RedBackLoggd
2018
Note - as I did not beat the game, this write-up should be taken more as a set of observations than a genuine review.
Dyo is a free puzzle game on Steam, its appeal deriving as much from that price point as its co-op premise - you and buddy controlling one of two minotaurs in an attempt to reach the doorway(s) within each level. How fun is it? Well, given that I had to abandon it in light of the high difficulty curve, I’m going to say it wasn’t for me, though that doesn’t mean it won’t have its fans.
Occupying the platformer genre, Dyo’s gimmick rests on each player being able to attach their screen-halves together at any point in time, theoretically yielding all manner of makeshift jigsaws for obstacle circumvention. It works well at first; however, the complexity grows greatly the second the devs start adding new variables into the mix: perspective shifts, dissolving blocks, and moveable cubes being among the best offenders. Now normally I welcome these kinds of changes, but the problem is Dyo doesn’t go about organically-introducing them the way it did with its initial gimmick, resulting in players being thrown into the deep end without much warning.
Luckily, everything is unduly responsive and bug-free, rendering the excursion very smooth and responsive irregardless of my qualms.
Visually, Dyo is on the minimalist side, though that actually works in the game’s favor due to its shorthand nature- your two characters resemble the beasts of Ancient Greek fame, their brighter hues contrasting well with the cinereal props of standing columns and stitched-together brick. Backdrops further compliment this set-up by hosting innumerable items like wavering flames, looming columns, and well-honed sculptures. Yes, you will see a lot of repetition; however, the restrained stylization does serve its purpose of establishing a labyrinthine atmosphere.
SFX is reserved solely for select actions (locking-in screens, pushing blocks, and entering doors), while music, as far as I got anyway, consisted of a singular ambient track hemorrhaged by creepy wind & drum motifs. Both are fine given the brief length of levels, though Dyo probably could’ve benefited from some symphonic diversity as things progressed.
Ultimately, though, this is a title that’ll only appeal to the patient as finding those aforementioned harder solutions does get taxing the deeper you go. If you and a buddy are willing to do that, then Dyo should be a fun enough afternoon.
Dyo is a free puzzle game on Steam, its appeal deriving as much from that price point as its co-op premise - you and buddy controlling one of two minotaurs in an attempt to reach the doorway(s) within each level. How fun is it? Well, given that I had to abandon it in light of the high difficulty curve, I’m going to say it wasn’t for me, though that doesn’t mean it won’t have its fans.
Occupying the platformer genre, Dyo’s gimmick rests on each player being able to attach their screen-halves together at any point in time, theoretically yielding all manner of makeshift jigsaws for obstacle circumvention. It works well at first; however, the complexity grows greatly the second the devs start adding new variables into the mix: perspective shifts, dissolving blocks, and moveable cubes being among the best offenders. Now normally I welcome these kinds of changes, but the problem is Dyo doesn’t go about organically-introducing them the way it did with its initial gimmick, resulting in players being thrown into the deep end without much warning.
Luckily, everything is unduly responsive and bug-free, rendering the excursion very smooth and responsive irregardless of my qualms.
Visually, Dyo is on the minimalist side, though that actually works in the game’s favor due to its shorthand nature- your two characters resemble the beasts of Ancient Greek fame, their brighter hues contrasting well with the cinereal props of standing columns and stitched-together brick. Backdrops further compliment this set-up by hosting innumerable items like wavering flames, looming columns, and well-honed sculptures. Yes, you will see a lot of repetition; however, the restrained stylization does serve its purpose of establishing a labyrinthine atmosphere.
SFX is reserved solely for select actions (locking-in screens, pushing blocks, and entering doors), while music, as far as I got anyway, consisted of a singular ambient track hemorrhaged by creepy wind & drum motifs. Both are fine given the brief length of levels, though Dyo probably could’ve benefited from some symphonic diversity as things progressed.
Ultimately, though, this is a title that’ll only appeal to the patient as finding those aforementioned harder solutions does get taxing the deeper you go. If you and a buddy are willing to do that, then Dyo should be a fun enough afternoon.
2008
Braid was the third biggest highlight of the Indie Game Movie behind Fez and SMB(+), and given that I reviewed the former not too long ago, I thought it only befitting to tackle Braid during my sabbatical from shooters.
However, unlike Fez, I had actually beaten Braid many moons ago, my memories recalling mixed feelings on the matter in spite of its gorgeous palette. Well, with fresher eyes and more veteran years under the belt, were those recollections mistaken or does Braid fail to live-up to the hype? In my opinion it’s the latter, though in a strange twist of faith, I couldn’t tell you why.
See, Braid doesn’t do anything wrong per say: au contraire, it actually does what any great platformer should do -- set-up a unique mechanic, throw-in bite-size levels, and gradually introduce new variations on said power in a World 1-1 manner. It’s pleasing to look at, has terrific music, and is easily replayable in a pick-up-and-play kind of way.
So why didn’t I like it? Well, I think part of it has to do with the game largely relying on timed moments and specific routes, meaning you’re always under some kind of pressure regardless of the task at hand. Braid’s gimmick, of course, is time reversal, allowing you to rewind the clock as far back as you want; however, as a result this, 90% of the puzzles end-up being overlain with some degree of urgency. Short of pressing the pause button, there’s no breathing room - you’re always on the move, trying to hit the right beats for the right solution, and that type of temporal gameplay is inherently antithetical to my nature. One of the reasons I’ve failed to get into products like Majora’s Mask and Pikmin 1 is their reliance on kitchen timer mechanics, and while Braid’s obviously not in the same category as those games, it bears enough DNA to make it spiritually-similar.
Now you may ask “if you can reverse every decision at will, what’s the qualm?” Well yes, you’re able to do that Prince of Persia-style, but the problem is it doesn’t change the fact that you still need to find that precise order of killing enemies or pulling switches or causing slow-downs etc….etc… -- barring exploits, Braid just doesn’t leave much room for experimentation: if you miss the solution, you gotta restart, all while contending with an invisible countdown.
And again, I want to stress that none of this is objectively bad - the game got critical acclaim for a reason and is definitely worth checking out. For me personally, I unfortunately wasn’t able to get absorbed like I typically do with most platformers.
That said, there were three issues I felt went beyond the parameters of subjectivity into genuine irks. One, there’s a small, yet noticeable, delay whenever you start your rewinding that basically forces you to hold down the key for a couple extra seconds. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, and within the grand scheme of things probably isn’t, but when you hit a snag and want to instantly get back in the groove, it does get annoying having to die again ~alley~ just because you forgot to push the button longer than necessary.
Two, your protagonist’s jump is a tad bit floaty. No, I wouldn’t put in the same category as Super Mario Bros. (of which Braid is a clear love letter to), however, you’ll definitely be redoing sections courtesy of improperly-executed jumps you thought you’d make.
The final problem revolves around the story font. To elucidate, Braid conveys its narrative via blobs of text dispersed amongst a set of books leading into each world’s entry, and it’s okay as far as quality, detailing a toxic relationship that sprung up between main character Tim and his ex(++). Unfortunately, the devs made the bizarre decision to have said blurbs dissolve between each other, creating this blurry transition wherein you have to wait for the scrawl to clear-up before you can read the next one. Yes, it’s small potatoes and you can dart-on past them, but to those of you interested in the game’s tale, you’ll have to contend with this design choice.
Speaking of design choices, it’s high-time we talked about the graphics, and oh boy is there a lot to say as this is a beautiful-looking game. Jonathan Blow and David Hellman were clearly interested in recreating European storybooks, and they’ve accomplished that here via taking the Donkey Kong Country-template of interposing 3D models against stylized backdrops. Whereas DKC was more-photorealistic though, Braid opts for a flair reminiscent of German Romanticism, with bleary tones and nature-backdrops rendered under bright pigments. Subtle animation work has been incorporated into nearly every facet of the game, bulking it with a vibrant liveliness that never ceased to amaze me across vistas: whether it was the fluttering of Tim’s hair during runs & falls, the spinning of the sun in the background, the blopping of Avatar-esque raindrops, or the movement of clouds, everything added up to a thoroughly-invigorating treat for the eyes. If I had to complain about anything, it’d be that enemy designs were aesthetically-uninspiring.
The sound effects are, tragically, hindered by poor mixing - if you really want to hear the rainfall or thumping of critters, you’re going to have to manually lower the music into near-silence, and that to me indicates Blow was more interested in using the OST as a proxy stand-in for authentic SFX. What you hear is fine, but outside of major foreground obstacles like cannons and sliding pillars, you’re generally going to be oblivious to most of the aural minutiae.
Thankfully, the music is excellent, its contents interestingly consisting of licensed tracks over originally-conceived tunes. The trio of artists behind them (Cheryl Ann Fulton, Shira Kammen, Jami Sieber) have indulged in a selection of Middle Age baroque songs ripe with violins, chords, and the occasional piano, all of which contribute to that aforementioned fairy tale-vibe the game is clearly going for. The one downside to the score is Blow didn’t account for how the harmony would sound in reverse, meaning you’re often privy to some chiptune-esque grate whenever you rewind time.
There’s really not much else to say about Braid. The goal here is to acquire all the puzzle pieces within each stage, though if a level is giving you trouble, you are provided the option to just move onto the next place. And because progress is instantly saved, you don’t have to redo the entire world when you return to replay things. Unfortunately, I found myself not inclined to do that and ended-up bailing on the prospect when I realized I was relying on a guide too much. That said, I have beaten Braid once before, so this review stands as authentic regardless of how my new playthrough went. Look up some gameplay and give it a try if it seems up your alley.
NOTES
+Super Meat Boy, not Super Mario Bros.
++The books are filled with haphazard swaps between tenses, making me wonder if this was intentional or an oversight.
-Clothes pulsate with light like the armor from the Clash of the Titans remake.
-I liked how Tim’s pupils widen and look downwards whenever you descend from a height.
-Because of The Witness (and its fanboys), Blow has acquired a reputation for coming across as pretentious. Having seen Indie Game: The Movie, I can’t make that supposition about him (he seemed relatively-normal there), but I will say a line of his from regarding the choice of music rubbed me the wrong way:
“My not-so-charitable opinion of game-music people is that most of them are not at that level of skill. Most of them don't really understand gameplay that well unless it's very simple, traditional gameplay. If they give you a song, it's usually not very high-quality, like what a real musician makes. By real musician, I mean people who made the song because they cared absolutely about that song. They weren't making it for anything. They just made what they most wanted to make at that time, so that's what I was looking for.”
Yeah, if you don’t know anything about composing or writing scores, I would suggest keeping your smarmy generalizations to yourself, especially when they’ve been blatantly proven wrong by the myriad of “fake” musicians in video game history.
However, unlike Fez, I had actually beaten Braid many moons ago, my memories recalling mixed feelings on the matter in spite of its gorgeous palette. Well, with fresher eyes and more veteran years under the belt, were those recollections mistaken or does Braid fail to live-up to the hype? In my opinion it’s the latter, though in a strange twist of faith, I couldn’t tell you why.
See, Braid doesn’t do anything wrong per say: au contraire, it actually does what any great platformer should do -- set-up a unique mechanic, throw-in bite-size levels, and gradually introduce new variations on said power in a World 1-1 manner. It’s pleasing to look at, has terrific music, and is easily replayable in a pick-up-and-play kind of way.
So why didn’t I like it? Well, I think part of it has to do with the game largely relying on timed moments and specific routes, meaning you’re always under some kind of pressure regardless of the task at hand. Braid’s gimmick, of course, is time reversal, allowing you to rewind the clock as far back as you want; however, as a result this, 90% of the puzzles end-up being overlain with some degree of urgency. Short of pressing the pause button, there’s no breathing room - you’re always on the move, trying to hit the right beats for the right solution, and that type of temporal gameplay is inherently antithetical to my nature. One of the reasons I’ve failed to get into products like Majora’s Mask and Pikmin 1 is their reliance on kitchen timer mechanics, and while Braid’s obviously not in the same category as those games, it bears enough DNA to make it spiritually-similar.
Now you may ask “if you can reverse every decision at will, what’s the qualm?” Well yes, you’re able to do that Prince of Persia-style, but the problem is it doesn’t change the fact that you still need to find that precise order of killing enemies or pulling switches or causing slow-downs etc….etc… -- barring exploits, Braid just doesn’t leave much room for experimentation: if you miss the solution, you gotta restart, all while contending with an invisible countdown.
And again, I want to stress that none of this is objectively bad - the game got critical acclaim for a reason and is definitely worth checking out. For me personally, I unfortunately wasn’t able to get absorbed like I typically do with most platformers.
That said, there were three issues I felt went beyond the parameters of subjectivity into genuine irks. One, there’s a small, yet noticeable, delay whenever you start your rewinding that basically forces you to hold down the key for a couple extra seconds. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, and within the grand scheme of things probably isn’t, but when you hit a snag and want to instantly get back in the groove, it does get annoying having to die again ~alley~ just because you forgot to push the button longer than necessary.
Two, your protagonist’s jump is a tad bit floaty. No, I wouldn’t put in the same category as Super Mario Bros. (of which Braid is a clear love letter to), however, you’ll definitely be redoing sections courtesy of improperly-executed jumps you thought you’d make.
The final problem revolves around the story font. To elucidate, Braid conveys its narrative via blobs of text dispersed amongst a set of books leading into each world’s entry, and it’s okay as far as quality, detailing a toxic relationship that sprung up between main character Tim and his ex(++). Unfortunately, the devs made the bizarre decision to have said blurbs dissolve between each other, creating this blurry transition wherein you have to wait for the scrawl to clear-up before you can read the next one. Yes, it’s small potatoes and you can dart-on past them, but to those of you interested in the game’s tale, you’ll have to contend with this design choice.
Speaking of design choices, it’s high-time we talked about the graphics, and oh boy is there a lot to say as this is a beautiful-looking game. Jonathan Blow and David Hellman were clearly interested in recreating European storybooks, and they’ve accomplished that here via taking the Donkey Kong Country-template of interposing 3D models against stylized backdrops. Whereas DKC was more-photorealistic though, Braid opts for a flair reminiscent of German Romanticism, with bleary tones and nature-backdrops rendered under bright pigments. Subtle animation work has been incorporated into nearly every facet of the game, bulking it with a vibrant liveliness that never ceased to amaze me across vistas: whether it was the fluttering of Tim’s hair during runs & falls, the spinning of the sun in the background, the blopping of Avatar-esque raindrops, or the movement of clouds, everything added up to a thoroughly-invigorating treat for the eyes. If I had to complain about anything, it’d be that enemy designs were aesthetically-uninspiring.
The sound effects are, tragically, hindered by poor mixing - if you really want to hear the rainfall or thumping of critters, you’re going to have to manually lower the music into near-silence, and that to me indicates Blow was more interested in using the OST as a proxy stand-in for authentic SFX. What you hear is fine, but outside of major foreground obstacles like cannons and sliding pillars, you’re generally going to be oblivious to most of the aural minutiae.
Thankfully, the music is excellent, its contents interestingly consisting of licensed tracks over originally-conceived tunes. The trio of artists behind them (Cheryl Ann Fulton, Shira Kammen, Jami Sieber) have indulged in a selection of Middle Age baroque songs ripe with violins, chords, and the occasional piano, all of which contribute to that aforementioned fairy tale-vibe the game is clearly going for. The one downside to the score is Blow didn’t account for how the harmony would sound in reverse, meaning you’re often privy to some chiptune-esque grate whenever you rewind time.
There’s really not much else to say about Braid. The goal here is to acquire all the puzzle pieces within each stage, though if a level is giving you trouble, you are provided the option to just move onto the next place. And because progress is instantly saved, you don’t have to redo the entire world when you return to replay things. Unfortunately, I found myself not inclined to do that and ended-up bailing on the prospect when I realized I was relying on a guide too much. That said, I have beaten Braid once before, so this review stands as authentic regardless of how my new playthrough went. Look up some gameplay and give it a try if it seems up your alley.
NOTES
+Super Meat Boy, not Super Mario Bros.
++The books are filled with haphazard swaps between tenses, making me wonder if this was intentional or an oversight.
-Clothes pulsate with light like the armor from the Clash of the Titans remake.
-I liked how Tim’s pupils widen and look downwards whenever you descend from a height.
-Because of The Witness (and its fanboys), Blow has acquired a reputation for coming across as pretentious. Having seen Indie Game: The Movie, I can’t make that supposition about him (he seemed relatively-normal there), but I will say a line of his from regarding the choice of music rubbed me the wrong way:
“My not-so-charitable opinion of game-music people is that most of them are not at that level of skill. Most of them don't really understand gameplay that well unless it's very simple, traditional gameplay. If they give you a song, it's usually not very high-quality, like what a real musician makes. By real musician, I mean people who made the song because they cared absolutely about that song. They weren't making it for anything. They just made what they most wanted to make at that time, so that's what I was looking for.”
Yeah, if you don’t know anything about composing or writing scores, I would suggest keeping your smarmy generalizations to yourself, especially when they’ve been blatantly proven wrong by the myriad of “fake” musicians in video game history.
This review contains spoilers
This is part 2 of a spoiler-filled comprehensive critique of The Complete Edition. For Part 1, see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368458/
For a conventional spoiler-free review of the base game, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368448/
For the first DLC, Wrath of the Druids, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368450/
For the second DLC, The Siege of Paris, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368452/
For the third DLC, Dawn of Ragnarök, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368455/
The SFX has its pros and cons. On the plus side, this is the first time I was able to distinguish individualized beats for right & left footsteps in an AC Game, and considering the sheer amount of traveling you’ll be doing, it’s quite splendid to hear (expressly for horses!). Valhalla is also the first AC title to exhibit dismemberment and decapitation, and discerning such grisly cleavings via standard combat executions never gets old. The splintering of castle doors, clinking of loose metal on garments, bending of air around Sýnin and more are all signs of polished handiwork from Ubisoft’s artisans.
Sadly, these are partly counterbalanced by deficiencies, beginning with the sheer amount of rehashed dins from the prior RPG games: shattering pots, dragging barricades, crunching snow, whistling, stock animal growls, sail unmasting, fire burning, and others I’m sure I’m missing were blatantly transposed from Origins and Odyssey. And look, I know there’s only so much differentiation you can do with certain noises, but my point is that no initiative was made to even change them-up. Then again, maybe that was for the better as some of the fresh inclusions were not that good. For example, looting massive chests and completing raids produces this hooting that literally sounds like the chorus from Who Let the Dogs Out on steroids. Opening those coffers, in general, never feels invigorating courtesy of the lid removal having a generic sliding sound that’s not even properly-synchronized. Over and above that, atmospheric conditions are significantly diminished by ear: minus scripted sequences, elements like wind, snowfall, conflagrations, and rain come off as unnaturally-muted, which does hurt their visceralness. Like most AAA releases, Valhalla doesn’t feature any aural blemishes that’ll take you out of the game, but it definitely wasn’t as fortitive as it should have been.
I wish I could say the music atones for things, yet this was another area of disappointment for me. As you guys know, Valhalla marks Jesper Kyd’s grand return to the franchise after nine years, and there’s a reason that news generated a ton of hype: the Ezio scores are regarded as a high water mark for the series and his magnum opus as a whole. But it wasn’t just Jesper’s homecoming that was noteworthy: Sarah Schachner, who weaved the wonderful Origins OST, was announced as a co-composer, meaning nothing short of a masterpiece was expected from the duo.
Unfortunately, while you’ll no doubt find many fans who enjoyed their collaboration on Valhalla, I couldn’t help but feel letdown. The issue is Dark Age settings are inherently associated with symphonic orchestras: we’ve all listened to medieval tracks tinged with flute harmonies, brass fanfare, and of course string solos, and the fact of the matter is that none of those matched up with either musician’s prior arrangements (Jesper’s specialty being synths, Schachner’s electric instruments). Now of course, these are artists with longstanding resumes, and it’s very possible they’ve written music reminiscent of the Middle Age period that I’m simply not aware of but, regardless, their work in Valhalla felt very unnatural and subsequently non-enticing, often engaging in these heavy vocal and French Horn melodies, the former of which should’ve been up Jesper’s alley given his previous experience with choral music, but that ends up faltering due to it not resembling either monophonic chants or his famous carols. Nothing builds up to anything, instead occupying background harmonies that momentarily add a new leitmotif before returning to the shadows (the worst offender of this being the Raid strain, which sounds more like the accompaniment for a group of friars going horse cart racing than the bloody scene of their land being pillaged). Viewpoint tunes are a significant drop from Odyssey; the main theme is so forgettable, I literally had to look it up prior to typing this sentence (an absolute crime for an AC game); and, worst of all, Jesper’s revised version Ezio’s Family (aided by Einar Selvik) is relegated to the freakin’ credits, which, for the record, are a menu option and not mandatory). It’s really sad that Unity incorporated it better than its own maestro.
Obviously, not everything is dispiriting- some of the ambient tracks auxiliary to exploration are top notch, the Ravensthorpe theme is fantastic, and the shanties from your crewmen are the best the franchise has seen (though I suspect these were more Selvik’s creation). But considering everybody’s past body of work, Valhalla truly is a damp squib in this department. Reportedly, gamers were experiencing sound bugs that outright suppressed the music, and it pains me to say that those folks didn’t miss out on much.
On the note (no pun intended) of shanties, I’ll briefly go over the naval component of Valhalla as, unlike Black Flag, Rogue, and Odyssey, it’s not about maritime combat; theoretically, the purpose of the longboat is to merely transport you and your horde from place-to-place. However, the fact of the matter is you have mounts that do the exact same thing (aided by them being able to swim), making this apparent reasoning all but naught.
No, the sole intention behind the longboat was clearly to allow players to relive the Viking fantasy of coastal assaults, and the reality is that’s very shallow as, once you’re done plundering the abbeys, there is no other grounds for its existence. Sure, you can call your crew against the occasional camp scattered along the seaboard, but 9 times out of 10 it’s usually quicker to just solo it yourself. And listen, I would have no problem with this being a simple option for players, but the reason I’m complaining is because all those waterways they sculpted into the map make ground-based traversal between regions unnecessarily hamperful. While it’s not extraneous by any means, having to waste time paddling across tributaries whilst tracking down an orb gets tiring -- it reminded me too much of Venice from ACII, which suffered from similar qualms. I get that these rivers are probably historically accurate, but adding more bridges would’ve gone a long way towards making the amphibious transition more palatable. And speaking of bridges, I absolutely hate this instance during sailing wherein, everytime your boat approaches an overpass, your crew has to waste time slowing down and collapsing the mast (often causing it to clip with your tailpiece)- why not avoid the whole shebang and just make the structures taller? They already took a ton of creative liberty with the art assets anyway (as AskHistorians astutely assessed). And for those few of you who insist on traveling by sea, be prepared to get stuck on shorelines frequently (especially during turns) as your crew of @ssholes berate you.
The last major gameplay element is, of course, the skill tree, and it’s pretty bog standard insofar as RPGs go. Instead of levelling-up, you’re granted two points you can invest into one of three branching nodes representing combat, stealth, and archery, and thanks to the level cap not increasing between levels the way it typically does in other RPGs, you’re actually able to gather points at a reasonable pace without having to grind. In addition, Valhalla does away with Odyssey’s convoluted damage system in favor of consolidating everything into a singular “power level” that increases by two every time you invest in a slot, making it an enjoyable framework.
Now, I understand, there are some downsides to this more simplistic approach, mainly that gear boosts and builds don’t matter, but given that AC was never a hardcore role-playing series to begin with, I honestly didn’t mind the “return to roots” format, and it’s not like you’re less-incentivized to go loot scouring (avatar customization is an aesthetics-first enterprise after all).
Look, despite ending on that mini-rant, Valhalla actually ranks in my top 5 AC games of all time. It does a lot right for the franchise in terms of pioneering a better open world format, implementing balanced RPG mechanics, and (it goes without saying) fixing the modern-day after six entries of scattershot mediocrity. Eivor is another great protagonist, and given the sheer amount of hours of time you’ll be spending with him/her, it’s reassuring to know Ubisoft succeeded on this front. Yes there are a few botherations in the gameplay and narrative design you’ll have to contend with should you decide to embark on this long journey with the Vikingr, but as long as you know what you’re getting into, you’ll ultimately enjoy the ride. After 191 hours, I was saddened to be leaving Eivor and company behind, and you don’t experience that if the endeavor wasn’t worthwhile.
Notes
+The RPG elements began with Unity’s character customization/skillpoint acquisition and was further evolved in Syndicate outright having a leveling system. And both Egypt and England were not in their “ancient” status by historical standards.
++This question was actually directly posed to Darby during the aforementioned AMA. His response verbatim: “I'll never tell!”
+++Another thing Mr. McDevitt consistently hammered home during the AMA was Valhalla’s overarching impetus being the internal conflict Eivor contends with between her savage side (spurred by Odin) and more compassionate side, so wouldn’t a hypothetical success story from Styrbjorn’s part have contrasted well against the bloodthirsty warrior represented by Sigurd? I apologize for constantly whining about this story beat, but I cannot stress enough how disheartening it was to see a perfect build-up completely wasted.
-You’ve probably heard that Valhalla doesn’t have cloth physics, and the answer is both yes and no: there are animations for when you’re moving, but absolutely none for the elements (wind, in particular).
For a conventional spoiler-free review of the base game, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368448/
For the first DLC, Wrath of the Druids, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368450/
For the second DLC, The Siege of Paris, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368452/
For the third DLC, Dawn of Ragnarök, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368455/
The SFX has its pros and cons. On the plus side, this is the first time I was able to distinguish individualized beats for right & left footsteps in an AC Game, and considering the sheer amount of traveling you’ll be doing, it’s quite splendid to hear (expressly for horses!). Valhalla is also the first AC title to exhibit dismemberment and decapitation, and discerning such grisly cleavings via standard combat executions never gets old. The splintering of castle doors, clinking of loose metal on garments, bending of air around Sýnin and more are all signs of polished handiwork from Ubisoft’s artisans.
Sadly, these are partly counterbalanced by deficiencies, beginning with the sheer amount of rehashed dins from the prior RPG games: shattering pots, dragging barricades, crunching snow, whistling, stock animal growls, sail unmasting, fire burning, and others I’m sure I’m missing were blatantly transposed from Origins and Odyssey. And look, I know there’s only so much differentiation you can do with certain noises, but my point is that no initiative was made to even change them-up. Then again, maybe that was for the better as some of the fresh inclusions were not that good. For example, looting massive chests and completing raids produces this hooting that literally sounds like the chorus from Who Let the Dogs Out on steroids. Opening those coffers, in general, never feels invigorating courtesy of the lid removal having a generic sliding sound that’s not even properly-synchronized. Over and above that, atmospheric conditions are significantly diminished by ear: minus scripted sequences, elements like wind, snowfall, conflagrations, and rain come off as unnaturally-muted, which does hurt their visceralness. Like most AAA releases, Valhalla doesn’t feature any aural blemishes that’ll take you out of the game, but it definitely wasn’t as fortitive as it should have been.
I wish I could say the music atones for things, yet this was another area of disappointment for me. As you guys know, Valhalla marks Jesper Kyd’s grand return to the franchise after nine years, and there’s a reason that news generated a ton of hype: the Ezio scores are regarded as a high water mark for the series and his magnum opus as a whole. But it wasn’t just Jesper’s homecoming that was noteworthy: Sarah Schachner, who weaved the wonderful Origins OST, was announced as a co-composer, meaning nothing short of a masterpiece was expected from the duo.
Unfortunately, while you’ll no doubt find many fans who enjoyed their collaboration on Valhalla, I couldn’t help but feel letdown. The issue is Dark Age settings are inherently associated with symphonic orchestras: we’ve all listened to medieval tracks tinged with flute harmonies, brass fanfare, and of course string solos, and the fact of the matter is that none of those matched up with either musician’s prior arrangements (Jesper’s specialty being synths, Schachner’s electric instruments). Now of course, these are artists with longstanding resumes, and it’s very possible they’ve written music reminiscent of the Middle Age period that I’m simply not aware of but, regardless, their work in Valhalla felt very unnatural and subsequently non-enticing, often engaging in these heavy vocal and French Horn melodies, the former of which should’ve been up Jesper’s alley given his previous experience with choral music, but that ends up faltering due to it not resembling either monophonic chants or his famous carols. Nothing builds up to anything, instead occupying background harmonies that momentarily add a new leitmotif before returning to the shadows (the worst offender of this being the Raid strain, which sounds more like the accompaniment for a group of friars going horse cart racing than the bloody scene of their land being pillaged). Viewpoint tunes are a significant drop from Odyssey; the main theme is so forgettable, I literally had to look it up prior to typing this sentence (an absolute crime for an AC game); and, worst of all, Jesper’s revised version Ezio’s Family (aided by Einar Selvik) is relegated to the freakin’ credits, which, for the record, are a menu option and not mandatory). It’s really sad that Unity incorporated it better than its own maestro.
Obviously, not everything is dispiriting- some of the ambient tracks auxiliary to exploration are top notch, the Ravensthorpe theme is fantastic, and the shanties from your crewmen are the best the franchise has seen (though I suspect these were more Selvik’s creation). But considering everybody’s past body of work, Valhalla truly is a damp squib in this department. Reportedly, gamers were experiencing sound bugs that outright suppressed the music, and it pains me to say that those folks didn’t miss out on much.
On the note (no pun intended) of shanties, I’ll briefly go over the naval component of Valhalla as, unlike Black Flag, Rogue, and Odyssey, it’s not about maritime combat; theoretically, the purpose of the longboat is to merely transport you and your horde from place-to-place. However, the fact of the matter is you have mounts that do the exact same thing (aided by them being able to swim), making this apparent reasoning all but naught.
