Recent reviews by Synapt

I'm not one to write reviews on games much, but as a long fan and player of the Assassin's Creed series, this one nudged me to do so (also mild spoilers ahead).

I figure I'll start with some of the stuff I didn't really like;

The combat system, while most praised it, I'm kind of disappointed with. They've been dumbing it down a bit over the years for new players every release, but personally I'll forever prefer the combat system of the Ezio era of games, where you could lay down a body pile of dozens of soldiers via well timed parry's and instant hidden-blade deaths lol. That was a combat system that made you feel like a true assassin of sorts.

The open world is somewhat too open, there are a few zones that otherwise seem to literally have nothing in them, but I'm not letting this directly impact my consideration of the game because I realize they may likely be populated later on via DLC's perhaps, but it's worth noting just in case.

The Dialogue can be very involved at times, yet at other times insanely lacking. There are situations in this game, much like previous ones, where the character you're playing at otherwise comes across stuff that defies all reality of the time period, yet Bayek doesn't even comment on them, at all except one main-quest driven event, but even then the dialogue is catered to an awe of never having seen such stuff before, which is very awkward if you have indeed done those locations and very much seen things like them.

A tiny nitpick as it'll probably be patched at some point, but mission AI can be goofy sometimes. When on escort missions, sometimes the target you're following will basically wander around in a 'search' mode if you get into combat, as if they're hunting for someone (even if you had killed the target already that instigated them).

The Parkour system has kinda been degrated much like the combat system. While it's still cool and nifty, they've reduced a dramatic amount of the fine-control you used to have, like precision leaping to where you want (now it seems like leaping is largely locked to the closest 45 degree-split direction you're facing which can lead you leaping to your death rather than into an eagle leap spot). That said, you can seemingly climb a LOT more stuff in this game that you wouldn't expect to via pretty tiny cracks in the walls lol.


Now for things that I loved, such as the little attention to detail on so many things;

Cats walking up to you and rubbing up on your leg, to which you if you would crouch down, Bayek would literally start scratching their head.

If you're in the middle of the water somewhere, nearby people in boats would literally come seemingly offering to give you a ride so you didn't have to swim all the way.

The ability to light braziers and sconces just because why not? Or to clear up all them nasty cobwebs with your torch by just throwing the torch at it lol.

The beauty of the land scapes, which might sound weird for a world that is predominantly desert, but the dunes can look beautiful cast upon by a sunset with the shadows, let alone the glow of a city at night with all the torches lit and people walking around in the distance.

Sandstorms are also an impressive thing, while I feel they could be a bit more impactful than just a few minutes of low visibility, they can still look impressing from a distance as they roll up over the mountains and valleys.

The throwback to Black Flag with pretty nifty boat battles was also fun, if short lived. I wish there were more to be honest, or at least some sort of ocean missions you could trigger rather than them being limited to the main storyline.

And of course there is the general deep plot/story itself (outside of the main questline that is), while it kinda starts off weird (and as noted above somewhat without any actual character response/reaction), as you find all the ancient sites, it starts to lay out what I feel is a probable basis for REALLY interesting stuff in future games, this for me is probably the main thing as despite all the buggy mechanics of previous games, I have always been very invested in the underlying story itself, and Origins definitely gives me a lot of theories about what's to come.

Past that I know there are other things that I can't even remember, little details here and there which at the time definitely caught my attention for the effort put into them, I'll perhaps update this later if I recall them.