I like how they left in “malaka” as a/the Greek cuss word without translating it, even though that’s not a very nice word. I actually forgot if it means wanker or homosexual… Maybe both. Nothing in this reminds me more of modern day Greece
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I’ve played the naval part now and it rules. They put you up against three ships right away. They are lower level though, so it’s easily manageable. That is if some random pirate doesn’t decide to show up at that precise moment and you don’t misplace your shots so that you engage another uninvolved ship. That was pretty tight!
The way you can survive that is because once you beat a ship it just floats there and waits to be boarded. Once you board it and defeat all the soldiers on it your ship’s health gets restored a little bit. It’s very videogamey because no other ships are attacking you while you board. I like that though. It plays really well.
I also had to weaken a region (on land). You do this by taking out soldiers, stealing their treasures and burning their supplies. You find them in forts. So basically you play a Commandos style tactics game only in third person. That might be what I enjoy the most about this game.
Once you’ve weakened a region enough you can attempt to kill the region’s leader. You can attempt that at any time actually, it just gets more doable the more you weaken the region.
There is also another part that’s new to this game where you fight a big battle for final control of the region. Conquest battles or something like that. I have yet to get to that. I’m very excited though.
I think it’s pretty necessary to level up you abilities in all areas in this game. I don’t think you can just be a silent assassin. You also have to level your “warrior” tree because how else are you going to get through the conquest battles.
So really it feels like you’re not an “assassin” at all. You’re a mercenary, which is what the character sees themselves as, too. It’s not an assassins game anymore, it’s a full blown modern RPG.
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This game is pretty good y’all.
It’s also too goddamn big. I’m running through beautiful forests and picking up rocks and hunks of woods and it looks amazing but it’s just too big.
As a Black Flag hater (the boats and shanties were fun, the nonstop tailing missions everyone forgets were not), I’m really enjoying the sailing in this one. Makes me wonder if Ubisoft’s Oops! All Boats! game that keeps getting delayed will be pretty good after all.
Do miss the “brace, then release to counter attack” mechanic from Origins though. Made the few boat sections in that game fly by.
Something about the world doesn’t feel quite as rich as Origins did, too. I dunno. I stopped way more often to take things in with that game. It’s fine, though!
Uhhh the mercenary system is a pretty decent Shadow of Mordor-lite. Though I worry there’s a finite number of them out there (I’m sure there are? But maybe not?). I’ve got a gigantic Amazon of a merc recruited to my ship who smashes in skulls with the anachronistic Evie Frye, so that’s fun.
Oh also it’s still a pretty damn good looking game.
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Is the vanilla combat too frictionless outside of the level gating? I guess that’s one of my biggest outstanding concerns
You can brace with L1… Or do you mean they changed something about it?
also RPS got closer to a full verdict yesterday (without finishing the game but who can blame them) which seemed to suggest that if only they’d had the courage to cut the bottom 25% or so of side quests they’d have gotten pretty close to the other systems only needing to be good enough, but the likelihood of following a thread with fun and clever writing as it stands is near random.
this is still significant progress for them and it’s not too surprising they’d fall down here; I’m still undecided on whether I’ll actually play it in a few months. But it’s clear they’ve done well.
Conquest battles feel a whole lot like Dynasty Warriors lite! I wonder if they’re going to make you destroy objectives or storm structures later. The first one was just fighting soldiers (regular and elite).
I’m past the first huge plot point/player decision and it fucking ruled. Both choices have their merit. I tried out both and ended up sticking with the one I felt more uncomfortable with. I might have to play this game a second time if this decision has repercussions later on. I really hope it does. Now I wonder if there are different endings…
Also had the first sex scene and yeah, it’s actually really complicated how the relationship unfolds and how you end up having sex. I’m a little bit disappointed with how it fades to black. There is really no hint of a kiss or touch or anything leading up to it. You just carry the person in your arms and then it’s fade to black
that is also a significant improvement
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Yeah I mean videogame affection scenes are cringe material almost 100% of the time, so… Still would like to see someone try and succeed
This might be for another thread but are there any such scenes in videogames that someone here can think of? Like at least a hug or something
I can think of a few romantic scenes that succeed, almost no actual sex that isn’t a disaster (Witcher 2 almost managed with 2011 graphics but it was aggressively unqueer and still sort of borderline)
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I never really know what people mean by that. If you could reword that I might be able to answer
What I can say so far about the combat is that it’s not the best, most satisfying I’ve ever experienced (I actually don’t know which game that award would go to…). It does however feel good. I get really frustrated when I bounce off of shields with my weapon. It feels reality nice when I rip off a dude’s shield (that’s an ability you can get, or you can just stun them out of blocking with a heavy attack) and hit flesh. And it feels even better when I do it with the flame sword. The audio visual feedback is really good. The only thing that holds it back really is the slight jankiness that comes with movement and characters having to react to a group of enemies. I don’t think there’s a game that adjusts its animations to something like getting hit by two different opponents in short succession. It’s bound to look videogamey. But then I haven’t played every game out there, maybe God of War or some other game does this better
I don’t know about this yet. I don’t know if they come back from the dead, which is the most important part of that system for me
Yeah, it seems like once they’re dead, that’s it. I just hope that the game keeps churning more out. There’s a trophy for being the top dog, but if that means killing everyone else, I dunno.
