I want to start by saying that “Assassin’s Creed” is one of my most treasured game franchises. I started late, with AC: Syndicate that I got 8-9 years ago for the Xbox One, and I fell inlove with the series. I also played AC: Origins and AC: Odyssey a lot, but because I didn’t have any backup of the screenshots taken and Microsoft decided to delete them, I am left with no visual proof of those. :( Also, another kind reminder to say “FUCK YOU MICROSOFT FOR DELETING THE SCREENSHOTS SAVED LOCALLY ON MY CONSOLE
Rant over, it’s time to dig into another AC title, because I’ve been slacking on this front since I’ve taken up playing World of Warcraft, back in 2019. So the obvious choice was Valhalla, the one that was released after Odyssey, the last AC I played. I was initially thinking to write a huge post describing in detail my journey as a viking, but I guess, I’ll just summarize everything and condense it into a few key categories:
The good stuff
The world design is once again, the best part of the game. From lush fields, to autumn-vibed forests, to snowed mountain highs, everything is top tier and the world not only looks realistic, looks cozy and has a down-to-earth feeling. Even Asgard with its surreal vibe still has feels like a real place. This, combined with the detail put into towns, buildings, settlements, recreating real places (albeit from about 1200 years ago), makes the game a place where you want to spend more time. Top tier from the art department.
No world is complete without a sound score, and boy, the soundtrack is nice. The music is discreet and blends properly with the action scenes and triggers awesomely when you get into a fight. To be honest, from time to time I get on the boat and let my Jomsvikings sing their hearts out, just because the music is great. Proof:
When Horns Resound by Einar Selvik
We beat and blazed our trail of red
‘Til Odin gazed upon the dead
The horns resound the mighty hall
For those who fight, for those who fall
For those who fight, and those who fall
The story is not bad, it just exists. I was expecting to explore the vast landscapes of the Scandinavian lands, but instead we sail west and we go to forge alliances throughout England. Once I understood in broad strokes where the story is heading, I decided to take the story zone by zone and to push it further. I loved killing the Order members and to unravel the mystery behind the main questline, but the story is not something to write home about. It’s good, it pushes the game further, and it kept me glued to the screen. Also the Vinland storyline was really really beautiful. The story itself has some heartwarming moments and some really funny ones too, and it make me chuckle here and there and even burst into laughs a few times.
The OK stuff
Sometimes the control is clunky and seems that Eivor has a mind of his own, the puzzles at times get super annoying, in the format of “step 2: draw the rest of the fucking owl”. Weapons are fine, but the upgrade system is a very long and boring path, and instead of grinding, I just took the difficulty down a notch (to Normal, or whatever is called), and was able blast through stuff 30 power levels higher than me.
Speaking of power levels, I understand the new talent system and points assignment, but it makes the talent tree bloated, and ultimately useless, as there’s no meaningful decision here, you just get to power levels where you can get most of abilities out of the box.
And speaking of abilities, I can’t stand the way you now need to discover abilities, because they are hidden in treasures around the world (most of them behind more or less annoying puzzles).
It doesn’t help that for this game, the game direction decided to nerf the crow (the variant of the eagle), which doesn’t detect enemies or objectives anymore, it just shows you a general area where the quest objective is. I think I’ve used that less than 20 times in the amount of play time.
A nice thing to do was raiding, gathering my Jomsvikings and pillaging a monastery or two was fun, but because it’s tied to grinding the buildings in your settlement, feels a bit repetitve and boring at some point. And if you dare to do ones in the zones with power levels way bigger than yours, expect to revive your companions fairly often.
The bad stuff
There’s not a lot to hate per se in the game, although there have been a few things that could be removed from the game and I wouldn’t bat an eye.
The minigames. They are either boring and very RNG-related (Orlog), boring and clunky (rock stacking), fishing (you throw a rock in the water and then you do something with the controller to reel in something – usually a boot).
The archery minigame is fine, but it kinda sucks on a console, with the controller. Pretty much ranged abilities are kinda useless in combat throughout the game, hitting 90% of targets when they sit still and about 10% when they move, and that’s with auto-aim turned on!
The only fairly interesting ones are flyting (which is literally viking rap battles) and the drinking game (once you get used to it – apparently I can only outdrink the saxons, maybe because I’m not a true viking), but even those get boring fairly soon.
The puzzles are pretty bad sometimes. I don’t want every chest to be open, but I’m tired of the repetitiveness of finding a cache, seeing I can’t get inside the room, searching 10 minutes for a way to open the door by shooting some lever inside the room from a platform and then noticing that I need to get a key to open the chest, because it’s locked. This, mixed with all the magic-based puzzle in the Jotunheim area (where you need to be in a specific place to trigger a game mechanic that shows you a particular building or ledge or stair) kinda left a sour taste, having to rely on youtube guidelines to get me over a thing that was very not-obvious, made me not want to 100% this, and I’m happy to just finish the main quest (and most side quests).
Conclusion
As I said, I wanted to write more about it, but I don’t think there is too much to say. It’s definitely one of the Assassin’s Creed games, and if you like the previous two, you’ll fairly like this one as well.
I got it for fairly cheap, 13 euros or something on the Xbox Series X, and another 13 for the DLCs, which I didn’t play too much, but will do probably soon.
Drawing a total line, I can say I liked playing this title a lot, but at the same time, it has its quirks and annoyances that will prevent me to fully finish the game, or pick up the DLCs (or the next games, for that matter, at least for now). I did spend about 94 hours in the game so far, so I can say that if you get this on a sale, then it’s completely worth it.
Many people say about Valhalla that is worse than its predecessors. While that might be true in a vacuum point of view, it’s also true that it’s a solid game, coming close to the high level where the other games put it. Five joysticks for a game that did the vikings justice and is ultimately, fun.
