General Gaming Assassin's Creed Mirage (PC/Xbox/PlayStation) - update: Digital Foundry PS5/Xbox Series Technical Review

[Phaseknox]

2 hours ago, best3444 said:

Visuals are extremely important to me and it's what I look for first in a game.

Yeah, we know. You say it all the time just like I do about preferring to play as female characters in games. 

 

2 hours ago, best3444 said:

Maybe Valhalla's realistic look is what made me so surprised with Odyssey's visuals. It's not just the character models that looked bad to me, the world was lacking a lot of texture and it looked really dated compared to Valhalla.

Valhalla does have better more realistic graphics, but I still prefer Odyssey’s more colorful and varied ancient Greece setting myself. 

[stepee]

The character models are dated and I can only speak for pc, but Odyssey is still an extremely good looking game. Valhalla had much better models and more asset density but it’s close enough that one could prefer Odyssey more just because of art style imo. Also water looks better in it.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Let's see, where would I want to spend 100+ hours of gameplay time: the gorgeously colo(u)rful sun-kissed vistas of Classical Era mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea or the gray/grey-hued peat bogs of Early Middle Ages England?

 

GEE, I WONDER WHICH ONE ANY SANE HUMAN BEING WOULD PREFER?!?!?

[best3444]

6 hours ago, stepee said:

The character models are dated and I can only speak for pc, but Odyssey is still an extremely good looking game. Valhalla had much better models and more asset density but it’s close enough that one could prefer Odyssey more just because of art style imo. Also water looks better in it.

 

lol, I did like the water! I forgot to mention that!

[best3444]

Uh oh...I have the itch to play more today!

 

I'm going to give it another try and see if I can get past some of my negative feelings about it. 

[best3444]

@Phaseknox So I played more and amazingly some of these quests come right back to me like it was yesterday that I played this.

 

I really looked past the visuals today to get into the game and it's cool. I still have an issue with how leveling and quests go. Most of the time you accept a main story quest it's usually a level above what you currently are. So you get fucked if you attempt it at a lower level. So I had to do some side quests to get to the appropriate level then proceed to the main quest. I'm playing on normal and it still is extremely difficult attempting a quest one level above.

 

I've adjusted to the dated visuals and I'm trying to appreciate the world in general. Like wade said, the world is more vibrant than Valhalla so that's a positive.

 

Combat has been better and I'm not hating it anymore. I'm still not a fan of these damn boats and ships in Assassin Creed games so I've ran into that already early on. I forget if it's abundant throughout the game, though.

 

I am off work and have plenty of time to game so that is why I've given this more time. It definitely turned me off initially but as I leveled gear and abilities it's improved for me.

 

As @Biggie said not too long ago, my new username should be 180. 😆 

[Phaseknox]

3 hours ago, best3444 said:

I really looked past the visuals today to get into the game and it's cool. I still have an issue with how leveling and quests go. Most of the time you accept a main story quest it's usually a level above what you currently are. So you get fucked if you attempt it at a lower level. So I had to do some side quests to get to the appropriate level then proceed to the main quest. I'm playing on normal and it still is extremely difficult attempting a quest one level above.

Play it on easy, because normal is kind of hard. I lowered the difficulty to easy pretty quickly, and the game was a lot more fun. Easy isn’t easy, it’s normal. You probably won’t have the leveling problem on easy, I never did.

[TwinIon]

On 9/12/2022 at 11:25 PM, Brick said:

So no remaster/remake of the first game, huh? Then again with Mirage maybe it'll sort of be like how the first game would have been had it come out now. 

I wouldn't be surprised if they wait to see how Mirage does. If Mirage outpaces sales expectations, updating AC1 with the assets and mechanics of Mirage seems like an easy win. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Ubi has some studio working on it already, knowing they'll just can it if Mirage flops.

 

Personally, I think that the the technical issues and release strategy in 2014/15 with Rogue/Unity/Syndicate were more to blame than the games themselves. If they'd kept to a more reasonable schedule, AC probably wouldn't have felt the need to re-invent itself. As someone who played through those three during the pandemic, I felt like they held up pretty well overall. I've enjoyed the RPG games, but I don't think that structure is necessarily superior. Which is largely to say that if Mirage is well executed, I can see it doing well.

