DLC and honestly I didn't care, id hit the point where I was done with the game because I'd seen everything already and was just playing for the sake of completionism. E: and I agree, the typical AC game is verging on too long (I think Black Flag is the the last one that I'd say didn't outlast it's welcome) so the good DLC is the kind that is on the short side but tries to do something interesting and new.
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Jul 25, 2023 12:34
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The hades portion of the dlc was pretty good.
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Jul 25, 2023 12:36
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Actually scratch that I do remember that the locations in the Odyssey DLC were pretty cool because they didn't have to pay lip service to realism and just went hog wild with the design. That only lasted so long though.
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Jul 25, 2023 12:37
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I don't think AC games are too big, especially not Odyssey which is structured more like a systemic open world and thus could be the size of No Man's Sky without changing much, except for insane people who do clear out all everything out of principle. You may argue we've have a better game if the team concentrated their efforts on a smaller scope, but we'll never know. There's value in scope. I know many people don't see the value in empty space but I certainly do.
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Jul 25, 2023 13:38
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ilitarist posted:For additional appreciation of the world I highly recommend jumping into Discovery Tour. You can find some spoilers there if you go deep, but I think you'll be safe if you just watch several lessons about some down to earth things. This will make you look at environments in a different way, and to see the process behind some of the design. Ya I loved this feature in Origins, as someone who loves history I already end up just looking at a lot of random stuff like the painting on the pottery which looks so good. One of the things I didn't know about ancient egypt is how different regions of the country favored different gods, like you really don't hear about Sobek in other ancient Egypt multimedia. Usually it's just Anubis, Horus, Isis. I believe in Memphis in the game they had the live Crocodile who was a representation of Sobek and it was this giant as Croc. isk posted:My advice: Generally stick to the core game. The 1st DLC is awful. The 2nd DLC is... OK. There's a lot to do. It's at least not offensive like the 1st DLC is I am guessing the DLC is post story content or really high level? In Origins I didn't do the DLC because I basically 100% the game and I was burnt out by that time. I do know they had mythical stuff in the dlc.
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Jul 25, 2023 14:48
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DLCs are post game content. But Odyssey (and Valhalla) has several "endings". DLCs come after main story endings, but there was also a free DLC that comes after DLCs and the game allows you to go there early but gives you a warning.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:07
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I would not recommend any of the DLC for Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla because it's all very much just too much of the same thing. There are very few new mechanics added and they all go on a bit too long, not unlike the main game, and nearly all of them are high level so they're mostly just accessible when you're already ready to wrap things up. Though funny enough Odyssey added a free DLC after release called 'Lost Tales of Greece' that is basically just a series of well-developed sidequests and scattered them throughout the main game, and they are not only 100% better than all the paid DLC but honestly better than most of the sidequests in the vanilla game. ilitarist posted:You may argue we've have a better game if the team concentrated their efforts on a smaller scope, but we'll never know. Shouldn't we know pretty soon? Like in a few months? Lol
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Jul 25, 2023 15:51
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The Curse of the Pharaos DLC for Origins is really, really good and also very pretty, actually. I recommend this to anyone who thinks they might enjoy the base game.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:56
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Curse of the Pharaohs was good. The other one was fine but it just felt like an extra town and some rote Assassin lore.ilitarist posted:I haven't played Freedom Cry yet (but bought it recently for some reason, so I'll probably win) and Ripper was exactly what I thought of when I talked about poorly thought out DLC. This one does not feel cheap, but it's very pointless and nonsensical both in terms of story and gameplay. I like actually seeing the limitations of the Assassins after a victory. It's something the series has implied for a long time (that the Assassins can win but it will always be temporary and part of that is because they are ideologically ill-equipped to wield power) but that we rarely get to see. And the switch to fear-based attacks (and the contrast between Evie and the Ripper) was a good mechanical twist.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:31
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Wolfsheim posted:Shouldn't we know pretty soon? Like in a few months? Lol I have an impression that this is a smaller budget game reusing tech and assets. Kinda like Rogue. And Rogue was great, but whether Mirage is good or not won't tell us if RPG trilogy would be better if they halved the size of the world. Well we all know it would be better if 75% Valhalla storyline was turned into side quests but that's different. Also, the free DLC thing is true for Valhalla too! I've argue that Forgotten Saga gameplay is better than anything else in Valhalla, and while I didn't play all of the mastery challenges and tombs they look better than anything in the main game or DLCs too. ilitarist fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 18:48
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This game is just so drat beautiful. I am not sure if it's just me but I feel like there is a lot more color and the lighting is better than Origins. Love the ship upgrade system from AC4, just makes all the random map markers worth exploring to get extra resources. I wished they took the shrine concept from Ghost of Tsushima because in GoT there was almost no marked location that had no use. You would get some charms by visiting shrines or the bamboo cutting logs mini game. I remember people saying GoT is way better than AC when it came out but I think other than the combat and some aspects of exploration they are pretty close. Anyway that makes me hyped for AC Japan which might end up being very closed to GoT 2.
