My god, what a waste of time. This game is the epitome of boredom. The beginning alone is already a pain in the ass. First you have to walk forever through the snow, then travel for ages by boat and then walk for ages on land just to complete the first few quests. Every MMO has a more compelling introduction! The map in this game is so huge and yet empty. The fact that there is a function to automatically follow a path by boat or horse speaks for itself. They might as well have included a fast forward function for the whole game. Coupled with the constant forced walking, the unskippable cutscenes, the eternally long (meaningless) dialogues and the useless loot scattered everywhere, this is probably the most boring game I've played in a long time. Fortunately, the game was included in the Game Pass, otherwise I would have regretted the purchase.

Contexto importante: Eu finalizei a história principal do Valhalla (incluindo o final verdadeiro) e as duas primeiras expansões (Ira dos Druídas e O Cerco de Paris), e apesar de ainda faltar uma (Dawn of Ragnarok), decidi deixar ela pra daqui a uns meses justamente pra preservar uma opinião positiva do jogo. Gostei bastante dele, mas não dá pra negar que ele é gigantesco, e depois de quase 170 horas, tô pronto pra dar uma opinião definitiva e ir jogar outras coisas (por enquanto).

É impossível falar o que eu achei desse jogo sem antes mencionar as minhas expectativas, porque eu sinto que Assassin's Creed Valhalla foi um dos jogos mais controversos da Ubisoft nos últimos anos. Se por um lado ele é o jogo mais vendido da Ubisoft até o momento (foi o primeiro deles a passar de 1 bilhão em vendas), por outro é raro ver uma opinião positiva do mesmo, tanto dos jogadores quanto da crítica.

E sinceramente? Eu gostei bem mais do que eu achei que iria. Na real virou meu favorito dentre os 3 RPGs da série. Pra mim cada um foi uma evolução direta do anterior, e Valhalla é o melhor exemplo disso. O combate é bem mais variado e divertido que o do Odyssey, a exploração é mais dinâmica (e menos lotada de informação no mapa), e os personagens me cativaram ainda mais.

A única crítica que eu entendo e acho válida sobre esse jogo é a duração, e realmente AC:V podia ser algumas (muitas) horas mais curto, mas como eu sabia disso antecipadamente, eu joguei o jogo no meu tempo e sem apressar nada. Demorei mais de 3 meses pra zerar, mas por causa disso eu tive uma experiência muito mais prazerosa que a maioria das pessoas. Só pontuei a duração pra deixar claro que eu tô ciente dela, mas nunca me incomodou a ponto de querer largar o jogo.

E além disso, o fato do jogo ser dividido em arcos (ou "sagas") acabou resultando numa estrutura de gameplay bem divertida porque eu dividia meu tempo entre concluir um arco (que geralmente dura uma ou duas horas) e explorar o mapa atrás de side-quests/colecionáveis/recursos.

Enfim, tô indo contra a maré nessa aqui, mas eu gostei demais do AC Valhalla. O Eivor se tornou um dos meus protagonistas favoritos da franquia (muito disso graças a atuação perfeita do Magnus Bruun), os cenários do jogo são lindos demais, a trilha sonora é memorável e, como sempre, a Ubisoft entrega uma fidelidade histórica bacana que me fez querer aprender mais sobre esse período histórico e a cultura dos povos normandos (com algumas exceções estéticas que dá pra perdoar pela cultura pop).

E ah, pra mim a nota perfeita pra esse jogo seria um "8.5/10", mas como o sistema de 5 estrelas não permite essa nota específica, arredondei pra 4 estrelas e meia porque tô me sentindo otimista.

Skål!

