I’ve played all the AC games I am a huge fan of the genre, and after considering odyssey as 9/10 I am extremely disappointed by Valhalla and how they seem to have moved so far backwards, and this 2/10 is not an angry overreaction to a few faults, it is a fully justified and sad 2/10.
I’ve played 30hr so I’m at the mid-point of the game. So it may improve but at this point looking at other reviews I am wondering if we are playing the same game. I’m also particularly disappointed as this is my first PS5 game, and I paid extra for the PS5 version but the game feels like it has been scaled back to accommodate a decade old laptop.
Combat
Combat is seriously stunted in this game, it feels dull and unrewarding with little skill involved. I think this above all else is the low point of the game.
- There is one arrow type, where odyssey had 5 or 6
- you don’t really get multiple weapon types just ‘change hands’ which to be honest you don’t really use
- The moves at this point feel pretty pointless and are quite dull. No Spartan kick, no mad heros strike, or shield explosion, also it takes you so long to get adrenaline bars to use skills it makes the start of the game (like the first 20hr) a real slog.
- Enemies will often run at you one at a time whereas odyssey and for that matter every other AC game i can think of had you diving in amongst often dozens of enemies, I cannot express how ridiculously dull and repetitive this makes combat
- The archers can’t hit anything
- The archery has a system which shows points of weakness on enemies to stun them, but the hitboxes are pretty broken and its easier and more effective to just shoot them in the head.
- the basic attacks are so so repetitive
- when you raid with your crew your crew will do nothing basically, they do no damage and they take no damage, they may as well be aesthetic
- They’ve added a stamina bar which when you are in the flow of combat serves well to just slow everything down and ensure your fun comes to a rapid end. Basically you fill this by stopping whatever you are doing and running away a little and waiting every 5 or so hits/dodges/blocks
- The health system is terrible it now doesn’t regain after combat ends, they’ve gone for the horizon zero dawn system and done it very badly where you need to find herbs, but they are not very well populated, regaining any health in combat uses about 5 herbs regardless of if you are after your entire health bar or just the tiny bit of health lost after a fight. In short they made getting health a chore
- There are no big war like battles, the battles they do have often result in a few sparsely fought battles between like 6 or 7 groups of 2 or 3 people, they are made to look like big battles but in truth they are very small scale
- The fire graphic is pretty poor, I think it is lower quality then odyssey. Just about everything can catch fire in this which is a nice feature but it has next to no impact on gameplay, NPC’s often don’t seem to even react to it.
- There is no reward for looting enemies beyond very small amount of silver, arrows, and rations
- Can’t craft arrows anymore meaning you have to find them, making that also a chore, especially when they are essential to complete puzzles
Exploration/world
Made to feel like a chore
- The raven is pointless, like completely pointless, why they changed it from Ikaros mechanic I have no idea, it identifies next to nothing.
- Treasures are marked in gold and are often hidden by puzzles which extends to find the bomb, or find the start of the tree run, or find the key, or find a way to break the barricade
- The treasures so far have been very unrewarding and pointless, at best bog standard level 1 basic items, usually an ingot of some kind to upgrade your gear. I would stop looking for treasures but upgrades are essential, I hold hope of one day finding an interesting item. Also skill moves are in the ‘treasures’ to and surely at least one of them must be good?
- Artifacts are marked for finding on the map and at this point as far as im concerned have no benefit and can be totally ignored. They brought back that ridiculous mini-game where you need to chase a bit of paper… why….
- I originally liked the gear and levelling system and the direction they took it compared to Odyssey, but as I have progressed I think it is just a bit of a grind and does not feel overly rewarding. I get the feeling it is trying hard to hide the ‘level’ system that got a lot of criticism in Odyssey and Origins and make it feel less like an RPG. In reality I think it has made the level system worse and means you can go through the entire game without ever really needing to swap gear, just upgrade.