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Jul 26, 2023 17:24
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Ulio posted:This game is just so drat beautiful. I am not sure if it's just me but I feel like there is a lot more color and the lighting is better than Origins. The game is beautiful, but one thing that works for Origins is its extreme weather works better with available graphical tech. Sand dunes with light wind, rocks, swamp-like Nile shallow water - it all looks almost photorealistic. And burning sun saturates everything in extreme but believable ways. It's spoiled a little by a bad scale (you can see lighthouse and Pyramids from any point of the world even though you supposed to be hundreds of kilometers away from them. Odyssey has similar issues but it's rarely as extreme). Odyssey is beautiful but it has a lush plant life that just can't be rendered in all appropriate glory. It's even worse later in Valhalla where everyone has a beard, long hair and wears furs. Everyone looks like a wax figure.
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Jul 26, 2023 18:17
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Ulio posted:I remember people saying GoT is way better than AC when it came out but I think other than the combat and some aspects of exploration they are pretty close. what i love about GoT over AC is that they use the world itself to guide you, you follow pillars of smoke on the horizon, footsteps on a path, gusts of wind with leaves blowing etc. instead of a bunch of glowing icons and crap superimposed all over the world, and popups yelling "press BUTTON to engage VIDEO GAME MECHANIC" in the middle of the screen, which is a new plague they introduced with Valhalla. its not that they radically changed the gameplay formula, its basically the same as AC at its core, its more that they refined it in a really pleasing way and introduced a lot of QoL touches that i really wish ubisoft would learn from.
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Jul 26, 2023 20:11
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Earwicker posted:what i love about GoT over AC is that they use the world itself to guide you, you follow pillars of smoke on the horizon, footsteps on a path, gusts of wind with leaves blowing etc. instead of a bunch of glowing icons and crap superimposed all over the world, and popups yelling "press BUTTON to engage VIDEO GAME MECHANIC" in the middle of the screen, which is a new plague they introduced with Valhalla. its not that they radically changed the gameplay formula, its basically the same as AC at its core, its more that they refined it in a really pleasing way and introduced a lot of QoL touches that i really wish ubisoft would learn from. I agree that is one of GoT's strengths they have really smart in game methods that nullify the need for UI. I always play AC games on minimal UI but even then you have poo poo cluttering the screen. I just feel like AC games get a very unfair rep from hardcore gamers and media. Like I don't understand the bloat comment for AC games since you can just skip everything and play it like a linear story focused game. How is the main criticism of this series something that is completely optional? To me it just feels like hate bandwagon and ubisoft's bad reputation of adopting trending game concepts. Like GoT is really good, I played it on 2 highest difficulities, finished the dlc as well. I think the combat was significantly better than AC and the UI/exploration was done in a better way. But I remember in online discussions people made it sound like GoT is on another level and evolved open world action rpg games while it's actually similar to AC in a lot of ways. I would say AC's world's feel more real than GoT which feel quite empty maybe it's the location and I pray in the sequel they abandon Tsushima as the location even though it's the name of the game.
