Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Some Reviews

Largh spotted some reviews for Assassin's Creed Valhalla:

Metacritic: 85/100 (at the time of writing)

PC Gamer: 92/100

IGN: 8/10

Gamespot: 8/10

Largh:

The conclusion seems to be that the game looks great, has a huge open world, an OK story, and quite some bugs. It is said to be more of an RPG than the previous entry.

Click to expand...

More information.

Somewhat off-topic. For two hours you could buy the ultimate/collector/whatever-it's-called version for around 10 EUR in Norway. Someone made an error on the website, saying 1EUR =1NOK. Thus 109EUR became 109NOK. It lasted for 2 hours. Ubisoft say that they will not cancel these orders, so people will get the game for the advertised price.

a pibbur who became aware of this too late.

I wonder if the feature creep syndrome that plagues every AC game recently is doctored all right -- or they added even more unnecessary sh*t to do unnecessary "things'n'stuff"?

AC Unity, Syndicate, Origins, Odyssey would be GREAT games if they were 20-30hr long tight games, and not these 50-100hr boring monsters.
Yes, they have a bigger dick, so what? Mine is smaller and gives 500% more satisfaction, according to some.

/rant mode off

AC Odyssey was one of my favorite games ever, not only because of the main story line but also because of the huge world with a whole lot of interesting stories and quests. I am extremely glad it was not 20-30 hours.

Interesting that AC Valhalla (which I haven't played yet) is said to be more of an RPG. Odyssey was very much an RPG in my view.

To agree on whether Valhalla is more of an RPG, we'd have to agree on what an RPG is, something we have never and will never do. And no, this is not an invitation to start the debate anew.

What I know about Valhalla from playing it for a few hours and what I've read is that there's a stronger exploration component and a lot fewer repetitive clear-the-camp activities. I played Odyssey for over 130 hours (!), and yet I did probably less than half of those. It was way too much, and way too dull. Valhalla has substituted short but bespoke content (so called "mysteries"/world events) for that cut and paste stuff. Whether that more RPG-ish or not, it's definitely a good thing, in my mind.

Valhalla certainly has a skill tree, but AC has had those since Syndicate. It has unique loot, and upgrades for said loot. Also something that series has had before, but perhaps moreso in Valhalla. And it has dialogue choices, which of course was introduced with Odyssey.

I would not know as I did not play the previous entry. I remember just reading it from one of those reviews. Maybe one could talk about shades of RPG, and from 3 hours of playing Valhalla appears to score pretty low on the RPG scale. Perhaps the previous one was even lower, don't know. Anyway, it appears like an entertaining game. I normally am not a fan of Ubisoft titles, but this one I am looking forward to playing.

It kind of bothers me that the protagonist is a witch, Alex Honnold, a kick-ass warrior, a general, and a techno-magical transgender right from the pat. I wonder how did she/he have time to learn all those skills and how much will I learn with her/him while exploring the world. Anyway, if one just thinks of it as a fantasy game, it will probably work. The plot is clearly there just to make you explore and enjoy the world. Jumping on people from a mountain top and stabbing them to death is pretty cool. The Marvel superheroes would be jealous.

Also, I am quite entertained by the impression foreigners have of Norwegian nature Even though northern lights are common up north where I live, they are not every night things down south where the game is set. Just saying...

I remember when Assassin's Creed was a game about assassins, alone against hundreds of guards hiding in plain sight or sneaking, planning your target demise.
Maybe I'm just old.

JFarrell71 said:

Valhalla has substituted short but bespoke content (so called "mysteries"/world events) for that cut and paste stuff.

Click to expand...

That is good.

Strafe said:

I remember when Assassin's Creed was a game about assassins, alone against hundreds of guards hiding in plain sight or sneaking, planning your target demise.
Maybe I'm just old.

Click to expand...

Well as an old fan myself I don't as that formula was growing stale. I also don't miss the long drown out woe is me death cut-scenes when you killed the enemy.

They finally figured out PC controls as well.

JFarrell71 said:

To agree on whether Valhalla is more of an RPG, we'd have to agree on what an RPG is, something we have never and will never do. And no, this is not an invitation to start the debate anew.

Click to expand...

Aww come on those debates are fun. You spoilsport.

An RPG has stats. Therefore football manager is an RPG. Discuss! ;-)

Silver said:

An RPG has stats. Therefore football manager is an RPG. Discuss! ;-)

Click to expand...

No!