No, the sole intention behind the longboat was clearly to allow players to relive the Viking fantasy of coastal assaults, and the reality is that’s very shallow as, once you’re done plundering the abbeys, there is no other grounds for its existence. Sure, you can call your crew against the occasional camp scattered along the seaboard, but 9 times out of 10 it’s usually quicker to just solo it yourself. And listen, I would have no problem with this being a simple option for players, but the reason I’m complaining is because all those waterways they sculpted into the map make ground-based traversal between regions unnecessarily hamperful. While it’s not extraneous by any means, having to waste time paddling across tributaries whilst tracking down an orb gets tiring -- it reminded me too much of Venice from ACII, which suffered from similar qualms. I get that these rivers are probably historically accurate, but adding more bridges would’ve gone a long way towards making the amphibious transition more palatable. And speaking of bridges, I absolutely hate this instance during sailing wherein, everytime your boat approaches an overpass, your crew has to waste time slowing down and collapsing the mast (often causing it to clip with your tailpiece)- why not avoid the whole shebang and just make the structures taller? They already took a ton of creative liberty with the art assets anyway (as AskHistorians astutely assessed). And for those few of you who insist on traveling by sea, be prepared to get stuck on shorelines frequently (especially during turns) as your crew of @ssholes berate you.
The last major gameplay element is, of course, the skill tree, and it’s pretty bog standard insofar as RPGs go. Instead of levelling-up, you’re granted two points you can invest into one of three branching nodes representing combat, stealth, and archery, and thanks to the level cap not increasing between levels the way it typically does in other RPGs, you’re actually able to gather points at a reasonable pace without having to grind. In addition, Valhalla does away with Odyssey’s convoluted damage system in favor of consolidating everything into a singular “power level” that increases by two every time you invest in a slot, making it an enjoyable framework.
Now, I understand, there are some downsides to this more simplistic approach, mainly that gear boosts and builds don’t matter, but given that AC was never a hardcore role-playing series to begin with, I honestly didn’t mind the “return to roots” format, and it’s not like you’re less-incentivized to go loot scouring (avatar customization is an aesthetics-first enterprise after all).
Look, despite ending on that mini-rant, Valhalla actually ranks in my top 5 AC games of all time. It does a lot right for the franchise in terms of pioneering a better open world format, implementing balanced RPG mechanics, and (it goes without saying) fixing the modern-day after six entries of scattershot mediocrity. Eivor is another great protagonist, and given the sheer amount of hours of time you’ll be spending with him/her, it’s reassuring to know Ubisoft succeeded on this front. Yes there are a few botherations in the gameplay and narrative design you’ll have to contend with should you decide to embark on this long journey with the Vikingr, but as long as you know what you’re getting into, you’ll ultimately enjoy the ride. After 191 hours, I was saddened to be leaving Eivor and company behind, and you don’t experience that if the endeavor wasn’t worthwhile.
Notes
+The RPG elements began with Unity’s character customization/skillpoint acquisition and was further evolved in Syndicate outright having a leveling system. And both Egypt and England were not in their “ancient” status by historical standards.
++This question was actually directly posed to Darby during the aforementioned AMA. His response verbatim: “I'll never tell!”
+++Another thing Mr. McDevitt consistently hammered home during the AMA was Valhalla’s overarching impetus being the internal conflict Eivor contends with between her savage side (spurred by Odin) and more compassionate side, so wouldn’t a hypothetical success story from Styrbjorn’s part have contrasted well against the bloodthirsty warrior represented by Sigurd? I apologize for constantly whining about this story beat, but I cannot stress enough how disheartening it was to see a perfect build-up completely wasted.
-You’ve probably heard that Valhalla doesn’t have cloth physics, and the answer is both yes and no: there are animations for when you’re moving, but absolutely none for the elements (wind, in particular).
TBD
Note - game received for free as part of a review code
Ressifice is an indie throwback to the Splatterhouse games of yore wherein you were tasked with killing scores of ghouls in atypical gory fashion. Question is, how well does it hold up to its progenitors? Well, as someone who never played them, I can’t say, though, on its own merits, it’s a nice enough diversion for the $1.00 asking price.
As it’ll literally take you less than an hour to beat Ressifice, I won’t frolic around too much. Graphically, this is a superb structure, combining early-2000s pixel art with some bloody Halloween aesthetics. This is a dark, hematic place, chock-full of monsters ready to rip apart unwary teenagers too cool for their own good, and while there are only three-or-so beasts in the entire game, each are excellent crafted, boasting an executioner’s hood and piercing maroon eyes (the bigger ones even holding visual throwbacks to such classic entities as Cthulhu and Jason). I was particularly impressed by the unique death animations, their intricacy showcasing some quality (though twisted!) artwork ala self-hanging suicides.
Backgrounds are plain yet foreboding, their compositions also bearing throwbacks to popular horror settings like Camp Crystal Lake and Burkittsville Forest. On top of this, the game, as a whole, features some surprisingly organic lighting that periodically shows up via fireflies, candlesticks, and good old-fashioned electricity. The human models, particularly your protagonist, are arguably the low-point in terms of their plainclothes appearance, but given that this was obviously the intention, that’s not saying much.
The only thing that kind of bothered me were the purple smears which accompanied your bat’s swinging, as the color felt out-of-place amidst the backdrops as well as the bat itself; however, as you guys can tell, this is a heavy nitpick -- the truth is Ressifice is a superbly-crafted title that successfully evokes grody nostalgia.
Music and SFX are pretty limited, though what you hear is trusty enough. The haunting melody cues that play every time you successfully complete a puzzle (more on that below) are particularly memorable, and while I would’ve liked a stronger crackle behind your club’s impacts, the minimized impingement won’t distract you as you’re mowing down scores upon scores of demons.
This brings me to the gameplay. As stated in the first sentence, Ressifice plays like a sanguine Namco beat’em up wherein you’re tasked with killing everything that stands between you and the exit. It’s a simple system of swinging & dodging, and though you’ll die frequently courtesy of the low health bar, the abundance of autosaves essentially provides you with nigh-immortality. In fact, I kind of wish the game had gone all-out with the power fantasy aspect: spam more monsters, increase your attack power, and do away with all HP. It wouldn’t have hurt the gameplay given the plethora of save states, and might’ve actually made things more fun considering how frustrating the three-hit health bar could get.
Outside of killing, your real quest is to escape this spooky world, your method of doing so being the assemblage of several painted skulls. There are some light puzzles involved as far as unlocking certain abodes to acquire them, but they won’t take-up much brainpower to resolve.
Honestly, the biggest problems I had with the game design were two-fold: one, the amount of respawning enemies -- they’re not only annoying to deal with, but inconsistently generated (some appear in specific spots, others will pop-up several blocks down); and two, the lack of a quick load function, forcing you to manually click the restart button each time with the mouse.
Storywise, Ressifice isn’t going to win any awards, taking the typical man vs. gothic monster template and doing little to mould it. The writers did try and shove some tongue-in-cheek humor into the script; however, the short length of the game combined with the lack of a real mythology prevents these from being anything more than cornbread comedy. I was also irked by the font projection, it often being too wide, too crunched, and too quickly generated for pleasant reading.
Overall, Ressifice is a case of what you see is what you get. If you grew-up with the Splatterhouse series (or its many scions), you’ll absolutely enjoy your time here -- all others, best look elsewhere.
NOTES
-Dialogue in the beginning of the game is rendered through a beat system that sounds like Japanese in reverse.
Ressifice is an indie throwback to the Splatterhouse games of yore wherein you were tasked with killing scores of ghouls in atypical gory fashion. Question is, how well does it hold up to its progenitors? Well, as someone who never played them, I can’t say, though, on its own merits, it’s a nice enough diversion for the $1.00 asking price.
As it’ll literally take you less than an hour to beat Ressifice, I won’t frolic around too much. Graphically, this is a superb structure, combining early-2000s pixel art with some bloody Halloween aesthetics. This is a dark, hematic place, chock-full of monsters ready to rip apart unwary teenagers too cool for their own good, and while there are only three-or-so beasts in the entire game, each are excellent crafted, boasting an executioner’s hood and piercing maroon eyes (the bigger ones even holding visual throwbacks to such classic entities as Cthulhu and Jason). I was particularly impressed by the unique death animations, their intricacy showcasing some quality (though twisted!) artwork ala self-hanging suicides.
Backgrounds are plain yet foreboding, their compositions also bearing throwbacks to popular horror settings like Camp Crystal Lake and Burkittsville Forest. On top of this, the game, as a whole, features some surprisingly organic lighting that periodically shows up via fireflies, candlesticks, and good old-fashioned electricity. The human models, particularly your protagonist, are arguably the low-point in terms of their plainclothes appearance, but given that this was obviously the intention, that’s not saying much.
The only thing that kind of bothered me were the purple smears which accompanied your bat’s swinging, as the color felt out-of-place amidst the backdrops as well as the bat itself; however, as you guys can tell, this is a heavy nitpick -- the truth is Ressifice is a superbly-crafted title that successfully evokes grody nostalgia.
Music and SFX are pretty limited, though what you hear is trusty enough. The haunting melody cues that play every time you successfully complete a puzzle (more on that below) are particularly memorable, and while I would’ve liked a stronger crackle behind your club’s impacts, the minimized impingement won’t distract you as you’re mowing down scores upon scores of demons.
This brings me to the gameplay. As stated in the first sentence, Ressifice plays like a sanguine Namco beat’em up wherein you’re tasked with killing everything that stands between you and the exit. It’s a simple system of swinging & dodging, and though you’ll die frequently courtesy of the low health bar, the abundance of autosaves essentially provides you with nigh-immortality. In fact, I kind of wish the game had gone all-out with the power fantasy aspect: spam more monsters, increase your attack power, and do away with all HP. It wouldn’t have hurt the gameplay given the plethora of save states, and might’ve actually made things more fun considering how frustrating the three-hit health bar could get.
Outside of killing, your real quest is to escape this spooky world, your method of doing so being the assemblage of several painted skulls. There are some light puzzles involved as far as unlocking certain abodes to acquire them, but they won’t take-up much brainpower to resolve.
Honestly, the biggest problems I had with the game design were two-fold: one, the amount of respawning enemies -- they’re not only annoying to deal with, but inconsistently generated (some appear in specific spots, others will pop-up several blocks down); and two, the lack of a quick load function, forcing you to manually click the restart button each time with the mouse.
Storywise, Ressifice isn’t going to win any awards, taking the typical man vs. gothic monster template and doing little to mould it. The writers did try and shove some tongue-in-cheek humor into the script; however, the short length of the game combined with the lack of a real mythology prevents these from being anything more than cornbread comedy. I was also irked by the font projection, it often being too wide, too crunched, and too quickly generated for pleasant reading.
Overall, Ressifice is a case of what you see is what you get. If you grew-up with the Splatterhouse series (or its many scions), you’ll absolutely enjoy your time here -- all others, best look elsewhere.
NOTES
-Dialogue in the beginning of the game is rendered through a beat system that sounds like Japanese in reverse.
2013
Long before I decided to become a reviewer, I used to jot down brief thoughts on the games I was playing in order to capture my feelings at the moment of completion for personal archival purposes. Since then, I’ve of course evolved my craft into full-fledged write-ups, but I do think there is enough merit to some of these earlier critiques to warrant their publication, especially for titles I do not intend on replaying (in the near future at least). I’ve thrown in some updates, but this is one of them.
STORY
-Premise is basic - father died and left behind a mine to his son Rusty, which you have to go through to discover what secrets he was creating/hiding. Nothing else narrative-heavy happens that I can recall. The ending does try to be semi-emotional, but fails because of the lack of real development between Rusty and the townsfolk.
-Would've liked to have seen the lore of the game expanded upon. It's cool seeing all these creatures, but you don't get to know much about them outside of brief mentions from the townsfolk (i.e. Shiners being partially responsible for the creation of steambots).
-Some satirical writing, but surprisingly light on spoofing western tropes despite the homages (the tagline is literally called "A Fistful of Dirt").
GRAPHICS
-Graphics are great, looking akin to those flash animations you’d seen on Newgrounds with bold outlines combined with steampunk and weird western aesthetics. Some really beautifully colored interiors, particularly as you get deeper into the Earth.
SOUND
-No voice acting, just hit-or-miss vocalized noises like in Skyward Sword (the fat salesman's tone, in particular, being REALLY annoying).
-All the items sound good. Explosions, whether you're using dynamite or hitting a TNT barrel or dodging a suicidal robot, have the same stock noise though regardless of quantity. Same with enemies dying.
GAMEPLAY
-Game initially feels like a lovechild between Minecraft and the Snowmuncher minigame from Neopets, albeit with a surprising amount of platforming and RPG mechanics. Unfortunately, the game is too short to really capitalize on either of those elements.
-Some Metroidvania aspects since you can discover secret areas and have to revisit previous levels. However, regarding the latter, that part only happens at the end and there's a quest arrow to help you, which I liked but others probably won't.
-At $10.00 it gives you about 4-5 hours of gameplay, so it just barely passes my rule for a buy. However, be warned that the pacing is all over the place - the first couple of hours feel like forever, while the ending is rushed.
-Then again, that does make sense given that the more upgrades you have, the faster you dig. However, all the upgrade options end up being pointless since you don't need the lion’s share of them to advance further. You may ask "what about strategy?" And I suppose there is some of that, but really you'll be fine so long as you adopt an “all-around” strategy in terms of getting a decent amount of armor, decent amount of water tanks, and so forth.
-.Also upgrades for your pickaxe are as worthless as the melee upgrades in the first Deus Ex since the vast majority of players will just utilize the faster drill for navigating. The only thing the pickaxe ends-up being good for in the long-run is getting through crates (of which there are very few) and hitting one of the bosses (which you can either way do, albeit longer, with the drill).
-I like how the underworld stays the same as when you leave it. There's a bit of a Minecraft element to it in that regard. Transitions are extremely smooth from place-to-place.
-One thing I was mixed on were the respawning enemies and minerals: repeat enemies were annoying to deal with while the minerals made the game significantly easier since you could theoretically just exit and reenter a place to farm the same minerals ad nauseam.
-Inventory management makes no sense- I could never tell if I was close to being full since there's no indication as far as I could tell. Also, the game goes out of its way to separate the minerals, which, while a cool touch, ultimately remains pointless since I doubt anyone will go out of their way to discard and replace minerals they find.
-Didn't like that you could only lay one teleporter to return to the surface. Should've been able to create several throughout the world as it’s a pain to backtrack, especially towards the endgame.
-Cannot use ladders or lanterns inside the levels. Can use dynamite though. Dying inside them luckily restarts from within so you don't have to go back to them from the surface.
-Experience (i.e., money) expands the town with new shops, but is again underutilized.
-All the upgrades are cool. I liked how water was the source for most of them.
-You get something called a "mineral detector," but I honestly have no idea what it did, if anything.
VERDICT
-Despite my negatives, I cannot deny that Steamworld Dig is addicting. I loved excavating further and further into the underground to discover new areas and secrets (especially since it wasn't procedurally-generated). It feels a bit grindy at first until you get the drill (about 1-2 hours in), but outside of that the game does a good job making you feel like you're progressing forward.
STORY
-Premise is basic - father died and left behind a mine to his son Rusty, which you have to go through to discover what secrets he was creating/hiding. Nothing else narrative-heavy happens that I can recall. The ending does try to be semi-emotional, but fails because of the lack of real development between Rusty and the townsfolk.
-Would've liked to have seen the lore of the game expanded upon. It's cool seeing all these creatures, but you don't get to know much about them outside of brief mentions from the townsfolk (i.e. Shiners being partially responsible for the creation of steambots).
-Some satirical writing, but surprisingly light on spoofing western tropes despite the homages (the tagline is literally called "A Fistful of Dirt").
GRAPHICS
-Graphics are great, looking akin to those flash animations you’d seen on Newgrounds with bold outlines combined with steampunk and weird western aesthetics. Some really beautifully colored interiors, particularly as you get deeper into the Earth.
SOUND
-No voice acting, just hit-or-miss vocalized noises like in Skyward Sword (the fat salesman's tone, in particular, being REALLY annoying).
-All the items sound good. Explosions, whether you're using dynamite or hitting a TNT barrel or dodging a suicidal robot, have the same stock noise though regardless of quantity. Same with enemies dying.
GAMEPLAY
-Game initially feels like a lovechild between Minecraft and the Snowmuncher minigame from Neopets, albeit with a surprising amount of platforming and RPG mechanics. Unfortunately, the game is too short to really capitalize on either of those elements.
-Some Metroidvania aspects since you can discover secret areas and have to revisit previous levels. However, regarding the latter, that part only happens at the end and there's a quest arrow to help you, which I liked but others probably won't.
-At $10.00 it gives you about 4-5 hours of gameplay, so it just barely passes my rule for a buy. However, be warned that the pacing is all over the place - the first couple of hours feel like forever, while the ending is rushed.
-Then again, that does make sense given that the more upgrades you have, the faster you dig. However, all the upgrade options end up being pointless since you don't need the lion’s share of them to advance further. You may ask "what about strategy?" And I suppose there is some of that, but really you'll be fine so long as you adopt an “all-around” strategy in terms of getting a decent amount of armor, decent amount of water tanks, and so forth.
-.Also upgrades for your pickaxe are as worthless as the melee upgrades in the first Deus Ex since the vast majority of players will just utilize the faster drill for navigating. The only thing the pickaxe ends-up being good for in the long-run is getting through crates (of which there are very few) and hitting one of the bosses (which you can either way do, albeit longer, with the drill).
-I like how the underworld stays the same as when you leave it. There's a bit of a Minecraft element to it in that regard. Transitions are extremely smooth from place-to-place.
-One thing I was mixed on were the respawning enemies and minerals: repeat enemies were annoying to deal with while the minerals made the game significantly easier since you could theoretically just exit and reenter a place to farm the same minerals ad nauseam.
-Inventory management makes no sense- I could never tell if I was close to being full since there's no indication as far as I could tell. Also, the game goes out of its way to separate the minerals, which, while a cool touch, ultimately remains pointless since I doubt anyone will go out of their way to discard and replace minerals they find.
-Didn't like that you could only lay one teleporter to return to the surface. Should've been able to create several throughout the world as it’s a pain to backtrack, especially towards the endgame.
-Cannot use ladders or lanterns inside the levels. Can use dynamite though. Dying inside them luckily restarts from within so you don't have to go back to them from the surface.
-Experience (i.e., money) expands the town with new shops, but is again underutilized.
-All the upgrades are cool. I liked how water was the source for most of them.
-You get something called a "mineral detector," but I honestly have no idea what it did, if anything.
VERDICT
-Despite my negatives, I cannot deny that Steamworld Dig is addicting. I loved excavating further and further into the underground to discover new areas and secrets (especially since it wasn't procedurally-generated). It feels a bit grindy at first until you get the drill (about 1-2 hours in), but outside of that the game does a good job making you feel like you're progressing forward.
2013
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom of the review
The Swapper is a terrific platformer wrapped in a half-sown skin, one part seeking to combine the atmospheric tension of Super Metroid with the other's genuinely-awesome gimmick, and while I wish the game had succeeded on both fronts, its triumph with the latter more than makes it worth playing.
Because I wish to rave extensive praise on the game, I’ll get the negatives out of the way regarding its story - you play as a female spacefarer stuck on a dilapidated station following a botched landing (no context is given as to where she came from as far as I could tell). You quickly learn this place is a research facility called Theseus that was home to the Swapper Project - a firearm-like tool capable of transferring one’s soul across multiple clones. Logs laden throughout the satellite’s computers detail what transpired prior to your arrival, disclosing a chilling backstory in the process….or so it was intended. The Swapper’s biggest issues are that it doesn’t really lean into its existential horror motifs, nor delve deep into those philosophical concepts hinted at in said data files.
With the former, your heroine is silent, meaning she inherently stopgaps any attempts at dread: there are no reactions to the usage of the Swapper, no commentary on the fates of the scientists, no expressions toward any revelations she uncovers, nothing. I get that Facepalm Games were trying to pay homage to Samus; however, given that The Swapper is about questioning one’s humanity, I just don’t think that choice was a wise decision. Fears about the human condition can only go so far amidst faceless responses, and if your character is basically treating everything like another Tuesday, it makes it very hard to invest in the going-ons about you.
Fans may retort how a mute protagonist is intended to be a proxy for the player, but without a choice system, I’ve never bought into that argument - when you’re simply observing everything like a pedestrian, it rarely feels like you’re imbibing your character psychosocially; your role better described as a camera operator in charge of recording said character. Relatability and connections are formulated through dialogue, and when you render your protagonist aphasic, you end-up disabling a necessary supplement to your story.
This facet partially afflicts the aforestated secondary qualm of shallow philosophy which, as you may imagine, The Swapper indulges in via concepts of transhumanism and solipsism. Unfortunately, if you were hoping for another game akin to SOMA, you’re better off looking elsewhere as the writers here were content with making marginal allusions to these ideas over something profounder. Now, to be fair, I don’t think it was ever their intention to write-up a Newtonian-esque essay on the topic, and I did actually appreciate them leaving things up to interpretation compared to SOMA’s insistence on a singular hypothesis; however, the fact stands that their take was ultimately scattershot, with the ending, in particular, losing all edge (you’ll know it when you play it).
But look, if you’ve heard of The Swapper, chances are it was because of the fascinating gameplay, and on that front the developers more than succeeded. From the get-go you’re gifted the ability to craft four clones and switch between each body, the remaining dolls mimicking your movements ala the Piped Piper for-better-and-for-worse. The Theseus is a gigantic behemoth host to tens of rooms serving as organic levels, and the creativity Facepalm managed to wring out of this premise blew my mind. Outside of a few stages I admittedly had to look-up the answers to, The Swapper’s biggest feat is that it’s completely solvable through good old-fashioned deductive reasoning: because you aren’t dealing with innumerable power-ups or new gameplay mechanics every few minutes, you’re constantly aware of what can or can’t be done within a region, and that goes a long way towards making them scrutable amidst their countless reworkings. Combine this with the bitesize level design and ability to slowdown time between transfers, and you’ve got an addicting gameplay loop that never gets old.
The aesthetics surrounding these stages are concurrently aided-and-impeded by the visuals. See, The Swapper has been praised for having a surreal-like quality to its presentation, this claim no doubt owing to the excessive particles everywhere: dust, motes, and mists ground into a frame of blurry extravaganza, and on the one hand, it does a phenomenal job accenting the numerous colored rays within the Theseus’s hull, but on the other, I couldn’t help feeling like most of this was done less for the sake of atmosphere and more for the sake of hiding some messy geometry latent in the game’s modeling. It’s well-known that Facepalm utilized clay to build their assets, and while such sculptures are absolute works of art, they’re unfortunately offset by an inherent squishiness to their composure that intrinsically limits texturing. As a result of this hazy technique, I’d argue a fair amount of recurrent simulacra, including the backgrounds, crates, portals, and wall-lining, looked a bit too bleary, though others like the hatches, signs, switches, and rocks remained excellent.
The Swapper is a dark game, but thankfully never slips into overly-dim territory courtesy of your torch as well as consistent multicolored spotlights hung throughout the areas. True, the Theseus, as a whole, is decked in blue/grey tones, and while that may offput Metroid enthusiasts expecting somber rainbows, I think it works well for the kind of title Facepalm was trying to craft.
Sadly, I never quite got taken in by The Swapper’s atmosphere, and that largely had to do with the minimal ambient noise on display: echoes only resound during certain portions, footsteps are consistently muted, and you can’t walk anywhere, preventing that slow burn typical of high tension. Luckily the remaining SFX is solid enough, with some of my favorites including portal warping, machinery beeps, the crunch of a collapsing clone, and the masterpiece that was airlock transitions.
The OST by Carlo Castellano is interesting in that it opts for relatively-peaceful melodies over those moody lo-fi tunes depressing space games like Swapper tend to hold. There’s an interesting dichotomy at-play of calming piano chords against the corporeal suicide runs most of the levels entail, but it’s one you’ll ultimately enjoy due to the calming nature of the music in sum.
There is voice acting, particularly as it pertains to the divulgence of the Theseus’s history, but as it entails spoilers, I’ll reserve my thoughts on the matter to the very bottom(+).
In the end, The Swapper is more than worth your time. Yes, the story isn’t as fleshed out as it could have been, and you’ll definitely have some growing pains with both the twin stick format and slightly floaty jump, but master these and you’ll enjoy a severely-underappreciated puzzle platformer.
NOTES
-The game has an opening cinematic, which is quite good though part of me wonders if the devs would’ve been better off saving that money by using white-on-black text. Might’ve made things more mysterious.
-I liked the bending effect that occurred whenever you used a warp gate.
-Side doors in Swapper are clear homages to Metroid.
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SPOILERS
+Basically you intermittently encounter another survivor who’s actually three separate entities in one: the original scavenger plus two scientists who created the Swapper. Personally, I don’t think the actress behind the Scavenger did a particularly great job as she just wasn’t able to accurately individuate the three personalities inhabiting her like Joanne Woodward or James McAvoy did in their respective roles, though I’ll at least agree that her base voice acting was fine (ditto to the original voices behind the two doctors themselves pre-merger).
The other instance of major voice acting arrives at the finale with the rescue crew, and the distortion effect placed upon their microphones made it too hard to accurately judge their performances.
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The Swapper is a terrific platformer wrapped in a half-sown skin, one part seeking to combine the atmospheric tension of Super Metroid with the other's genuinely-awesome gimmick, and while I wish the game had succeeded on both fronts, its triumph with the latter more than makes it worth playing.
Because I wish to rave extensive praise on the game, I’ll get the negatives out of the way regarding its story - you play as a female spacefarer stuck on a dilapidated station following a botched landing (no context is given as to where she came from as far as I could tell). You quickly learn this place is a research facility called Theseus that was home to the Swapper Project - a firearm-like tool capable of transferring one’s soul across multiple clones. Logs laden throughout the satellite’s computers detail what transpired prior to your arrival, disclosing a chilling backstory in the process….or so it was intended. The Swapper’s biggest issues are that it doesn’t really lean into its existential horror motifs, nor delve deep into those philosophical concepts hinted at in said data files.
With the former, your heroine is silent, meaning she inherently stopgaps any attempts at dread: there are no reactions to the usage of the Swapper, no commentary on the fates of the scientists, no expressions toward any revelations she uncovers, nothing. I get that Facepalm Games were trying to pay homage to Samus; however, given that The Swapper is about questioning one’s humanity, I just don’t think that choice was a wise decision. Fears about the human condition can only go so far amidst faceless responses, and if your character is basically treating everything like another Tuesday, it makes it very hard to invest in the going-ons about you.
Fans may retort how a mute protagonist is intended to be a proxy for the player, but without a choice system, I’ve never bought into that argument - when you’re simply observing everything like a pedestrian, it rarely feels like you’re imbibing your character psychosocially; your role better described as a camera operator in charge of recording said character. Relatability and connections are formulated through dialogue, and when you render your protagonist aphasic, you end-up disabling a necessary supplement to your story.
This facet partially afflicts the aforestated secondary qualm of shallow philosophy which, as you may imagine, The Swapper indulges in via concepts of transhumanism and solipsism. Unfortunately, if you were hoping for another game akin to SOMA, you’re better off looking elsewhere as the writers here were content with making marginal allusions to these ideas over something profounder. Now, to be fair, I don’t think it was ever their intention to write-up a Newtonian-esque essay on the topic, and I did actually appreciate them leaving things up to interpretation compared to SOMA’s insistence on a singular hypothesis; however, the fact stands that their take was ultimately scattershot, with the ending, in particular, losing all edge (you’ll know it when you play it).
But look, if you’ve heard of The Swapper, chances are it was because of the fascinating gameplay, and on that front the developers more than succeeded. From the get-go you’re gifted the ability to craft four clones and switch between each body, the remaining dolls mimicking your movements ala the Piped Piper for-better-and-for-worse. The Theseus is a gigantic behemoth host to tens of rooms serving as organic levels, and the creativity Facepalm managed to wring out of this premise blew my mind. Outside of a few stages I admittedly had to look-up the answers to, The Swapper’s biggest feat is that it’s completely solvable through good old-fashioned deductive reasoning: because you aren’t dealing with innumerable power-ups or new gameplay mechanics every few minutes, you’re constantly aware of what can or can’t be done within a region, and that goes a long way towards making them scrutable amidst their countless reworkings. Combine this with the bitesize level design and ability to slowdown time between transfers, and you’ve got an addicting gameplay loop that never gets old.
The aesthetics surrounding these stages are concurrently aided-and-impeded by the visuals. See, The Swapper has been praised for having a surreal-like quality to its presentation, this claim no doubt owing to the excessive particles everywhere: dust, motes, and mists ground into a frame of blurry extravaganza, and on the one hand, it does a phenomenal job accenting the numerous colored rays within the Theseus’s hull, but on the other, I couldn’t help feeling like most of this was done less for the sake of atmosphere and more for the sake of hiding some messy geometry latent in the game’s modeling. It’s well-known that Facepalm utilized clay to build their assets, and while such sculptures are absolute works of art, they’re unfortunately offset by an inherent squishiness to their composure that intrinsically limits texturing. As a result of this hazy technique, I’d argue a fair amount of recurrent simulacra, including the backgrounds, crates, portals, and wall-lining, looked a bit too bleary, though others like the hatches, signs, switches, and rocks remained excellent.
The Swapper is a dark game, but thankfully never slips into overly-dim territory courtesy of your torch as well as consistent multicolored spotlights hung throughout the areas. True, the Theseus, as a whole, is decked in blue/grey tones, and while that may offput Metroid enthusiasts expecting somber rainbows, I think it works well for the kind of title Facepalm was trying to craft.
Sadly, I never quite got taken in by The Swapper’s atmosphere, and that largely had to do with the minimal ambient noise on display: echoes only resound during certain portions, footsteps are consistently muted, and you can’t walk anywhere, preventing that slow burn typical of high tension. Luckily the remaining SFX is solid enough, with some of my favorites including portal warping, machinery beeps, the crunch of a collapsing clone, and the masterpiece that was airlock transitions.