[best3444]

1 hour ago, Phaseknox said:

Play it on easy, because normal is kind of hard. I lowered the difficulty to easy pretty quickly, and the game was a lot more fun. Easy isn’t easy, it’s normal. You probably won’t have the leveling problem on easy, I never did.

 

That's exactly what I did just a few minutes ago. I wiped out an entire camp with about 17 soldiers inside. I strategically took them out one by one but it wasn't exactly easy. I initially tried it in normal and got destroyed.

 

So easy does feel like "normal" like you said. I don't like how enemies see you so freakin easily even though I think I'm hiding pretty well. That's frustrating.

 

Right now the main quest is level 10 and I'm level 7. So again, I'm doing side quests and looked on the board for easy quests that is in the city. So it's basically grinding to get to the main quest. That's disappointing but overall it's keeping my attention. 

 

I do like the entire vibe more than Valhalla thats for sure.

[Phaseknox]

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

Personally, I think that the the technical issues and release strategy in 2014/15 with Rogue/Unity/Syndicate were more to blame than the games themselves. If they'd kept to a more reasonable schedule, AC probably wouldn't have felt the need to re-invent itself. As someone who played through those three during the pandemic, I felt like they held up pretty well overall. I've enjoyed the RPG games, but I don't think that structure is necessarily superior. Which is largely to say that if Mirage is well executed, I can see it doing well.

Syndicate is a lot better than Rogue and Unity IMO, in fact it’s my fourth favorite game in the series. It unfortunately got overlooked because it came out after Unity which as you know wasn’t very well received. I was even hesitant and skeptical about it after Unity, but I give all of the games a chance because I’m a big Assassin’s Creed fan and it ended up really surprising me just how good that it was.

 

The newer big open world RPG games aren’t necessarily superior to the older games, they’re just different. Odyssey is my favorite game in the series, but I like Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood and Syndicate more than Origins and Valhalla. However, going forward I’m more interested in the newer big open world RPG style of the games than I am in the older more tightly condensed style. I’m much more excited about Codename Red than I am Mirage, but part of that’s because it’s being developed by the Syndicate/Odyssey team. They also made Immortals: Fenyx Rising which I really like as well. I also prefer choosing my character or at least their gender now in these games which I’m sure that Codename Red will allow you to do. You’re forced to play as Basim in Mirage, and I didn’t really care for him in Valhalla so I’m not all that interested in playing as him.

[best3444]

@Phaseknox Even playing on easy you HAVE to grind in order to beat missions where the level is one, two or three higher than what you are. This is a huge flaw imo. 

 

I was watching reviews and every time negatives were brought up grinding was the main issue. I'm not sure how you got away from not grinding in this game?

 

Other than that, I enjoy this game more than Valhalla so far. I'm completely used to the visuals and the combat is solid enough. For some reason I couldn't stand playing as Kassandra so I switched to Alexios. He is perfectly fine imo voice acting and all. 

[Phaseknox]

4 minutes ago, best3444 said:

@Phaseknox Even playing on easy you HAVE to grind in order to beat missions where the level is one, two or three higher than what you are. This is a huge flaw imo. 

 

I was watching reviews and every time negatives were brought up grinding was the main issue. I'm not sure how you got away from not grinding in this game?

Are you doing the side quests, because if you’re not doing them and focusing on the main story quests then I assume that you have to grind. The game is packed with side quests, and I focused a lot on them before doing the story quests. I guess that’s why I never had to grind. There’s more side quests than story quests, the story actually isn’t that long. The side quests are some of the best content in the game IMO, so I hope that you’re not skipping them.

 

4 minutes ago, best3444 said:

For some reason I couldn't stand playing as Kassandra so I switched to Alexios. He is perfectly fine imo voice acting and all.

You’re the first person that I know of who prefers Alexios to Kassandra, why didn’t you like Kassandra? I personally think that Alexios is kind of dopey, and he makes more sense as the villain Deimos than Kassandra does. But if you prefer playing as him then that’s cool, because it all comes down to personal preference.