As for bracing - Origins had that thing where if you released the button right as the enemy attack hit, your archers would shoot back immediately. So if you really didn’t want to deal with a fight, you could just wait to be attacked and hit back with a powerful, homing counter attack.
Cheap, but effective. I dunno, could be in the archer unlocks.
I just fought another mercenary and when I beat him I had the chance to press a button to “confirm kill”. I hadn’t noticed that with the last mercenary I fought! I pressed it and only then did my character give him the killing blow and I received his loot. So I believe I could have let him live so he could come back later! And I know that mercenaries level up and trade places on the tier list because I’ve seen it. I just wonder what the use would be in letting someone live… Maybe their loot levels up with them? That could be one reason
I don’t know if it’s going to generate more mercenaries as you kill them but I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t, honestly… That could be cool too, to be above that system at some point because you’re just too powerful
One mercenary with a ship was fun. I managed to toss him overboard. He flailed around like he couldn’t swim and eventually drowned. I guess he’s gone for good too
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Whole lotta heat elsewhere online about how “uh weh you gotta buy a $10 XP booster to make the game fun” which is some pretty wild bullshit?
Hell, if anything, being underpowered at the beginning really forced me to change how I play pretty much all of these games, and make myself better at it.
I guess not being able to one shot high level guys in assassinations (something that was in Origins, and I guess this year’s reviewers forgot), having to work towards unlocking abilities and, god forbid, do a little side content in this huge game has people all riled up.
Just kinda sucks to see people out there parroting “ah willickers, they deliberately stacked the deck to force microtransactions!” when, nah, it’s really not that hard. If you’re paying $10 for an XP booster, you’re an idiot. Come at me Polygon.
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I’m past the ten hour mark and so far I agree. There’s no need for an xp boost. Or to buy materials. I can’t speak of hour 60 or whatever though. I think that’s how they got you with Shadow of War too. They only screw you at the end when you’re really invested and want to finish the game.
We’ll see
I can’t really imagine that I’ve got six to eight times more game ahead of me. Like what the fuck is even going to happen in this story?? You’re not going to search for the seven heavenly crystals or whatever in this like in jrpgs, are you. I’ll be really impressed if this ends up being a coherent, interesting, long story without padding.
So far it’s been like 3 important plot twists in ten hours, which felt right to me. I just hope they can keep that up.
After running up to the Parthenon in Athens, I decided to circle back to a few of the islands I sailed past on the way there and explore them. That’s been, uh, my past two afternoons? Pretty much on one island?
I’m really enjoying how each island typically has a smattering of individual quests, and generally an encompassing multi-part quest. The last one I did, involving a slave trying to rid his island of a criminal organization, was pretty damn good.
I’m pretty thankful the game lets you quick save, too, since it turns out the whole “choices” thing goes beyond what you’d typically expect. One of the missions on that island has you speak to a husband and wife whose theater is being used to spread propaganda. After killing their blackmailer, you return to the theater to find them surrounded by thugs. If you approach them, they hold the couple at swordpoint(?), and tell you to choose who will live and who will die. You can choose to say “neither,” but both will die. But! If you don’t approach them, and instead fire an arrow at their attackers, you can pick a few of them off and fight the rest, allowing the couple to live. It was a real “wait, I wonder if this will work” moment that surprisingly did, and definitely wasn’t communicated by the game in any way.
The island also had one of the hunting quests on it, which is more fun than it ought to be. Just you, a giant deer with golden horns, and a sunlit marsh. Easier than the one with the giant Mononoke-ass boar (who summons other boars to rush you), anyway.
As for the whole romance thing, it’s usually corny and awkwardly written, but it’s also completely worth it for the quest in the salt mining town alone.
I’d have to really think about it and compare 'em, but I feel like Athens has gotta be bigger than either Alexandria or Memphis from the last game. I’ve never really had a game strike me with anything close to agoraphobia, but this city is very, very big.
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Yeah I like how you can just run into stuff happening. I saw two men getting attacked by someone just somewhere on a road out in the sticks and at first thought, well, sometimes soldiers attack bandits or other soldiers. But this was different, looked like a bandit or cultists attacking civilians. So I got off my horse and beat the attacker up. Then one of the men had a quest for me. I wonder if I could have let him die and never gotten that quest.
The first time I had repercussions of a choice I made much earlier was at the temple of Delphi. That was actually really impacting and made me feel bad. This is Regrets: The Game
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Yeah, I wasn’t expecting this game to hit me with the same choice anxiety as Vampyr.