The OST by Carlo Castellano is interesting in that it opts for relatively-peaceful melodies over those moody lo-fi tunes depressing space games like Swapper tend to hold. There’s an interesting dichotomy at-play of calming piano chords against the corporeal suicide runs most of the levels entail, but it’s one you’ll ultimately enjoy due to the calming nature of the music in sum.
There is voice acting, particularly as it pertains to the divulgence of the Theseus’s history, but as it entails spoilers, I’ll reserve my thoughts on the matter to the very bottom(+).
In the end, The Swapper is more than worth your time. Yes, the story isn’t as fleshed out as it could have been, and you’ll definitely have some growing pains with both the twin stick format and slightly floaty jump, but master these and you’ll enjoy a severely-underappreciated puzzle platformer.
NOTES
-The game has an opening cinematic, which is quite good though part of me wonders if the devs would’ve been better off saving that money by using white-on-black text. Might’ve made things more mysterious.
-I liked the bending effect that occurred whenever you used a warp gate.
-Side doors in Swapper are clear homages to Metroid.
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SPOILERS
+Basically you intermittently encounter another survivor who’s actually three separate entities in one: the original scavenger plus two scientists who created the Swapper. Personally, I don’t think the actress behind the Scavenger did a particularly great job as she just wasn’t able to accurately individuate the three personalities inhabiting her like Joanne Woodward or James McAvoy did in their respective roles, though I’ll at least agree that her base voice acting was fine (ditto to the original voices behind the two doctors themselves pre-merger).
The other instance of major voice acting arrives at the finale with the rescue crew, and the distortion effect placed upon their microphones made it too hard to accurately judge their performances.
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2019
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom of the review
Resident Evil 2 is a magnificent feat- an example of how to remake a classic without alienating old fans. Take a look at any gameplay trailer and you’ll see exactly what I mean: AAA graphics, sharp gunplay, and quality-of-life features balanced against that old-school layout of tight corridors & inventory management. It remains a perennial paragon of authentic love, and should always be analyzed by those seeking to relaunch past titles.
And yet, I couldn’t help but be disappointed, a large part of that dejection admittedly having less to do with the game and more to do with core aspects of RE’s DNA that haven't aged well, the worst being the sheer amount of backtracking and lame puzzles galore. During the first 40-50% of the game, you’re forced to engage in multiple tedious fetch quests as you move between parts of a dilapidated police station in search of objects to use with other objects, and while retreading old ground isn’t inherently bad, what makes it particularly egregious here is the fact that nothing is ever changed - you’re going to see the exact same enemies in the exact same areas. Because you know where everyone is and how they act, there’s a diminished sense of tension akin to replaying a title for the second or third time, and it honestly ended-up getting very boring.
I might’ve been able to tolerate things had the item retrieval been fun, but as I alluded to above, it’s quite the opposite. In the first Resident Evil, a fair amount of objects were hidden behind puzzles you had to put some degree of thought into, like the light paintings, eagle statues, or needle wall room. Here, though, there’s nothing of the sort- minus one generator alignment, you’re literally just gathering glorified keys to put into glorified locks, and combined with the aforementioned enemy monotony, it ultimately wasn’t fun for me. To the game’s credit, a new foe is introduced halfway through this section as a means of spicing things up; however, given that they have their own slew of problems, it’s slim pickings at best(+).
Now, I did stress 40% as, once you leave the precinct for good, the game becomes significantly better: there’s less backtracking, a lot more zombie variety, and even the puzzle solving reverts to requiring an inkling of intelligence. Many fans will claim that things turn too linear compared to the station, and though that is true, I’d argue the change actually accentuates the horror since the devs are able to craft more-unique, scripted sequences compared to the prior areas of spammed zombies and extraneous jump scares.
It’s a shame it takes so long for the gameplay to get enticing because the shooting & running mechanics are actually quite good - guns respond well, and popping a headshot to slip past some braindead cretin never loses its edge. Really I’d argue the only dock against the enterprise arises in the form of the boss fights, wherein your character’s lack of a dodge renders plain encounters unnecessarily frustrating.
Speaking of the characters, they represent another latent issue with RE’s DNA that the remake simply couldn’t extract, that being the inherent campiness of the script. In a horror-themed video game set amidst a nightmarish outbreak, you’d expect a basic degree of humanism in the cast, yet what you get instead are traits more akin to an 80s action flick. I can only speak for Leon’s story since he was the one I chose, but I kid you not when I say the man shouts off more “cool” one-liners than Arnold in Batman & Robin. He has no reaction to the concept of zombies whatsoever, is hardly fazed by any of the crazy stuff he encounters, adopts a macho man approach to every ordeal, and boasts dramedic dialogue straight out of an action hero movie. I’d call this a case of Kagome Syndrome, but considering the game, as a whole, is full of campy moments beyond Leon (and considering too how heavily reminiscent everything is of Resident Evil 1), I’m convinced that this was deliberately done as a means of staying true to the OG game.
Of course, a horror comedy or satire isn’t intrinsically awful, but the problem is RE2 wants to have its cake and eat it too -- it wants to be a scary game about the aftereffects of corporate anarchy, yet can’t help undercutting these moments with inherently silly dialogue or situations (++). Leon’s a likable enough guy, but by the end I stopped caring about his overarching plot due to the writers clearly not having any interest in an atmospherically-cogent tale.
On the topic of atmosphere, RE2’s last big criticism has to go towards its sound scheme, which is flawed in two bigs ways: first the directional output is abysmal, with zombies screams reverberating so loudly, you can never tell where they’re originating from (I get that this was probably intentional, but if so, it comes across as heavily-manufactured fear). The second, arguably greater sin, though, involves the game being deliberately designed for headphone users (at least on PC). Now, it’s an objective fact that horror games are more immersive when played with earphones; however, it’s also an objective fact that a video game shouldn’t be reliant on such devices for the sake of engrossment, and that’s exactly the problem with RE2. If you don’t play with a pair of receivers, expect a general softness to everything but the footsteps and monster cries, with ambient noises, in particular getting diminished the hardest. Don’t get me wrong, RE2’s atmosphere is definitely nerve wrenching at times; it’s just not consistent unless you’re willing to self-induce long-term hearing damage (+++).
It’s disappointing as the overall sound design, besides those two caveats, is actually really solid, with the classic echoing of footsteps producing the most fear regardless of the surface you’re clamoring on. This diversity extends to every enemy archetype, all of whom you’ll be able to aurally-distinguish by virtue of their movements or calls alone (which you’ll become very intimate with in light of the constant backtracking).
Bullet impacts are a bit more erratic as, while impact variation does exist, it can be hit-or-miss whether or not the appropriate din plays. I shot at metal containers, for example, that sounded like stone, and glass, as a whole, lacks individuation. However, the burst of soft flesh never grows tiring, and when those aforementioned ambient noises do play (shattered windows, inclement weather, splashes, distant rumbles), they are absolutely riveting (zombie smashings against closed doors, in particular, being habitually haunting).
Voice acting unfortunately suffers from the tonal inconsistencies of the story: I don’t think any of the actors chosen were amateurs, but they can’t help coming across that way in light of the poor framing and direction surrounding their output. I’m not lying when I say some of the best performances derive from optional videos and tapes you stumble across, and that probably has to do with the directors treating those scenes seriously compared to almost everything else.
In terms of the main cast, though, I’d say Karen Strassman’s Annette Birkin ends-up the strongest of the bunch as every time she came on screen, it genuinely felt like she was in a completely different project from the rest of her mates. The worst offender, on the other hand, goes to Nick Apostolides’s Leon, who fails to nail both the “tough guy” and dry humor attitudes of his protagonist (not to mention him literally sounding Ed Norton if Ed Norton’s testicles never dropped).
Finally, the OST by Shusaku Uchiyama, Zhenlan Kang, and Masami Ueda is sufficient. It’s very much one of those Brown Noise-ridden scores that successfully underlines whatever is occurring in-game at the expense of not holding much resonance outside the work. There are times where the trio indulge in tracks beyond their normal scope, such as the synth-ridden bass of Black Impact, more-orchestral Third Demise, or Lorne Balfe-esque Mournful Pursuit, but overall it’s definitely not an album you’ll be listening to outside the game.
The next area to talk about are the graphics, which remain RE2’s most polished facet by far as this is a gorgeous specimen, with not a single area ignored in terms of texturing or general visilitude. Environments are liable to receiving the most praise courtesy of Capcom’s artisans doing a phenomenal job of not only lifting the sixth-gen style of the original game, but combining it with absolutely superb 3D modeling: from something as simple as a cracked desk to the specific placement of bloodstains, this is one of those games you can tell had strong art direction conveyed between the head designers and arthouse department. Every location resembles architecture straight out of hell, as though no one had a chance to evacuate courtesy of the T-Virus’s instant infection rate.
Unfortunately, I can’t really rave to you guys about any minor details the developers laid out due to a central problem core to RE2 - it’s ridiculously-dim lighting. I get that this is a horror game, but considering the plethora of similar genre fare that haven’t had to indulge in overly-dark settings, there was no reason why I had to strain my eyes every time I entered some ill-lit hallway. The flashlight itself shines fine; however, it’s a band-aid, not a cure, with the overarching darkness occasionally making it impossible to even see items in your vicinity (thankfully the new map system alleviates this, though more on that later).
Regarding graphical feats I could discern, I have to give an immense shout-out to the textile modelers as they went all-out. The T-Virus wasn’t isolated to singular demographics: you’ll run into innumerable populations reflecting the extent of Raccoon City’s damage, and the fact that I could discern what these victims used to do for a living solely by their attire is a testament to the design craft. Leon, especially, was fantastic - everything about his figure, from the placement of pouches to the seaming of the padding, was perfect, and seeing it sustain damage over time Arkham Asylum-style stood as an exquisite touch by the artisans.
Besides that, you’ve got some nice animation work implemented on various enemies and NPCs, including: falling zombie flesh contingent on damage, Leon raising his arms protectively against fire-and-rain, Claire’s hair physics, Leon shaking his arms to dry-off, undead “corpses” displaying subtle signs of movement, Leon exhibiting pain ala clutching his stomach, wincing, and grunting, and more I’m sure I’m missing due to the inherent umbra surrounding everything.
I’d say my only graphical complaints concerned two very minor minutiae: the first is the presence of trickling water on brick-based walls as it came across as a little too artificial-looking, and the second is the absence of destructible simulacra beyond scripted events (I know this is a largely-difficult facet to implement in video games, but to not even have breakable glass was disappointing).
Given the strong acclaim behind RE2, I do want to end this review on a positive note if only to highlight the quality-of-life features hinted at in the beginning. Anyone who read my review of REmake knows that I felt its minimal gameplay improvements from the original Biohazard significantly degraded the overall experience. Luckily, however, that kind of nostalgiabait didn’t guide the personnel behind RE2R as they’ve gone out of their way to make the game far more open to conventional players: objects can be dropped, ink ribbons are nonexistent, autosaves sprout after key storybeats, you periodically obtain upgrades to your inventory, the opening logos can be skipped, door loading screens have been removed, and, best of all, your map marks leftover items, obstacle names, and specific doorlocks for each and every room, providing some temperament to the backtracking.
But as a complete product, I do think the Resident Evil 2 Remake has been unduly praised beyond its tangible facets - it’s a good game, but unless you’re a fan of classic survival horror or Metroidvania titles, you’re not going to find as much enjoyment here as fans and critics would have you to believe.
NOTES
+++There’s literally an option called 3D Audio for headphones users.
-Absolutely hated whenever zombies would get stuck behind doors, giving you no choice but to get attacked by them.
-I liked that the devs redid the motion capture for the English voice actors, rather than simply having them dub over the Japanese cast.
-Reading notes, opening your inventory, and using items all stop the game clock. The first is perfectly fine since I don’t like to be pressured to read through integral lore quickly (a problem that plagued Alien: Isolation), but for the latter two, I do think something was lost by allowing players to essentially pause the game in the midst of any high-tension moment.
-Speaking of lore, once again whoever wrote the data entries deserves a raise for being able to combine enticing mystery with fascinating dives into a world run amok with mad science.
-The craftsmanship behind inventory items is exquisite, especially considering you can examine and rotate them in-full. I really liked, in particular, how keyheads had corresponding lock sigils with their targeted door.
-You get a flamethrower that reloads like a standard magazine, something I don’t think is realistic to the actual device.
-One thing I wasn’t able to naturally-orate in the review was the brilliance behind item placement. The devs were able to accurately glean what things players would need before & after set dilemmas (herbs, munitions, etc….).
-Is there a story reason behind why Leon and Claire don’t get infected from zombie bites? Or is this like the first Assassin’s Creed where, canonically, they were never actually attacked?
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SPOILERS
+Mr. X is the guy, and from what I understand they basically took aspects from the OG RE3 antagonist Nemesis and injected them into X, allowing him to randomly appear throughout the barracks. He has some scripted sequences following this portion of the game (for Leon), but most of the love you’ll see for the guy stems from this part due to it being universal for both MCs.
Unfortunately, he had the misfortune of debuting five-years after Alien: Isolation gave us a similarly-tuned Xenomorph that wowed (and continues to wow) gamers. Now, I generally don’t like to make comparisons between vastly-different games, but X’s flaws couldn’t help outlining them, the biggest one being the inconsistency behind his triggering - at first glance, sound would appear to be the obvious one, but relaunching the same save file multiple times, I found this to be untrue as running and shooting/alerting zombies only prompted him on some playthroughs.
That randomness would be annoying enough on its own, but what really got under-my-skin were the locations he’d appear in: sometimes he’d show his face in small chambers, other times the cramped corridors, and still others the more-open lobbies, and all these really illustrate just how poorly-designed he was in relation to the rest of the title. Maneuvering through claustrophobic interiors amidst hoards of zombies is of course what makes Resident Evil Resident Evil, but such schemes just don’t befit a mobile mammoth like X- one time the b#stard appeared when I was in a passageway with two Lickers, and I was forced to die due to the inability to get out of there without setting-off the adjacent zombies.
Compare this to Isolation, where you not only had tons of wiggle room and obstacles to navigate around the xenomorph, but rarely encountered it when facing the Working Joe androids.
Speaking of Lickers, these monstrosities are another attempt at spicing-up the game, and their AI is pretty hit-or-miss. You’re told via a note that walking slowly won’t alarm them; however, just like with X, that isn’t consistent - I got by some using this tactic, yet others would detect me and begin a slow crawl in my direction. It’s a case of not enough time being granted to sufficiently program them.
++Obviously the crocodile fight is the biggest one, but then you’ve got the gateway scene between Leon and Claire, the beat reporter who gets killed by X, all of the boss fights really, and, worst yet, anything involving Ada - a humorously bad remnant of that late-90s/early-2000s trope of a well-endowed women juxtaposed against suave dialogue as a way of making them stand “above” their blatant sex appeal purposes.
The thing these creators never realized is that the problem wasn’t that their females were sexy, it was that they were sexy amidst impractical scenarios (something the Charlie’s Angels movies, of all things, successfully avoided), and Ada is an anachronistic reminder of how dumb that looks in practice. Tell me why a spy, trying to extract a virus in a zombie-ridden locale, would be running around in a tight one-piece and heels(!) that would limit her mobility? Tell me why she’d boast juicy cleavage and sleeveless arms exposed to bullets and zombie bites alike?
The scenes between her and Leon aren’t inherently bad, but there’s no sense of a bond being built -- the conversational callbacks are cheesy, and the kiss loses all iconicness the second you realize they’re both drenched in sewer water. Don’t even get me started on her magical survival, something that even hardcore RE fans haven’t been able to provide a satisfactory answer to.
Despite adding some neat gameplay variation, narratively she is, without a doubt, the one sordid trait in an otherwise solid second half. Oh, and to add salt to the wounds, she initially engages in that irritating trope wherein an NPC will deliberately abstain from answering a question in order to “prolong” the mystery for the player.
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Resident Evil 2 is a magnificent feat- an example of how to remake a classic without alienating old fans. Take a look at any gameplay trailer and you’ll see exactly what I mean: AAA graphics, sharp gunplay, and quality-of-life features balanced against that old-school layout of tight corridors & inventory management. It remains a perennial paragon of authentic love, and should always be analyzed by those seeking to relaunch past titles.
And yet, I couldn’t help but be disappointed, a large part of that dejection admittedly having less to do with the game and more to do with core aspects of RE’s DNA that haven't aged well, the worst being the sheer amount of backtracking and lame puzzles galore. During the first 40-50% of the game, you’re forced to engage in multiple tedious fetch quests as you move between parts of a dilapidated police station in search of objects to use with other objects, and while retreading old ground isn’t inherently bad, what makes it particularly egregious here is the fact that nothing is ever changed - you’re going to see the exact same enemies in the exact same areas. Because you know where everyone is and how they act, there’s a diminished sense of tension akin to replaying a title for the second or third time, and it honestly ended-up getting very boring.
I might’ve been able to tolerate things had the item retrieval been fun, but as I alluded to above, it’s quite the opposite. In the first Resident Evil, a fair amount of objects were hidden behind puzzles you had to put some degree of thought into, like the light paintings, eagle statues, or needle wall room. Here, though, there’s nothing of the sort- minus one generator alignment, you’re literally just gathering glorified keys to put into glorified locks, and combined with the aforementioned enemy monotony, it ultimately wasn’t fun for me. To the game’s credit, a new foe is introduced halfway through this section as a means of spicing things up; however, given that they have their own slew of problems, it’s slim pickings at best(+).
Now, I did stress 40% as, once you leave the precinct for good, the game becomes significantly better: there’s less backtracking, a lot more zombie variety, and even the puzzle solving reverts to requiring an inkling of intelligence. Many fans will claim that things turn too linear compared to the station, and though that is true, I’d argue the change actually accentuates the horror since the devs are able to craft more-unique, scripted sequences compared to the prior areas of spammed zombies and extraneous jump scares.
It’s a shame it takes so long for the gameplay to get enticing because the shooting & running mechanics are actually quite good - guns respond well, and popping a headshot to slip past some braindead cretin never loses its edge. Really I’d argue the only dock against the enterprise arises in the form of the boss fights, wherein your character’s lack of a dodge renders plain encounters unnecessarily frustrating.
Speaking of the characters, they represent another latent issue with RE’s DNA that the remake simply couldn’t extract, that being the inherent campiness of the script. In a horror-themed video game set amidst a nightmarish outbreak, you’d expect a basic degree of humanism in the cast, yet what you get instead are traits more akin to an 80s action flick. I can only speak for Leon’s story since he was the one I chose, but I kid you not when I say the man shouts off more “cool” one-liners than Arnold in Batman & Robin. He has no reaction to the concept of zombies whatsoever, is hardly fazed by any of the crazy stuff he encounters, adopts a macho man approach to every ordeal, and boasts dramedic dialogue straight out of an action hero movie. I’d call this a case of Kagome Syndrome, but considering the game, as a whole, is full of campy moments beyond Leon (and considering too how heavily reminiscent everything is of Resident Evil 1), I’m convinced that this was deliberately done as a means of staying true to the OG game.
Of course, a horror comedy or satire isn’t intrinsically awful, but the problem is RE2 wants to have its cake and eat it too -- it wants to be a scary game about the aftereffects of corporate anarchy, yet can’t help undercutting these moments with inherently silly dialogue or situations (++). Leon’s a likable enough guy, but by the end I stopped caring about his overarching plot due to the writers clearly not having any interest in an atmospherically-cogent tale.
On the topic of atmosphere, RE2’s last big criticism has to go towards its sound scheme, which is flawed in two bigs ways: first the directional output is abysmal, with zombies screams reverberating so loudly, you can never tell where they’re originating from (I get that this was probably intentional, but if so, it comes across as heavily-manufactured fear). The second, arguably greater sin, though, involves the game being deliberately designed for headphone users (at least on PC). Now, it’s an objective fact that horror games are more immersive when played with earphones; however, it’s also an objective fact that a video game shouldn’t be reliant on such devices for the sake of engrossment, and that’s exactly the problem with RE2. If you don’t play with a pair of receivers, expect a general softness to everything but the footsteps and monster cries, with ambient noises, in particular getting diminished the hardest. Don’t get me wrong, RE2’s atmosphere is definitely nerve wrenching at times; it’s just not consistent unless you’re willing to self-induce long-term hearing damage (+++).
It’s disappointing as the overall sound design, besides those two caveats, is actually really solid, with the classic echoing of footsteps producing the most fear regardless of the surface you’re clamoring on. This diversity extends to every enemy archetype, all of whom you’ll be able to aurally-distinguish by virtue of their movements or calls alone (which you’ll become very intimate with in light of the constant backtracking).
Bullet impacts are a bit more erratic as, while impact variation does exist, it can be hit-or-miss whether or not the appropriate din plays. I shot at metal containers, for example, that sounded like stone, and glass, as a whole, lacks individuation. However, the burst of soft flesh never grows tiring, and when those aforementioned ambient noises do play (shattered windows, inclement weather, splashes, distant rumbles), they are absolutely riveting (zombie smashings against closed doors, in particular, being habitually haunting).
Voice acting unfortunately suffers from the tonal inconsistencies of the story: I don’t think any of the actors chosen were amateurs, but they can’t help coming across that way in light of the poor framing and direction surrounding their output. I’m not lying when I say some of the best performances derive from optional videos and tapes you stumble across, and that probably has to do with the directors treating those scenes seriously compared to almost everything else.
In terms of the main cast, though, I’d say Karen Strassman’s Annette Birkin ends-up the strongest of the bunch as every time she came on screen, it genuinely felt like she was in a completely different project from the rest of her mates. The worst offender, on the other hand, goes to Nick Apostolides’s Leon, who fails to nail both the “tough guy” and dry humor attitudes of his protagonist (not to mention him literally sounding Ed Norton if Ed Norton’s testicles never dropped).
Finally, the OST by Shusaku Uchiyama, Zhenlan Kang, and Masami Ueda is sufficient. It’s very much one of those Brown Noise-ridden scores that successfully underlines whatever is occurring in-game at the expense of not holding much resonance outside the work. There are times where the trio indulge in tracks beyond their normal scope, such as the synth-ridden bass of Black Impact, more-orchestral Third Demise, or Lorne Balfe-esque Mournful Pursuit, but overall it’s definitely not an album you’ll be listening to outside the game.
The next area to talk about are the graphics, which remain RE2’s most polished facet by far as this is a gorgeous specimen, with not a single area ignored in terms of texturing or general visilitude. Environments are liable to receiving the most praise courtesy of Capcom’s artisans doing a phenomenal job of not only lifting the sixth-gen style of the original game, but combining it with absolutely superb 3D modeling: from something as simple as a cracked desk to the specific placement of bloodstains, this is one of those games you can tell had strong art direction conveyed between the head designers and arthouse department. Every location resembles architecture straight out of hell, as though no one had a chance to evacuate courtesy of the T-Virus’s instant infection rate.
Unfortunately, I can’t really rave to you guys about any minor details the developers laid out due to a central problem core to RE2 - it’s ridiculously-dim lighting. I get that this is a horror game, but considering the plethora of similar genre fare that haven’t had to indulge in overly-dark settings, there was no reason why I had to strain my eyes every time I entered some ill-lit hallway. The flashlight itself shines fine; however, it’s a band-aid, not a cure, with the overarching darkness occasionally making it impossible to even see items in your vicinity (thankfully the new map system alleviates this, though more on that later).
Regarding graphical feats I could discern, I have to give an immense shout-out to the textile modelers as they went all-out. The T-Virus wasn’t isolated to singular demographics: you’ll run into innumerable populations reflecting the extent of Raccoon City’s damage, and the fact that I could discern what these victims used to do for a living solely by their attire is a testament to the design craft. Leon, especially, was fantastic - everything about his figure, from the placement of pouches to the seaming of the padding, was perfect, and seeing it sustain damage over time Arkham Asylum-style stood as an exquisite touch by the artisans.
Besides that, you’ve got some nice animation work implemented on various enemies and NPCs, including: falling zombie flesh contingent on damage, Leon raising his arms protectively against fire-and-rain, Claire’s hair physics, Leon shaking his arms to dry-off, undead “corpses” displaying subtle signs of movement, Leon exhibiting pain ala clutching his stomach, wincing, and grunting, and more I’m sure I’m missing due to the inherent umbra surrounding everything.
I’d say my only graphical complaints concerned two very minor minutiae: the first is the presence of trickling water on brick-based walls as it came across as a little too artificial-looking, and the second is the absence of destructible simulacra beyond scripted events (I know this is a largely-difficult facet to implement in video games, but to not even have breakable glass was disappointing).
Given the strong acclaim behind RE2, I do want to end this review on a positive note if only to highlight the quality-of-life features hinted at in the beginning. Anyone who read my review of REmake knows that I felt its minimal gameplay improvements from the original Biohazard significantly degraded the overall experience. Luckily, however, that kind of nostalgiabait didn’t guide the personnel behind RE2R as they’ve gone out of their way to make the game far more open to conventional players: objects can be dropped, ink ribbons are nonexistent, autosaves sprout after key storybeats, you periodically obtain upgrades to your inventory, the opening logos can be skipped, door loading screens have been removed, and, best of all, your map marks leftover items, obstacle names, and specific doorlocks for each and every room, providing some temperament to the backtracking.
But as a complete product, I do think the Resident Evil 2 Remake has been unduly praised beyond its tangible facets - it’s a good game, but unless you’re a fan of classic survival horror or Metroidvania titles, you’re not going to find as much enjoyment here as fans and critics would have you to believe.
NOTES
+++There’s literally an option called 3D Audio for headphones users.
-Absolutely hated whenever zombies would get stuck behind doors, giving you no choice but to get attacked by them.
-I liked that the devs redid the motion capture for the English voice actors, rather than simply having them dub over the Japanese cast.
-Reading notes, opening your inventory, and using items all stop the game clock. The first is perfectly fine since I don’t like to be pressured to read through integral lore quickly (a problem that plagued Alien: Isolation), but for the latter two, I do think something was lost by allowing players to essentially pause the game in the midst of any high-tension moment.
-Speaking of lore, once again whoever wrote the data entries deserves a raise for being able to combine enticing mystery with fascinating dives into a world run amok with mad science.
-The craftsmanship behind inventory items is exquisite, especially considering you can examine and rotate them in-full. I really liked, in particular, how keyheads had corresponding lock sigils with their targeted door.
-You get a flamethrower that reloads like a standard magazine, something I don’t think is realistic to the actual device.
-One thing I wasn’t able to naturally-orate in the review was the brilliance behind item placement. The devs were able to accurately glean what things players would need before & after set dilemmas (herbs, munitions, etc….).
-Is there a story reason behind why Leon and Claire don’t get infected from zombie bites? Or is this like the first Assassin’s Creed where, canonically, they were never actually attacked?
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SPOILERS
+Mr. X is the guy, and from what I understand they basically took aspects from the OG RE3 antagonist Nemesis and injected them into X, allowing him to randomly appear throughout the barracks. He has some scripted sequences following this portion of the game (for Leon), but most of the love you’ll see for the guy stems from this part due to it being universal for both MCs.
Unfortunately, he had the misfortune of debuting five-years after Alien: Isolation gave us a similarly-tuned Xenomorph that wowed (and continues to wow) gamers. Now, I generally don’t like to make comparisons between vastly-different games, but X’s flaws couldn’t help outlining them, the biggest one being the inconsistency behind his triggering - at first glance, sound would appear to be the obvious one, but relaunching the same save file multiple times, I found this to be untrue as running and shooting/alerting zombies only prompted him on some playthroughs.
That randomness would be annoying enough on its own, but what really got under-my-skin were the locations he’d appear in: sometimes he’d show his face in small chambers, other times the cramped corridors, and still others the more-open lobbies, and all these really illustrate just how poorly-designed he was in relation to the rest of the title. Maneuvering through claustrophobic interiors amidst hoards of zombies is of course what makes Resident Evil Resident Evil, but such schemes just don’t befit a mobile mammoth like X- one time the b#stard appeared when I was in a passageway with two Lickers, and I was forced to die due to the inability to get out of there without setting-off the adjacent zombies.
Compare this to Isolation, where you not only had tons of wiggle room and obstacles to navigate around the xenomorph, but rarely encountered it when facing the Working Joe androids.
Speaking of Lickers, these monstrosities are another attempt at spicing-up the game, and their AI is pretty hit-or-miss. You’re told via a note that walking slowly won’t alarm them; however, just like with X, that isn’t consistent - I got by some using this tactic, yet others would detect me and begin a slow crawl in my direction. It’s a case of not enough time being granted to sufficiently program them.
++Obviously the crocodile fight is the biggest one, but then you’ve got the gateway scene between Leon and Claire, the beat reporter who gets killed by X, all of the boss fights really, and, worst yet, anything involving Ada - a humorously bad remnant of that late-90s/early-2000s trope of a well-endowed women juxtaposed against suave dialogue as a way of making them stand “above” their blatant sex appeal purposes.
The thing these creators never realized is that the problem wasn’t that their females were sexy, it was that they were sexy amidst impractical scenarios (something the Charlie’s Angels movies, of all things, successfully avoided), and Ada is an anachronistic reminder of how dumb that looks in practice. Tell me why a spy, trying to extract a virus in a zombie-ridden locale, would be running around in a tight one-piece and heels(!) that would limit her mobility? Tell me why she’d boast juicy cleavage and sleeveless arms exposed to bullets and zombie bites alike?
The scenes between her and Leon aren’t inherently bad, but there’s no sense of a bond being built -- the conversational callbacks are cheesy, and the kiss loses all iconicness the second you realize they’re both drenched in sewer water. Don’t even get me started on her magical survival, something that even hardcore RE fans haven’t been able to provide a satisfactory answer to.
Despite adding some neat gameplay variation, narratively she is, without a doubt, the one sordid trait in an otherwise solid second half. Oh, and to add salt to the wounds, she initially engages in that irritating trope wherein an NPC will deliberately abstain from answering a question in order to “prolong” the mystery for the player.