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Jul 31, 2023 19:50
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I’m not a speed run guy for the most part but I do think it’s pretty neat to see 100% speed runs for some of these games and see what they figured the “optimal” order for doing everything is. Black flag in particular is nuts to me
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Jul 31, 2023 20:09
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Ulio posted:I agree that is one of GoT's strengths they have really smart in game methods that nullify the need for UI. I always play AC games on minimal UI but even then you have poo poo cluttering the screen. I just feel like AC games get a very unfair rep from hardcore gamers and media. i'm not sure what an "unfair rep" entails but on metacritic last major had an average of 85% from professional critics and a 77% from regular players, which is about how i'd rate it myself, and the game made literally over a billion dollars, more than any previous title. i get that you might disagree with some of the more common criticisms, i do too, but really, ubisoft is doing just fine and i dont think they are exactly being hate-brigaded or anything, people just get tired of certain trends and gamers are a bit more vocal with their criticism. the next title is likely going to make a shitload of money no matter what. quote:I would say AC's world's feel more real than GoT which feel quite empty maybe it's the location and I pray in the sequel they abandon Tsushima as the location even though it's yes the biggest weakness of GoT is that the world doesn't feel "alive" the way AC's worlds do, largely because actual towns with civilian NPC's just going about their day are few and far between. part of that is due to the setting - the Mongols have murdered most of the civilians on the island before the story begins, and you see their corpses all over the place - but it definitely gives the world a much heavier, emptier feeling even though it's very beautiful with all the fields of flowers and such. I thought it was very appropriate for the story they were telling, but it would be great to see them try a more lively world as well Earwicker fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Jul 31, 2023 |
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Jul 31, 2023 20:37
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Ulio posted:the combat was significantly better than AC and the UI/exploration was done in a better way. But I remember in online discussions people made it sound like GoT is on another level and evolved open world action rpg games while it's actually similar to AC in a lot of ways It is similar to AC in many ways, that's why people were comparing them. Whether or not it evolved the whole subgenre, what it felt like the general sentiment was at the time was that GoT did "Assassin's Creed Japan" better than Ubisoft would have. Combat, UI, exploration, QoL, equipment, art direction, style. Similar in many ways but was definitely not just Ezio Uses a Katana This Time.
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Jul 31, 2023 20:54
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Who are the Ezio clones anyway? Arno is one I’m guessing, although I think he’s a bit different Edward? Only in the broadest sense imo
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Jul 31, 2023 21:03
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Earwicker posted:i'm not sure what an "unfair rep" entails but on metacritic last major had an average of 85% from professional critics and a 77% from regular players, which is about how i'd rate it myself, and the game made literally over a billion dollars, more than any previous title. I do think that what we often hear about AC series is snobbish vocal minority throwing buzzwords as the criticism. Open worlds with RPG elements and checklists became modern default AAA lazy idea, like previously third-person cover shooter in x360 generation. If you're into gaming you can't help being bored of them, and if you're quick to judge then you'll call all such games trash. As long as my only way to immerse myself in a historical era is AC game I can't complain about their size. Maybe you'll see a pirates game that is better than AC4 in your lifetime, but it's likely you won't get an experience of walking the streets of Revolutionary Paris or running around Ancient Greece, you know? So complaining about them being too big is odd to me, especially when, as we know, the critical path is short and later games are defined by Diablo-style mechanics making the real size of the world kind of irrelevant from gameplay point of view.
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Aug 1, 2023 07:13
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i think it also depends on where you are reading about the game. like here on SA i thought most people in this thread were fairly positive about Origins and Odyssey, and maybe starting to get more tired of the rpg style games with Valhalla. if you go over to reddit, you'll read all kinds of bitter complaints and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but that's also how they tend to be about every aaa video game out there. in terms of professional critics, the last three games all seem pretty well received. personally my issues with Valhalla are not "bloat", i enjoy exploring the world and all the little side stories, and i don't think it's ugly like some people say. however the game's UI is annoying even by AC standards, there are a lot of bad audio issues, the way the map-conquering works is much less dynamic than Odyssey, and a lot of the main story/characters are a step down from the previous game in terms of writing quality and entertainment. i find the stern honorable viking bullshit very tedious, and also the stories in different areas felt very inconsistent. the game was under development when the pandemic hit, and also the creative director was fired for being a sexpest halfway through, so obviously they were dealing with a lot of issues, and it kind of shows. ilitarist posted:Maybe you'll see a pirates game that is better than AC4 in your lifetime, but it's likely you won't get an experience of walking the streets of Revolutionary Paris or running around Ancient Greece, you know? i do know a small group of academics who have been building some kind of purely educational "virtual Rome" thing about the republic era for like decades, though i lost touch years ago and it was a veeeeery slow project so i'm not sure it'll exist until the 2030's. but it will be cool when and if it does! Earwicker fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Aug 1, 2023 |
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Aug 1, 2023 20:48
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I mean I'll critique Valhalla loads but I also 100%'d it (before expansions) because lockdowns so maybe it was the game for its time.