A pibbur who has (after 35 years) yet to make up his mind. And who wonders if that ("make up his mind") is correct english. And if it is, where that phrase ("make up his mind") comes from.

Strafe said:

I remember when Assassin's Creed was a game about assassins, alone against hundreds of guards hiding in plain sight or sneaking, planning your target demise.
Maybe I'm just old.

Click to expand...

Nah, you're not old. You're just stuck in the past.

I remember when the AC games were wildly popular despite being average at best and very repetitive.

Oh wait…

Maybe so but at least some aspects have changed. Like the feathers and lost diary pages. Basically the collectable crap which I despised in past Assassin Creed games.

That stuff inspired so many memes.

In Valhalla you can also customise the exploration gameplay by setting how much is shown on the map and in the HUD. This way you can make exploration more rewarding instead of just following points of interest in the compass.

I've played a 3-4 hours so far and I'm really enjoying it! The new game feeling is strong with this one I put in about 100 hours in AC Odyssey and so far I'm really liking the changes to Valhalla. Less filler content so far which was my biggest gripe with AC:O.

Lemonhead said:

I've played a 3-4 hours so far and I'm really enjoying it! The new game feeling is strong with this one I put in about 100 hours in AC Odyssey and so far I'm really liking the changes to Valhalla. Less filler content so far which was my biggest gripe with AC:O.

Click to expand...

Good news! Despite my rant, the game is being shipped to me (physical only, full of tasty coronavirus germs, but hey, live dangerously or die trying), and I'll definitely try it out in the weekend.

Any news on PS4 performance?
Or should I go and buy those shiny XboxXXX / PS5+++ devices?
(Sorry, no PC: PC is kept for work, good old games and great indies)

Speaking of AC:O comparison: I had about 190 hours in that monster -- not because it is a good game, but because I'm a sucker for anything Ancient Greece.
Which leads to. . . world building.
Is it of any good?
IMHO the unsung heroes on ANY AC games are the environmental artists, and AC: O was THE CROWN JEWEL of their craft. Can Valhalla top it?

How "twitchy" is the gameplay? How "RPG-ish" is it? If the answer is "not very twitchy at all" and "pretty darn RPG-ish" then I might be interested. Never played one of these games since stealth games were never really my thing, I just find them frustrating.

I will wait a few weeks so they can squash the worst bugs. Hoping it will keep me busy through the holidays so I can ignore my family. Will use COVID as an excuse.

FurtiveNyctophile said:

How "twitchy" is the gameplay? How "RPG-ish" is it? If the answer is "not very twitchy at all" and "pretty darn RPG-ish" then I might be interested. Never played one of these games since stealth games were never really my thing, I just find them frustrating.

Click to expand...

I don't like stealth games either and you could skip most of that in AC:O. Combat is a little twitchy but not terrible. A little more than Skyrim and Witcher 3.

Today, any game that has a sword is an RPG!

Odyssey and Valhalla are pretty much ARPGs. I enjoyed Odyssey quite a bit. Yes, it is too large and too long. Far too much zipping around a gigantic map. Far too many "clear the camp, fort, outposts"

But the game was a lot of fun. Couple of Odyssey gripes: if you accidentally hit an innocent peasant bystander while killing a guard or whatever, the peasant would fight you to the death. So sometimes in missions in a city, I'd have three skinny, half-naked old men fighting me to the death before I could finish the objective. They should have just had innocent peasants run away if they got hit. It was just annoying and it happened quite a bit.

Also, I liked having mercenaries coming to get me. They were some of the most challenging parts of the game. But sometimes it was unfair: suddenly there'd be three mercenaries appearing out of nowhere. Some you could "pay off" and you had the option to kill the person who hired them. But often, the person who hired them was 25 miles away in another town. How the hell does that happen? Did they all have secret cell phones?

And Odyssey got very annoying with voice work. Kassandra was great. But many of the NPCs were really annoying, especially the ones that are supposed to be funny. It was obviously an actor doing a goofy fake-sounding "greek" accent, and usually a lot of yelling. There is a HUGE amount of that in Odyssey. So far, voice work sounds more subdued and subtle in Valhalla.

EDIT: I also HATE stealth games. Odyssey had stealth, but it wasn't the usual kind where you had to do a mission in exactly the way the devs decided you were supposed to. And if you get detected, you have to re-do the mission. Odyssey had stealth you could use as a tactic, but it wasn't necessary for the entire mission.

I usually hate stealth in games, but I liked the stealth in Odyssey.