Assassin's Creed Megathread

Potential-Monke

Picked up Mirage today. Got €47 cash in CEX for MK1, and Mirage was only €55 in Smyths so worth a punt at that price.

Have only just finished the prologue, so not fair to judge it yet, but initial impressions are not great. The characters are poor, even comparing to the PS4 Pro version of Odyssey it feels like a step down in terms of quality and effort. Character movement is choppy but I assume that'll get better as you upgrade. Facial animations are a step down too. It feels unfinished or rushed.

Still very early days, so hoping it will improve.

Potential-Monke

OK, yeah, the movement is already annoying me to rage quit. Dope keeps getting stuck or making massive dives towards things I'm not even looking at. You'd think they'd have it figures iut adter 12 main games...

In good news, Ubi have bagged the beautiful Morena Baccarin as the guide for Nexus (and VR, yum!):

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxoDDazsNeU/

Jordan 199

Ezio is my favourite Assassin's Creed character.

Potential-Monke

I just cannot get into Mirage. I feel like I'm playing a remaster of an old game.

EoinMcLovin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121225353#Comment_121225353

Yeah kind of feel that too. Combat is terrible, basically forcing you into stealth

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121223874#Comment_121223874

A games had already dropped off in quality by the last Ezio game.

After AC3 I vowed not to give them any more of my money.

Hard to think back to the excitement surrounding the launch of AC1 in 2007, yeah it was kinda janky but it was a fresh idea with lots of potential but like the Krusty-burglar before it, AC was quickly beaten to a bloody pulp by it's own developer (stop he's already dead).

AC2 and Brotherhood remain the only two AC games I'd consider to be any good and Brotherhood released in 2010, that leaves a lot of of sub standard games over thirteen years and notably a lot of rushed to market patched into oblivion sh1t shows to boot.

There's no saving a franchise as over worked as AC apart from giving it a real break of a good number of years and coming back with something as remarkable as the original game was when it released.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121225649#Comment_121225649

Isn't that kind of intentional though? It's a stealth game. You should have enough combat skills to be able to survive for a bit when fighting, but the aim should be to create an opening to run and escape/hide. Later AC games got to the point where the combat was far easier than the stealth and so you could pretty much just rock into a fort and take everyone down through combat.

EoinMcLovin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121226813#Comment_121226813

I think I just got so used to Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla where you could just ignore stealth altogether. When I get swarmed now I just lob down a poisoned smoke bomb, just make sure not to use it next to civilians.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227072#Comment_121227072

Yeah, it's why as much as I loved Odyssey, it felt so little like Assassin's Creed due to the combat as you were basically superhuman. Even if you tried being stealthy, if you were caught and the alarm was raised you had so many tools and powers at your disposal that you could still stand your ground and take out half a fort worth of enemies (and even bounty hunters who might arrive) through combat.

EoinMcLovin

I think one thing Mirage is missing is option for having bow and arrow. In Ghost of Tsushima that was my go to for stealth, head shorting guards from a distance. I know you can increase range of throwing knives but bow would have been better

Jordan 199

The sunsets in Mirage are beautiful.

PsychoPete

I do miss the bow and arrow as I find the throwing knifes a bit sh!te, wouldn't be a fan of the combat either so have been doing mainly stealth kills. The game was very glitch and laggy this evening especially using fast travel things went pixel mad

In better news there is a breed of cat with the AC logo on its face

brady12

Syndicate very good . Prob be finished it before Spiderman 2 .

Ridley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121226813#Comment_121226813

I suspect Mirage's stealth over combat is a deliberate inversion of Valhalla's combat over stealth.

EoinMcLovin

https://twitter.com/assassinscreed/status/1724910151604289815?t=k9JydsIGm0TOdP-gOtOo8Q&s=19

_____

marcbrophy

Nice, I just want to get that one miss-able achievement without starting back up from scratch!