- Odyssey had a sort of campaign system where you can fight for a side to win a territory, that is totally gone and was replaced with nothing
- Vendors items do not seem to change dependent on where you are or with time, they are the same basic items throughout
- I really hoped the map would go beyond just England, Norway is also used for a little. When Valhalla was announced I was hoping for Scotland, Ireland, Wales, & Paris to feature in some respect but nope just England.
- Because of the map the ship is a river boat only, there is no ship upgrade beyond cosmetic, there is no ship combat, and you can’t recruit crew members beyond aesthetic variants
- Also the boat crew is dull, lifeless and cringey, the laughs at the end of the ‘storys’ are atrociously added in and the songs are dull.
- The side quests are disgraceful, whereas in odyssey every island seemingly had its own story to explore with fun quests. Now it is just a blue dot on a map with a 5 minute task that is often the standard escort me or go get that thing and bring it here, and to be honest I think that is it… they can be totally ignored
- There is no reward for completing sidequests
- Mini-games: Flyting is cringey stupid and dull, drinking is unrewarding and irritating, ‘not-gwent’ is fun but quite random and unrewarding
- At this point upgrading your settlement does not seem to provide any real benefit, it’s a nice side activity but I’m getting the impression at this point that you don’t really get much reward for it.
- The ‘quick’ menu also really slows things down to get a torch or a cloak
- The weapon customisation is reduced compared to odyssey with no options to modify aesthetics and less options for customising upgrades
- There was an artefact in a ‘spoiler area’ which had you run across the entirety of a map to find 30 items. I thought this must be a really big thing with a big reward. I spent about 2 days gathering all the items expecting to get some sort of legendary item or ability… it gave me 2 skill points (you get those handed out to you very regularly it was an atrocious award, I almost stopped the game then and there)
Stealth
Why bother
- I feel no sense of joy from stealth in this, or reward
- The bounty system is gone, meaning there is no punishment for not going in stealth
- They’ve got a new assassination system that is push the button with a timing challenge which is so damned annoying and flow breaking, it can be disabled but once it is it makes you kill everyone in one hit which is severely overpowered and game breaking.
- The tagging enemies system from odyssey is pretty much gone.
- They brought the hidden blade back and seemingly missed the point of it, it was always so you could subtly stab someone in a crowd. But Eivor uses it like it’s a full on dagger
- The crowd blending is ridiculously scaled back compared to earlier AC games and it just has small crowds of 5 or so monks in a totally empty space.
- The citizens don’t really react as you kill guards, they just go back to cooking
- Some of the assassination animations are awful, its like very slowly take someone to the ground and stab them in a relaxed manner
- If you get caught, no one seems to care. You might alert one or two people in your immediate area but usually that is it.
- ‘must have been the wind’ mechanic feels worse AI gives up very easily
- Enemies often respawn very quickly making it impossible to clear an area meaning you can stealthily pick everyone off one by one and then see they are all still there..
Music
Underwhelming
- The songs feel very repetitive
- The big crescendo moments of the game do not have the music to match
- I am hating the ship singing, it is so repetitive and lifeless and scale back from all other AC games with that mechanic
- I don’t really have much more to say, it just feels poor
AI
AI feels like it is from the early 2000’s
- Enemies run at you one at a time
- You can attack a fort as ‘loud’ as you want and guards will seemingly have no idea unless they directly see you
- People will just stand there as you hit them and never react
- If you have a shield you are an enigma most enemies cannot work out
- Archers are atrocious, in older games they moved away to safety and would fire more regularly and could hit you, in this they miss you from 2 feet, have a very irregular fire rate and just stand there as you slowly walk up to them
- I feel the best way to test this is to attack a town solo and not bother with any stealth. You can single handily set the entire town on fire and guards will just stay at gates or guarded areas and not come for you. They are completely unaware of anything going on until you walk right up to them.
- The attack rate is very low from enemies
- There was meant to be co-operation between AI, I’ve seen none of that. If anything it is the worst co-operation of any AC game there has ever been. They literally come for you one at a time
- If you do find yourself in amongst a large group of enemies, three will run at you and 10 will stand there and watch
- Turning up difficulty does not change AI, just gives them more health and makes them do more damage.