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1987
Played on the NES Classic
NOTE -- as I did not complete the game, this review should not be taken as a serious critique, but more-so as a set of observations.
Final Fantasy is a revolutionary title, one that would firmly deserve to be inducted into the National Video Game Registry (should such a library ever be made). Playing through it, I was fascinated by the sheer number of elements present in contemporary and retro RPGs alike; RPGs that I and many others have thoroughly enjoyed over the years.
It thus brings me no joy to proclaim that, in comparison to such successors, the game as a whole simply has not aged well- it has all the right ingredients, yet smothers them under frustrating design schemas rendered obsolete post-Chrono Trigger. And while it’s never fair to compare an older game to a later one, subjective parameters for enjoyment are subjective parameters for enjoyment.
What it comes down to is simple: there’s too much grinding, too much fighting, and too much randomicity. Before shelving the game for good, I had put in a little over two hours, and I’m not lying when I tell you guys over 3/4s of that was spent skirmishing to either gain exp for my party or get to a location. You are consistently underleveled here, armor barely providing a stat boost and lower enemies ALWAYS having a chance to critical strike. There’s definitely a mark of progression in the sense that your characters can eventually one-shot foes, but it never feels satisfying in light of the constant battles that inevitably wear down their health before you reach your end goal.
Further compounding the combat are several annoying features, all based around the concept of wasting a turn: “missed” strikes, wherein you’ll fail to hit your victim; ineffective attacks, wherein targeting a foe who ends up dying before the attacking character’s turn results in said character not auto-moving to the next one; and run away, an option that is literally useless, even against enemies you outlevel in totality.
Perhaps there were stats tied to each of these that increased their odds of success (or, in the case of missing, odds of failure), but if so, the game does not give any indication whatsoever, turning attributes like luck into guesswork. Regardless, based on my playthrough, there appeared to be no way of increasing individual skills outside of macro leveling everyone overall.
I know some people will claim that facets like the ineffective strikes were done to encourage strategizing, to which I respond I would accept that were it not for the sheer number of QOL blemishes on-hand: the inability to see enemy HP, the lack of stat descriptions for ANY spells/weapons, the absence of an overworld map, etc….I could go on. If that weren’t enough, every single action and interface you do is blanketed with another one of those shrill NES scores that’s artistically good yet a technical disaster (no disrespect to Nobuo Uematsu, who would go on to compose several masterpieces, but he simply did not have the proper tech to work with here).
However, despite all this, I genuinely admired the game. Square really went out of their way to craft a unique experience that, as noted earlier, went on to influence an entire genre of the industry. The turn-based schematics, the way music alternates between interior/exterior locations, the specialization of spellcaster and warrior archetypes, heck even the random encounters ended up becoming video game staples.
The story is also a lot more intricate than would appear. Yes, it’s your typical good guy versus bad guy routine (most video games indulge in this schematic for a reason); however, the variety astounded me -- in the small time played I ran into a crazy witch in the forest, rescued a princess, and encountered a boatful of pirates, and I’m sure Square only built on that foundation for the remainder of the title. This level of creativity is extended to the monster designs, whose art assets resemble sickly warped beasts from our world.
It’s a shame then that these positives are so dang stifled by the monotonous fight -> retreat & heal -> fight -> retreat & heal routine that makes-up the vast majority of the gameplay. Yes, I know plenty of other titles engage in a similar formula, but FF makes it worse by having the entire overworld be a hostile zone ripe for random attacks.
There’s an interesting mythology here, but unless you’re willing to play with mods/patches, the original Final Fantasy is best left on your shelf.
NOTES
-Unfortunately, a lot of the attacks aren’t particularly memorable from a visual standpoint (their accompanying SFX included); however, I understand the developers only had so much to work with.
-Hated how, if a party member was slain, they would not get ANY experience from a fight they contributed to. On that note, having to go to a separate healer to revive a downed ally instead of just a single one seemed pointlessly extraneous.
-Moving between menus causes a zany rainbow screen shift. I wonder if this was intentional or a coding error, though it either way looks cool.
NOTE -- as I did not complete the game, this review should not be taken as a serious critique, but more-so as a set of observations.
Final Fantasy is a revolutionary title, one that would firmly deserve to be inducted into the National Video Game Registry (should such a library ever be made). Playing through it, I was fascinated by the sheer number of elements present in contemporary and retro RPGs alike; RPGs that I and many others have thoroughly enjoyed over the years.
It thus brings me no joy to proclaim that, in comparison to such successors, the game as a whole simply has not aged well- it has all the right ingredients, yet smothers them under frustrating design schemas rendered obsolete post-Chrono Trigger. And while it’s never fair to compare an older game to a later one, subjective parameters for enjoyment are subjective parameters for enjoyment.
What it comes down to is simple: there’s too much grinding, too much fighting, and too much randomicity. Before shelving the game for good, I had put in a little over two hours, and I’m not lying when I tell you guys over 3/4s of that was spent skirmishing to either gain exp for my party or get to a location. You are consistently underleveled here, armor barely providing a stat boost and lower enemies ALWAYS having a chance to critical strike. There’s definitely a mark of progression in the sense that your characters can eventually one-shot foes, but it never feels satisfying in light of the constant battles that inevitably wear down their health before you reach your end goal.
Further compounding the combat are several annoying features, all based around the concept of wasting a turn: “missed” strikes, wherein you’ll fail to hit your victim; ineffective attacks, wherein targeting a foe who ends up dying before the attacking character’s turn results in said character not auto-moving to the next one; and run away, an option that is literally useless, even against enemies you outlevel in totality.
Perhaps there were stats tied to each of these that increased their odds of success (or, in the case of missing, odds of failure), but if so, the game does not give any indication whatsoever, turning attributes like luck into guesswork. Regardless, based on my playthrough, there appeared to be no way of increasing individual skills outside of macro leveling everyone overall.
I know some people will claim that facets like the ineffective strikes were done to encourage strategizing, to which I respond I would accept that were it not for the sheer number of QOL blemishes on-hand: the inability to see enemy HP, the lack of stat descriptions for ANY spells/weapons, the absence of an overworld map, etc….I could go on. If that weren’t enough, every single action and interface you do is blanketed with another one of those shrill NES scores that’s artistically good yet a technical disaster (no disrespect to Nobuo Uematsu, who would go on to compose several masterpieces, but he simply did not have the proper tech to work with here).
However, despite all this, I genuinely admired the game. Square really went out of their way to craft a unique experience that, as noted earlier, went on to influence an entire genre of the industry. The turn-based schematics, the way music alternates between interior/exterior locations, the specialization of spellcaster and warrior archetypes, heck even the random encounters ended up becoming video game staples.
The story is also a lot more intricate than would appear. Yes, it’s your typical good guy versus bad guy routine (most video games indulge in this schematic for a reason); however, the variety astounded me -- in the small time played I ran into a crazy witch in the forest, rescued a princess, and encountered a boatful of pirates, and I’m sure Square only built on that foundation for the remainder of the title. This level of creativity is extended to the monster designs, whose art assets resemble sickly warped beasts from our world.
It’s a shame then that these positives are so dang stifled by the monotonous fight -> retreat & heal -> fight -> retreat & heal routine that makes-up the vast majority of the gameplay. Yes, I know plenty of other titles engage in a similar formula, but FF makes it worse by having the entire overworld be a hostile zone ripe for random attacks.
There’s an interesting mythology here, but unless you’re willing to play with mods/patches, the original Final Fantasy is best left on your shelf.
NOTES
-Unfortunately, a lot of the attacks aren’t particularly memorable from a visual standpoint (their accompanying SFX included); however, I understand the developers only had so much to work with.
-Hated how, if a party member was slain, they would not get ANY experience from a fight they contributed to. On that note, having to go to a separate healer to revive a downed ally instead of just a single one seemed pointlessly extraneous.
-Moving between menus causes a zany rainbow screen shift. I wonder if this was intentional or a coding error, though it either way looks cool.
This review contains spoilers
This is part 1 of a spoiler-filled comprehensive critique of The Complete Edition. For Part 2, see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1378235/
For a conventional spoiler-free review of the base game, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368448/
For the first DLC, Wrath of the Druids, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368450/
For the second DLC, The Siege of Paris, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368452/
For the third DLC, Dawn of Ragnarök, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368455/
In a lot of ways, it’s hard not to see Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as the video game equivalent of The Rise of Skywalker. Both were the final entries in a sequel trilogy attempting to conclude said trilogy’s story whilst redressing complaints fans had had towards their immediate predecessor. With Skywalker, that was of course The Last Jedi, while here it’s AC Odyssey and so, to give some brief thoughts on that game to indicate my originating mindset, I overall enjoyed it and believe it to be a worthy entry of the franchise. While I’ve been with this series since ACII, I do not hold a purist attitude towards the RPG or Ancient (both misnomers FYI+) or whatever you want to call it trio that sprung from the ashes of Unity and Syndicate’s fiscal failures.
That said, there were decisions I definitely did not agree with, but, even if I shared all the views of those pre-Origins detractors, the reality is Ubisoft would not have had to listen to us. Both Origins and Odyssey were, by all reported measures, huge successes, especially in comparison to Rogue, Unity, and Syndicate, and that lucrativeness tends to result in minority criticisms getting ignored, no matter how valid they are.
Yet, to my delight. Ubisoft did the opposite.
I know it’s become popular in casual discourse to trash Ubisoft, however, in this particular area at least, they deserve immense praise for willingly listening to EVERY part of their fanbase WITHOUT needing an external incentive to do so. What do I mean by this? When you look at other properties that have adapted criticism from a sect of their audience, it’s always been due to a financial dip: WWII and Modern Warfare came about because of diminished sales from Infinite Warfare; the aforementioned Rise of Skywalker from Last Jedi making ~$700 million less than Force Awakens; Breath of the Wild from Skyward Sword selling half as many units as Twilight Princess, etc…etc…
In AC’s case, those critiques largely concerned the removal and/or diminishment of social stealth, one-hit KO assassinations, the modern-day, parkour, and Assassins, as well as the inclusion of level-gating, extraneous loot, and repetitive side activities. And guys, it honestly warms my heart to say that Valhalla literally addresses 90% of these. If you were following the development of the game from the get-go this may not have come as a surprise: like I stated earlier, Valhalla was marketed as the end of an era, and to commemorate the occasion, Ubisoft brought back key personnel who had had prior involvement with some of the most popular releases of the OG era, including Creative Director Ashraif Ismail (Black Flag), writer Darby McDevitt (Revelations, Black Flag), composer Jesper Kyd (the Ezio Collection), and many others I’m sure played a large role behind-the-scenes. During the marketing phase, McDevitt asserted the game would act as a “capper” for events of yore, and while Ismail was canned for an adultery scandal, the hype nonetheless soared as demos showcased classic AC gameplay.
Of course, Valhalla couldn’t be a complete return-to-form. The large successes of Origins and Odyssey proved the profitableness of the RPG formula (plus the introduction of numerous new fans), and so the question that remains is how well does the game balance the two systems? Well, if you’ve been on any forums, you’ve no doubt heard a medley of opinions ranging from good to bad, but, as I’m with the former camp, I hope my review does a solid job elucidating why you should agree as well.
Odyssey’s present-day left things on an unstable note. Layla had been granted more screen time and characterization at the expense of her morality: in her quest to understand the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, she killed a fellow cell member whilst sparing the life of recent antagonist Otso Berg (whose fate is not ascertained). It’s no secret Layla was never really investable as a protagonist- her inclusion in Origins felt misplaced and intrusive, and having her meddle with Isu Artifacts in Odyssey like an idiot didn’t do much to mend that. As such, there was a lot of pressure on Darby to succeed on several fronts where previous writers had failed: resolve Layla’s qualms, wrap-up her storyline, and, most importantly, make her likable. To do this, McDevitt and his team implemented two initiatives that are honestly quite genius in retrospect. The first is a minor retcon wherein it turns out Layla was being cognitively-influenced by the Caduceus to act out aggressively -- not only did this harken back to Desmond’s stabbing of Lucy in Brotherhood, but it also gave Layla a bit of a Greek tragedy overlay wherein she was being manipulated by the Gods to do their bidding. Victimhood is often a surefire method of garnering immediate sympathy, and I can definitely say I actually felt for Layla whenever she reflected on what transpired before.
The second is bringing back Shaun & Rebecca, two characters I’ve always referred to as the C-3PO and R2-D2 of the franchise due to their buddy relationship and longstanding presence in the games. Layla’s colleagues from Origins and Odyssey weren’t bad by any means, however there’s no denying they lacked the chemistry, humor, and three-dimensionality that Desmond’s group had, which was always going to be detrimental given the short amount of time the MD had to make an impression. That McDevitt naturally inserts Layla into this pre-established duo without breaking up their camaraderie is admirable on its own merits, however, it’s the throwback feel he manages to evoke from assembling them together that deserves real praise. It’s hard to describe, but I honestly couldn’t help feeling nostalgic seeing Layla interact with the two; it brought to mind those times from ACII and Brotherhood wherein you were pulled out of the Animus and had a chance to catch-up with the rest of the gang, usually hearing some hilarious dialogue in the process.
McDevitt further fixes the MD by bringing back its grandiose scope via the inclusion of a new planetary threat. To give some background information for you newbies, after haphazardly wrapping up the original storyline with ACIII, Ubisoft had no idea what to do next in the 21st century: they saw the appeal of the series was in its historical escapades, yet knew the framing device of the MD/Animus was too integral to remove. I fleshed out my thoughts on the decision surrounding Desmond’s fate in my ACIII retrospective, but that notwithstanding, the fallout from it was degrading the modern Brotherhood to essentially glorified treasure hunters over the time-traveling rebels Desmond and co. occupied. In Valhalla, the world-ending stakes are back, and while having yet another Earth-threatening plot device seems lazy ala Force Awakens rehashing the Death Star, there’s more to it than meets the eye (as we’ll see later).
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Valhalla’s MD opens up presumably months after the events of Fate of Atlantis with this newfound trio in an area of New England. They’ve been led there courtesy of a cryptic message informing them that the secret to preventing an apocalypse lies in the memories of a Viking buried nearby. That viking is Eivor Varinsdottir, a character who is canonically female but will be referred to as male here due to that being the gender I selected. Eivor’s story, much like Connor’s, begins with him as a child witnessing the death of his parents just as they’ve secured peace with another clan. Thankfully, that clan’s leader opts to adopt him, leading to him becoming a Bjorn who, years later, successfully enacts revenge.
Compared to my past AC analyses, I’m not going to go too in-depth with the story recapping for a couple of reasons: one, this is my first time completing the game, and a fresh experience is inherently unreliable for any narrative dissection striving to be objective; and two, the game is too bloody long! Months before I started it, a friend informed me that the story by itself was longer than all three of Ezio’s outings’ combined, and though I dismissed him at the time, the truth is he was correct. Valhalla’s intro, set in Norway, takes about 5-6 hours to complete, more than a quarter of ACII’s entire length, and did I mention it was just the intro?
Thankfully, it’s incredibly well-written; so well, in-fact, that I actually beat it in one sitting. Part of that has to do with the lack of filler -- unlike ACIII or Odyssey, you’re not wasting time playing hide-and-seek or fencing on a ship. Everything Eivor is made to do progresses the plot forward, from rescuing his crew, avenging his parents against Kjotve the Cruel, meeting characters who will play a major role down-the-line, and getting reacquainted with his brother Sigurd. There’s even a small arc implemented wherein Eivor starts to learn the value of diplomacy over hotheadedness, a thought that will theoretically play a major part during his time in England (spoiler alert - it doesn’t).
The Hidden Ones are simultaneously heralded in this section, and I absolutely loved what McDevitt and co. did with them. My favorite AC opening behind Origins’ has always been Black Flag’s due to it showcasing the Assassins as they would appear to an outsider: brooding, stoic, and containing an aura of mystery, and you get that tenfold here with Basim and his acolyte Hytham- he joined Sigurd on his worldly journeys for reasons that don’t seem convincing. From closely advising Sigurd to gifting Eivor the Hidden Blade (amidst protests from Hytham), it’s blatantly clear that Basim is using the Vikings for some greater purpose, and these ulterior motives underlying his actions highlight a secondary facet worth noting- the respect for lore past.
By all accounts, ever since Corey May and Patrice Desilets left Ubisoft, there has not been a real loremaster at the company, leading to artifact inconsistencies (i.e., the Precursor Boxes), mass proliferation of Pieces of Eden, and the admonishment of Assassin morale. While the first two can at least be explained away under some retcon, it’s the latter that has always affected me because a nicety from ACI through Brotherhood was the Assassins retaining a degree of ethical clarity. Yes, they were effectively terrorists, and yes the Templars had a greyness around their own actions, but there was never any doubt that the Assassins were the preferred solution.
Starting with Revelations, things started to tiptoe into an ends justify the means subset that seemed unstable in comparison to before: you had Assassins committing mass murder (Revelations), Assassins working with pirates (Black Flag), Assassins doing favors for imperialists and pedophiles (Unity), and Assassins launching gang wars in the open streets (Syndicate). I do like a good many of those games, however there’s no denying that, by becoming entrenched in sequelitis, Ubisoft missed the mark on the core tenets of the brotherhood.
At the outset, Valhalla had a chance of falling into this same trap. After all, this is a game about bloodthirsty vikings who burn monasteries and want to subjugate England, and having a sect dedicated to the preservation of free will allying themselves with such sordid peoples would’ve come across as odd at best. Thankfully, while Hytham (based on later convos) genuinely believes Eivor’s Clan to be honorable compared to the Order of the Ancients, Basim holding alternative plans gives a valid reason for the Hidden Ones putting aside their moral compass in aiding the Drengr.
Tutorials are interwoven organically as well (an impressive feat considering these games are meant to appeal to newcomers), which brings us to the gameplay. Assassin’s Creed has always been built on three pillars: combat, stealth, and parkour. Since Unity, there have been multiple attempts at revamping the combat mechanics of the series, and when it came time for the RPG trilogy, an even greater shift was made from paired animations to hitbox- no longer were you worrying about constant counters from enemies, it was now about evading strikes and knocking their health bar down. In Origins, this worked out like standard fencing: the goal was to keep your distance and jab when your opponent left himself open. In Odyssey, courtesy of the (dumb) removal of shields and increased emphasis on abilities, a more hack-and-slash schematic was implemented wherein the goal was to now pummel-and-dodge until your adrenaline meter built-up, allowing a massive attack.
In Valhalla, it’s about overpowering your adversaries through strategic maneuvers, from breaking defenses via heavy blows to shattering exposed weak points with arrows. However, to prevent players from spamming heavy strikes (or endlessly dodge-rolling like before), a stamina meter has been implemented that depletes the more you do either move. The only way to rejuvenate it is to either take a breather or successfully gore a thug with a light attack, meaning you now have an incentive to use lighter strikes over heavier ones besides their superior speed. Abilities are back (much more-grounded this time around), and similar to Odyssey, there is an encouragement on growing your stamina to utilize them in a hairy situation; however, they’re never necessary for succeeding, turning them into a tool more than anything (and yes, that’s a good thing).
Of the three games’ combat systems, I probably had the most fun with Valhalla’s- not only do you have a good balance between light/heavy/parrying/dodge, but the bosses, in particular, come from the Dark Souls school of requiring smarts over simple lacerations. That said, there are two big flaws: one, regular enemies (which make up most encounters) become quite easy to chop down once your power level is sufficiently high (to be fair, I suppose that’s a standard for most RPGs), and two, there isn’t a cap on archery -- it’s so easy to simply gain some distance and spam arrows/longe range abilities in the middle of a fight, meaning tougher archetypes like the Goliaths, Zealots and majority of minibosses are rendered less effective. Having bowing deplete stamina instead of rejuvenating it would’ve resolved this easily.
When it comes to stealth, it should be noted that, upon release, Valhalla had a broken apparatus apparently akin to ACIII’s. In the months following, two patches were sent-out that, based on my experience, have alleviated those qualms, though from what I understand, the patches were either never released to PC ports or were ultimately ineffective. So Master Race adherents, please keep that in mind.
For fellow console peasants, stealth is pretty fun. In the wild, you’ve got heaps of grass patches to skulk around in, whistle, and snipe from afar. One change I appreciated is hitting an enemy amongst a group doesn’t immediately highlight your presence like it did in Origins, so long as you get back into cover. The largest drawback to the stealth is that, going off what I stated earlier, tools have been completely replaced with abilities- if you want to poison someone, set something ablaze, distract with your raven, or place a far-off explosive, you’re going to have to waste stamina doing it, which takes away from the Assassin portion for sure.
As noted in the introduction, Valhalla made waves for two things: bringing back the one-hit KO Hidden Blade (accomplished via a minigame or menu change if you’re a scrub), as well as social stealth. This might be controversial to say, however I genuinely think this version of social stealth is the third best in the franchise behind Brotherhood and Syndicate, even being utilized better than the entirety of the Kenway Saga. You’ll frequently enter cities and communities dubbed “mistrust zones” which Eivor will cloak himself in, but that cloak doesn’t make you invisible unless you happen to find some monks. It’s a lot like ACI in that, one, you can’t blend in with everyone, and two, that guards have detection meters that set-off depending on how close you are to them/if you’re acting out-of-line: walk like a normal human being (helped by the garment deliberately slowing your speed) and they won’t pay you much attention; dart or climb about and you’ll get some stares. Blending activities are strewn throughout these scapes to allow in-plain-sight hiding as soldiers walk by you, and plenty of drunks somber about to manipulate as distractions. The one thing that would’ve really improved Valhalla is if they added more assassination takedowns. Maybe I’m spoiled by ACIII and Unity, which had these in abundance, but it gets kind of tiring seeing Eivor perform the same 2-3 knifings every murder. Considering all the distinct hiding spots, it would’ve been cool to be able to do a unique takedown in place of a standard stab.
Parkour is, sadly, pretty garbage. It’s no secret Ubisoft moved to an inferior system in Origins out of a desire to emphasize open world exploration over traversable cities, but with Valhalla, it’s bizarre because they’ve actually reverted to the old design style, yet complimented it with what is arguably the worst parkour in the history of the franchise. See, places like Lunden, Jorvik, and Wincestre are built like classic AC metropolises, with interconnected buildings and direct pathways for Eivor to dash about on, and when it’s working right the traceuring (horizontal-wise at least) is smooth. But they’ve made this weird push-button assignment that both feels needlessly complicated and prevents you from mastering progressment the way you could in past AC games -- you click the joystick to run, push the joystick to freerun, hold A to parkour/climb/auto-leap short distances, and double tap A to jump. Perhaps they were attempting to emulate the Ezio versions, which had dedicated digital prompts for jumping, running, and parkour (compared to the Kenway Saga, wherein things were simplified to two buttons), however, there were only three there compared to the four here, and it was also more ergonomic (clicking the joystick in Valhalla just isn’t as functional as pressing a tab).
Still, I would’ve been able to tolerate this had the parkour algorithm been consistent with what it recognizes as pure freerun vs. ascension, but you’ll often find yourself accidentally clambering-up columns or other installations that you would’ve thought traversable with the standard A button.
Vertical movement is worse. Once Eivor has begun his shimmying he turns into glue, unable to detach, drop down, or manually climb-leap to the top (an inconsistent one technically exists, but you’ll see why it’s inconsistent when you play). Your sole recourse is to either finish your trek or auto-descent netherward until you’re within range for a drop-off. Valhalla, to its credit, does retain the side lunge from Unity, as well as a standard back eject (the latter only if you have another structure in range), and I did appreciate them giving Eivor’s model weight akin to Arno, but these are ultimately small potatoes against an inherently-downgraded system.
Okay, now that that’s taken care of, we can continue with the introduction. All cards on the table, there isn’t much else to say that cannot be covered under one of the generalities I specified earlier: it’s tautly-paced, sharply scripted, and informs you on how to interact with the existing systems. Things end with Sigurd and Eivor bailing to England after Sigurd’s father surrenders his throne to King Harald to secure future peace for the clan. There’s a nice duality of maturity vs naivety wherein you see how Styrbjorn’s world experiences have shown him the futility of maintaining everlasting conflict for meaningless things like glory, once again laying the seeds for Eivor’s own arc (that never comes to pass).
In England, the Ravens head to the last known site of a Viking clan who colonized earlier called the Sons of Ragnarr, only to find their lands abandoned. After fending off some Englishmen, Sigurd opts to mark this territory as the Raven’s new home, launching Valhalla’s version of a series semi-staple: the settlement. To elucidate the history for you newbies, settlements have been a recurrent aspect of AC, albeit one not as stringent as hardcore fans would lead you to believe. Yes, every AC game save Origins featured a home base of some type, but the vast majority were never used for anything substantive: Alamut Castle was a simple set with nothing inside; the Villa Auditore a glorified armory; Tiber Island a place only for Assassin ceremonies; Black Flag’s Great Inagua and Rogue’s Fort Arsenal utterly meaningless; Revelations’s bureaus, Unity’s Cafe Theater, Syndicate’s Train a spawn point for missions; and the Adrestia just a ship.
You’ll notice I omitted one entry, and that was of course the Davenport Homestead from ACIII. It was the first time an Assassin HQ actually felt like a real, lived-in place: you had tons of NPCs, plenty of missions/optional dialogue based around their presence, in-game challenges, and an economic boon via trade convoys. It formulated a template I’m saddened none of its sequels expanded upon.
Well, on the plus side Ravensthorpe is a valiant attempt at crafting a meaningful estate, even if it never reaches its greatest potential. It combines the renovation system from Brotherhood, civilian presence of ACIII, and mission generating of the Cafe Theater into a single hacienda. You start and finish all your story missions here, construct/upgrade new buildings to unlock sidequests, and can even activate a feast buff to temporarily boost your attributes. Despite these facets, I can’t say I got particularly attached to Ravensthorpe, and that has to do with a couple of reasons: one, because it’s more of a springboard for your adventures, you don’t spend much time in the actual area; and two, it ails from Unity problem of repetitive AI. What I mean is, every time you enter the place, you’ll see the exact same animations play-out: the same kids running up to you, the same crew members marching from the docks, the same animals lolling about, etc….and that’s ultimately immersion-killing. As much as people hate the Almanac of the Common Man from ACIII, it at least underlined an amazing feat from that game, which was the radiant-esque AI of the homesteaders, and I wish a similar coding had been programmed here.
Anyway, it’s high time we spoke on the story. Valhalla’s main campaign may be confusing to some because it adopts a method of storytelling new to the AC franchise (and mainstream titles as a whole): arcs. Prior games operated on a modus I refer to as “Acts” which, to quote my ACII review, are similar to Arcs in that they’re set around a new threat, but differ in terms of not being standalone. That’s not to say that Valhalla’s arcs are completely unrelated to the other (in fact, several continue/reference events from prior ones); however, they definitively have a beginning, middle, and end, allowing you to complete them without feeling like you’re ending on a cliffhanger. The process generally follows as depicted: Eivor will consult Sigurd’s wife Randvi about a territory, learn of its predicaments/politics, pledge to obtain their allegiance, resolve whatever qualms exist, and then return and confirm with Randvi that the deed is done. Rinse and repeat.
Now, this format has led to accusations that Valhalla is full of filler, and it’s one of those things I both agree and disagree with, though even my agreements are laced with provisos. If we were to condense the arcs under themes, Valhalla has four overarching storylines: Kingmaker, Order of the Ancients, Asgard, and Sigurd. Kingmaker has you running all over England forging those aforestated alliances, Order eliminating members of the proto-Templars, Asgard reliving memories of the Norse Gods (more on that later), and Sigurd’s a combination of all three, albeit one which trails continuously throughout Valhalla’s runtime.
In fictional storytelling, especially AAA releases, audiences are used to conventional chronicling wherein event A goes to B to C to D ad nauseam. Because of this mindset, it’s my theory that conventional gamers appropriated the Sigurd thread as Valhalla’s primary campaign, and I don’t blame them: Sigurd was a major figure in the intro and the whole reason Eivor departed to England in the first place. Eivor’s purpose is to serve his adopted sibling, and given the recurring nature of the man in the story, at first glance it would appear Ubisoft agreed.
However, upon closer inspection, I do think Valhalla is more experimental than that given that progressment, even in Sigurd’s sections, is primarily reliant on the formation of those dutiful liaisons since Eivor utilizes them to aid his sibling (more on that later). The reason I consider this approach experimental is because, in mainstream releases, you usually get the opposite. Think about it: in other games, the A plot is a singular strand which lasts uninterrupted whilst side content occupies shorter bursts of self-contained tales; in Valhalla, though, the self-contained tales pull double-duty as autonomous contes AND building blocks for the development of Eivor and Sigurd’s relationship.
But that begs the earlier inquiry of is this filler? If the player has to do these elongated set pieces to advance the A plot, did Valhalla’s writers fall prey to the scourge of shōnen anime? Again, not to dodge the question, but the answer is somewhere in the middle. For me, if I’m going to label something as filler, it needs to contain two components: one, have no importance to the macro, and two, not be referenced in postliminary scenarios. I theorize the reason critics have championed this accusation is because Valhalla’s non-Sigurd arcs are largely deficient in the latter, which is what most people look for when gauging continuity. However, it is not zero sum, and, more importantly, contains the former in spades. We’ve already established that Sigurd’s storyline, itself, is not completely independent due to it being tied to the Raven Clan’s confederacies/the brothers’ connections to the Old Gods. As such, by having dedicated individualized chapters to both those threads, you avoid falling into filler territory by my definition.
Still, I am sympathetic to the quibbles, and definitely agree that more connecting tissue should’ve been implemented to guide players from arc-to-arc, and I honestly feel these problems derive from Valhalla’s wish to be open-ended. This is a game that wants you to do certain beats in a certain order whilst concurrently providing a freedomic approach towards said objectives a la A Link to the Past. Unfortunately, in a story-driven enterprise with recurrent characters, you can’t exactly have that because it interrupts the flow, which is the dilemma gamers no doubt faced here. Thus, to alleviate this for future players, my suggestion is to do what I did, which is, well, role-play. Imagine why Eivor would want to embark on Y next as opposed to Z. Trust me when I say it’ll go a long way towards making your experience a lot more enjoyable. Valhalla is a ROLE-PLAYING game, so technically such a tactic isn’t out of the left field. However, I understand this isn’t a legitimate answer to the qualm of the arcs not being strongly-tied together, which is why I said the answer is ultimately muddled.