NG+ is always good for that :)

Potential-Monke

Started back into Valhalla after being stuck for something to try. Had the initial 10ish hours done so no slow boring intro. Enjoying it now, but I've only 3 places done and looking at the rest of the map... its gonna take forever. Must try and not go icon hunting... determined to get to Ireland this time, just hope I don't lose interest again. Might be a mistake playing it with Red coming this year.

And I'll stick to my initial impressions, the movement is slower compared to Odyssey, traversal is iffy, he doesn't always go where you want, and sometimes does something you don't want him to do. It's a step down, Odyssey felt fluid throughout. Stunning looking game when it's not raining...

Cotts72

Valhalla takes a bit of getting used to but turned out to be one of my favourite installments aside from Odyssey. The Irish expansion is worth doing and a bit of craic

marcbrophy

Yeah, Valhalla can be a time sink, if you do everything in sight!

My Xbox profile shows I've about 509 hours logged on it :D

Necro

Id have played most of the AC games down through the years myself and enjoyed them, Black Flag being my favourite personally. Struggled to get into Origins and Odyssey at all and it was only the promise of the Irish DLC that made me pick up Valhalla as I had kind of gone meh about the franchise at that point, but it's definitely become my second favourite of the series since then. I'll eventually pick up Mirage to give it a whirl I expect but I've a few games in the backlog to clear before I even think about it. Sank about 220 hrs into two saves of Valhalla all up I think.

Potential-Monke

9ne thing that's really annoying me about Valhalla is how Eivor just stumbles the whole time, ruining the flow of movement. And it's not a quick stumble. I thought maybe it would improve, and I even got a tumble perk if it's too high, so he rolls and only takes reduced damage from large falls. But he can't do a roll for smaller ones? It's really annoying me tbh.

marcbrophy

Yeah, Kassandra/Alexios in Odyssey were demigods, so they could just off the highest mountain and be fine!

But Eivor has a lot of stumbling and health regen after falls!

Also have you tried female Eivor @Potential-Monke ?

You can switch in the menu or animus and try it out.

I thought she was the better voiced character!

Also, apparently the cannon character, if you care about any of that :)

Potential-Monke

I remember giving both of rhem a go, but went with male this time for some reason. Supposed that they couldn't mess up the mLe voice twice in a row. Handy you can just change it though.

I don't mind the heath regeneration, etc, but the stumbling just happens so often that it's annoying. Unnecessary, considering how much one does be on foot. The game don't make it half obvious who Eivor is gonna turn into in the end, so it also seems pointless. Would be grand if he evolved to be less stumbley, but so far no...

Cotts72

Mirage is a bit meh for me so far but I'd imagine like them all I'll grow into it

Potential-Monke

I figured out what's wrong with Valhallas movement. The animation sequences are not smooth and some unusual choices about the parkour movement, including always jumping up onto a fence no matter what angle you're facing it, instead of vaulting over it. And he does vault, just over very specific things usually only in caves. But a fence, one which I'm obviously coming at at 90 degrees and intend to keep going straight, no, I'll hop up on it, include the very small pause between the hop up and hop down animations, another small pause while he realises he's now on the ground before running again (maybe, it sometimes forgets you were running). They're not smooth so the stopping is obvious. It was terrible last night as he was going down a rocky hill in Sciropsto.. the place on the far left. It was like watching someone try to walk for the first time, with all the stopping and starting after tiny little drops. Made worse by accidental massive jumps off big cliffs but he now rolls and survives, but a 2 ft drop makes him question his stability... Shame, as everything else is pretty damn good at this stage (45+ hours). And because I seem to be constantly running around, and there's always rocks or fences which he doesn't like vaulting over, along with his constant stumbling... it's very stop start gameplay.

Edit: Same with the combat. You be kicking the crap out of a lad with my (current) 2 spear set up, and the killing blow inexplicably changes to him holding a hand axe and chopping off their head. It's full of that too. I don't remember Odyssey doing that unless you used a special move. Makes no sense in Valhalla. And he seems to have an unlimited supply of throwing axes but only he can use them when he wants, they ain't available to me. Strange choices.