- It genuinely made me think back to Dynasty Warriors 4 from 2003 but with just one or two people instead of like 20-30. And with atrocious combat.
Voice Acting
No joy or emotion
- You play a stoic Viking, you have a single emotion… bland… you do not get angry, you do not get sad, you do not laugh, you are not happy….
- The voice acting of Eivor may as well be from a rock. You get to choose between male or female voice actor, or a sort of mixture of both. I chose to ignore the option of both as I felt it would break immersion in the story.
- I played both male and female for the intro, the female version just felt wrong somehow, The female voice just did not fit and every line felt off (for the intro). The voice acting for Kassandra was outstanding in Odyssey. In fact I think the voice acting in all AC games is excellent (except perhaps unity).
- So I went with the male voice and it is awful, every line is monotone. At the big crescendo moments it is just shown by half-heartedly shouting. It feels cringey and underwhelming.
- The supporting cast voice acting is broadly below par but some of them are ok (they never really get opportunity to show anything more than just ok) and perhaps would have been more suited to the lead roles.
Story
They really need to speed it up a bit.
- Where Odyssey throughout managed to make me laugh, cry, angry and cheer… Valhalla just has me bored
- There is absolutely no joy in the dialogue, no jokes, no fun, no ‘omg’ moments, no anger, no sadness
- No one uses a sentence when three paragraphs will do. The dialogue is dull and overly drawn out.
- The interaction between lead characters often feels off, just overly forced friendliness but like an awkward friendly
- The story outside the animus looks good I am interested and want to know more and how it connects to Eivor. They’ve not played on it much at this point though.
- The story inside the animus at this point is dull and repetitive, currently it extends to go here, do these people chores, get their alliance, repeat… I am sure that will pick up (it has too the entire game can’t be like that surely).
- In truth at this point I think the only thing I can say about main story is it is quite dull, I have no real interest in seeing what happens next at this point. It is so far the worst story of any AC game by far
- I just got to the bit with the spoiler spoiler, I thought this was the point where it would get good, but at the moment it too is quite dull… after the thrill of the big reveal wears off it is just another grinding area with chores for quests and overly drawn out rather dull missions which just make me feel bored. I started writing this review after I jumped out the animus to get the reactions of people to see what they had to say about where Eivor was… but their dialogue hadn’t updated for it…
Glitches
Some very serious
- I am very forgiving of minor glitches, such as enemies dropping through map, boats flying and being destroyed, infinite spawns, immortal enemies, ballet Vikings, random NPC’s walking into major plot points or talking over the top of them. There are a lot of glitches on this game but I trust they will be fixed with time
- I am less forgiving of serious glitches, my game uninstalled itself somehow, including patches and add-ons. My game data was very nearly irretrievable, this appears to be a common bug on the console version of the game…
Conclusions
At this point for an AC game, a series I hold in very high regard, I can’t really find any positives. The gameplay is dull, the characters are boring, the story is repetitive, the world is average. All in all it feels like very little effort was put into this.
I again say I’ve not finished the game, the story may improve, the gear variety may improve, and more enemy types and moves may improve the combat. But at this point the game is already irredeemably poor.
I am rushing through the main quests at this point trying to reach a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, but in reality in terms of gameplay this is already worse than unity and for me is the worst entry in the AC series by far.
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After I wrote this review I read other reviews and thought I may be being overly harsh as I had high hopes for this game. I took about a month off to play a different game and then came back with lower expectations and after 1 hour I have reach the conclusion the game is just utter rubbish. There is suggestion in other reviews that it is more like the games prior to origins, which I would have enjoyed... but it really is nothing like any of them.
I don’t know what’s more depressing the fact the game is so bad or that it is for some reason getting such high praise from others. I really wanted to push through its faults and finish the trilogy but for the first time ever I am going to abandon an AC game halfway, it is so poor I can’t even bring myself to blitz the main story, I just want it to stop.