deep sigh
I don't know where to begin with this. I don't want to waste your time, dear reader, the same way this game wasted mine, but what I have to say can't be summarized, for my rage is eternal and my writer brain strong.
The game. Is. Too. Long. And unlike Odyssey, where you could at least find some joy in running around in pretty fields and hearing Kassandra say some cringey lines in a somehow charming way, here you'll be. Uh. Just sort of enduring a bunch of fuck-all for 70 hours as you watch Eivor get thrown around from plot point to plot point without any real personal investment aside from your brother sort of prodding you along. Beating you with the carrot and the stick, if you will.
Eivor (I played as female/canon Eivor, because I'm sexy and have nice, heavy balls) has a revenge quest to set her on her journey, but it's basically just the prologue? And it's over before the title drops? So after that you're just sort of along for the ride. Eivor literally doesn't find out why the fuck plot even happened to her at the end of one of the main questlines. Like, the main character doesn't know why they're there, they have to be dragged along to participate in the plot. One of the final quests is literally her brother leading her somewhere and Eivor going "um where are we going hahahaha I don't understand???"
Imagine that, for 70+ hours. Just fucking about in your typical, massive Ubisoft collectathon, doing shitty little sidequests to get shitty little points so you can level up and see shitty little main quest cutscenes, all while not really knowing why the fuck this story is being told to you to begin with. "Oh but there's lore and DLC that explains --" Shut up! If you expect me to put 70+ hours of my real human life into the main game, then you gotta make me care about it in some way, shape, or form! You can't shit out a 70+ hour campaign and then just go "Oh but ignore that, the REAL content is in the SIDE content." I mean you can. Clearly. Doesn't mean I have to like it. Or that I'll buy your shitty side content. Because if I don't care about the main character or their story, I won't care about any extensions for it. Simple as that!
I seem to recall Ubisoft claiming they made the world smaller after people complained about Odyssey, but I'm pretty sure that's a big fucking lie. Not only is the world massive, it's also filled with little shitty things to do that don't add anything, and you have to go out there and do them if you wanna level up and see more of that shitty story that you don't care about.
Unless you wanna ... buy a widdle micwotwansaction? :3c Pwease buy one. Ouw lady-animatows awe stawving! Buy some and see the shitty stowy fastew!
They also somehow made the leveling and RPG elements worse, and I'm someone who rarely cares/notices gameplay or combat design. It's so bad that even I, a filthy casual, went "oh ew what the fuck." Sure, there's slightly less redundant loot than in Odyssey, but now you have to go out into the massive, empty world to find your actual abilities? That you use to play the actual game? "It was unrealistic that Kassandra had superpowers!" Oh but it makes more sense that Eivor read a book and can now leap 8 feet into the air? Or manipulate arrows after shooting them? Huh? Do not get me started on how you level up. There's so much and it's so overwhelming but the vast majority of the points you collect have no tangible effect on your actual gameplay.
It's like everything went wrong here! All of it is wrong!
The music is good as always, fortunately, but then they even wanged the historical authenticity this time around. It really feels just more like a neo-nzi's power fantasy than actual Vikings. I'm no historian and even I was baffled at how the game tried to tell me a handful of longships would somehow attack a fortified military stronghold? The vikings weren't cool epic strongman warriors, guys, they were basically pirates: ice edition.
Also minor note: m!Eivor sounds like a hoarse old man, while f!Eivor flip-flops between normal pleasant contralto to very-forced-badass-viking-someone-please-get-her-a-cough-drop. What happened* here?
Ugh. I'm glad I got this for 15 bucks at a Black Friday sale, ages after it came out. I still somehow feel ripped off. Probably because I poured hours into this game and it wasn't worth it.
One star for the music, the other for the fact that female/canon Eivor is hot and I wanna be her.
This game has convinced me that I shall never buy another Ubisoft game. Well, that and the ... ya know. Crimes.
(Ok another sidenote: I liked the little glimpses of Norse mythology. I actually quite enjoyed the magic mushroom nonsense. I feel like the rest of the game and setting is already unrealistic enough that the magic mushroom nonsense actually feels more fun and engaging than the "real world" shit.)