Tl;dr, I don’t think the absence of narratorial links make the non-Sigurd arcs filler, but it definitely hurts the pacing unless you do some imagineatory gymnastics on your part.
I’ll begin my story analysis with Ledecestrescire, wherein Sigurd has located the displaced Sons of Ragnarr, who, in a bid to win the favor of King Ceolwulf, are attempting to replace current Mercian ruler Burgred with Ceolwulf’s son Ceolbert. You can tell a lot of effort went into this arc by way of the sheer amount of mo-capped cutscenes, and as your first real look at the Viking presence in England, I was pleasantly surprised by the brutal depiction. Unlike Black Flag’s pirates, Valhalla’s Norsemen are portrayed as the cruel warriors they garnered a reputation for, and while other aspects are sanitized (more on that later), at least here it’s made clear from the get-go that you’re in league with Machiavellianists. Central to this rendition is Ivarr the Boneless, a character who I’m confident has become a fan favorite in the same vein as Cesare and Roberts. He’s cruel, hedonistic, and above all entertaining, never failing to spice up the narrative (especially against his dull bróði Ubba).
I’ve heard from friends that Ledecestrescire evokes Game of Thrones vibes, and though I haven’t watched that show as of the writing of this review, I can definitely imagine how the blood games and political machinations would be reminiscent of such goings-ons in Westeros. But yeah, overall Ledecestrescire was a great first step into Valhalla’s world of war and ruses: Ceolbert is a superb young character, the historicity is surprisingly accurate, and the tone is on-point. It ends with Sigurd departing to conduct more work whilst asking Eivor to continue the proliferation of the Raven Clan’s power.
That leads to the next arc, Grantebridgescire, which is unfortunately a big step down from Ledecestrescire due to being too reminiscent of an AC Odyssey questline. What I mean is, for those who didn’t play that title, is that it takes an interesting premise and dilutes it with the classic video game formula of do THREE things. In this case, Soma suspects one of her three councilmen is a traitor and needs Eivor to figure out who as her clan fights for control of the area from Order member Wigmund. The tasks associated with each of the trifecta are diverse enough, but it can’t help feeling pointlessly drawn-out and consequently sluggish. Perhaps this was deliberately done to increase your level given that the next arc, East Anglia, has noticeably higher stat requirements.
Things begin when Eivor returns to Ravensthorpe and finds his clansmen under attack by fellow Danes. After defeating them, Eivor and Randvi deduce they must have come from East Anglia, prompting the beginning of Eivor’s acquaintanceship with King Oswald. Oswald is set to marry the norsewoman Valdis in a bid to secure unity between the Saxons and Danes in East Anglia; however, hampering things for him are two factions: Valdis’s brothers, who disapprove of Oswald’s inherent character weakness, and the hostile viking Rued, who is behind many raids in the area (including the attempted one at Ravensthorpe).
East Anglia is, without a doubt, my favorite storyline in Valhalla because of several factors: one, the production value; two, the pacing, and three (most importantly) Oswald’s characterization. He’s meant to occupy the pathetic archetype, yet isn’t pathetic if that makes sense. He’s clearly weak and out of his depth in this Dark Age world, yet continues to press forward with courage, and it makes for a very enjoyable persona. My only problems with East Anglia were the inclusion of a last minute camp raid I thought needless, as well as the writers not bothering to explain how Oswald and Rued survived their fall. Slim pickings though.
Eivor comes back to learn that Sigurd wants to meet in Oxenefordscire, where he plans to install a thegn called Geadric into power. Arriving there, Eivor finds Sigurd reunited with Basim (who departed on his own errands soon after the Vikings made windfall) and being hunted due to their support of Geadric against Lady Eadwyn, a royal selected by King Aelfred of Wessex to rule over the country. The rescuing and support of Geadric starts off fine until Sigurd discloses ulterior motives to his activities in Oxenefordscire- he is trying to find a Paladin named Fulke who reportedly has knowledge of a deific secret concerning Sigurd. Sigurd’s push to prioritize Fulke over Geadric, especially under the divine justifications he gives, leads to friction with Eivor, and while their conflict is a bit rushed given their established brotherhood, it’s executed well-enough that I didn’t have serious complaints. For one, Sigurd’s vagueness is frustrating to Eivor (and possibly the player), but at the same time is brought about by him wanting to be certain about things AND being accustomed to Eivor blindly following him on prior adventures. And two, going back to what I stated earlier, it’s blatant that Basim is pulling some strings to manipulate Sigurd into acting this way, a notion that further aggravates Eivor.
Fulke has knowledge of the Isu and believes Sigurd to be a reincarnation of a Norse God, a supposition that further exacerbates Sigurd’s increasingly Messianic beliefs. Despite successfully beating Eadwyn, King Aelfred arrives. To avoid further bloodshed, Sigurd proposes the two sides trade their best warriors, during which Fulke betrays the group by pleading with the King to take Sigurd instead given his heritage as a prince and deity, disclosing her identity as a member of the OotA in the process. The terms are agreed upon and Aelfred withdraws, prompting Basim to covertly follow them and promise to update Eivor when he finds out where Sigurd will be taken. Overall, despite having some blatant padding, Oxenefordscire is a solid arc that simultaneously pushes events forward whilst introducing characters who will play a major part down-the-line.
With all this talk of gods, I decided the next thing Eivor would do is try and figure out his own spiritual roots to get to the bottom of things, and given the arrival of the seer Valka in England, now seemed as good a time as any. Drinking a special brew from her grants Eivor dreams of Asgard wherein Odin is desperate to stave off his destiny of dying in Ragnarök. All cards on the table with you guys, I did not like this arc at all. It comes across as a discount God of War script, weaving an epic of hypothetical grandiose with micronic figures. What I mean is it doesn’t feel Eddaic because you’re seeing events through what are literally reskins of standard NPCs and characters from the base game. Origins and Odyssey both incorporated mythological realms, and while the rehashed gameplay definitely diminished their value, at least you were still controlling the same human protagonist. Here, you’re technically supposed to be playing as Odin, yet he operates exactly like Eivor when he’s supposed to be this supernatural entity. And yes, I know that the Isu are not gods in the conventional sense and were never going to be treated in the same vein as Darksiders; however, their corporeal incomprehensibility and mythological craftsmanship in past releases still elevated them to grander plains that Asgard fundamentally fails at concocting. I maybe would’ve been able to overlook this had the narrative been something special to the AC world, but it’s literally a transcription of poetry from Old Norse texts.
Also, for a game that wants to have a Sage plot twist, it baffles me that they didn’t bother trying to disguise the other characters from their Earthly counterparts, either visually or aurally. Loki looks and sounds exactly like Basim; Thor like Halfdan, Týr like Sigurd, and so forth.
Because of Fulke’s association with the Order, it made sense that Eivor would pursue them next, spurring a journey to Lunden where Hytham notes the Templar presence. Lunden is not only one of my favorite arcs in the game, it’s also my favorite city in the game. With Roman ruins, flat rooftops, and an emphasis on social stealth, it’s a clear homage to the Ezio games, and boasts an interesting tale involving two friends trying to figure out who murdered their King. A nice arc that wraps up nicely and removes three Order members from England.
Returning back, Randvi tells of Ceolbert, who had briefly stayed with the Raven Clan to learn the art of politics. He is now in Sciropescire, striving to broker a peace between the Danes and Britons. Sadly, talks break down quickly when Ivarr, representing the Danes, declares war on King Rhodri, representing the Britons, having had a past feud with him over the scarring of his face. As you can imagine from Ivarr and Ceolbert’s presence, Sciropescire acts as a sequel to Ledecestrescire, yet sadly isn’t anywhere near as good, largely due it focusing on efforts to undermine Rhodri logistically in order to force him to the negotiation table. These actions consist of your usual raiding, which gets boring fast as you’re doing the same repetitive activities again and again and again. I’m 90% sure the praise for it comes purely from the last third wherein Ceolburt is apparently murdered by an Englishman, prompting the forgoing of diplomacy and the sieging of Rhodri’s castle. After the battle, the King is captured by Ivarr, taken to the mountains, and turned into a Blood Eagle, after which Ivarr reveals himself as the real murderer of Ceolbert- the subsequent fight with Eivor sees the Ragnarrson killed and Eivor leaving depressed. It’s absolutely a great finale, but one that doesn’t quite make-up for the utter monotony you have to put up with.
In Ravensthorpe, Randvi has seemingly great news- Basim has tracked down Sigurd to the southeast. Unfortunately, the consequent Cent Arc, despite continuing the “main campaign,” is arguably the first instance of major filler in Valhalla. See, Basim hasn’t actually found Sigurd - he’s found a guy who claims to know where Fulke is, but will only do so if they help him discover who Aelfred selected as ealdorman of the land his church resides in. Despite some interesting conversations with Basim, the lion’s share of this storyline is more banality, further hampered by the presence of one of the most annoying NPCs in the series, Shergar. If you needed further proof of it being filler, it literally ends with Fulke murdering the ealdorman and escaping to a nearby fortress in Suthsexe.
It brings me no pleasure in saying that the Suthsexe Arc doesn’t redress the drudgery of Cent. Despite seeing many of your established allies convene for this fight, it suffers from the same problems as Sciropescire in that you’re chiefly doing war preparations (not to mention the actual siege itself isn’t any different from prior castle assaults). But hey, at least Fulke is assassinated and Sigurd rescued. Tragically, though, it appears Eivor was too late as Sigurd is a changed man: he views himself as a God, withdraws from company, and acts outwardly aggressive towards his clansmen.
Once again, this talk of godhood convinced me to head back into my pagan dreams (encouraged by the requisite ingredients being near Cent and Suthsexe) wherein Havi has arrived in Jötunheim, or the realm of giants, to seek their Seiðr: it holding the secret to immortality. Thankfully, Jotunheim is a marked improvement over Asgard simply because it does what Curse of the Pharaohs and Fate of Atlantis did, which is tell an Assassin’s Creed story through the designated mythos instead of regurgitating an existing tale. Significantly aiding this endeavor is the presence of Juno, depicted as a Scandinavian figure named Hyrrokkin, who secretly helps Havi discover the method by which he can survive Ragnarok: dispersing his soul in a well called Mímisbrunnr. It also leans a bit more into the preternatural with there being an actual giant you have to fight (and Odin, you know, plucking out his freakin eyeball!).
Back in the land of the living, it was time to re-pursue the Order for what they had done to Sigurd. Cue Jorvik, where Hytham has caught the presence of three more targets. Luckily for Eivor, it turns out two of his old friends, Hjorr and Ljufvina, reside in the city. Arriving there, Eivor finds yet another conspiracy afoot- members of a gang called the Red Hand are attempting to kill the elite class, as well as anyone who fancies them (including Ljufvina!).
As another city arc centered on eliminating proto-Templars, I was hoping Jorvik would be as great as Lunden, but that wasn’t to be. On the plus side, the three radicals are more memorable than the ones in Lunden, but on the negative side, too much time is spent on investigations, which theoretically would be nice save they’re the same trivial casework Origins “pioneered” years ago wherein you would simply enter an area and find all the highlighted “clues” for Eivor to put together on his own. Such a method feels like you’re going through the motions instead of actually solving a mystery, meaning you only get so much mileage. The Red Wedding-inspired finale is decent at the very least.
Next up is Essexe. You get a letter requesting your help from the ealdorman there, Birstan, who wants you, along with another Viking named Rollo, to kidnap his wife so that she can go live a happy life back in Francia whilst he marries his true sweetheart. To be blunt with you guys, I can’t quite describe a role-playing reason as to why Eivor would commit to this area, making it the only arc which I will unequivocally agree should have been relegated to a side mission. Yes, you acquire your typical alliance, but the events don’t tie into anything else occurring in England minus Aelfred’s men showing up as last-minute antagonists. The story itself isn’t bad, and is definitely different from the standard regicidal flair of the other arcs, but this microcosm just felt ultimately unnecessary as a whole.
In Eurvicscire, King Halfdan, another Ragnarrson, requests Eivor’s aid in his fight against the Picts. Eurvicscire acts as something of a follow-up to Jorvik given the similar setting and Eivor enlisting Hjorr and Ljufvina’s help down-the-line. However, the bulk of it surprisingly has less to do with the war and more with Halfdan’s health: he suspects his first mate, Faravid, of conniving to kill him. The writers evidently intended for this to be a morally-grey yarn wherein you don’t know who to trust, but to convey this they went about the annoying route of making everyone talk in drawn-out babblery without getting to the point. I’m sure you guys have seen a piece of media or played a game where this type of technique was employed, and it just reeks of amateurity- there’s a way to be thrilling without dancing around the point like a teenage girl attempting to flirt.
I was also really bothered by Eivor’s facial animations. For those who don’t know, Odyssey and Valhalla employed an algorithm to render body and countenance expressions so that Ubisoft didn’t have to spend money on motion capture for every cutscene. That’s perfectly fine, and I don’t condemn them for it- it’s an expensive procedure, other companies have employed similar tactics, and if it works out it works out. And contrary to public opinion, I actually do think it’s worked out for the most part- minus Eivor feeling the constant need to cross his arms every minute, his movements never feel unnatural (Valhalla’s regression to “talking heads”, on the other hand, is a point of contention, but more on that later). However, something must’ve gone wrong during the programming of Eurvicscire as Eivor constantly makes these weird smiley visages with his eye sockets and eyebrows that are off-putting. It reminded me a lot of that scene in Terminator 2 when John is trying to teach the T-800 how to grin.
Anyway, like Jorvik, the conclusion is pretty good (Halfdan is thoroughly entertaining), but to get to that conclusion, you have to complete generic objectives and one more castle siege. The one saving grace to those setpieces are the Picts- I mean it when I say credit to Ubisoft for designing so many unique enemy archetypes this late into the game. They add new challenges and feel like the warmongers feared by Emperor Hadrian.
Returning to Ravensthorpe, I found a young nobleman named Hunwald domiciling in the settlement. Enquiring about his problems revealed that he was forcibly separated from his father, the Ealdorman of Lincolnscire, by mysterious men of an “ancient order”, and wants an escort back home. Well, that thinly-veiled allusion to the Order of the Ancients convinced me to take-up his request, and boy did I regret it. Lincolnscire is, without a doubt, the worst arc in the game (IMO), and it all starts with Hunwald: first-off, he looks uncannily like Michael Cera, and yes, that’s a bad thing. Secondly, his dialogue is atrocious -- he inhabits the happy-go-lucky, naive, caffeinated jackrabbit stock character we’ve all seen since Scrappy Doo, and it is painfully out-of-place in this Medieval era. I have no qualms labeling him the AC version of the Adoring Fan or Sticky or insert your choice of annoying NPC, and denying him the Thegn title is one of the sweetest things I have ever done in a video game.
The storyline itself is bad on its own merits, blending the worst parts of Cent, Suthsexe, and Eurvicscire into an unappetizing mess of bad pacing and obnoxiously obscure convos. The truth about Hunwald’s father is otiosely protracted, and the process for replacing him comes down to a simple straw vote with predictable outcomes. Again, you get a decent cinematic ending with Eivor assassinating an Order member, but overall it was such a dull experience, I actually took a break halfway through to complete side activities (something I didn’t do for any other arc).
On that note, it’s worth taking a rest here to speak on those side activities. As you have all of England at your fingertips, so too are you provided hours upon hours of excursions to partake in. First up is your conventional treasure hunting that has accompanied AC games since the flags of yesteryear: Valhalla has notably done away with the looter shooter schematic of Origins and Odyssey in favor of unique outfits and weapons. Upgrading these requires resources, from precious metals to your standard materials, and all three caches are located in chests peppered across the map. One of the more unique things Valhalla does is hide these crates behind obstacles, requiring you to solve a mini-puzzle of sorts to acquire them. Now, I’ve heard a lot of complaints regarding this system, stating that it adds unnecessary redundancy to the scavenging, and I generally disagree. For starters, it makes sense that goodies would actually be hidden (and beats the post-ACII system of simply placing guards everywhere). Secondly, while some of them are needlessly elongated in the sense that the solution is to simply dart around the side of the building ala TLOU2, the majority are actually pretty dang clever and require proper reconnaissance. They do get repetitive in the sense that the same barrier schemes are redone ad nauseam (i.e., the same bars, same explodable walls, etc…), but because it isn’t necessary to constantly upgrade armor the way it was in the prior RPG games (more on that later), you never have to force yourself to find them anyway.
Artifacts are the second type of collectible and they’re generally unconcealed compared to treasure, though a number of pieces do lie behind similar barricades. There are five variants: hoard maps, which display chests in the vicinity; Roman masks, which can be traded in for settlement cosmetics; flying tattoo papers, which, like the Almanac Pages and shanties from prior entries, need to be chased down a parkour course; Rigsogur Fragments, or generic lore entries, and finally Cursed Sites, the most disappointing substance in the game. At first glance they seem cool- you enter an area, hear some rumblings, and finally your screen gets all shadowy like the Black Suit shimmering in Spider-Man 3. You’re told the place is haunted and asked to end the curse; sounds thrilling right? Well, you’ll quickly realize that nothing bad happens while you’re on this hallowed ground, the sensorial stimuli being surface-level effects and the grand solution merely to destroy a single relic. A letdown for sure.
Overall, the artifacts are fine. Minus the R Fragments and Cursed Sites, I appreciated how each of them actually provided some tangible benefit to the player (a significant upgrade from previous games’ odds-and-ends that relied more-so on intrinsic motivation). Nonetheless, it’s the “Mysteries” you’ll be spending most of your time finishing, and I do have to commend Ubisoft here for trying to variegate these activities. Not since ACIII has an Assassin’s Creed title cooked-up such a batch of diverse side content, and given the sheer amount of time you’ll be spending in the game, they clearly planned things out well.
That said, the quality is up for debate, starting with the World Events. These little narrative tales involve an NPC or group of NPCs requesting you to complete some arbitrary task in support of an initiative on their part, and much like the Guild Missions from Brotherhood, they are VERY hit-or-miss. 6 times out of 10 they’re humorous in tone, but the comedy is either lame, geared towards some hackneyed pop culture reference, or undermined by the stupidity of the task itself. One event, for example, required me to carry a little girl out of a rabbit hole she’d fallen into whilst chasing a white hare (get it?); another had a singing woman stalk me until I paid her over 100 coins of silver to skedaddle. They’re not all bad, I did get a chuckle here-and-there, and the serious ones will leave a lump in your throat. However, the lion’s share of these babies are simply short forgettable distractions-and-diversions; the fact that their length is both the best and worst part about them speaks for itself.
Fly Agarics, based on the shrooms Vikings allegedly imbibed, transport you into a slightly-altered dimension where you have to complete the monumental tasks of either lighting fires, entering specific portals, or killing wild animals. Yeah, despite the visuals being pretty cool, it was wasted potential as far as the psychotropic hijinx Eivor could’ve been tripping, and not helping things is the fact that, half the time, the “signs” to resolve the dilemma are confusing to deduce. There were instances where I literally succeeded through trial-and-error, and I imagine that'll be a shared experience by most gamers.
Standing Stones are short brain teasers consisting of finding an established pattern in a pile of menhir via Odin’s Sight, in turn granting you an ability point (more on that later). Cairns are another rock-based puzzle, albeit one that requires you to stack an assortment of mini-boulders to a predesignated height. Now, if you surf on any online forum, you’ll no doubt come away with the impression that these are the bane of one’s existence, yet like most Internet reactions, that is an overexaggeration. Yes, finding the right pattern can get frustrating, but there are multiple solutions to every heap (and unlike the Fanorona minigame from ACIII, you can actually look up an answer). The physics are surprisingly well-done, the slabs behaving like their real-life counterparts, and similar to the Constellations from Origins, you get some throwback dialogue to Eivor’s childhood. Nonetheless, there were two changes Ubisoft could’ve made that I genuinely believe would’ve alleviated 90% of the ire: one, have a undo-last-move button to prevent a single maneuver from ruining all of a player’s work, and two, throw in a bottom shadow showing exactly how a piece will fit on-top-of another (as it stands, you have to make an educated guess based on the shape of the rock itself).
Lost Drenger, Daughters of Lerion, and Legendary Animals are all types of boss fights you can partake in. Because there are so many of them, they aren’t as unique as Odyssey’s encounters, though they’re still fun and pose a fun challenge. My only complaint is I wish it was possible to see the respective enemys’ power level on the map after discovering them as they’re often much higher than the recommended level of the surrounding area, and the only way of knowing their number is to initiate the fight.
Flyting is my personal favorite Mystery, aptly and accurately described as Viking rap battles by Ubisoft. Maybe it’s because I’m an English major, but I absolutely loved these and wish there were more of them. Their only reward is raising your Charisma, which in turn opens up unique dialogue options that, while not affecting an arc's outcome, were disclosed by McDevitt as being the “canonical” dialogue, so take that how you will.
Treasures of Britain are essentially Valhalla’s version of the tombs from Origins and Odyssey; large-scale exploration hubs to prospect for a special trinket. Very cool and just as well-crafted as the ones that came before.
Offering Altars are essentially the Daedric Shrines from Oblivion without the accompanying sidequest, requiring an oblation in exchange for a random reward.
And finally, you’ve got Animus Anomalies, which were Darby’s attempt at progressing the modern-day without pulling Layla out of the Animus. Given that they’re optional, I don’t know how much he succeeded on that front (they really should’ve been mandatory in retrospect, though more on that later); however, what you’ve got is basically a reinvention of the Glyphs from ACII/Brotherhood in a platforming skin. Layla (or Basim depending on if you completed the game) will materialize into England and need to successfully ascend a series of hard light structures to acquire a piece of data. They’re a nice change of pace from the usual action/adventuring, but much like Desmond’s first-person sections from Revelations, I expect half the audience to dislike them.
Besides the above, Valhalla has a plethora of extra stuff to partake in, beginning with Raids. Raids are basically the epitome of the Viking fantasy, involving you reliving the infamous Lindisfarne Tragedy on repeat as you and your crew attack coastal monasteries for resources. Given that few settlement constructions are required for story progression, you’re basically allowed to conduct these at your own volition, which goes a ways away towards making them fun since they’re never needed for grinding purposes. What I really appreciated was how they don’t fully whitewash what you’re doing- yeah, you can’t kill civilians (which I liken to Achilles sparing the Trojan Priests in Troy) and there’s certainly no carrying back citizens to the longship for enslavement; however, you are explicitly a menace. People run around screaming, huts are set ablaze, all wealth is sacked -- when all’s said and done, it’s clear this place has been ruined for the foreseeable future. Gameplay-wise, I wish the developers had implemented some form of strategy as, while entertaining, they’re pretty blatantly easy due to your crew being unable to die (when struck down, you merely have to hold down a button to “revive” them, allowing infinite hounding of stronger guards). A system wherein you could allocate who attacks where and force a retreat if too many of your guys were wounded would’ve done wonders.
Orlog, a dice minigame, gained a notable amount of traction following Valhalla’s release (to the point of inspiring a real-life tie-in), and though it has innumerable enthusiasts, unfortunately I don’t count myself among them. I’m generally a big fan of dice games in titles (Liar’s Dice in RDR, Dice Poker in The Witcher 1), but my problem with Orlog is that it’s unchallenging. You’re given arguably the best Totem from the get-go ala Thor’s Strike, and the only legitimate tactic forward is to build-up tokens to unleash your God Favor. Sure, the occasional wrench is thrown at you, but 9 times out of 10, you’ll have the advantage over your opponent courtesy of Thor’s Strike being OP. If they had introduced variations like being able to call God Favors without sacrificing pawns (that had consequences), then things may have gotten spiced up, but as it stands, the game gets repetitive due to every competitor’s strategy being indifferent from the other.
That said, I’ll take Orlog any day of the week over drinking contests wherein you literally press one prompt on repeat with the intermittent joystick toggle to prevent stumbling. Utterly banal (it’s telling that Watch_Dogs of all releases had a better drinking game) and thankfully unmarked for completionists to avoid. And on the topic of banality, we’ve got a continuation of the lame hunting system this series had literally failed to innovate on since ACIII. If anything, it’s been made grindier here since you cannot purchase animal parts from stores anymore, nor swing your sword from horseback (Eivor instead kicks and punches), the latter preventing you from mass killing prey during chasedowns. Accompanying this is fishing, which is a barren hodgepodge of boring mechanics: you throw your bait out, wait for a nibble, and then mash A to reel it in. You’re technically given the option to use a bow-and-arrow, but it’s evident the developers wanted you to wield the rod due to a number of reasons: Synin doesn’t recover your arrows, Odin’s Sight marks fish for a measly five seconds, and discharging a bolt scares away the other water critters. Outside of size, there’s no way of telling what kind of fish you’re getting either, meaning the endeavor isn’t even a reliable source of income.
Contrary to popular belief, there are side missions, and while the bulk were added post-release, they're still a welcome addition (I further anticipate readers of this review will be engaging with the Complete Edition of Valhalla that includes all extra content). Most of the quests are initiated from Ravensthorpe and involve either members of your Clan or outsiders requesting Eivor’s aide. They’re a lot like Odyssey’s in that YMMV, but they do exist and offer their own elongated narratives; plus, I can personally vouch that two of the more popular ones, Beowulf and the crossover with Odyssey, are excellent.
Alright, back to the main narrative. Killing Bishop Herefrith in Lincolnshire has prompted Hytham to gain wind of the Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ. This anonymous individual had provided prior intel on previous Order members, and it seems he’s found a new sect in Wincestre. Meeting the instructed informant brings Eivor face-to-face with King Aelfred, who was also notified by the Poor Fellow about a plot on his life from the Order. Despite this only being his second appearance in the story, credit must be given to Ubisoft and actor Tom Lewis for surrounding Aelfred with a sense of foreboding. He may be short, but it’s evident he holds a wealth of power; power to rival all the Vikingr in England. The two have a common interest in seeing the Order expunged, resulting in a temporary truce. Overall, Wincestre makes up for the weaker arcs I had to trudge through courtesy of its regicidal story and indulgence in more classic AC gameplay.
Coming back home, Randvi has received notice from one of Eivor’s old friends, Vili, inviting him to Snotinghamscire where he’s throwing a party for his father Hemming Jarl. Heading up there reveals that things are not as optimistic as were made out in the epistle: the clan is engaged in their own strife with the Picts and Hemming Jarl is dying, a fact that Vili refuses to acknowledge.
Snotinghamscire is reportedly the most accurate arc of Valhalla in terms of its depiction of Viking culture, and indeed you do see how Norse funeral preparations & rites would’ve played out in real life. Unfortunately, the rest of the storyline is pretty forgettable due to its crux resting on Vili and Eivor’s camaraderie. In fiction, it’s very hard to give depth to a relationship that has not been showcased beforehand: not only do you need excellent scripting that recollects past memories without overbearing them in exposition, you also need performers who can successfully parlay the idea that they’ve known each other for a long time. The writing here is balanced enough in that it doesn’t feel like the prelude to a Family Guy cutaway, but all too often it dips deeply into sentimentality; kind of like with Hunwald, there’s too much joviality for individuals who have grown up in a harsh society. Hampering this further is that neither of the boys have strong chemistry, though given how these games are made, I doubt the actors were even in the same booth when they recorded their lines. In addition, Vili gets a bit annoying- his denial about Hemming Jarl’s death starts off natural enough, yet his resistance to accepting the title drags and drags -- it really seemed like some backstory was cut out concerning a past fight he had had with his dad. Overall, Snotinghamscire is fine enough (and certainly a step-up from Lincolnscire), but it would’ve had a lot more weight had Vili played a part in the Norway intro. Also, was it just me, or were they trying way too hard to make Hemming Jarl into a Viking Mr. Miyagi (sounded just like him too)?
Gunnar, the Ravensthorpe blacksmith, has been out for some time, and inquiring about Glowecestrescire gives us our answer: he’s gone off to get married! Given how f%cking awful his replacement forger sounds, I decided to help out the lad. Glowecestrescire is, ironically, the opposite of Snotinghamscire in that it’s apparently the diciest depiction of 9th century England, and I can’t disagree. At the hamlet, you’ve got Anglos and Norse alike both strangely celebrating the Celtic festival of Samhain, concurrent with a Wicker Man ready to sacrifice their king in. It’s pretty nonsensical and a blatant attempt at crafting gameplay diversity between the arcs, which I wouldn’t have had a problem with had it been fun, but as you can guess, that wasn’t exactly to be. Samhain, for openers, is solely treated as Halloween-in-everything-but-name, the trick-or-treating being more boring than Costume Quest’s (it also results in you getting lots of moldy bread that is stated to be cakes in the dialogue >.>). I wish they had leaned more into the culture behind this long-running festivity as that would have made for a far more impressionable product than what you get here.
Besides that, Glowecestrescire does have a fascinating premise of a bigot learning to be accepting of other races as malevolent forces conspire to murder him. The contrast of a person mastering tolerance whilst being conspired against by the very people he hates is where mature storytelling ferments; however, the issue is the game rushes through this -- it’s not a realistic transition, and quite honestly the events that lead to this guy (Tewdwr) changing are silly (incompetent bandits choosing to spare him out of a failed squeezing scheme). There’s also this weird gag wherein Gunnar’s fiancee, Brigid, speaks incomprehensibly to everyone but Gunnar (I thought this was going to build up to some special twist down-the-line, but no, it’s apparently the developers taking jabs at the Welsh language). I do not mean to sound completely negative as I actually liked Glowecestrescire as a whole: it has a lot of memorable characters and the Gothic setting oozes with atmosphere. I just wish more time had been devoted to expanding on the motivations/expressions.