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Aug 1, 2023 20:59
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Earwicker posted:i'm not sure what an "unfair rep" entails but on metacritic last major had an average of 85% from professional critics and a 77% from regular players, which is about how i'd rate it myself, and the game made literally over a billion dollars, more than any previous title. Ya I know it was a big success and maybe you are right I am being too defensive about it's criticism. What kinda I meant was lets say if both GoT and AC had the same issue, AC would get way more flak for it and they kinda do. GoT has shitload of collect/checkmark poo poo which AC gets blasted for. I do think GoT does a better job at making those side repetitive stuff more rewarding with real upgrades and not random loot but AC has been getting better with that as well. Also I know it's for branding reasons but this game is just two different series in one and lots of the criticism for the old series have stuck even though they are not there or have been improved long ago(new issues did come up though). Alchenar posted:I mean I'll critique Valhalla loads but I also 100%'d it (before expansions) because lockdowns so maybe it was the game for its time. Ya I've played all the big open world games I usually get around 70-80% if its good but on AC games I usually get close to 100%. Maybe it's just because I love the settings but I also love that they are great games to play with a podcast or something on the side, usually there isn't many cutscenes or dialogue/reading and the combat on hard is still easy enough to autopilot.
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Aug 1, 2023 21:31
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Earwicker posted:personally my issues with Valhalla are not "bloat", i enjoy exploring the world and all the little side stories, and i don't think it's ugly like some people say. however the game's UI is annoying even by AC standards, there are a lot of bad audio issues, the way the map-conquering works is much less dynamic than Odyssey, and a lot of the main story/characters are a step down from the previous game in terms of writing quality and entertainment. i find the stern honorable viking bullshit very tedious, and also the stories in different areas felt very inconsistent. the game was under development when the pandemic hit, and also the creative director was fired for being a sexpest halfway through, so obviously they were dealing with a lot of issues, and it kind of shows. Right. It smells of armchair game design, that idea that the team should have concentrated their efforts on a smaller world. Smaller world wouldn't make Dag's character less dumb. In case of Valhalla it's even hard to talk about padding, because the critical path in these games gets a lot of attention, and with fast travel the world size never affects you on a critical path. It probably feels like a bloat if you do absolutely everything in the game, but it's like complaining about how boring it would be to break every breakable block in Super Mario Brothers or something.
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Aug 2, 2023 06:58
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The non-linear region progression design absolutely kneecaps the story in Odyssey and Valhalla though. They have zero ability to control the pacing of events, things happen in different orders depending on which parallel story line you are pursing, nothing has any particular depth or importance in any one region because it can't effect any other region. 'Too big' is absolutely an issue that has cascading effects onto every other part of the game.
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Aug 2, 2023 07:25
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Are we talking about the story now, not the world? Then this is the issue with the open world in general. You can say the same about microscopic open world games like Gothic. I don't see how Odyssey story is too big, and with Valhalla it's definitely more about it being full of filler rather than the size itself. Few people complain about 80% of Witcher 3 story being "Geralt solves local problems trying to find someone who might have seen Ciri" but Valhalla's "Eivor solves local problems trying to... Make friends, I guess" is boring because of mostly unimaginative, forgettable and misused stories. Odyssey totally has plenty of those too, but they make smaller part of the critical path. Another thing an open-world story must do is making the pacing make sense for the player to do all the side content, and even the best RPGs often struggle with it. I think Origins had issues here, but Odyssey and Valhalla story is built in such a way you rarely feel pressed into doing something right now. ilitarist fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 07:51
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Both Odyssey and Valhalla have a weird structural issue where they have multiple endings that can and most likely will occur hours apart: the personal stakes ending for the protagonist (the one you will care about), the ending you see when you kill al the cultists (a weird call-forward ending to past games), and then the modern day ending (random nonsense 0.2% of the players care about). ...and that's not even getting into DLC, which adds more endings to both games (Odyssey gets the dogshit Isu stuff and the fun island vacation, Valhalla gets the weird time-skips and presumably the Odin stuff gets resolved in that expansion I never played) and it all just ends up being a five course meal but four of those meals are pizza, and nobody wants that much pizza.