[best3444]

50 minutes ago, Phaseknox said:

Are you doing the side quests, because if you’re not doing them and focusing on the main story quests then I assume that you have to grind. The game is packed with side quests, and I focused a lot on them before doing the story quests. I guess that’s why I never had to grind. There’s more side quests than story quests, the story actually isn’t that long. The side quests are some of the best content in the game IMO, so I hope that you’re not skipping them.

 

You’re the first person that I know of who prefers Alexios to Kassandra, why didn’t you like Kassandra? I personally think that Alexios is kind of dopey, and he makes more sense as the villain Deimos than Kassandra does. But if you prefer playing as him then that’s cool, because it all comes down to personal preference.

 

Yea, I'm doing side missions because I have to in order to level up to tackle the main story. Some of the side missions are good while others can be bland. 

 

Kassandra just annoyed me. I can't really explain it so Alexios will have to do. He's ok to me so I'm fine with that. 

 

The story is pretty interesting so that's keeping my interest. It's much more varied and interesting than Valhalla so I'm glad I'm giving this time. It's been pretty good.

 

The map is intimidating and I'm not sure if I'll keep playing this once I return to work. I just have so much free time right now playing a game like this is perfect. 

[best3444]

So I fired up my XSX for the first time in like 2 months. What pops up on my dashboard...Assassin's Creed Odyssey is on gamepass. 

 

Thankfully I only paid $12 for it on the PS5 but it kinda sucks. 

[BloodyHell]

On 9/15/2022 at 1:12 AM, Phaseknox said:

Are you doing the side quests, because if you’re not doing them and focusing on the main story quests then I assume that you have to grind. The game is packed with side quests, and I focused a lot on them before doing the story quests. I guess that’s why I never had to grind. There’s more side quests than story quests, the story actually isn’t that long. The side quests are some of the best content in the game IMO, so I hope that you’re not skipping them.

 

You’re the first person that I know of who prefers Alexios to Kassandra, why didn’t you like Kassandra? I personally think that Alexios is kind of dopey, and he makes more sense as the villain Deimos than Kassandra does. But if you prefer playing as him then that’s cool, because it all comes down to personal preference.

Having to do side missions to get to main quest levels is terrible, inexcusable game design. It was absolutely terrible when I played it. At one point I had to grind 7 levels to get to the next story mission, and I quit. No Buenos.

[best3444]

1 hour ago, BloodyHell said:

Having to do side missions to get to main quest levels is terrible, inexcusable game design. It was absolutely terrible when I played it. At one point I had to grind 7 levels to get to the next story mission, and I quit. No Buenos.

 

Yup. I'm finished with it now, too. You're going along the story well enough in the beginning then they say your next main story mission is 3-4 levels ahead of yours. 

 

This game is brutally difficult fighting against even enemies one level ahead of you. So you have to play 8 stupid fetch quests to level up to continue the main story. 

[legend]

25 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Yup. I'm finished with it now, too. You're going along the story well enough in the beginning then they say your next main story mission is 3-4 levels ahead of yours. 

 

This game is brutally difficult fighting against even enemies one level ahead of you. So you have to play 8 stupid fetch quests to level up to continue the main story. 

 

 

FWIW, this eventually normalizes. While higher level enemies will have more health than you and can take you down quick if they hit you, eventually you'll have more than enough skills to take anything down. About mid game I was actively hunting the top mercs who were 20+ levels higher than me and I had little problem.

[best3444]

9 minutes ago, legend said:

 

 

FWIW, this eventually normalizes. While higher level enemies will have more health than you and can take you down quick if they hit you, eventually you'll have more than enough skills to take anything down. About mid game I was actively hunting the top mercs who were 20+ levels higher than me and I had little problem.

 

When you say mid game is that about 50 hours in? 

[legend]

4 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

When you say mid game is that about 50 hours in? 

 

That's probably about right  It's plausible you could be punching much further above your weight even sooner, but that's when I realized it because I decided for shits and giggles I would take on one of those big bad top merc walking by and to my surprise, wrecked him. Certainly, I think being a few levels back won't make much a difference past the "early game" (which is probably 15 hours  )

[best3444]

4 minutes ago, legend said:

 

That's probably about right  It's plausible you could be punching much further above your weight even sooner, but that's when I realized it because I decided for shits and giggles I would take on one of those big bad top merc walking by and to my surprise, wrecked him. Certainly, I think being a few levels back won't make much a difference past the "early game" (which is probably 15 hours  )

 

Well I already sunk 90 hours into the game when it released but don't recall having issues like this. I'm never touching it again. Thanks for the information. 