There were two new pathways when I got back to Ravensthorpe: Sigurd wishing to see his father before his ascension, and Hytham discovering one of the Order’s head honchos, who, wouldn’t you know it, is Gorm, son of Kjotve. Well, a combination of Sigurd pissing me off and me not wanting to return to Styrbjorn whilst Gorm still thrived cemented my decision. Onto Vinland, where Eivor has to give up his arsenal in order to sneak into the country unsuspiciously. A lot of praise has gone to Vinland from the AC community, but just like with Sciropescire, I feel most of this comes from the final act and not the bulk of the playthrough, which is ridiculously boring. Eivor being stripped of his weapons in a strange foreign land had a ton of potential, but the arc is literally reduced to the AAA equivalent of “thank you Mario, but your Princess is in another castle”. No seriously, you track down Gorm by rummaging through every camp he was in, finding pieces of stationery stating he’s departed elsewhere, until you get to the right one, and taking him out is a matter of a simple assassination. The whole thing can be completed relatively quickly as well, putting Vinland on the shorter side (particularly surprising given that Ubisoft sculpted an entire new region for it). The whole shebang ends with Eivor retrieving an Apple of Eden from Gorm, giving it to the local Natives for protection (setting up ACIII), and then telling them a myth about Odin before leaving back to England. It’s good stuff, but doesn’t atone for the dullery of afore.
Okay, now it was time to revisit Norway. I had big expectations for Hordafylke: the years-brewing confrontation between Sigurd and Styrbjorn, the truth behind Sigurd’s dreams, and the manifestation of Valka’s prophecy of Eivor betraying his brother. Disappointment began with the first wherein we see Styrbjorn as a broken man, the locals commenting on his fall from kinghood. Why was this done? Styrbjorn’s actions served two purposes: physically, they staved-off the destruction of his clan, and thematically, they showed, or were meant to show, how diplomacy and peace are worthier pursuits than the glory of battle/war, the latter trait obviously formulating the beginning of Eivor’s character arc. By having him be a depressed wreck, though, it completely undermines that theme and gives Sigurd’s side more ammunition. Styrbjorn should’ve been depicted as happy, content with the stability and security of his people, but no, instead you get the opposite, which of course gives Sigurd ample opportunity to berate his old man+++.
The brothers then march to the location of Sigurd’s visions; a long-dormant Isu site equipped with a mechanical Yggdrasil the two interpret as Seidr over tech. Attaching to it transports them to a virtual reality in the vein of Valhalla where they are immortal, treated as Gods, have their strength amplified, and participate in an everlasting battle. Those hoping this Afterlife would be as extravagant as the ones from Origins and Odyssey’s DLCs will be dismayed by the short hall and field before you, though considering how little time you spend here, this decision was probably for the better lest the devs repeat the errors of Vinland. Anyway, it doesn’t take long for Eivor to notice something is wrong and that this isn’t the real Valhalla, resulting in him convincing Sigurd to leave. These actions upset Odin, who tries to force Eivor to stay, claiming responsibility for all of Eivor’s feats. Eventually, our protagonist succeeds and departs from the simulation.
I have many, many, many problems with this grand culmination. First of all, why is Sigurd so easily-willing to be persuaded out of Valhalla? He was acting like an arrogant diphead about the future all those months (years?) leading-up to this event, and when he’s finally here, you’re telling me it only takes a couple of sentences from Eivor to change his mind? Secondly, why does Odin want to stay here? He’s evaded Ragnarok and is experiencing grandeur with Eivor in England: how does hiding in some eternal machine line-up with anything we saw before (couldn’t he have just done that back in the day?)? Thirdly, why does Eivor have NO reaction to Odin outing himself as a corporeal presence? I get that, before, he was just a “fly in the ear,”, but now you’re seeing this guy is real, has power, and is a part of you, you have NO reaction but to treat him as an anonymous threat? On that note, how is Eivor able to just lock Odin away? Past Sages were unable to do anything resembling that, yet Eivor, an untrained person, can? Lastly, why doesn’t Sigurd have any connection with his persona Týr? We went through this whole process of Fulke torturing him to awaken his deific psyche, yet don’t witness a materialization of the God? And why was he acting like a dick if Týr is depicted as a nice God? And what of Valka’s prognosis of Eivor betraying him (and yes, I know the “bad” ending technically answers this, but considering a chunk of the player base is going to get the “good” ending, and considering it isn’t even that ominous a betrayal, this is still a half-baked concept)?
Don’t worry, it only gets worse. Outside the Yggdrasil, Basim has magically appeared ala Captain Anderson in ME3, where he has apparently gone mad, raving nonsense about Eivor wronging him and how he will finally get revenge. Now, if you’re a long-time AC fan, you’ll understand what’s going on - Eivor and Basim are Sages, with Basim being Loki and Eivor of course Odin (a point that, once again, was hammered home in the Asgardian missions where the devs didn’t bother changing up their appearances at all…).
However, if you’re an average joe, I don’t understand how the writers intended for this scene to make sense, especially if you didn’t bother doing the mythological parts (all of Asgard is optional). The issue is nothing about the Isu is told straightforward- it’s all done under the guise of Norse metaphors, and rather than have Basim finally explain things to a very-clearly confused Eivor (representing a newcomer) in a plain manner, he instead speaks with more jargon! Even within the context of the game, is he really so idiotic as to not comprehend that Eivor has no idea what he’s talking about? That Eivor is not aware he’s Odin reincarnated? All cards on the table guys, part of the reason I’m so flustered is because Valhalla’s big revelation was spoiled for me long before, and so, in the prelude to playing the game, my mind concocted this idea about how Eivor discovering the truth would play out: it’d be this big cognitive dissemination that shocked him to his core whilst a rendition of Ezio’s Family played in the background. And yeah, I know it’s not fair to criticize a title for not living up to such fantasies, but considering the actual product is just so anticlimactic on its own merits, I can’t help but be utterly disappointed. Basim makes for a decent “boss fight,” but the sibylline dialogue should’ve been direct, both for Eivor and AC neophyte’s sakes.
The skirmish ends with Eivor and Sigurd impaling Basim on the machine (why they don’t bother killing him is beyond me), Sigurd handing over the Jarl title to Eivor, and the two sailing back to Ravensthorpe (or, if you got the true ending, Sigurd staying behind). No real convos about what transpired, no apologies to Styrbjorn, nothing.
Having found the Isu Site, Layla exits the Animus. We get a classic cutscene in the present with Shaun and Rebecca realizing the magnetosphere problems are originating from Desmond activating the Orb in ACIII. The field that now protects the Earth originates from the Yggdrasil Temple and needs to be slowed down, the only problem being the area is full of radiation. Using the spear for protection, Layla heads down and attaches herself to the device, where she meets Basim in the netherworld. Realizing he’s the one who sent the message, Layla asks him for a way to stop the machine, which he provides before telling her that the timeline will eventually self-correct to cause another disaster (a bit like time fixing itself in 11/22/63). Layla alters the computer, transporting her to another dimension inhabited by a man called The Reader, who is trying to permanently stop the disaster node from repeating. Fathoming that Basim has used her presence to exit the Sacred Tree, and feeling regret over her past actions, Layla decides to stay behind in the Grey to help The Reader.
In the real world, Basim (who is somehow not a shriveled corpse ala Altair in Revelations) latches onto the Spear, heals back to normal, and converses with Odyssey’s Aletheia, disclosing this to have been their plan from the beginning. He meets Shaun and Rebecca, gives them a fabricated recording of Layla, and asks for a meeting with their mentor William Miles. The two depart, and Basim enters the Animus to continue the rest of the story.
Despite having only two mandatory scenes, I really liked what Darby did with the modern day. After 5-6 games of Ubisoft evidently not knowing what they wanted to do post-Desmond, it actually seems like there’s a plan in-place for the future. The idea of the inevitableness of destiny, averting future disasters, and of course Basim himself having ulterior motives/objectives means there’s a lot of weight to what’s going on outside the Animus, which is something I cannot say was the case from ACIV through Odyssey. Other positive facets include the sheer amount of Easter Eggs, Layla earning redemption for her past actions, and The Reader being a blatant transhumanist version of Desmond (why they didn’t outright make him Desmond is a story for another day++). The only drawbacks I had were it, again, being only two scenes, and Shaun & Rebecca having no problem leaving Basim alone with the Animus (especially when they’re blatantly suspicious of him).
Alright, we’re back in Ravensthorpe. All this talk of Gods from Basim made me want to finish off the Asgard storyline, which continues the trend of being another letdown of a finale. Having ensured his survival in Jotunheim, Havi returns to Asgard with one final goal in mind - binding Fenrir. The giant wolf doesn’t take too kindly to this bondage attempt and engages in a fight, which the God of Wisdom bests him in. Following this, there’s a quick mash-up of images of the future, and then…fin. That’s it.
It’s hard to convey why I believe this to be a bad decision, but I’ll try - throughout the game, you have Odin and the Norse Gods playing a large part in both the historical and modern day, yet the exact event depicting their connection to the protagonists and how they came to persist to the end is not materialized. What was the point in having all that build-up and backstory if you weren't going to flesh out the culminating moment that literally leads to everything else being impacted? The game sets-up this Asgard storyline to show how these Norse figures came to be reincarnated, but then haphazardly axes the entire third act. Odin makes this pact with Juno, returns home, gets into a random scuffle with Fenrir, and then there's credits. It's like, where's the rest of the story? Where are the rest of the answers? Why did he tell the others about the Fountain? What was their reaction? What is the mead they are drinking? How did Loki manage to get resurrected if Odin banned him from the knowledge? Does this process work the same as Aita's method or is it different? How was Eivor able to resist Odin when all other Sages meshed with their host? Why do some hosts never realize they’re Sages? All these questions that Valhalla was building-up to to connect the Asgard storyline with the England one were just tossed to the side in favor of a choppy cutscene that doesn't do anything but confirm what we already knew happened. And YES, I’m well-aware completing all the Animus Anomalies unlocks a secret clip depicting the real “reincarnation” and Loki’s survival, but because those were completely optional (and most likely not to be done at that point by most players due to them not even being marked on the map unless you enter their vicinity), and because they don’t answer all the questions underlying the events regardless, this whole affair is lamentably sordid. Either make the Anomalies mandatory or recreate the scene here.
Don’t worry, Valhalla has one last narrative thread to smash into the ground, and that is the Kingmaker saga. Cue Hamtunscire, where the Great Heathen Army is preparing to take the fight to Aelfred. Before heading out to join Guthrum and Ubba, Eivor receives another dark vaticination from Valka about him dooming Ravensthorpe if he leaves, and don’t worry, just like with her other predictions, it doesn’t amount to anything (with this track record, perhaps Eivor should consider firing her).
Eivor arrives at Hamtunscire with past allies where Soma informs him of Guthrum’s plan to negotiate a peace with Aelfred. Unfortunately, the Wessex King lets slip that he executed Ubba, leading talks to break down and the Vikings to betray the armistice once the King leaves. With news that Aelfred is stationed in Chippenham, the Vikings hatch a scheme to surprise attack the hamlet, leading to you doing your typical sh!t of making preparations and rescuing stragglers. Cue the assault wherein Aelfred’s lieutenant, Goodwin, informs Eivor he knew about the strategy and launches his own counter-assault. The Vikings prevail, albeit at the cost of Soma, Hunwald (tytytytytytyty), and Hjorr. Eivor reports back to Randvi, a wedding is held for Gunnar, and then we’re done.
It’s so easy to rag on the grand finale, from Soma having the only dedicated mocap death scene to this pathetic skirmish as a whole being less epic than even the castle sieges of prior arcs, but honestly the bigger issue is that there’s no sense of completion. You beat Hamtunscire and then what? Nothing. It’s treated as another standard region in the countryside. There’s no importance to its chronological conquest, no credits, no special cutscene, no epic speech, nothing. All these hours you’ve invested toiling away at the Alliance Map amount to no vibe of accomplishment.
I also found it very disingenuous to end the game this way, implying the Vikings won when in reality Aelfred would mount a vicious campaign, beat the GHA at Edington, force Guthrum to baptize, and put a cap on the Viking Invasion, all within the next few months. It truly begs the question of why the developers bothered including Guthrum and Aelfred as major players in the plot if their plan was to subside the battle they’re most famous for participating in. The comparison I’ve always drawn this to is a hypothetical AC release set during the American Civil War with Grant and Lee that opts to not incorporate Overland, Petersburg, or Appomattox Court House in its storyline. It’s like, what was the point in having those guys when you won’t even show the greatest historical event they shared?
Now, the counterargument I’ve heard to this is that Valhalla was going to produce a lot of post-launch content and it wouldn’t have worked to end with the Vikings losing. Except, a brief look at Wikipedia shows the Treaty of Wedmore let the Norse keep most of their conquered lands (something outright acknowledged in The Last Chapter, though more on that later), meaning Ravensthorpe wouldn’t have been affected by the Battle of Edington anyway. In addition, every single DLC produced for the game takes place AFTER the end of the war, meaning they were either way going to deal with that timeline. Considering Black Flag had no issue showcasing the pirate utopia collapsing, it’s disheartening to see Ubisoft not commit to the same principles with the Vikings, especially when it would’ve put a thematic cap on the character arc that began in Norway with Eivor realizing that taking a knee is sometimes the better tactic over constantly fighting to the end. Alas, this is what happens when you have a narrative that goes on longer than it should - you lose sight of your original ideals.
Regarding that post-launch content, Valhalla was Ubisoft’s first attempt at turning Assassin’s Creed into a live service game. Numerous free updates were thrown in to keep players engaged in the hopes of coaxing them into purchasing MTXs. Unfortunately, the non-permanent ones have long been removed, meaning I cannot speak on such activities as the holiday festivals. The additions that have remained, though, I will gladly describe, commencing with Tombs of the Fallen. These are five vaults to excavate at your discretion, and while we’ve had tombs in the franchise before, this marks the first time they’re puzzle oriented. I haven’t found all of them at the time of this review’s publication, but the ones I did were definitely fun - nothing too challenging, but miles above the versions we got in the Tomb Raider reboot.
Next-up are River Raids. As the name suggests, they’re basically a mode built around the monastery blitzes from the base game, featuring multiple rivers full of goodies to reap: villages have rations to heal your crew, military posts supplies, and forts/monasteries unique loot. Some changes were implemented to no doubt address criticisms of the vanilla version and make the ordeal a bit more tactical. For example, your crew members (called Jomsvikings), can go down permanently if you don’t revive them with rations, and continuously attacking the same area increases local defenses. River Raids are fine enough, but the problem is not enough was done to diversify things- you’re ultimately conducting the same types of assaults ad nauseam, with the same configuration of posts. And once you scavenge the special drops, there’s no real reason to continue forward with the process unless you’re one of those completionists who wants all the new items in the new store (which, lo and behold, require a special currency you can ONLY earn from River Raiding!). If that weren’t enough, be warned that there is a grindy aspect courtesy of the developers requiring you to upgrade your Longship’s hold to increase its capacity. Several other pet peeves of mine include the broken stealth, emptying of your ration pouch each time you launch a raid, and the inability to uncover a location’s identity unless you leave your ship to walk within its radius (sailing by the harbor should’ve been more than enough!).
Last is The Forgotten Saga, a roguelite mode set in the past wherein you control Havi attempting to rescue his son Baldr from the Goddess Hel. Again, I haven’t done much of it at the time of this review, but what I did play was actually pretty enjoyable. The realms are beautifully-designed, each run is different courtesy of the RNG items, and you do feel like you’re getting stronger. The option to stealth your way through certain parts with the one-hit KO assassination significantly aids in the completion of areas, and combined with there being an actual Isu story, I’d say it’s worth attempting. Just keep in mind that it’s still fundamentally the same gameplay loop as the River Raids in that you’re either fighting or killing.
We’ve still got one final story to cover, and that is of course the Order of the Ancients. The reason I’m talking about it last is because it canonically takes place after everything (and should be done so lest you risk incurring a bug). Valhalla semi-models this questline after the Cult of Kosmos from Odyssey wherein you have to hunt down all these members across England. Odyssey had 42 individuals: here you’ve got 45, divided into 15 zealots, 29 adherents, and 1 Grand Maegester. In Odyssey, I found the cult system to be rather basic, consisting of you doing very arbitrary tasks that somehow added up to uncovering a persona’s identity, and unfortunately that same framework has been carried over to Valhalla (a shame considering a mini-sleuth subplot involving actual detective work could be intriguing if Ubisoft ever dedicated more time to fleshing out the parameters).
Alas, we have to deal with the reality in our stead, and the system here has, at least, been slightly improved upon. For starters, 13 of the members are encountered during the various arcs, and no clues are required to deduce the Zealots, meaning only 16 have to be tracked down separately. Secondly, there are three checkboxes per member, compared to Odyssey where it was around 5 (IIRC), making it much easier to finish (England being smaller than Europe doesn’t hurt either). Finally, and this is admittedly more of an aesthetic change than anything, but every single Order individual (including the Zealots) has a Confession scene, which, at least for me, gave an extra incentive to hunt them down. Confessions have of course been a tradition of the series (save Unity and Odyssey), and while the non-story members don’t have the same production value as their narratorial counterparts, it was still nice being able to witness an inner dialogue between them and Eivor.
The finale is also pretty good, consisting of you simultaneously being granted a meeting with the Poor Fellow Soldier and Grand Maegester, King Aelfred! Yes, it turns out they are one and the same, with Aelfred having inherited the Maegester title from his lineage. Through a beautifully-written conversation, the Wessexian discloses his disgust towards the Order’s anti-humanist ideals and pagan leanings, and how he used Eivor and the Hidden Ones to eradicate them so he could build something more God-fearing from their bones. This is of course a reference to the future Knights Templar that will evolve into the eternal enemy of the Assassins, the Templar Order; an ironic yet satisfying conclusion to Eivor’s quest.
Now, some fans have pointed out that this ripped-off the ending of the cult storyline in Odyssey wherein Aspasia also grew disillusioned with the Kosmosians and exploited the Eagle Bearer to destroy them so she could grow something else. The outline is definitely the same, but I felt Valhalla’s was much better executed for a number of reasons: 1) the tale, as stated earlier, is a lot longer in Odyssey, meaning the ending inherently had greater expectations; 2) Valhalla's sets up future AC games by having the more modern Templar Order, whereas the Cult was just another proto-Templar society that failed to last; 3), slightly subjective, but I thought Aelfred was a far more memorable and developed character than Aspasia (it certainly doesn’t hurt that he has a constant presence throughout the story compared to her); and 4) it was a straightforward scene, not hampered by pointless dialogue options/choices like Odyssey’s (I still can’t get over them giving a romance option).
Years after the base game came out, Ubisoft finally sent everyone The Last Chapter, a free DLC meant to provide proper closure to Eivor’s storyline (that was personally overseen by Darby compared to the other expansions). The Last Chapter is literally an assemblage of six cutscenes you have to trigger at certain points in the world, the framing being Basim wants to witness how Eivor’s story ends, and for a low-budget rushed resolution, it’s surprisingly fine. I know from reading Darby’s responses on the Reddit AMA that the writers wanted to do more in terms of granting extra final interactions between Eivor and her compatriots, and that inability to succeed is definitely TLC’s biggest drawback. You’ve got Hytham, Aelfred, King Harald, and Guthrum, the four representing different factions that try and draw Eivor back into the fold (Hidden Ones, Templars, Norse Vikings, Danish Vikings respectively), and while it was thematically well-intentioned, it can’t help making no sense for goodbyes to be dedicated to loose characters like Harald and Guthrum but not close comrades like Randvi, Styrbjorn, and Sigurd.
The general synopsis of Eivor deciding to come to terms with Odin’s memories and embrace them was a nice twist, but even then it’s treated as a rushed framing device that simply caps the beginning and end of the DLC, denying players a look at a fascinating concept in AC history wherein a Sage opts to coexist with their Isu brethren over being completely taken over.
Still, I’ll give The Last Chapter props for somewhat addressing qualms I had with a number of Valhalla’s finales: Eivor acknowledging Odin is another entity; Guthrum and Aelfred explaining the post-Edington peace treaty/Guthrum converting to Christianity, and a surprisingly-introspective explanation from Eivor as to why he won’t join the Hidden Ones.
The modern-day, however, is where The Last Chapter truly shines -- seeing Basim mess around with the Animus, his commentary throughout the ordeal, and of course the ending convo with William Miles made for some really fun content, and while the conclusion doesn’t end up going anywhere (Basim uploads his genetic code presumably for Miles to relive in the Animus, only for Mirage to not have a modern-day portion), I did enjoy Rota’s performance.
Please keep in mind, however, that Ubisoft was a bit lazy with regards to certain narratorial facets, namely that there’s no differentiation between male and female Eivor for the abovementioned intro-and-outro, and not only was there no differentiation, they didn’t even bother putting in the Odin model from the Confessions (nor let Magnus use his Odin voice)! Female Eivor is Eivor, while male Eivor is Odin, regardless of who you chose initially, so that may come as a surprise to players like myself who spent hundreds of hours playing as one gender.
My final quibs are two-fold: first, having the player run around trying to find the memory units felt like a cheap way of artificially elongating the content; and two, they apparently recast Aelfred’s VA in his dialogue (no doubt scheduling conflicts as Ubisoft is famous for bringing back prior actors). When all is said and done, though, The Last Chapter was a good move by Ubisoft: yes, a story finale shouldn’t be produced years later in a hasty manner, but at least we got something proper (not to mention hearing the opening chords of Ezio’s Family play at the end is always awesome).
It’s time to address the technical facets of Valhalla. The first thing I texted my brother when I booted up this game was how it might be the best-looking title I’ve ever played, and I proudly stand by that claim over 60 hours later. The new Ubisoft Anvil engine has completely done away with texture streaming, giving you fully-furnished environments from the get-go no matter where you travel, and trust me when I say that that’s a noteworthy facet considering the diversity and seamlessness of the world. This is the first AC game to indulge in the biome schematic, and while I’ve never considered such biogeographical units necessary for free roam variation, I can’t deny it prevents a sense of déjà vu during your many excursions across England. The frigid mountains of Northumbria, seasonal spice of Mercia, mistiness of East Anglia, and springtime tide of Wessex all converge into a community worth touring. This is probably my favorite map in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and considering the prior beauties, I don’t say that lightly. From the desolate Roman ruins and mythical structures to the sights of warfare and working-class hobbles, there’s a real feeling of a past life wherever you amble, and such vibes go a long way towards maintaining an immersive bubble- you’re just another part in a long history overlaying this land.
Helping matters is the fact that Valhalla does away with the conventional confetti system that’s blotted Ubisoft minimaps since the days of Brotherhood, replacing them with light orbs: blue for mysteries, gold for loot, and white for artifacts. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like such a change would matter since the undertakings are unveiled upon entering their vicinity anyway, but you’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes to not be distracted by a minimap. This is the first AC game I played without one, and I found the experience to be so beneficial I hope future entries never revert to the old style.
Character models are a bit of a step down from Odyssey- I didn’t detect as much detail in Valhalla’s physiognomies as I did in its predecessor’s, though thankfully that’s made up for by the lack of stilty-ness that rendered Odyssey’s figures uncanny at times. Cheekbones and eyebrows, in particular, move a lot more naturally, even as you slather them with body paint. It’s the textiles, however, that deserve the most praise as the precision that has gone into their assemblage is a sight to behold. Leather, cloth, fur, it matters not -- all look intricately stitched as they fold around Eivor’s chassis. I was especially impressed anytime light refracted off metallic pieces, providing an authentic sheen that shifts with your movements accordingly.
The lighting overlay, in general, is fantastic, being another rendition of the dynamic system Origins pioneered. I’ve always been a sucker for the sight of streaming sunshine through forested enclaves, and as you can imagine, Valhalla has that in abundance. Combined with the day/night positioning of the sun and varied environmental hues, and you get a motley of aesthetics that ayont the worlds. Unfortunately, there are some downsides to this refulgence, specifically the game’s indulgence in filters. These were clearly done in a bid to either amplify the lambency or diminish overcasting, but the end result can’t help but make certain areas appear artificially lit. In snowy scapes, for example, you get a white cover; foggy ones blue; fiery ones red; and underwater light blue. I feel the game would’ve been better off utilizing a more natural source for the majority of its lighting during these parts, though YMMV.
Besides that, there were a number of defects I encountered playing on my Xbox Series X: clipping between sheathed weapons and clothing (predominantly on horseback), draw distance generation issues for foliage and flora; occasional framerate drops; bird wings lagging while synchronizing, Eivor getting stuck during parkour animations; and your classic AC pathfinding quandaries with NPCs. Nothing is game-breaking, but it’s evident this was a title held back by its dual-gen release, and should be approached accordingly.
Other miscellaneous graphical plights include the lack of footprints when trudging in frost, shoddy animations for animal finishers (good concept, but should’ve been axed since they weren’t ready), comically-exaggerated splash effects, rainfall being surface-level impact points over a genuine environmental component, and fire looking incredibly dated (your torch is fine enough, but set a blaze or bushfire and you’ll witness combustion that wouldn’t look out-of-place in the original Gothic).
Performance aside, I think my biggest problem with Valhalla’s presentation is its reversion to the “talking heads” dilemma that plagued Unity through Origins. Talking heads, to elucidate, is a term my boy GManLives coined in his Skyrim review, referring to a lack of cinematicity during dialogue. You know, those instances wherein your character and another are technically having a conversation, but don’t appear to be engaged with the other due to the placement of the camera. Yeah, they’re standing opposite the other, however, you inherently lose interest since they’re not framed in a way that conveys they’re the centerpiece of attention. It solely happens in non-mocapped scenes in which the developers simply had the actors record the lines and processed their bustle through an animation algorithm, which, to reiterate, would’ve been fine had they preserved some sense of dynamism in the convos. But no, you often have to move the camera yourself to better enunciate things. If Valhalla had come out after Origins, it wouldn’t have been all bad given the precedent; unfortunately, Odyssey actually alleviated this by adopting a Mass Effect-framing, and while you do get that in the story, the vast majority of your side content is hampered by talking heads.
Further infringing the side stuff is the voice acting. I don’t know what it is about the English accent, but everytime Ubisoft has utilized it for generic civilians, it always sounds mediocre, as though they hired low-effort thespians to save money, and that continues to be the case here. To avoid an absolute, of course not everyone sounds bad, but it’s saying something when Oblivion and its cast of three had better portrayals than the more eclectic assembly here (you even get this recurring mismatch wherein an older-sounding lady voices younger lasses).
Thankfully, the main line is great, with Magnus Bruun and Carlo Rota, in particular, giving standout performances as Eivor and Basim respectively. I was really impressed with Bruun’s ability to distinguish between Eivor and Odin, lacing them with a masterfully concurrent similarity and dissimilarity. With regards to his female counterpart, Cecilie Stenspil, the parts I’ve heard on YouTube indicate her to be terrific as well, and anyone who claims she’s significantly inferior to Magnus is lying- your choice should come down purely to gender preference. That said, there was one person I wasn’t a big fan of, and that was Gudmundr Thorvaldsson as Sigurd. His acting itself is top-notch, but all too often his timbre came across as garbled.
For Part 2, see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1378235/
For a conventional spoiler-free review of the base game, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368448/
For the first DLC, Wrath of the Druids, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368450/
For the second DLC, The Siege of Paris, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368452/
For the third DLC, Dawn of Ragnarök, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1368455/
In a lot of ways, it’s hard not to see Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as the video game equivalent of The Rise of Skywalker. Both were the final entries in a sequel trilogy attempting to conclude said trilogy’s story whilst redressing complaints fans had had towards their immediate predecessor. With Skywalker, that was of course The Last Jedi, while here it’s AC Odyssey and so, to give some brief thoughts on that game to indicate my originating mindset, I overall enjoyed it and believe it to be a worthy entry of the franchise. While I’ve been with this series since ACII, I do not hold a purist attitude towards the RPG or Ancient (both misnomers FYI+) or whatever you want to call it trio that sprung from the ashes of Unity and Syndicate’s fiscal failures.
That said, there were decisions I definitely did not agree with, but, even if I shared all the views of those pre-Origins detractors, the reality is Ubisoft would not have had to listen to us. Both Origins and Odyssey were, by all reported measures, huge successes, especially in comparison to Rogue, Unity, and Syndicate, and that lucrativeness tends to result in minority criticisms getting ignored, no matter how valid they are.
Yet, to my delight. Ubisoft did the opposite.
I know it’s become popular in casual discourse to trash Ubisoft, however, in this particular area at least, they deserve immense praise for willingly listening to EVERY part of their fanbase WITHOUT needing an external incentive to do so. What do I mean by this? When you look at other properties that have adapted criticism from a sect of their audience, it’s always been due to a financial dip: WWII and Modern Warfare came about because of diminished sales from Infinite Warfare; the aforementioned Rise of Skywalker from Last Jedi making ~$700 million less than Force Awakens; Breath of the Wild from Skyward Sword selling half as many units as Twilight Princess, etc…etc…
In AC’s case, those critiques largely concerned the removal and/or diminishment of social stealth, one-hit KO assassinations, the modern-day, parkour, and Assassins, as well as the inclusion of level-gating, extraneous loot, and repetitive side activities. And guys, it honestly warms my heart to say that Valhalla literally addresses 90% of these. If you were following the development of the game from the get-go this may not have come as a surprise: like I stated earlier, Valhalla was marketed as the end of an era, and to commemorate the occasion, Ubisoft brought back key personnel who had had prior involvement with some of the most popular releases of the OG era, including Creative Director Ashraif Ismail (Black Flag), writer Darby McDevitt (Revelations, Black Flag), composer Jesper Kyd (the Ezio Collection), and many others I’m sure played a large role behind-the-scenes. During the marketing phase, McDevitt asserted the game would act as a “capper” for events of yore, and while Ismail was canned for an adultery scandal, the hype nonetheless soared as demos showcased classic AC gameplay.