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Aug 2, 2023 11:54
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Exactly. Their structural issues are pretty unique to them and the way they were built and not really common to open world games at all. E: like, you can spend a hundred hours in Skyrim completely ignoring the main plot but the game will still send a dragon after you every now and again to remind you of the Big Stakes of what's happening. In the last two AC games story only exists when you trip certain cutscenes. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Aug 2, 2023 |
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Aug 2, 2023 12:00
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Origins is an even worse example of this because the entire plot happens in literally two cutscenes.
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Aug 2, 2023 12:05
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I would say that Origins is mitigated by the relatively linear path you take in a big clockwise motion around the map. The final act is extremely oddly paced and you don't really have much reason to care about anything, but it's still a coherent narrative of Bayek chasing the Roman guy who is causing carnage with the apple across several regions. E: like, at no point do you completely lose track of what Bayek wants or is trying to do like you might for Cassandra or Eivor.
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Aug 2, 2023 12:16
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Alchenar posted:Exactly. Their structural issues are pretty unique to them and the way they were built and not really common to open world games at all. I see what you mean. Still it doesn't sound like an issue of size to me, but of pacing. And the fact that the story is there only when you want it to be is how it should be in an open world. Skyrim example is a good example of how most games do it wrong: when you know the world is literally coming to an end it's hard to justify doing anything that does not bring a quick empowerment to the hero who is preparing to save the world. I don't agree with people who complain about Skyrim allowing you to do everything in a game if you wish so (become an archmage without using magic, become both a venerated hero and also a thief etc), but there are plenty of people like this and it's the game's fault they feel dissonance. Add to this that mechanically you don't want the game to end cause you need to kill dragons to unlock shouts. I'm actually not sure if you could still find dragons after you finish the main quest, but from the story perspective, it looks like you won't. Origins has a wrong story for open world too, and notoriously bad pacing cause they hit you with level gating in a middle of a story mission, so our hero obsessed with revenge goes to help some peasants or fights in an arena before continuing the chase. Odyssey has moments when something big is happening, but they're all chained together and don't have level gating, and usually the game is careful about letting you know there's no rush, you are also often looking for stuff in the region in general (even if the map straight out tells you where you'll pick up the scent), and you're also a mercenary - so narratively whatever open world activity you do it always feels appropriate. It's more problematic in Valhalla cause there are some story moments where you're forced to do side quests (like when you're looking for Sigurd) and some Viking stuff you need to do for progression feel antithetical to Eivor's character like monastery burning being the only way to established peaceful friendly Viking settlement. Still it's easy to imagine Eivor just running around taking the sights. Odyssey is not well written so I don't praise it's storyline, but I think it has a very right idea for the kind of game they're making. If you feel otherwise I can't say you're wrong, it's on the game for not servicing you right - but I myself don't really get it.
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Aug 2, 2023 12:40
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I'll say the issue of Origins is that it has the wrong name and pretends to be about founding the assassins, even though that's actually the story of Bayek's wife which happens almost completely in the background. You get some more of it in the first, boring DLC but it never amounts to anything worthwhile. The actually playable focus of the game is the story of Bayek and that part is just fine. E: Wait what version of Odyssey did I play, it absolutely had level gating and wasn't any better in terms of "and now gently caress around on different islands until you can survive in the next area the plot sends you to".
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Aug 2, 2023 12:56
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I think the point was to show that Assassins don't kill for vengeance or revenge, but for justice and revolution. Bayek does it wrong on purpose, so he can lay the actual foundations later. Shame it was in the DLC though.
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Aug 2, 2023 13:04
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