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is expansive and comprehensive in its recreation of 9th century England and Norway. However, it is plagued with lackluster content cast upon its gorgeous landscapes. It brings with it a narrative that has intriguing content, but it is drawn out in such a way where its fate once fully spun is hard to appreciate. In short: Valhalla is unreasonably, unethically, and gratuitously bloated. It spites itself with its expansiveness, asking you to disembark from promises of set-pieces or creative assassination sequences in favor of fetch questing, dully walking from one NPC to another at an agonizingly slow pace, or repeating your 10th copy-pasted fortress conquest at the end of a narrative arc. Many of Valhalla's "mysteries" are actually quite clever and filled with gratifying incorporations of its historical context, but still other mysteries and "wealth" spread throughout the open world are direly boring to collect. Valhalla is fun in its core gameplay, and customizable in a way where it might be enjoyed in a manner similar to the prior Assassin's Creeds - titles that didn't demand fighting spongy enemies and encouraged stealth gameplay if the player was so inclined. The combat and gameplay here is good throughout: parrying is satisfying and the arsenal of weaponry and finishers invoke the brutal fantasy of viking combat. This, however, is let down by repetitive mission-design and combat encounters throughout 100+ hours. It is further let down by some clunky aspects of the gameplay, including a parkour system that seems somehow to have degraded from prior AC titles I am naturally obliged to compare it to. Odd glitches remain present in this game 4 years after release, prompting me to have to reload on multiple occasions to interact with a NPC or so that my horse might regain its ability to gallop, for example. Eivor and their cast members are decently interesting, and I genuinely did care about this game as an Assassin's Creed mainline entry. The early conflict between the Hidden Ones and The Order of the Ancients are cleverly weaved into Eivor's independent story, with appreciated callbacks to Origins and Odyssey. Furthermore, the science-fiction aspects of Assassin's Creed genuinely carried this story to its climax in great contrast to contemporary Assassins Creed titles. Without following precedent of staging Eivor as a descendent of the modern day protagonist, Ubisoft has still invited genuine prominence to their role in this universe. Ubisoft has achieved more intertwining mythological facets of the cultural setting into the Assassins Creed Universe than they did with the likes of "Assassin's Creed: Origins" or even "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey." Genuinely, open world setbacks aside, the incorporation of Norse mythological thematics here are well integrated. Valhalla is less successful in establishing a reason to care about its drawn out viking-oriented tale of conquest in 9th century England. The historical events and flow of time are presented here with less enthusiasm and gameplay experimentation as compared to much older titles like Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood, IV: Blackflag, or Unity. As previously mentioned, there is an overarching story here that is worthy of an audience. However Valhalla fumbles on its own hubris more often than not in guiding you through this journey. Valhalla is worthy of a mainline venture for Assassin's Creed fans, but it is unfortunately monotonous as an open world game purposive of engrossed immersion.

I've been looking at Valhalla for years ever since its release, but I had no rush to play it, especially as it was not available on Steam.
After playing Odyssey I knew what to expect: a decent story in a very large open-world game with multiple activities and things to do during which I could wind down and feel satisfied from clearing everything from a section of the map.

Coming from Odyssey, my expectations were similar, but Viking. In Valhalla, instead of traditional fetch-y side missions, there are Mysteries. They can vary from a short mission to a platforming challenge, a minigame, a puzzle, a boss, raids, etc. The World Events were the most interesting to me, as they will have an NPC asking for something, and it will often be in the immediate vicinity with no spoon-fed indicators on how to complete it.
Not everything about the map exploration is great, though. Some objectives offer little reward for the amount of work required, and the only real reward was the point of interest completed.
Gone are the times of using the bird as an exploration companion. The "Odin Sight" scan does everything from indicating where the loot is to where enemies are, including the ones behind walls highlighted in a red shader that makes them blurry. There's no use for the bird except to look around and place markers, but that too can be rendered useless by a microtransaction.

The loot of the game is reduced to a souls-esque style. Most of the loot is upgrade materials, while armors and weapons are more scarce but unique, and increase in rarity when upgraded.
There's unique equipment that requires keys, like in old ACs, but the game shows you where to get the key, not where to use them.
Sadly, the loot in the game is less than in the store. There's very little equipment to begin with and to have so much behind a paywall in a single player...
I 100% the title and never found a hood without a cloak, but there are more than 5 available in the store.
Thankfully, as usual, the community is on top of all these tactics.

The combat favors aggressiveness because attacking recovers stamina accompanied by many classes of weapons with different movesets that can be also combined thanks to dual wielding. Assassinations can finally ignore level, although it's an option that has to be toggled on.
The game has two types of abilities. "Abilities" are loot in the map and are active, like throwing axes, while "Skills" are passive, like parrying damages the enemy or auto-looting - side note: some key items are bugged if auto looted. Leveling up always requires the same experience and, the "Skill Points" obtained are used on the Skills. Often on marginal improvements like +2 defense until working towards the Skills' main Skills. Using the skill points will increase your overall level. There are 38 main Skills, with max level capped at 537. It's a level sink. There's even an option to auto-assign them. After max level, which can't be achieved in a normal full playthrough without boosters or grind, "Mastery Points" are introduced, which are used for more small generic improvements that don't even have numbers next to them.

The story and setting of the game are really good. Although the game looks graphically stunning, the tessellation is weak making the ground move up and down like waves in an ocean. The game is played as Evior, a norse vikingr, and his mission to conquer alliances with nearby regions of England in the name of his brother Sigurd, who is the jarl of the clan.
Because of the way the story is narrated, and because each region has its own story, it makes the whole thing feel disconnected. I liked it, but it's presented in a way where you do everything, Sigurd is kind of an absent ass but everyone is loyal to him. Compared to Odyssey, choosing the sex of the character is just flavor. Only Evior female is canon, and the game does everything it can to point that.

The three times during the story killing members of the Order of the Ancients is the objective, they'll just tell you who to kill and where.
This series has moved from needing to escape, putting posters with your face, and guards being able to climb buildings to braindead goons that lose you 10cm in front of their face inside a bush.
The mount can be improved, but instead of a mechanic like in RDR2 where riding levels up your mount, it's just a purchase.