I don't know where to begin with this. I don't want to waste your time, dear reader, the same way this game wasted mine, but what I have to say can't be summarized, for my rage is eternal and my writer brain strong.
The game. Is. Too. Long. And unlike Odyssey, where you could at least find some joy in running around in pretty fields and hearing Kassandra say some cringey lines in a somehow charming way, here you'll be. Uh. Just sort of enduring a bunch of fuck-all for 70 hours as you watch Eivor get thrown around from plot point to plot point without any real personal investment aside from your brother sort of prodding you along. Beating you with the carrot and the stick, if you will.
Eivor (I played as female/canon Eivor, because I'm sexy and have nice, heavy balls) has a revenge quest to set her on her journey, but it's basically just the prologue? And it's over before the title drops? So after that you're just sort of along for the ride. Eivor literally doesn't find out why the fuck plot even happened to her at the end of one of the main questlines. Like, the main character doesn't know why they're there, they have to be dragged along to participate in the plot. One of the final quests is literally her brother leading her somewhere and Eivor going "um where are we going hahahaha I don't understand???"
Imagine that, for 70+ hours. Just fucking about in your typical, massive Ubisoft collectathon, doing shitty little sidequests to get shitty little points so you can level up and see shitty little main quest cutscenes, all while not really knowing why the fuck this story is being told to you to begin with. "Oh but there's lore and DLC that explains --" Shut up! If you expect me to put 70+ hours of my real human life into the main game, then you gotta make me care about it in some way, shape, or form! You can't shit out a 70+ hour campaign and then just go "Oh but ignore that, the REAL content is in the SIDE content." I mean you can. Clearly. Doesn't mean I have to like it. Or that I'll buy your shitty side content. Because if I don't care about the main character or their story, I won't care about any extensions for it. Simple as that!
I seem to recall Ubisoft claiming they made the world smaller after people complained about Odyssey, but I'm pretty sure that's a big fucking lie. Not only is the world massive, it's also filled with little shitty things to do that don't add anything, and you have to go out there and do them if you wanna level up and see more of that shitty story that you don't care about.
Unless you wanna ... buy a widdle micwotwansaction? :3c Pwease buy one. Ouw lady-animatows awe stawving! Buy some and see the shitty stowy fastew!
They also somehow made the leveling and RPG elements worse, and I'm someone who rarely cares/notices gameplay or combat design. It's so bad that even I, a filthy casual, went "oh ew what the fuck." Sure, there's slightly less redundant loot than in Odyssey, but now you have to go out into the massive, empty world to find your actual abilities? That you use to play the actual game? "It was unrealistic that Kassandra had superpowers!" Oh but it makes more sense that Eivor read a book and can now leap 8 feet into the air? Or manipulate arrows after shooting them? Huh? Do not get me started on how you level up. There's so much and it's so overwhelming but the vast majority of the points you collect have no tangible effect on your actual gameplay.
It's like everything went wrong here! All of it is wrong!
The music is good as always, fortunately, but then they even wanged the historical authenticity this time around. It really feels just more like a neo-nzi's power fantasy than actual Vikings. I'm no historian and even I was baffled at how the game tried to tell me a handful of longships would somehow attack a fortified military stronghold? The vikings weren't cool epic strongman warriors, guys, they were basically pirates: ice edition.
Also minor note: m!Eivor sounds like a hoarse old man, while f!Eivor flip-flops between normal pleasant contralto to very-forced-badass-viking-someone-please-get-her-a-cough-drop. What happened* here?
Ugh. I'm glad I got this for 15 bucks at a Black Friday sale, ages after it came out. I still somehow feel ripped off. Probably because I poured hours into this game and it wasn't worth it.
One star for the music, the other for the fact that female/canon Eivor is hot and I wanna be her.
This game has convinced me that I shall never buy another Ubisoft game. Well, that and the ... ya know. Crimes.
(Ok another sidenote: I liked the little glimpses of Norse mythology. I actually quite enjoyed the magic mushroom nonsense. I feel like the rest of the game and setting is already unrealistic enough that the magic mushroom nonsense actually feels more fun and engaging than the "real world" shit.)