Of course, Valhalla couldn’t be a complete return-to-form. The large successes of Origins and Odyssey proved the profitableness of the RPG formula (plus the introduction of numerous new fans), and so the question that remains is how well does the game balance the two systems? Well, if you’ve been on any forums, you’ve no doubt heard a medley of opinions ranging from good to bad, but, as I’m with the former camp, I hope my review does a solid job elucidating why you should agree as well.
Odyssey’s present-day left things on an unstable note. Layla had been granted more screen time and characterization at the expense of her morality: in her quest to understand the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, she killed a fellow cell member whilst sparing the life of recent antagonist Otso Berg (whose fate is not ascertained). It’s no secret Layla was never really investable as a protagonist- her inclusion in Origins felt misplaced and intrusive, and having her meddle with Isu Artifacts in Odyssey like an idiot didn’t do much to mend that. As such, there was a lot of pressure on Darby to succeed on several fronts where previous writers had failed: resolve Layla’s qualms, wrap-up her storyline, and, most importantly, make her likable. To do this, McDevitt and his team implemented two initiatives that are honestly quite genius in retrospect. The first is a minor retcon wherein it turns out Layla was being cognitively-influenced by the Caduceus to act out aggressively -- not only did this harken back to Desmond’s stabbing of Lucy in Brotherhood, but it also gave Layla a bit of a Greek tragedy overlay wherein she was being manipulated by the Gods to do their bidding. Victimhood is often a surefire method of garnering immediate sympathy, and I can definitely say I actually felt for Layla whenever she reflected on what transpired before.
The second is bringing back Shaun & Rebecca, two characters I’ve always referred to as the C-3PO and R2-D2 of the franchise due to their buddy relationship and longstanding presence in the games. Layla’s colleagues from Origins and Odyssey weren’t bad by any means, however there’s no denying they lacked the chemistry, humor, and three-dimensionality that Desmond’s group had, which was always going to be detrimental given the short amount of time the MD had to make an impression. That McDevitt naturally inserts Layla into this pre-established duo without breaking up their camaraderie is admirable on its own merits, however, it’s the throwback feel he manages to evoke from assembling them together that deserves real praise. It’s hard to describe, but I honestly couldn’t help feeling nostalgic seeing Layla interact with the two; it brought to mind those times from ACII and Brotherhood wherein you were pulled out of the Animus and had a chance to catch-up with the rest of the gang, usually hearing some hilarious dialogue in the process.
McDevitt further fixes the MD by bringing back its grandiose scope via the inclusion of a new planetary threat. To give some background information for you newbies, after haphazardly wrapping up the original storyline with ACIII, Ubisoft had no idea what to do next in the 21st century: they saw the appeal of the series was in its historical escapades, yet knew the framing device of the MD/Animus was too integral to remove. I fleshed out my thoughts on the decision surrounding Desmond’s fate in my ACIII retrospective, but that notwithstanding, the fallout from it was degrading the modern Brotherhood to essentially glorified treasure hunters over the time-traveling rebels Desmond and co. occupied. In Valhalla, the world-ending stakes are back, and while having yet another Earth-threatening plot device seems lazy ala Force Awakens rehashing the Death Star, there’s more to it than meets the eye (as we’ll see later).
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Valhalla’s MD opens up presumably months after the events of Fate of Atlantis with this newfound trio in an area of New England. They’ve been led there courtesy of a cryptic message informing them that the secret to preventing an apocalypse lies in the memories of a Viking buried nearby. That viking is Eivor Varinsdottir, a character who is canonically female but will be referred to as male here due to that being the gender I selected. Eivor’s story, much like Connor’s, begins with him as a child witnessing the death of his parents just as they’ve secured peace with another clan. Thankfully, that clan’s leader opts to adopt him, leading to him becoming a Bjorn who, years later, successfully enacts revenge.
Compared to my past AC analyses, I’m not going to go too in-depth with the story recapping for a couple of reasons: one, this is my first time completing the game, and a fresh experience is inherently unreliable for any narrative dissection striving to be objective; and two, the game is too bloody long! Months before I started it, a friend informed me that the story by itself was longer than all three of Ezio’s outings’ combined, and though I dismissed him at the time, the truth is he was correct. Valhalla’s intro, set in Norway, takes about 5-6 hours to complete, more than a quarter of ACII’s entire length, and did I mention it was just the intro?
Thankfully, it’s incredibly well-written; so well, in-fact, that I actually beat it in one sitting. Part of that has to do with the lack of filler -- unlike ACIII or Odyssey, you’re not wasting time playing hide-and-seek or fencing on a ship. Everything Eivor is made to do progresses the plot forward, from rescuing his crew, avenging his parents against Kjotve the Cruel, meeting characters who will play a major role down-the-line, and getting reacquainted with his brother Sigurd. There’s even a small arc implemented wherein Eivor starts to learn the value of diplomacy over hotheadedness, a thought that will theoretically play a major part during his time in England (spoiler alert - it doesn’t).
The Hidden Ones are simultaneously heralded in this section, and I absolutely loved what McDevitt and co. did with them. My favorite AC opening behind Origins’ has always been Black Flag’s due to it showcasing the Assassins as they would appear to an outsider: brooding, stoic, and containing an aura of mystery, and you get that tenfold here with Basim and his acolyte Hytham- he joined Sigurd on his worldly journeys for reasons that don’t seem convincing. From closely advising Sigurd to gifting Eivor the Hidden Blade (amidst protests from Hytham), it’s blatantly clear that Basim is using the Vikings for some greater purpose, and these ulterior motives underlying his actions highlight a secondary facet worth noting- the respect for lore past.
By all accounts, ever since Corey May and Patrice Desilets left Ubisoft, there has not been a real loremaster at the company, leading to artifact inconsistencies (i.e., the Precursor Boxes), mass proliferation of Pieces of Eden, and the admonishment of Assassin morale. While the first two can at least be explained away under some retcon, it’s the latter that has always affected me because a nicety from ACI through Brotherhood was the Assassins retaining a degree of ethical clarity. Yes, they were effectively terrorists, and yes the Templars had a greyness around their own actions, but there was never any doubt that the Assassins were the preferred solution.
Starting with Revelations, things started to tiptoe into an ends justify the means subset that seemed unstable in comparison to before: you had Assassins committing mass murder (Revelations), Assassins working with pirates (Black Flag), Assassins doing favors for imperialists and pedophiles (Unity), and Assassins launching gang wars in the open streets (Syndicate). I do like a good many of those games, however there’s no denying that, by becoming entrenched in sequelitis, Ubisoft missed the mark on the core tenets of the brotherhood.
At the outset, Valhalla had a chance of falling into this same trap. After all, this is a game about bloodthirsty vikings who burn monasteries and want to subjugate England, and having a sect dedicated to the preservation of free will allying themselves with such sordid peoples would’ve come across as odd at best. Thankfully, while Hytham (based on later convos) genuinely believes Eivor’s Clan to be honorable compared to the Order of the Ancients, Basim holding alternative plans gives a valid reason for the Hidden Ones putting aside their moral compass in aiding the Drengr.
Tutorials are interwoven organically as well (an impressive feat considering these games are meant to appeal to newcomers), which brings us to the gameplay. Assassin’s Creed has always been built on three pillars: combat, stealth, and parkour. Since Unity, there have been multiple attempts at revamping the combat mechanics of the series, and when it came time for the RPG trilogy, an even greater shift was made from paired animations to hitbox- no longer were you worrying about constant counters from enemies, it was now about evading strikes and knocking their health bar down. In Origins, this worked out like standard fencing: the goal was to keep your distance and jab when your opponent left himself open. In Odyssey, courtesy of the (dumb) removal of shields and increased emphasis on abilities, a more hack-and-slash schematic was implemented wherein the goal was to now pummel-and-dodge until your adrenaline meter built-up, allowing a massive attack.
In Valhalla, it’s about overpowering your adversaries through strategic maneuvers, from breaking defenses via heavy blows to shattering exposed weak points with arrows. However, to prevent players from spamming heavy strikes (or endlessly dodge-rolling like before), a stamina meter has been implemented that depletes the more you do either move. The only way to rejuvenate it is to either take a breather or successfully gore a thug with a light attack, meaning you now have an incentive to use lighter strikes over heavier ones besides their superior speed. Abilities are back (much more-grounded this time around), and similar to Odyssey, there is an encouragement on growing your stamina to utilize them in a hairy situation; however, they’re never necessary for succeeding, turning them into a tool more than anything (and yes, that’s a good thing).
Of the three games’ combat systems, I probably had the most fun with Valhalla’s- not only do you have a good balance between light/heavy/parrying/dodge, but the bosses, in particular, come from the Dark Souls school of requiring smarts over simple lacerations. That said, there are two big flaws: one, regular enemies (which make up most encounters) become quite easy to chop down once your power level is sufficiently high (to be fair, I suppose that’s a standard for most RPGs), and two, there isn’t a cap on archery -- it’s so easy to simply gain some distance and spam arrows/longe range abilities in the middle of a fight, meaning tougher archetypes like the Goliaths, Zealots and majority of minibosses are rendered less effective. Having bowing deplete stamina instead of rejuvenating it would’ve resolved this easily.
When it comes to stealth, it should be noted that, upon release, Valhalla had a broken apparatus apparently akin to ACIII’s. In the months following, two patches were sent-out that, based on my experience, have alleviated those qualms, though from what I understand, the patches were either never released to PC ports or were ultimately ineffective. So Master Race adherents, please keep that in mind.
For fellow console peasants, stealth is pretty fun. In the wild, you’ve got heaps of grass patches to skulk around in, whistle, and snipe from afar. One change I appreciated is hitting an enemy amongst a group doesn’t immediately highlight your presence like it did in Origins, so long as you get back into cover. The largest drawback to the stealth is that, going off what I stated earlier, tools have been completely replaced with abilities- if you want to poison someone, set something ablaze, distract with your raven, or place a far-off explosive, you’re going to have to waste stamina doing it, which takes away from the Assassin portion for sure.
As noted in the introduction, Valhalla made waves for two things: bringing back the one-hit KO Hidden Blade (accomplished via a minigame or menu change if you’re a scrub), as well as social stealth. This might be controversial to say, however I genuinely think this version of social stealth is the third best in the franchise behind Brotherhood and Syndicate, even being utilized better than the entirety of the Kenway Saga. You’ll frequently enter cities and communities dubbed “mistrust zones” which Eivor will cloak himself in, but that cloak doesn’t make you invisible unless you happen to find some monks. It’s a lot like ACI in that, one, you can’t blend in with everyone, and two, that guards have detection meters that set-off depending on how close you are to them/if you’re acting out-of-line: walk like a normal human being (helped by the garment deliberately slowing your speed) and they won’t pay you much attention; dart or climb about and you’ll get some stares. Blending activities are strewn throughout these scapes to allow in-plain-sight hiding as soldiers walk by you, and plenty of drunks somber about to manipulate as distractions. The one thing that would’ve really improved Valhalla is if they added more assassination takedowns. Maybe I’m spoiled by ACIII and Unity, which had these in abundance, but it gets kind of tiring seeing Eivor perform the same 2-3 knifings every murder. Considering all the distinct hiding spots, it would’ve been cool to be able to do a unique takedown in place of a standard stab.
Parkour is, sadly, pretty garbage. It’s no secret Ubisoft moved to an inferior system in Origins out of a desire to emphasize open world exploration over traversable cities, but with Valhalla, it’s bizarre because they’ve actually reverted to the old design style, yet complimented it with what is arguably the worst parkour in the history of the franchise. See, places like Lunden, Jorvik, and Wincestre are built like classic AC metropolises, with interconnected buildings and direct pathways for Eivor to dash about on, and when it’s working right the traceuring (horizontal-wise at least) is smooth. But they’ve made this weird push-button assignment that both feels needlessly complicated and prevents you from mastering progressment the way you could in past AC games -- you click the joystick to run, push the joystick to freerun, hold A to parkour/climb/auto-leap short distances, and double tap A to jump. Perhaps they were attempting to emulate the Ezio versions, which had dedicated digital prompts for jumping, running, and parkour (compared to the Kenway Saga, wherein things were simplified to two buttons), however, there were only three there compared to the four here, and it was also more ergonomic (clicking the joystick in Valhalla just isn’t as functional as pressing a tab).
Still, I would’ve been able to tolerate this had the parkour algorithm been consistent with what it recognizes as pure freerun vs. ascension, but you’ll often find yourself accidentally clambering-up columns or other installations that you would’ve thought traversable with the standard A button.
Vertical movement is worse. Once Eivor has begun his shimmying he turns into glue, unable to detach, drop down, or manually climb-leap to the top (an inconsistent one technically exists, but you’ll see why it’s inconsistent when you play). Your sole recourse is to either finish your trek or auto-descent netherward until you’re within range for a drop-off. Valhalla, to its credit, does retain the side lunge from Unity, as well as a standard back eject (the latter only if you have another structure in range), and I did appreciate them giving Eivor’s model weight akin to Arno, but these are ultimately small potatoes against an inherently-downgraded system.
Okay, now that that’s taken care of, we can continue with the introduction. All cards on the table, there isn’t much else to say that cannot be covered under one of the generalities I specified earlier: it’s tautly-paced, sharply scripted, and informs you on how to interact with the existing systems. Things end with Sigurd and Eivor bailing to England after Sigurd’s father surrenders his throne to King Harald to secure future peace for the clan. There’s a nice duality of maturity vs naivety wherein you see how Styrbjorn’s world experiences have shown him the futility of maintaining everlasting conflict for meaningless things like glory, once again laying the seeds for Eivor’s own arc (that never comes to pass).
In England, the Ravens head to the last known site of a Viking clan who colonized earlier called the Sons of Ragnarr, only to find their lands abandoned. After fending off some Englishmen, Sigurd opts to mark this territory as the Raven’s new home, launching Valhalla’s version of a series semi-staple: the settlement. To elucidate the history for you newbies, settlements have been a recurrent aspect of AC, albeit one not as stringent as hardcore fans would lead you to believe. Yes, every AC game save Origins featured a home base of some type, but the vast majority were never used for anything substantive: Alamut Castle was a simple set with nothing inside; the Villa Auditore a glorified armory; Tiber Island a place only for Assassin ceremonies; Black Flag’s Great Inagua and Rogue’s Fort Arsenal utterly meaningless; Revelations’s bureaus, Unity’s Cafe Theater, Syndicate’s Train a spawn point for missions; and the Adrestia just a ship.
You’ll notice I omitted one entry, and that was of course the Davenport Homestead from ACIII. It was the first time an Assassin HQ actually felt like a real, lived-in place: you had tons of NPCs, plenty of missions/optional dialogue based around their presence, in-game challenges, and an economic boon via trade convoys. It formulated a template I’m saddened none of its sequels expanded upon.
Well, on the plus side Ravensthorpe is a valiant attempt at crafting a meaningful estate, even if it never reaches its greatest potential. It combines the renovation system from Brotherhood, civilian presence of ACIII, and mission generating of the Cafe Theater into a single hacienda. You start and finish all your story missions here, construct/upgrade new buildings to unlock sidequests, and can even activate a feast buff to temporarily boost your attributes. Despite these facets, I can’t say I got particularly attached to Ravensthorpe, and that has to do with a couple of reasons: one, because it’s more of a springboard for your adventures, you don’t spend much time in the actual area; and two, it ails from Unity problem of repetitive AI. What I mean is, every time you enter the place, you’ll see the exact same animations play-out: the same kids running up to you, the same crew members marching from the docks, the same animals lolling about, etc….and that’s ultimately immersion-killing. As much as people hate the Almanac of the Common Man from ACIII, it at least underlined an amazing feat from that game, which was the radiant-esque AI of the homesteaders, and I wish a similar coding had been programmed here.
Anyway, it’s high time we spoke on the story. Valhalla’s main campaign may be confusing to some because it adopts a method of storytelling new to the AC franchise (and mainstream titles as a whole): arcs. Prior games operated on a modus I refer to as “Acts” which, to quote my ACII review, are similar to Arcs in that they’re set around a new threat, but differ in terms of not being standalone. That’s not to say that Valhalla’s arcs are completely unrelated to the other (in fact, several continue/reference events from prior ones); however, they definitively have a beginning, middle, and end, allowing you to complete them without feeling like you’re ending on a cliffhanger. The process generally follows as depicted: Eivor will consult Sigurd’s wife Randvi about a territory, learn of its predicaments/politics, pledge to obtain their allegiance, resolve whatever qualms exist, and then return and confirm with Randvi that the deed is done. Rinse and repeat.
Now, this format has led to accusations that Valhalla is full of filler, and it’s one of those things I both agree and disagree with, though even my agreements are laced with provisos. If we were to condense the arcs under themes, Valhalla has four overarching storylines: Kingmaker, Order of the Ancients, Asgard, and Sigurd. Kingmaker has you running all over England forging those aforestated alliances, Order eliminating members of the proto-Templars, Asgard reliving memories of the Norse Gods (more on that later), and Sigurd’s a combination of all three, albeit one which trails continuously throughout Valhalla’s runtime.
In fictional storytelling, especially AAA releases, audiences are used to conventional chronicling wherein event A goes to B to C to D ad nauseam. Because of this mindset, it’s my theory that conventional gamers appropriated the Sigurd thread as Valhalla’s primary campaign, and I don’t blame them: Sigurd was a major figure in the intro and the whole reason Eivor departed to England in the first place. Eivor’s purpose is to serve his adopted sibling, and given the recurring nature of the man in the story, at first glance it would appear Ubisoft agreed.
However, upon closer inspection, I do think Valhalla is more experimental than that given that progressment, even in Sigurd’s sections, is primarily reliant on the formation of those dutiful liaisons since Eivor utilizes them to aid his sibling (more on that later). The reason I consider this approach experimental is because, in mainstream releases, you usually get the opposite. Think about it: in other games, the A plot is a singular strand which lasts uninterrupted whilst side content occupies shorter bursts of self-contained tales; in Valhalla, though, the self-contained tales pull double-duty as autonomous contes AND building blocks for the development of Eivor and Sigurd’s relationship.
But that begs the earlier inquiry of is this filler? If the player has to do these elongated set pieces to advance the A plot, did Valhalla’s writers fall prey to the scourge of shōnen anime? Again, not to dodge the question, but the answer is somewhere in the middle. For me, if I’m going to label something as filler, it needs to contain two components: one, have no importance to the macro, and two, not be referenced in postliminary scenarios. I theorize the reason critics have championed this accusation is because Valhalla’s non-Sigurd arcs are largely deficient in the latter, which is what most people look for when gauging continuity. However, it is not zero sum, and, more importantly, contains the former in spades. We’ve already established that Sigurd’s storyline, itself, is not completely independent due to it being tied to the Raven Clan’s confederacies/the brothers’ connections to the Old Gods. As such, by having dedicated individualized chapters to both those threads, you avoid falling into filler territory by my definition.
Still, I am sympathetic to the quibbles, and definitely agree that more connecting tissue should’ve been implemented to guide players from arc-to-arc, and I honestly feel these problems derive from Valhalla’s wish to be open-ended. This is a game that wants you to do certain beats in a certain order whilst concurrently providing a freedomic approach towards said objectives a la A Link to the Past. Unfortunately, in a story-driven enterprise with recurrent characters, you can’t exactly have that because it interrupts the flow, which is the dilemma gamers no doubt faced here. Thus, to alleviate this for future players, my suggestion is to do what I did, which is, well, role-play. Imagine why Eivor would want to embark on Y next as opposed to Z. Trust me when I say it’ll go a long way towards making your experience a lot more enjoyable. Valhalla is a ROLE-PLAYING game, so technically such a tactic isn’t out of the left field. However, I understand this isn’t a legitimate answer to the qualm of the arcs not being strongly-tied together, which is why I said the answer is ultimately muddled.
Tl;dr, I don’t think the absence of narratorial links make the non-Sigurd arcs filler, but it definitely hurts the pacing unless you do some imagineatory gymnastics on your part.
I’ll begin my story analysis with Ledecestrescire, wherein Sigurd has located the displaced Sons of Ragnarr, who, in a bid to win the favor of King Ceolwulf, are attempting to replace current Mercian ruler Burgred with Ceolwulf’s son Ceolbert. You can tell a lot of effort went into this arc by way of the sheer amount of mo-capped cutscenes, and as your first real look at the Viking presence in England, I was pleasantly surprised by the brutal depiction. Unlike Black Flag’s pirates, Valhalla’s Norsemen are portrayed as the cruel warriors they garnered a reputation for, and while other aspects are sanitized (more on that later), at least here it’s made clear from the get-go that you’re in league with Machiavellianists. Central to this rendition is Ivarr the Boneless, a character who I’m confident has become a fan favorite in the same vein as Cesare and Roberts. He’s cruel, hedonistic, and above all entertaining, never failing to spice up the narrative (especially against his dull bróði Ubba).
I’ve heard from friends that Ledecestrescire evokes Game of Thrones vibes, and though I haven’t watched that show as of the writing of this review, I can definitely imagine how the blood games and political machinations would be reminiscent of such goings-ons in Westeros. But yeah, overall Ledecestrescire was a great first step into Valhalla’s world of war and ruses: Ceolbert is a superb young character, the historicity is surprisingly accurate, and the tone is on-point. It ends with Sigurd departing to conduct more work whilst asking Eivor to continue the proliferation of the Raven Clan’s power.
That leads to the next arc, Grantebridgescire, which is unfortunately a big step down from Ledecestrescire due to being too reminiscent of an AC Odyssey questline. What I mean is, for those who didn’t play that title, is that it takes an interesting premise and dilutes it with the classic video game formula of do THREE things. In this case, Soma suspects one of her three councilmen is a traitor and needs Eivor to figure out who as her clan fights for control of the area from Order member Wigmund. The tasks associated with each of the trifecta are diverse enough, but it can’t help feeling pointlessly drawn-out and consequently sluggish. Perhaps this was deliberately done to increase your level given that the next arc, East Anglia, has noticeably higher stat requirements.
Things begin when Eivor returns to Ravensthorpe and finds his clansmen under attack by fellow Danes. After defeating them, Eivor and Randvi deduce they must have come from East Anglia, prompting the beginning of Eivor’s acquaintanceship with King Oswald. Oswald is set to marry the norsewoman Valdis in a bid to secure unity between the Saxons and Danes in East Anglia; however, hampering things for him are two factions: Valdis’s brothers, who disapprove of Oswald’s inherent character weakness, and the hostile viking Rued, who is behind many raids in the area (including the attempted one at Ravensthorpe).
East Anglia is, without a doubt, my favorite storyline in Valhalla because of several factors: one, the production value; two, the pacing, and three (most importantly) Oswald’s characterization. He’s meant to occupy the pathetic archetype, yet isn’t pathetic if that makes sense. He’s clearly weak and out of his depth in this Dark Age world, yet continues to press forward with courage, and it makes for a very enjoyable persona. My only problems with East Anglia were the inclusion of a last minute camp raid I thought needless, as well as the writers not bothering to explain how Oswald and Rued survived their fall. Slim pickings though.
Eivor comes back to learn that Sigurd wants to meet in Oxenefordscire, where he plans to install a thegn called Geadric into power. Arriving there, Eivor finds Sigurd reunited with Basim (who departed on his own errands soon after the Vikings made windfall) and being hunted due to their support of Geadric against Lady Eadwyn, a royal selected by King Aelfred of Wessex to rule over the country. The rescuing and support of Geadric starts off fine until Sigurd discloses ulterior motives to his activities in Oxenefordscire- he is trying to find a Paladin named Fulke who reportedly has knowledge of a deific secret concerning Sigurd. Sigurd’s push to prioritize Fulke over Geadric, especially under the divine justifications he gives, leads to friction with Eivor, and while their conflict is a bit rushed given their established brotherhood, it’s executed well-enough that I didn’t have serious complaints. For one, Sigurd’s vagueness is frustrating to Eivor (and possibly the player), but at the same time is brought about by him wanting to be certain about things AND being accustomed to Eivor blindly following him on prior adventures. And two, going back to what I stated earlier, it’s blatant that Basim is pulling some strings to manipulate Sigurd into acting this way, a notion that further aggravates Eivor.
Fulke has knowledge of the Isu and believes Sigurd to be a reincarnation of a Norse God, a supposition that further exacerbates Sigurd’s increasingly Messianic beliefs. Despite successfully beating Eadwyn, King Aelfred arrives. To avoid further bloodshed, Sigurd proposes the two sides trade their best warriors, during which Fulke betrays the group by pleading with the King to take Sigurd instead given his heritage as a prince and deity, disclosing her identity as a member of the OotA in the process. The terms are agreed upon and Aelfred withdraws, prompting Basim to covertly follow them and promise to update Eivor when he finds out where Sigurd will be taken. Overall, despite having some blatant padding, Oxenefordscire is a solid arc that simultaneously pushes events forward whilst introducing characters who will play a major part down-the-line.
With all this talk of gods, I decided the next thing Eivor would do is try and figure out his own spiritual roots to get to the bottom of things, and given the arrival of the seer Valka in England, now seemed as good a time as any. Drinking a special brew from her grants Eivor dreams of Asgard wherein Odin is desperate to stave off his destiny of dying in Ragnarök. All cards on the table with you guys, I did not like this arc at all. It comes across as a discount God of War script, weaving an epic of hypothetical grandiose with micronic figures. What I mean is it doesn’t feel Eddaic because you’re seeing events through what are literally reskins of standard NPCs and characters from the base game. Origins and Odyssey both incorporated mythological realms, and while the rehashed gameplay definitely diminished their value, at least you were still controlling the same human protagonist. Here, you’re technically supposed to be playing as Odin, yet he operates exactly like Eivor when he’s supposed to be this supernatural entity. And yes, I know that the Isu are not gods in the conventional sense and were never going to be treated in the same vein as Darksiders; however, their corporeal incomprehensibility and mythological craftsmanship in past releases still elevated them to grander plains that Asgard fundamentally fails at concocting. I maybe would’ve been able to overlook this had the narrative been something special to the AC world, but it’s literally a transcription of poetry from Old Norse texts.
Also, for a game that wants to have a Sage plot twist, it baffles me that they didn’t bother trying to disguise the other characters from their Earthly counterparts, either visually or aurally. Loki looks and sounds exactly like Basim; Thor like Halfdan, Týr like Sigurd, and so forth.
Because of Fulke’s association with the Order, it made sense that Eivor would pursue them next, spurring a journey to Lunden where Hytham notes the Templar presence. Lunden is not only one of my favorite arcs in the game, it’s also my favorite city in the game. With Roman ruins, flat rooftops, and an emphasis on social stealth, it’s a clear homage to the Ezio games, and boasts an interesting tale involving two friends trying to figure out who murdered their King. A nice arc that wraps up nicely and removes three Order members from England.
Returning back, Randvi tells of Ceolbert, who had briefly stayed with the Raven Clan to learn the art of politics. He is now in Sciropescire, striving to broker a peace between the Danes and Britons. Sadly, talks break down quickly when Ivarr, representing the Danes, declares war on King Rhodri, representing the Britons, having had a past feud with him over the scarring of his face. As you can imagine from Ivarr and Ceolbert’s presence, Sciropescire acts as a sequel to Ledecestrescire, yet sadly isn’t anywhere near as good, largely due it focusing on efforts to undermine Rhodri logistically in order to force him to the negotiation table. These actions consist of your usual raiding, which gets boring fast as you’re doing the same repetitive activities again and again and again. I’m 90% sure the praise for it comes purely from the last third wherein Ceolburt is apparently murdered by an Englishman, prompting the forgoing of diplomacy and the sieging of Rhodri’s castle. After the battle, the King is captured by Ivarr, taken to the mountains, and turned into a Blood Eagle, after which Ivarr reveals himself as the real murderer of Ceolbert- the subsequent fight with Eivor sees the Ragnarrson killed and Eivor leaving depressed. It’s absolutely a great finale, but one that doesn’t quite make-up for the utter monotony you have to put up with.
In Ravensthorpe, Randvi has seemingly great news- Basim has tracked down Sigurd to the southeast. Unfortunately, the consequent Cent Arc, despite continuing the “main campaign,” is arguably the first instance of major filler in Valhalla. See, Basim hasn’t actually found Sigurd - he’s found a guy who claims to know where Fulke is, but will only do so if they help him discover who Aelfred selected as ealdorman of the land his church resides in. Despite some interesting conversations with Basim, the lion’s share of this storyline is more banality, further hampered by the presence of one of the most annoying NPCs in the series, Shergar. If you needed further proof of it being filler, it literally ends with Fulke murdering the ealdorman and escaping to a nearby fortress in Suthsexe.
It brings me no pleasure in saying that the Suthsexe Arc doesn’t redress the drudgery of Cent. Despite seeing many of your established allies convene for this fight, it suffers from the same problems as Sciropescire in that you’re chiefly doing war preparations (not to mention the actual siege itself isn’t any different from prior castle assaults). But hey, at least Fulke is assassinated and Sigurd rescued. Tragically, though, it appears Eivor was too late as Sigurd is a changed man: he views himself as a God, withdraws from company, and acts outwardly aggressive towards his clansmen.
Once again, this talk of godhood convinced me to head back into my pagan dreams (encouraged by the requisite ingredients being near Cent and Suthsexe) wherein Havi has arrived in Jötunheim, or the realm of giants, to seek their Seiðr: it holding the secret to immortality. Thankfully, Jotunheim is a marked improvement over Asgard simply because it does what Curse of the Pharaohs and Fate of Atlantis did, which is tell an Assassin’s Creed story through the designated mythos instead of regurgitating an existing tale. Significantly aiding this endeavor is the presence of Juno, depicted as a Scandinavian figure named Hyrrokkin, who secretly helps Havi discover the method by which he can survive Ragnarok: dispersing his soul in a well called Mímisbrunnr. It also leans a bit more into the preternatural with there being an actual giant you have to fight (and Odin, you know, plucking out his freakin eyeball!).