[Phaseknox]

6 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

Having to do side missions to get to main quest levels is terrible, inexcusable game design. It was absolutely terrible when I played it. At one point I had to grind 7 levels to get to the next story mission, and I quit. No Buenos.

4 hours ago, best3444 said:

Yup. I'm finished with it now, too. You're going along the story well enough in the beginning then they say your next main story mission is 3-4 levels ahead of yours. 

 

This game is brutally difficult fighting against even enemies one level ahead of you. So you have to play 8 stupid fetch quests to level up to continue the main story. 

I can’t really relate to the experience that you two had with the game because I just found it fun to play, and I did just about everything that there was to do in it and never once felt under-leveled the entire time. In fact, there were times when I felt OP. But I played it on easy, and only really focused on the story quests after I did a lot of the available side content. That’s usually how I tend to play open world games, their side content is sometimes just as fun as their main content is IMO.

 

I agree that you shouldn’t have to do side content or grind in order to do the main story quests, but like I said I usually only did the story quests after I did a lot of the available side content so the way that I played the game I never felt obligated to do anything extra to be at the appropriate level for the story quests.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

First Assassin’s Creed Mirage gameplay revealed, launches October 12

BLOG.PLAYSTATION.COM

---

Basim’s new Pole Vault ability adds new options to parkour gameplay.

 

Quote

In this gameplay trailer, you will continue to follow the journey of Basim, one of the most versatile and resourceful Assassins in franchise history. Some new features that can be seen in the gameplay trailer are the Assassin’s Focus, which allows Basim to mark and assassinate several targets in a row. You also will get classic Assassin tools such as throwing knives and smoke bombs. We also have a brand-new parkour ingredient, the Pole Vault. You can see Basim’s singular playstyle in action and the exciting Assassin playground that the city of Baghdad provides to our hero. Staying true to his Hidden Ones training, Basim generally favors quiet movements and a discreet approach to hunt and strike his targets. As part of its Blackbox missions, the game provides various opportunities for Basim to leverage and help him make his way to his targets: which flavor will you choose?

 

 

[stepee]

Honestly hyped pretty hard for this. I’m ready for this type of AC again.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I don’t know how much I’m hyped for this right now. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t crazy about Basim in Valhalla. 
 

But I’m sure I’ll get it sometime because I’ve beaten every mainline game in the series. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I'm not really interested in Assassin's Creed but this looked more interesting than what they've been putting out.

[Phaseknox]

18 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I don’t know how much I’m hyped for this right now. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t crazy about Basim in Valhalla.

I didn’t really care for Basim in Valhalla either, so I don’t have much interest in this game since you play as him in it. Also, it doesn’t look any different from the earlier games in the series which I’ve had my fill of. The only Assassin’s Creed game that I’m really interested in right now is Codename Red being made by the Odyssey team.

[Kal-El814]

I'm into it. Now lemme make a lil house for myself that I can fill with dope art and have a squad of ass bros that jump out of palm trees when I snap my fingers.

[best3444]

Looks like they are going back to their roots with this. I can't fuckin wait. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

More Assassin's Creed please!  

[Keyser_Soze]

39 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

I'm into it. Now lemme make a lil house for myself that I can fill with dope art and have a squad of ass bros that jump out of palm trees when I snap my fingers.

 

I wouldn't count on it if it's supposed to be like the original game. Looks like a heavy emphasis on stealth and your bros snappin aren't quite that.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Just spent some time on their website.  While I think I would prefer another open-world AC game, I am totally fine playing a modern reinterpretation of AC2 or AC: Syndicate.  They were great games, and there isn't a whole lot like them being made today.

[Kal-El814]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I wouldn't count on it if it's supposed to be like the original game. Looks like a heavy emphasis on stealth and your bros snappin aren't quite that.

 

There is simply nothing more stealthy than ass bros who just happen to be where I am at all times exactly when I need them to be there to do some murder. They’re actually much stealthier than Ezio ever was, just like his horse.

[crispy4000]

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Those are some thick French accents in that trailer.

[stepee]

32 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

 

All over my face please