Assassin's Creed: Origins (Xbox One X):
I bought Origins with my Xbox One more than a year ago now. Have been playing it in spurs and finally finished it (plus expansions) last month.
One of the new things in this one is a new Skyrim-like compass-line system showing you directions to the icons on the map. Even beside that fact that i usually disable mini-maps and other UI elements like these, i never understood how to make sense of these compass-lines. Especially now that i have OLED tv that is prone to burn-in, it's even more important for me to remove all static icons. At first i tried to remove all UI altogether but you still need enemy silhouettes and health bars on for combat, so i kept only that. There was still an icon-reminder that i have an ability point and for some reason you can't disable it. This is bad because some of the later abilities require more than one point and you eventually run out of abilities that cost only 1 -- so this icon might stay there for quite a while.
Without minimap and all kinds of nagging reminders of what you need to do and where you need to go, game looks less "check-the-box"-y than it really is.
Eagle vision in previous Assassin's Creed games was basically just a Batman-vision ripoff with weird limitations, like in Unity you could only keep it up for 2 seconds tops. But someone in Origins team came up with a fantastic idea about "eagle vision". In Origins, when you press eagle vision button, camera is
yanked up high and you get a literal EAGLE vision, so you can scout around from bird's eye view perspective. You don't have to bring up map every time you need to check up your immediate surroundings nor does the world turns into magical blue-hue allowing to see through walls and automatically highlighting things of note. New eagle vision is simultaneously more "realistic", more useful AND gives player more agency.
It even makes more sense lore-wise! Eagle was a symbol of the series since Assassin's Creed 1 and each game had eagle as visual element symbolizing the main character, and only in Origins eagles actually became useful -- as camera-men, like Lakitu is for Mario 64. It's hilarious how simple this idea is.
Eagle feathers also were a part of the mythology of the series, and they were brought them back too and re-connected to the myth of
Judgement of Maat. Very smart.
Setting-wise i had doubts at first, because despite that the game celebrating the history of Egypt it is set during the times of Caesar and Cleopatra which is thousands years AFTER peak of Egyptian kingdoms when they actually were building pyramids and Sphinx and stuff. Egypt as a Roman province interested me less because we kinda got too much of Roman stuff in movies and shows. Still when i started playing i actually really much enjoyed a mix of cultures represented in the game: Egyptian and Roman but also Greek. It kinda reminded me of the first AC game where cities had different architecture, religion and languages.
Diversity of nature: from deserts of Egypt to lush mountainous forests of Lybia to flooded riverbanks of Nile. Culture-wise, it would be all kinds of buildings and artifacts from (already by that time) ancient Egyptian Pyramids to Ptolemaic Lighthouse of Alexandria to glimpses of Roman domination over both Egyptian and Greek legacies -- there are a lot of sights to see and climb around.
After i finishing the game, i also fully completed
Discovery tour. I especially loved fantastic detailed illustrations and maps made by professional archaeologist
Jean Claude Golvin used as reference. Fascinating stuff and i like that several times they specifically note how they go against historical facts to deliver a better game. At first i thought i will only do the parts required for the achievements but ended up doing them all.
Previously, Assassin's Creed game had similar missions like these where you were being shown a
normal daily life of people of that historical era, i really enjoyed the one at the end of Assasin's Creed 3 because it was a conclusion to you building this village and bringing these people there at different times during campaign and as a reward you got to see them going about their daily life. Kinda like Tarrey Town quest.
Discovery mode is like an expansion of this idea and seems like a great re-use of historical material they collected for the game. It is a great mode if you don't actually want to play the game and just want to chill out and gawk at the sights and maybe read
some historical factoids.
RPG combat and all the pointless loot management is really annoying at first, combat is still pretty bad. Enemy levels are really prohibitive at the start of a game during the first hour of a game where you don't have armour, weapons and abilities. A random soldier one-hitting you is just annoying. Of all things they fixed after Unity fiasco that RPG things was one thing that they unfortunately kept in.
Climbing is pretty good, both in the cities and the nature. The way how you can climb any rocks is kinda similar of BOTW. The mission design also took a few notes Breath of the Wild -- Origins is way more exploratory and trusting of the player. In previous games -- when you get a mission -- game would just plop an icon at the exact location on the map but in Origins mission givers would just say: "go to the west, there is cave there and do this and that". It is so much more immersive to navigate the space yourself and just look around without the game just leading you like a sheep towards an icon on a map.
Modern segment of the plot is becoming smaller and smaller with each new iteration it seems -- it's just one small cave this time around. However i still really enjoyed sci-fi time-travel segments with weird-ass visions inside pyramids and sphinx. I know i am the minority here but genuinely love that element of the series and i'm sad that they listen to their playerbase and keep reducing it. Egyptian pyramids have always been a magnet for all kinds of "ancient aliens", "secret society", "super advanced precursor civilization" conspiracies so it was fun for AC that is so seeped in all these conspiracies to finally go into the pyramids.
Assasin's Creed looks
amazing, plays fine, Discovery tour is a nice extra and is fun in by itself. RPG levels-based combat is still annoying at times, but at worst you can lower combat difficulty and enjoy other parts of the game -- exploring and climbing around. A fantastic reinvigoration of the series. Very polished and a great game all around.