Potential-Monke

Right, so Valhalla. I'm basically finished the base game. Have collected everything that can be collected, except for Asgard and related quests (so bad I really don't want to play it, but so close to the plat). Have a few horrible sounding trophies to do then, and I'll start on the DLC. I was initially going to just do the Ireland one, but the ending was so out of nowhere (technically, there's so little modern day stuff you forget that's the actual overall story so when it happens it's a shock). Having not finished the Asgard story before the ending, I really hadn't a clue what was happening, so kinda want to finish all the DLC to get some sort of an ending…

I'm basically comparing this to Odyssey, and I think while it has it's moments it falls far short of what Odyssey did. First of all, it's far too long. I know Odyssey wasn't far behind it, but I don't remember being bored in Odyssey, even when collecting everything. Valhallas movement is just so clunky in comparison, every movement interrupting action (vaulting, rocks, logs, trees, etc) resulted in a slow recovery animation that stifles smooth movement, and considering the side of the map and the number of fast travel options, you do be doing a lot of horse/foot traveling, so it gets very noticable. Especially in those Tombs of the Fallen. Random jumps, not climbing something unless I back up and come at it again, holding up sometimes made him shimmy around a corner… Just feels like a massive step down from the smoothness I remember Odyssey having. I get they were trying to make it heavier, bigger bulkier Viking shouldn't be as free-runny as Kassandra was, but it didn't gel together well.

The combat was enjoyable for a while, but the weapons are limited. I only just got a sickle at end game, I've yet to fight with it. I didn't have a second hammer until late game, and then the upgrade options… The upgrades for weapons, armor and resource pouches are shared and limited. I've collected all major collectables, and at least 3/4s of the additional chests, and I'm only able to fully upgrade 2 full bits of armor, and 4 weapons to max. It is possible to upgrade everything, but by all accounts it takes a massive amount of time and grinding the same areas/actions over and over. Compared to Odyssey, you could upgrade everything to the max easily. Valhalla doesn't have throw away armor though, so you actually have very little to sell. Because of this, I basically kept to the starting armor for the whole game. I assume this was all done to force offer to buy Helix credits with real money… Also, the combat animations are random. I could be wailing on a guy with 2 greatswords, and he'll switch to an axe for the kill hit, mid swing with greatswords. There's often no connection between the weapons used and how they die, it removes immersion. Can't remember if Odyssey was the same, but I think the weapon you were using was always used in the death blows in that.

Story is grand, gets better as it goes but taking over the different areas could be great fun, or boring/feel pointless. Too spread out, too much repetition. Add to that that unless you customise the difficulty options, you'll be massively overlevelled by the second area. I was gonna change it so every enemy is at least the same level as me, but the combat isn't interesting enough to add that extra level of challenge/difficulty for little to no return. Compared to the setting in Odyssey, it's dull. The viewpoints make it obvious when most of them could be the same viewpoint. Maybe it's because Britain has no real identity during the time it's set, no landmarks, etc to make be realise the different between the major cities, they're all just Roman ruins with green and water and mud around them. And snow up north/Norway. Odyssey felt more varied somehow.

Great looking game at times though, but you can see the crunch take effect late game especially with the lines that weren't updated if you picked mEivor. Speaking of, I was mEivor for most the game and he does a great job with what he is given. Changed over to fEivor for a few hours as she's allegedly canon, but I didn't like her. It came across as too try-hard gruff whereas mEivors voice suited it perfectly. I still haven't seen why fEivor is canon, maybe it's in the DLC or people are just using the lines that didn't have a male option as the evidence…

All this said with 120+ hours played and more to come. But remove the sheer amount of traveling on foot/horse and you could probably knock 40+ hours off that, and I gladly would. Instant fast travel to anywhere on the map for these massive collectathon games should be an option, thank you Spiderman et al. Me using it would have no effect on other peoples immersive non-use.

TL;DR: A good game stuck behind the Ubi open world formula, but fails to compare to Odyssey in nearly every way. If I wasn't in a certain situation where I can mindlessly plug away at a game like this that requires little actual attention, I would have dropped it long ago. Red will need to do something interesting.