Assassins Creed Odyssey

by Gordon Doherty

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was a divisive game. Some felt it too much of a departure from the previous assassin creed stories and lore, instead being somewhat of a ‘prequel’ exploring more of the background of the Isu. Some felt it should have been a different game named outside of the assassins creed stories. I was drawn to Odyssey because of its portrayal of ancient Greece, and was not disappointed. But would the accompanying novel be any good?

As someone who had completed the game upon reading the novel, it’s worth pointing out from the outset that there are major spoilers for the game in this book. In fact, it pretty much tells most of the story from the game in these pages, so if you hadn’t played the game and thought this might be an introduction, you might want to go to the game first.

This raises the question then of who it is for exactly. Because if it tells the story of the game, and people want to enjoy the story in the game, it means that it’s only for people that have already played through the game. Which is fine, but it leads to other problems, which we’ll revisit later.

They rise over fire they face

An advantage of this being a tie-in is that it features many of the lovable characters of the game. Kassandra the brave heroine, Barnabas the superstitious but caring admiral, Phoebe Kassandra’s adopted little sister, and even the fabulously named Testikles makes an appearance. You feel right at home with this book.

The action is fast paced but often brief. They are exciting enough, but perhaps it often lacks tension due to us knowing that our heroine has to get out of all of the scrapes that she gets into.

The book is hardly serious, even though it contains some serious moments. It is usually light-hearted, fun and interesting enough, as this quotation shows:

‘Come back!’ Testikles roared. ‘Oil me!’

Kassandra lifted her cloak and slung it overher naked body. ‘Oil yourself. You’re drunk… and in terrible condition.’ She paced away from the gymnasium, leaving the wayward champion rolling around in the dust where she had knocked him for the third bout of pankration in a row. He was an idiot, but she liked him – possibly because he was a rather un-Spartan Spartan, fond of humour and pranks…and wine.

(pp.250)

Doherty had obviously done his homework on Greek history. There were plenty of things I noticed which showed that the author had done his research, from Testikles and Kassandra being accustomed to training naked, as Spartans did, to reference of the Spartan loss of Sphakteria, or usage of terms like Lochagos or Pankration.

Doherty’s writing is sufficient, but I would have liked to have seen ambitious descriptions to match the staggering beauty of the game. He does a good job of capturing the unique characters, who all felt like they matched their portrayal in the game itself.

Malaka!

The main problem of the book isn’t the action, it’s the amount of events crammed into this short book. We hurtle through most of the main events of the game’s story in a short span of time, and often we’re moving onto the next one when the significance of the last one has barely had time to sink in.

Similarly, to return to the issue I mentioned I’d explain at the start of this review, the problem is that if you are reading this because you’ve already played the game, as a fan, then you already know all of these key plot events. So if the main draw is to hurtle through all of the main plot events it makes the book a bit, well, redundant – because it is not for people who haven’t yet played the game (as the book would spoil the game) nor for those who have played the game (as it seems to be focused around key plot events that you would already know about). The purpose of the book seems jumbled and conflicted then. Maybe it would have been better to write this as a prequel to the events of the game, to develop Kassandra and Phoibe’s relationship, or what Barnabas or Herodotus were doing before they met Kassandra. Unfortunately this isn’t the case.

Final score

This was a fun read, perhaps one for major fans only given the decision to focus on main plot points of the game. It unfortunately makes the novel a bit redundant, as I can only see die-hard fans buying it. Still, for what its worth, it was a neat diversion for those wanting to spend even more time in the odyssey world. I think it was a missed opportunity, focusing too much on key plot points and trying to cram almost all of them into the space of several hundred pages.

Odyssey doesn’t really do enough though to be recommendable for anyone other than fans who know they want to read it already though, but they will probably enjoy it, as I did. But for that, it only gets an average score.

5/10