After 166 hours (not sure how entirely accurate that time is, considering some of it's been idle), I've done pretty much all I can in Ubisoft's latest historical sci-fi murder simulation. Well, there are two treasure maps that are glitched, which I can't clear because one map remains in my inventory even after I collect the treasure, and the other treasure doesn't show up. At the time of this writing, Ubisoft's yet to fix the glitches.
So what did I think of the game? It's actually a pretty exhausting one. I didn't feel this way after the 250+ hours I put in Oblivion or Skyrim. I didn't feel this way after the 150 hours I put in Death Stranding. I sincerely enjoyed every minute of doing every little thing in the most recent single player games that I can remember spending nearly as much time in as Valhalla. But Valhalla itself was simply bloated.
Ubisoft somehow thinks it needs to make each successor's world larger, but the problem with making a game larger is you need to fill it with interesting things. It tries to do this with "Mysteries", world events that pepper the landscape that usually trigger mini quests or battles. Some of them are very interesting, but others are just ho hum. One type of Mystery are the cairns. These are puzzles that require you to stack stones on top of each other balancing them carefully until they reach a certain height. The majority of them aren't very hard, but the harder ones become so tedious due to finicky controls and questionable physics that they become incredibly tedious to clear. My favorite of the Mysteries, though, are the anomalies. These are puzzle platforming segments that require you to reach the top and grab data packets that when complete plays a pretty interesting video. I'm glad I did all those. There are also alpha animals, and random fights with lost drengrs (warriors) that want you to kill them so they can move on to the next life but after a few encounters, they all just blend together.
Then, there are the artifacts. These are usually collectible items such as Roman face masks and tattoo designs. What I really hate about collecting the tattoos is that you'll never see them on your character - unless they're on the face - because you're always wearing armor. So why then are you having me running all over the rooftops of houses chasing down these tattoos flying around in the wind when they're absolutely meaningless? You can find treasure maps, but all these maps yield are decorations for your ship. Customizing my ship and tattoos just didn't seem that meaningful to me.
What really slogs this game down is the immense number of treasure chests the game is pockmarked with. The more valuable ones, the "Wealth" that contain upgrade materials, armor and abilities are usually more interesting to obtain, but the basic chests that contain common crafting materials get really tedious for the OCD gamer like me to rid the map of. Many times, they'll be stashed in houses that have barred doors requiring you to find a way in, or behind locked doors having you find a key somewhere nearby. Some of these basic chests are even more difficult to reach than some of the more important Wealth varieties. I don't even want to guess how much time I spent on getting all those treasure chests.
How I chose to play the game, though, ultimately affected my attitude towards it. I have a bit of OCD when it comes to clearing things off maps and if I could just ignore all the chests, I probably would have enjoyed the game a lot more. The thing is, the main story content of Valhalla is actually pretty good. It's told via an alliance map where you chose which territory you want to pledge in order to establish an alliance with that territory's leader. Each one of these story arcs are well written and varied. You'll be replacing eldermen, solving murders, investigating traitors and even helping two people fall in love. There are also side quests that involve you seeking out a target all the way to Vinland (what North America was called in the Viking ages) that ties something in to Assassin's Creed III, and weird potion-induced dreams where you take on the role of Odin as you deal with Loki and a war between Asgard and Jotunheim.
As I said, I loved all the story content, but most of the time, it felt as if it was taking a backseat to all the side stuff. I think I mentioned this in my previous blog about Valhalla, but the game very rarely reconnects you to the present day world, and that further illustrates that it's all about keeping the player in the Matrix. The game really needed its players to come out more often.
As I said, I loved all the story content, but most of the time, it felt as if it was taking a backseat to all the side stuff. I think I mentioned this in my previous blog about Valhalla, but the game very rarely reconnects you to the present day world, and that further illustrates that it's all about keeping the player in the Matrix. The game really needed its players to come out more often.
Assassin's Creed games used to be a good balance of historical fiction and modern sci-fi story telling, but it's been losing focus ever since Origins and has gone completely off track with Valhalla because Ubisoft wants the franchise to be an RPG. But it doesn't NEED to be one! The 40-50 hours of story content (rough estimate) should easily be enough to keep any AC fan sated until the next one, but Ubisoft doesn't think so. They tested the waters with Origins trying to make it a live service and they're still doing it Valhalla, so apparently there's a good number of gamers that like the changes. Or maybe they're like me just putting up with the game because we've invested ourselves in the franchise the past 12 or so years and are patiently waiting to see where the story goes next time. I dunno, though. I'm really growing tired with this direction. I would have loved to have at least 100 hours of my life back to spend with my other launch games.
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