One of the Order's members is on a map where the Kanien’kehá:ka speak their native language. While I love the inclusivity, the Animus was said would auto-translate everything in the past, yet the dialogues are not subtitled. It only makes all dialogue impossible to understand and gets the opposite result. From inclusivity to exclusivity, of literally everyone else.

In the game, there are visions where you play as Odin. The Asgard Saga, and in the DLCs Dawn of Ragnarok and The Forgotten Saga.
Asgard's storyline is nice, and it was base game content. My only gripe was just the amount of treasures on the maps that are only shards needed for Altar offerings.
Dawn of Ragnarok is the best expansion in the game. Good story and it has the best map to explore and lots of new additions. Sad you don't get to bring them out of the expansion!

The Forgotten Saga is a roguelike mode with a separate set of skills and equipment only available there. It requires a lot of attempts, obviously, but offers an interesting challenge.
River Raids is all centered around raids, it adds more mechanics to raiding, but suffers from being just raids in 6 river maps, with unique loot obtained randomly from some chests. The mode doesn't allow saving and will delete all your progress on death. The limits to cargo space at the start make it even more repetitive as it forces short sessions.
Mastery Challenges are small missions that need to be completed under specific requirements. The game only asks bronze medals to go forward, but when going for golds I had some tries fail because of bugs. In all three modes I had fun, but, now there aren't months in between the waves of live service content and because these modes act as a time sink, they were all just a bit too long.

Tombs of the Fallen is a hidden piece of content, without an indicator on the map nor mention in the game. I learned about it as a mistake and I would have hated to miss it because it was the best part of the game! Remember those old exploration challenges of AC2 to get the keys for Altaïr's armor? That! It was great!

Last but not least, the two story DLCs with Evior.

Wrath of the Druids was the worst of the two, especially when as a filler during the story it forces you to do random side missions. The DLC is barely about druids, it's just a faction of enemies. The DLC is about a King, and a druid is a boss for story reasons, but the multiple storylines lead nowhere and don't have enough time to be impactful.
It adds a farming mechanic for new materials, which are used to unlock items at a merchant.
The LOD suffers from how flat the map is, even at Ultra because of how far you can see and there's grass floating off every rock and edge. It felt unfinished and there is very little to do.

Siege of Paris was a lot better story-wise and there are new filler missions that unlock new equipment, but also needs a lot more work, which makes sense since the DLC is extremely short.
For a game that in 2007 removed a crossbow because not historically accurate, giving me the option to kill someone that will live in real history makes no sense. I would rather drop the fake, inaccurate, boring RPG choices that often add nothing and instead make good, accurate, linear stories like in the past.

I enjoyed my time on the game and I looked forward to coming home from work, clearing a map while listening to some podcasts, and winding down. It was better than I expected, and I'll have my eyes on Mirage next!
7.6

i don't know if it was some misplaced sense of charity or morbid curiosity, but for whatever reason, i felt the need to boot this up again. i’d broadly say that from the 7 or so hours i ended up playing of it- frankly, several hours too many- it was largely what i remembered, expected, and then even worse some. modern ubisoft games continue to exemplify scope creep in aaa games at some of their worst. it’s the inevitable result of designing your game to be popular first and foremost.

some of the consequences are immediate, easy pickings for anyone even the slightest bit critical. open-world activities that amount to little more than a disconnected series of carny games, movement feeling less consistent than older titles despite its simplification, animations that range from being merely badly implemented to just bad in and of themselves, some of the worst audio i’ve ever heard in a game between the compression, mixing, bugged sound effects, and just generally poor choices for said sound effects, dead-eyed character models and flat cutscene direction, but none of that’s particularly interesting to talk about. i found myself more amused by the way it bends over backwards to tell the player that our raids in the name of colonialism are completely justified and badass. assured that the people we’re raiding are totally bad guys, we swear, but there are some good guys amongst them that just so happen to want to be saved by us vikings.

i’m not one to go for bat for historical accuracy in the series that turned jack the ripper into the scarecrow, nor will i act like it’s anywhere near the first time this sort of whitewashing has happened in assassin’s creed (or quite a few other ubisoft games for that matter). but it’s a stark difference going from altair’s arc of constant uncertainty and questioning of himself, his order, and perceived enemy to this nonsense. just another consequence of having to design for the widest possible crowd, i suppose: the viking power fantasy must come above all else and not challenge the audience to any significant capacity emotionally or mechanically. but as a final twist of the knife, that power fantasy ends up being scuppered by the games overblown scope serving us half-baked combat amounting to eivor windmilling their arms while the sounds of papier mache play off enemies being hit. really just a game that elicits nothing from me but an eyeroll and sigh of sympathy at the thought of hundreds of skilled and creative people working to make something so clumsy and unimaginative.