Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Buried somewhere deep within the fluff, grind and copy-paste content, there is the potential for a cool game. AC Valhalla feels like a 15-20 hour epic that was stretched in every possible way to reach 100+ hours of content. I struggle to understand the reasoning behind this, but it may have something to do with there being too many chefs in one kitchen. Dear Ubisoft, less is more.

This is an incredible game. Not really an assassins creed game, more of a viking/barbarian game. More combat focused and the customization is a 8/10. Combat is a 8.5/10 and the finishers are a 10/10. Story is decent but a little long. Worth it if you're up to grind a game. ODIN IS WITH US!!!

Overall, a downgrade from AC Odyssey by quite a margin. 1. The Main character is so much more bland, boring and forgettable than in Odyssey. Eivor just kinda exists, all the while being the most hypocritical character ever: wants peace and quiet - invades someone's land and is mad when they're angry and defend themselves. wtf is this ''Gentleman Viking'' bs?!? Vikings were morally reprehensible, and yet here we are glorifying their atrocities. 2. Where's the depth???? Characters mostly seem bland and single issue motivated. Lines are meh at best. Sidequests are insanely short and meaningless when compared to Odyssey. The shallowness of the entire game is insulting, to be entirely honest. 3. Choices: So far, choices seem meaningless. In 80% of cases, you're given three options, you pick one and get all three anyways. In about 20% of cases you're given a real choice to make, and even these seem superficial and meaningless, with only a small percentage seeming to have an effect. If not, the time delay to feel the consequences is so long that you'll have forgotten entirely about the story arc by the time they show up. 4. Builds: There's barely any variety in Valhalla, and whichever build you opt for feels more or less like any other. Upgrading gear is an incredible chore which really just pushes you to pick one and stick with it for the entire game. 5. Movement: Eivor feels like an anvil being coaxed into movement, whereas Alexios/Kassandra feel light and agile, both in and out of combat. 6. Emotions: Valhalla tries to be ''serious'' and 'dark' all of the time. This means that character deaths just don't have the same impact as in Odyssey. There is little to no contrast between the happy times and the sad times that they all mesh into a sort of unhappy middle 7. Graphics in Valhalla feel like a noted regression from Odyssey. I play Odyssey on med-high and was generally impressed. I played Valhalla on Ultra (at the cost of frames) and was still thoroughly disappointed 8. Music: Valhalla's music is alright, if a bit uninspired. The ''Shanties'' are utter bear excrements. They do not come from your crew, but a voice in your head just singing, as though someone put headphones on Eivor. The shanties stop as soon as you leave command or try and use a bow (which is immersion breaking as all hell) which was not the case in Odyssey. And the lyrics are.... let's just say LazyTown had better creative direction. 9. Sidequests: Odyssey's quests were fleshed out, with funny or interesting characters, and more often than not an unexpected ending. Valhalla's ''world events'' on the other hand are incredibly simplistic, rarely take you more than 50m from the quest giver and as a result are incredibly forgettable. No love or effort put into them, and it shows. 10. Settlements: Every settlement i've encountered in Valhalla seemed tiny and dead. Discovering Lunden was incredibly disappointing compared to arriving at Athens. As a whole, Valhalla felt smaller and deader than Odyssey. Valhalla has more maps, but they all feel significantly worse than any of the maps from Odyssey 11. The maps: idk if it was on purpose, but Valhalla maps are an absolute pain in the posterior to traverse. England seems to be entirely made up of narrow valleys and towering hills with sheer rock cliff faces between them, making any straight line voyage unbearably long, in narrow, claustrophobic spaces. Asgard is even worse being entirely vertical, which led me to rage quit a few times (go down there, then go back up, then go back down over and over and over). Sightlines are generally bad, even from the top of hills everything is foggy. Valhalla's maps are somewhere between disastrous and passable. Overall Valhalla is a serious downgrade from Odyssey, in just about every way imaginable. It's a bad AC and an even worse Open World ''RPG''. Just play Odyssey instead.

7/10 the game is fine but honestly lacks depth and purpose. the characters are forgetable, story is bland, but the only plus is the fighting style is very attack based and doesnt require skill or forethought not really an assassin game, but then again the main character isnt an assassin, shes just given a wrist blade and told go crazy the order is kinda sad, none are real fights and it honestly just feels like hints to go kill a random npc