Back in the land of the living, it was time to re-pursue the Order for what they had done to Sigurd. Cue Jorvik, where Hytham has caught the presence of three more targets. Luckily for Eivor, it turns out two of his old friends, Hjorr and Ljufvina, reside in the city. Arriving there, Eivor finds yet another conspiracy afoot- members of a gang called the Red Hand are attempting to kill the elite class, as well as anyone who fancies them (including Ljufvina!).
As another city arc centered on eliminating proto-Templars, I was hoping Jorvik would be as great as Lunden, but that wasn’t to be. On the plus side, the three radicals are more memorable than the ones in Lunden, but on the negative side, too much time is spent on investigations, which theoretically would be nice save they’re the same trivial casework Origins “pioneered” years ago wherein you would simply enter an area and find all the highlighted “clues” for Eivor to put together on his own. Such a method feels like you’re going through the motions instead of actually solving a mystery, meaning you only get so much mileage. The Red Wedding-inspired finale is decent at the very least.
Next up is Essexe. You get a letter requesting your help from the ealdorman there, Birstan, who wants you, along with another Viking named Rollo, to kidnap his wife so that she can go live a happy life back in Francia whilst he marries his true sweetheart. To be blunt with you guys, I can’t quite describe a role-playing reason as to why Eivor would commit to this area, making it the only arc which I will unequivocally agree should have been relegated to a side mission. Yes, you acquire your typical alliance, but the events don’t tie into anything else occurring in England minus Aelfred’s men showing up as last-minute antagonists. The story itself isn’t bad, and is definitely different from the standard regicidal flair of the other arcs, but this microcosm just felt ultimately unnecessary as a whole.
In Eurvicscire, King Halfdan, another Ragnarrson, requests Eivor’s aid in his fight against the Picts. Eurvicscire acts as something of a follow-up to Jorvik given the similar setting and Eivor enlisting Hjorr and Ljufvina’s help down-the-line. However, the bulk of it surprisingly has less to do with the war and more with Halfdan’s health: he suspects his first mate, Faravid, of conniving to kill him. The writers evidently intended for this to be a morally-grey yarn wherein you don’t know who to trust, but to convey this they went about the annoying route of making everyone talk in drawn-out babblery without getting to the point. I’m sure you guys have seen a piece of media or played a game where this type of technique was employed, and it just reeks of amateurity- there’s a way to be thrilling without dancing around the point like a teenage girl attempting to flirt.
I was also really bothered by Eivor’s facial animations. For those who don’t know, Odyssey and Valhalla employed an algorithm to render body and countenance expressions so that Ubisoft didn’t have to spend money on motion capture for every cutscene. That’s perfectly fine, and I don’t condemn them for it- it’s an expensive procedure, other companies have employed similar tactics, and if it works out it works out. And contrary to public opinion, I actually do think it’s worked out for the most part- minus Eivor feeling the constant need to cross his arms every minute, his movements never feel unnatural (Valhalla’s regression to “talking heads”, on the other hand, is a point of contention, but more on that later). However, something must’ve gone wrong during the programming of Eurvicscire as Eivor constantly makes these weird smiley visages with his eye sockets and eyebrows that are off-putting. It reminded me a lot of that scene in Terminator 2 when John is trying to teach the T-800 how to grin.
Anyway, like Jorvik, the conclusion is pretty good (Halfdan is thoroughly entertaining), but to get to that conclusion, you have to complete generic objectives and one more castle siege. The one saving grace to those setpieces are the Picts- I mean it when I say credit to Ubisoft for designing so many unique enemy archetypes this late into the game. They add new challenges and feel like the warmongers feared by Emperor Hadrian.
Returning to Ravensthorpe, I found a young nobleman named Hunwald domiciling in the settlement. Enquiring about his problems revealed that he was forcibly separated from his father, the Ealdorman of Lincolnscire, by mysterious men of an “ancient order”, and wants an escort back home. Well, that thinly-veiled allusion to the Order of the Ancients convinced me to take-up his request, and boy did I regret it. Lincolnscire is, without a doubt, the worst arc in the game (IMO), and it all starts with Hunwald: first-off, he looks uncannily like Michael Cera, and yes, that’s a bad thing. Secondly, his dialogue is atrocious -- he inhabits the happy-go-lucky, naive, caffeinated jackrabbit stock character we’ve all seen since Scrappy Doo, and it is painfully out-of-place in this Medieval era. I have no qualms labeling him the AC version of the Adoring Fan or Sticky or insert your choice of annoying NPC, and denying him the Thegn title is one of the sweetest things I have ever done in a video game.
The storyline itself is bad on its own merits, blending the worst parts of Cent, Suthsexe, and Eurvicscire into an unappetizing mess of bad pacing and obnoxiously obscure convos. The truth about Hunwald’s father is otiosely protracted, and the process for replacing him comes down to a simple straw vote with predictable outcomes. Again, you get a decent cinematic ending with Eivor assassinating an Order member, but overall it was such a dull experience, I actually took a break halfway through to complete side activities (something I didn’t do for any other arc).
On that note, it’s worth taking a rest here to speak on those side activities. As you have all of England at your fingertips, so too are you provided hours upon hours of excursions to partake in. First up is your conventional treasure hunting that has accompanied AC games since the flags of yesteryear: Valhalla has notably done away with the looter shooter schematic of Origins and Odyssey in favor of unique outfits and weapons. Upgrading these requires resources, from precious metals to your standard materials, and all three caches are located in chests peppered across the map. One of the more unique things Valhalla does is hide these crates behind obstacles, requiring you to solve a mini-puzzle of sorts to acquire them. Now, I’ve heard a lot of complaints regarding this system, stating that it adds unnecessary redundancy to the scavenging, and I generally disagree. For starters, it makes sense that goodies would actually be hidden (and beats the post-ACII system of simply placing guards everywhere). Secondly, while some of them are needlessly elongated in the sense that the solution is to simply dart around the side of the building ala TLOU2, the majority are actually pretty dang clever and require proper reconnaissance. They do get repetitive in the sense that the same barrier schemes are redone ad nauseam (i.e., the same bars, same explodable walls, etc…), but because it isn’t necessary to constantly upgrade armor the way it was in the prior RPG games (more on that later), you never have to force yourself to find them anyway.
Artifacts are the second type of collectible and they’re generally unconcealed compared to treasure, though a number of pieces do lie behind similar barricades. There are five variants: hoard maps, which display chests in the vicinity; Roman masks, which can be traded in for settlement cosmetics; flying tattoo papers, which, like the Almanac Pages and shanties from prior entries, need to be chased down a parkour course; Rigsogur Fragments, or generic lore entries, and finally Cursed Sites, the most disappointing substance in the game. At first glance they seem cool- you enter an area, hear some rumblings, and finally your screen gets all shadowy like the Black Suit shimmering in Spider-Man 3. You’re told the place is haunted and asked to end the curse; sounds thrilling right? Well, you’ll quickly realize that nothing bad happens while you’re on this hallowed ground, the sensorial stimuli being surface-level effects and the grand solution merely to destroy a single relic. A letdown for sure.
Overall, the artifacts are fine. Minus the R Fragments and Cursed Sites, I appreciated how each of them actually provided some tangible benefit to the player (a significant upgrade from previous games’ odds-and-ends that relied more-so on intrinsic motivation). Nonetheless, it’s the “Mysteries” you’ll be spending most of your time finishing, and I do have to commend Ubisoft here for trying to variegate these activities. Not since ACIII has an Assassin’s Creed title cooked-up such a batch of diverse side content, and given the sheer amount of time you’ll be spending in the game, they clearly planned things out well.
That said, the quality is up for debate, starting with the World Events. These little narrative tales involve an NPC or group of NPCs requesting you to complete some arbitrary task in support of an initiative on their part, and much like the Guild Missions from Brotherhood, they are VERY hit-or-miss. 6 times out of 10 they’re humorous in tone, but the comedy is either lame, geared towards some hackneyed pop culture reference, or undermined by the stupidity of the task itself. One event, for example, required me to carry a little girl out of a rabbit hole she’d fallen into whilst chasing a white hare (get it?); another had a singing woman stalk me until I paid her over 100 coins of silver to skedaddle. They’re not all bad, I did get a chuckle here-and-there, and the serious ones will leave a lump in your throat. However, the lion’s share of these babies are simply short forgettable distractions-and-diversions; the fact that their length is both the best and worst part about them speaks for itself.
Fly Agarics, based on the shrooms Vikings allegedly imbibed, transport you into a slightly-altered dimension where you have to complete the monumental tasks of either lighting fires, entering specific portals, or killing wild animals. Yeah, despite the visuals being pretty cool, it was wasted potential as far as the psychotropic hijinx Eivor could’ve been tripping, and not helping things is the fact that, half the time, the “signs” to resolve the dilemma are confusing to deduce. There were instances where I literally succeeded through trial-and-error, and I imagine that'll be a shared experience by most gamers.
Standing Stones are short brain teasers consisting of finding an established pattern in a pile of menhir via Odin’s Sight, in turn granting you an ability point (more on that later). Cairns are another rock-based puzzle, albeit one that requires you to stack an assortment of mini-boulders to a predesignated height. Now, if you surf on any online forum, you’ll no doubt come away with the impression that these are the bane of one’s existence, yet like most Internet reactions, that is an overexaggeration. Yes, finding the right pattern can get frustrating, but there are multiple solutions to every heap (and unlike the Fanorona minigame from ACIII, you can actually look up an answer). The physics are surprisingly well-done, the slabs behaving like their real-life counterparts, and similar to the Constellations from Origins, you get some throwback dialogue to Eivor’s childhood. Nonetheless, there were two changes Ubisoft could’ve made that I genuinely believe would’ve alleviated 90% of the ire: one, have a undo-last-move button to prevent a single maneuver from ruining all of a player’s work, and two, throw in a bottom shadow showing exactly how a piece will fit on-top-of another (as it stands, you have to make an educated guess based on the shape of the rock itself).
Lost Drenger, Daughters of Lerion, and Legendary Animals are all types of boss fights you can partake in. Because there are so many of them, they aren’t as unique as Odyssey’s encounters, though they’re still fun and pose a fun challenge. My only complaint is I wish it was possible to see the respective enemys’ power level on the map after discovering them as they’re often much higher than the recommended level of the surrounding area, and the only way of knowing their number is to initiate the fight.
Flyting is my personal favorite Mystery, aptly and accurately described as Viking rap battles by Ubisoft. Maybe it’s because I’m an English major, but I absolutely loved these and wish there were more of them. Their only reward is raising your Charisma, which in turn opens up unique dialogue options that, while not affecting an arc's outcome, were disclosed by McDevitt as being the “canonical” dialogue, so take that how you will.
Treasures of Britain are essentially Valhalla’s version of the tombs from Origins and Odyssey; large-scale exploration hubs to prospect for a special trinket. Very cool and just as well-crafted as the ones that came before.
Offering Altars are essentially the Daedric Shrines from Oblivion without the accompanying sidequest, requiring an oblation in exchange for a random reward.
And finally, you’ve got Animus Anomalies, which were Darby’s attempt at progressing the modern-day without pulling Layla out of the Animus. Given that they’re optional, I don’t know how much he succeeded on that front (they really should’ve been mandatory in retrospect, though more on that later); however, what you’ve got is basically a reinvention of the Glyphs from ACII/Brotherhood in a platforming skin. Layla (or Basim depending on if you completed the game) will materialize into England and need to successfully ascend a series of hard light structures to acquire a piece of data. They’re a nice change of pace from the usual action/adventuring, but much like Desmond’s first-person sections from Revelations, I expect half the audience to dislike them.
Besides the above, Valhalla has a plethora of extra stuff to partake in, beginning with Raids. Raids are basically the epitome of the Viking fantasy, involving you reliving the infamous Lindisfarne Tragedy on repeat as you and your crew attack coastal monasteries for resources. Given that few settlement constructions are required for story progression, you’re basically allowed to conduct these at your own volition, which goes a ways away towards making them fun since they’re never needed for grinding purposes. What I really appreciated was how they don’t fully whitewash what you’re doing- yeah, you can’t kill civilians (which I liken to Achilles sparing the Trojan Priests in Troy) and there’s certainly no carrying back citizens to the longship for enslavement; however, you are explicitly a menace. People run around screaming, huts are set ablaze, all wealth is sacked -- when all’s said and done, it’s clear this place has been ruined for the foreseeable future. Gameplay-wise, I wish the developers had implemented some form of strategy as, while entertaining, they’re pretty blatantly easy due to your crew being unable to die (when struck down, you merely have to hold down a button to “revive” them, allowing infinite hounding of stronger guards). A system wherein you could allocate who attacks where and force a retreat if too many of your guys were wounded would’ve done wonders.
Orlog, a dice minigame, gained a notable amount of traction following Valhalla’s release (to the point of inspiring a real-life tie-in), and though it has innumerable enthusiasts, unfortunately I don’t count myself among them. I’m generally a big fan of dice games in titles (Liar’s Dice in RDR, Dice Poker in The Witcher 1), but my problem with Orlog is that it’s unchallenging. You’re given arguably the best Totem from the get-go ala Thor’s Strike, and the only legitimate tactic forward is to build-up tokens to unleash your God Favor. Sure, the occasional wrench is thrown at you, but 9 times out of 10, you’ll have the advantage over your opponent courtesy of Thor’s Strike being OP. If they had introduced variations like being able to call God Favors without sacrificing pawns (that had consequences), then things may have gotten spiced up, but as it stands, the game gets repetitive due to every competitor’s strategy being indifferent from the other.
That said, I’ll take Orlog any day of the week over drinking contests wherein you literally press one prompt on repeat with the intermittent joystick toggle to prevent stumbling. Utterly banal (it’s telling that Watch_Dogs of all releases had a better drinking game) and thankfully unmarked for completionists to avoid. And on the topic of banality, we’ve got a continuation of the lame hunting system this series had literally failed to innovate on since ACIII. If anything, it’s been made grindier here since you cannot purchase animal parts from stores anymore, nor swing your sword from horseback (Eivor instead kicks and punches), the latter preventing you from mass killing prey during chasedowns. Accompanying this is fishing, which is a barren hodgepodge of boring mechanics: you throw your bait out, wait for a nibble, and then mash A to reel it in. You’re technically given the option to use a bow-and-arrow, but it’s evident the developers wanted you to wield the rod due to a number of reasons: Synin doesn’t recover your arrows, Odin’s Sight marks fish for a measly five seconds, and discharging a bolt scares away the other water critters. Outside of size, there’s no way of telling what kind of fish you’re getting either, meaning the endeavor isn’t even a reliable source of income.
Contrary to popular belief, there are side missions, and while the bulk were added post-release, they're still a welcome addition (I further anticipate readers of this review will be engaging with the Complete Edition of Valhalla that includes all extra content). Most of the quests are initiated from Ravensthorpe and involve either members of your Clan or outsiders requesting Eivor’s aide. They’re a lot like Odyssey’s in that YMMV, but they do exist and offer their own elongated narratives; plus, I can personally vouch that two of the more popular ones, Beowulf and the crossover with Odyssey, are excellent.
Alright, back to the main narrative. Killing Bishop Herefrith in Lincolnshire has prompted Hytham to gain wind of the Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ. This anonymous individual had provided prior intel on previous Order members, and it seems he’s found a new sect in Wincestre. Meeting the instructed informant brings Eivor face-to-face with King Aelfred, who was also notified by the Poor Fellow about a plot on his life from the Order. Despite this only being his second appearance in the story, credit must be given to Ubisoft and actor Tom Lewis for surrounding Aelfred with a sense of foreboding. He may be short, but it’s evident he holds a wealth of power; power to rival all the Vikingr in England. The two have a common interest in seeing the Order expunged, resulting in a temporary truce. Overall, Wincestre makes up for the weaker arcs I had to trudge through courtesy of its regicidal story and indulgence in more classic AC gameplay.
Coming back home, Randvi has received notice from one of Eivor’s old friends, Vili, inviting him to Snotinghamscire where he’s throwing a party for his father Hemming Jarl. Heading up there reveals that things are not as optimistic as were made out in the epistle: the clan is engaged in their own strife with the Picts and Hemming Jarl is dying, a fact that Vili refuses to acknowledge.
Snotinghamscire is reportedly the most accurate arc of Valhalla in terms of its depiction of Viking culture, and indeed you do see how Norse funeral preparations & rites would’ve played out in real life. Unfortunately, the rest of the storyline is pretty forgettable due to its crux resting on Vili and Eivor’s camaraderie. In fiction, it’s very hard to give depth to a relationship that has not been showcased beforehand: not only do you need excellent scripting that recollects past memories without overbearing them in exposition, you also need performers who can successfully parlay the idea that they’ve known each other for a long time. The writing here is balanced enough in that it doesn’t feel like the prelude to a Family Guy cutaway, but all too often it dips deeply into sentimentality; kind of like with Hunwald, there’s too much joviality for individuals who have grown up in a harsh society. Hampering this further is that neither of the boys have strong chemistry, though given how these games are made, I doubt the actors were even in the same booth when they recorded their lines. In addition, Vili gets a bit annoying- his denial about Hemming Jarl’s death starts off natural enough, yet his resistance to accepting the title drags and drags -- it really seemed like some backstory was cut out concerning a past fight he had had with his dad. Overall, Snotinghamscire is fine enough (and certainly a step-up from Lincolnscire), but it would’ve had a lot more weight had Vili played a part in the Norway intro. Also, was it just me, or were they trying way too hard to make Hemming Jarl into a Viking Mr. Miyagi (sounded just like him too)?
Gunnar, the Ravensthorpe blacksmith, has been out for some time, and inquiring about Glowecestrescire gives us our answer: he’s gone off to get married! Given how f%cking awful his replacement forger sounds, I decided to help out the lad. Glowecestrescire is, ironically, the opposite of Snotinghamscire in that it’s apparently the diciest depiction of 9th century England, and I can’t disagree. At the hamlet, you’ve got Anglos and Norse alike both strangely celebrating the Celtic festival of Samhain, concurrent with a Wicker Man ready to sacrifice their king in. It’s pretty nonsensical and a blatant attempt at crafting gameplay diversity between the arcs, which I wouldn’t have had a problem with had it been fun, but as you can guess, that wasn’t exactly to be. Samhain, for openers, is solely treated as Halloween-in-everything-but-name, the trick-or-treating being more boring than Costume Quest’s (it also results in you getting lots of moldy bread that is stated to be cakes in the dialogue >.>). I wish they had leaned more into the culture behind this long-running festivity as that would have made for a far more impressionable product than what you get here.
Besides that, Glowecestrescire does have a fascinating premise of a bigot learning to be accepting of other races as malevolent forces conspire to murder him. The contrast of a person mastering tolerance whilst being conspired against by the very people he hates is where mature storytelling ferments; however, the issue is the game rushes through this -- it’s not a realistic transition, and quite honestly the events that lead to this guy (Tewdwr) changing are silly (incompetent bandits choosing to spare him out of a failed squeezing scheme). There’s also this weird gag wherein Gunnar’s fiancee, Brigid, speaks incomprehensibly to everyone but Gunnar (I thought this was going to build up to some special twist down-the-line, but no, it’s apparently the developers taking jabs at the Welsh language). I do not mean to sound completely negative as I actually liked Glowecestrescire as a whole: it has a lot of memorable characters and the Gothic setting oozes with atmosphere. I just wish more time had been devoted to expanding on the motivations/expressions.
There were two new pathways when I got back to Ravensthorpe: Sigurd wishing to see his father before his ascension, and Hytham discovering one of the Order’s head honchos, who, wouldn’t you know it, is Gorm, son of Kjotve. Well, a combination of Sigurd pissing me off and me not wanting to return to Styrbjorn whilst Gorm still thrived cemented my decision. Onto Vinland, where Eivor has to give up his arsenal in order to sneak into the country unsuspiciously. A lot of praise has gone to Vinland from the AC community, but just like with Sciropescire, I feel most of this comes from the final act and not the bulk of the playthrough, which is ridiculously boring. Eivor being stripped of his weapons in a strange foreign land had a ton of potential, but the arc is literally reduced to the AAA equivalent of “thank you Mario, but your Princess is in another castle”. No seriously, you track down Gorm by rummaging through every camp he was in, finding pieces of stationery stating he’s departed elsewhere, until you get to the right one, and taking him out is a matter of a simple assassination. The whole thing can be completed relatively quickly as well, putting Vinland on the shorter side (particularly surprising given that Ubisoft sculpted an entire new region for it). The whole shebang ends with Eivor retrieving an Apple of Eden from Gorm, giving it to the local Natives for protection (setting up ACIII), and then telling them a myth about Odin before leaving back to England. It’s good stuff, but doesn’t atone for the dullery of afore.
Okay, now it was time to revisit Norway. I had big expectations for Hordafylke: the years-brewing confrontation between Sigurd and Styrbjorn, the truth behind Sigurd’s dreams, and the manifestation of Valka’s prophecy of Eivor betraying his brother. Disappointment began with the first wherein we see Styrbjorn as a broken man, the locals commenting on his fall from kinghood. Why was this done? Styrbjorn’s actions served two purposes: physically, they staved-off the destruction of his clan, and thematically, they showed, or were meant to show, how diplomacy and peace are worthier pursuits than the glory of battle/war, the latter trait obviously formulating the beginning of Eivor’s character arc. By having him be a depressed wreck, though, it completely undermines that theme and gives Sigurd’s side more ammunition. Styrbjorn should’ve been depicted as happy, content with the stability and security of his people, but no, instead you get the opposite, which of course gives Sigurd ample opportunity to berate his old man+++.
The brothers then march to the location of Sigurd’s visions; a long-dormant Isu site equipped with a mechanical Yggdrasil the two interpret as Seidr over tech. Attaching to it transports them to a virtual reality in the vein of Valhalla where they are immortal, treated as Gods, have their strength amplified, and participate in an everlasting battle. Those hoping this Afterlife would be as extravagant as the ones from Origins and Odyssey’s DLCs will be dismayed by the short hall and field before you, though considering how little time you spend here, this decision was probably for the better lest the devs repeat the errors of Vinland. Anyway, it doesn’t take long for Eivor to notice something is wrong and that this isn’t the real Valhalla, resulting in him convincing Sigurd to leave. These actions upset Odin, who tries to force Eivor to stay, claiming responsibility for all of Eivor’s feats. Eventually, our protagonist succeeds and departs from the simulation.
I have many, many, many problems with this grand culmination. First of all, why is Sigurd so easily-willing to be persuaded out of Valhalla? He was acting like an arrogant diphead about the future all those months (years?) leading-up to this event, and when he’s finally here, you’re telling me it only takes a couple of sentences from Eivor to change his mind? Secondly, why does Odin want to stay here? He’s evaded Ragnarok and is experiencing grandeur with Eivor in England: how does hiding in some eternal machine line-up with anything we saw before (couldn’t he have just done that back in the day?)? Thirdly, why does Eivor have NO reaction to Odin outing himself as a corporeal presence? I get that, before, he was just a “fly in the ear,”, but now you’re seeing this guy is real, has power, and is a part of you, you have NO reaction but to treat him as an anonymous threat? On that note, how is Eivor able to just lock Odin away? Past Sages were unable to do anything resembling that, yet Eivor, an untrained person, can? Lastly, why doesn’t Sigurd have any connection with his persona Týr? We went through this whole process of Fulke torturing him to awaken his deific psyche, yet don’t witness a materialization of the God? And why was he acting like a dick if Týr is depicted as a nice God? And what of Valka’s prognosis of Eivor betraying him (and yes, I know the “bad” ending technically answers this, but considering a chunk of the player base is going to get the “good” ending, and considering it isn’t even that ominous a betrayal, this is still a half-baked concept)?
Don’t worry, it only gets worse. Outside the Yggdrasil, Basim has magically appeared ala Captain Anderson in ME3, where he has apparently gone mad, raving nonsense about Eivor wronging him and how he will finally get revenge. Now, if you’re a long-time AC fan, you’ll understand what’s going on - Eivor and Basim are Sages, with Basim being Loki and Eivor of course Odin (a point that, once again, was hammered home in the Asgardian missions where the devs didn’t bother changing up their appearances at all…).
However, if you’re an average joe, I don’t understand how the writers intended for this scene to make sense, especially if you didn’t bother doing the mythological parts (all of Asgard is optional). The issue is nothing about the Isu is told straightforward- it’s all done under the guise of Norse metaphors, and rather than have Basim finally explain things to a very-clearly confused Eivor (representing a newcomer) in a plain manner, he instead speaks with more jargon! Even within the context of the game, is he really so idiotic as to not comprehend that Eivor has no idea what he’s talking about? That Eivor is not aware he’s Odin reincarnated? All cards on the table guys, part of the reason I’m so flustered is because Valhalla’s big revelation was spoiled for me long before, and so, in the prelude to playing the game, my mind concocted this idea about how Eivor discovering the truth would play out: it’d be this big cognitive dissemination that shocked him to his core whilst a rendition of Ezio’s Family played in the background. And yeah, I know it’s not fair to criticize a title for not living up to such fantasies, but considering the actual product is just so anticlimactic on its own merits, I can’t help but be utterly disappointed. Basim makes for a decent “boss fight,” but the sibylline dialogue should’ve been direct, both for Eivor and AC neophyte’s sakes.
The skirmish ends with Eivor and Sigurd impaling Basim on the machine (why they don’t bother killing him is beyond me), Sigurd handing over the Jarl title to Eivor, and the two sailing back to Ravensthorpe (or, if you got the true ending, Sigurd staying behind). No real convos about what transpired, no apologies to Styrbjorn, nothing.
Having found the Isu Site, Layla exits the Animus. We get a classic cutscene in the present with Shaun and Rebecca realizing the magnetosphere problems are originating from Desmond activating the Orb in ACIII. The field that now protects the Earth originates from the Yggdrasil Temple and needs to be slowed down, the only problem being the area is full of radiation. Using the spear for protection, Layla heads down and attaches herself to the device, where she meets Basim in the netherworld. Realizing he’s the one who sent the message, Layla asks him for a way to stop the machine, which he provides before telling her that the timeline will eventually self-correct to cause another disaster (a bit like time fixing itself in 11/22/63). Layla alters the computer, transporting her to another dimension inhabited by a man called The Reader, who is trying to permanently stop the disaster node from repeating. Fathoming that Basim has used her presence to exit the Sacred Tree, and feeling regret over her past actions, Layla decides to stay behind in the Grey to help The Reader.
In the real world, Basim (who is somehow not a shriveled corpse ala Altair in Revelations) latches onto the Spear, heals back to normal, and converses with Odyssey’s Aletheia, disclosing this to have been their plan from the beginning. He meets Shaun and Rebecca, gives them a fabricated recording of Layla, and asks for a meeting with their mentor William Miles. The two depart, and Basim enters the Animus to continue the rest of the story.
Despite having only two mandatory scenes, I really liked what Darby did with the modern day. After 5-6 games of Ubisoft evidently not knowing what they wanted to do post-Desmond, it actually seems like there’s a plan in-place for the future. The idea of the inevitableness of destiny, averting future disasters, and of course Basim himself having ulterior motives/objectives means there’s a lot of weight to what’s going on outside the Animus, which is something I cannot say was the case from ACIV through Odyssey. Other positive facets include the sheer amount of Easter Eggs, Layla earning redemption for her past actions, and The Reader being a blatant transhumanist version of Desmond (why they didn’t outright make him Desmond is a story for another day++). The only drawbacks I had were it, again, being only two scenes, and Shaun & Rebecca having no problem leaving Basim alone with the Animus (especially when they’re blatantly suspicious of him).
Alright, we’re back in Ravensthorpe. All this talk of Gods from Basim made me want to finish off the Asgard storyline, which continues the trend of being another letdown of a finale. Having ensured his survival in Jotunheim, Havi returns to Asgard with one final goal in mind - binding Fenrir. The giant wolf doesn’t take too kindly to this bondage attempt and engages in a fight, which the God of Wisdom bests him in. Following this, there’s a quick mash-up of images of the future, and then…fin. That’s it.
It’s hard to convey why I believe this to be a bad decision, but I’ll try - throughout the game, you have Odin and the Norse Gods playing a large part in both the historical and modern day, yet the exact event depicting their connection to the protagonists and how they came to persist to the end is not materialized. What was the point in having all that build-up and backstory if you weren't going to flesh out the culminating moment that literally leads to everything else being impacted? The game sets-up this Asgard storyline to show how these Norse figures came to be reincarnated, but then haphazardly axes the entire third act. Odin makes this pact with Juno, returns home, gets into a random scuffle with Fenrir, and then there's credits. It's like, where's the rest of the story? Where are the rest of the answers? Why did he tell the others about the Fountain? What was their reaction? What is the mead they are drinking? How did Loki manage to get resurrected if Odin banned him from the knowledge? Does this process work the same as Aita's method or is it different? How was Eivor able to resist Odin when all other Sages meshed with their host? Why do some hosts never realize they’re Sages? All these questions that Valhalla was building-up to to connect the Asgard storyline with the England one were just tossed to the side in favor of a choppy cutscene that doesn't do anything but confirm what we already knew happened. And YES, I’m well-aware completing all the Animus Anomalies unlocks a secret clip depicting the real “reincarnation” and Loki’s survival, but because those were completely optional (and most likely not to be done at that point by most players due to them not even being marked on the map unless you enter their vicinity), and because they don’t answer all the questions underlying the events regardless, this whole affair is lamentably sordid. Either make the Anomalies mandatory or recreate the scene here.
Don’t worry, Valhalla has one last narrative thread to smash into the ground, and that is the Kingmaker saga. Cue Hamtunscire, where the Great Heathen Army is preparing to take the fight to Aelfred. Before heading out to join Guthrum and Ubba, Eivor receives another dark vaticination from Valka about him dooming Ravensthorpe if he leaves, and don’t worry, just like with her other predictions, it doesn’t amount to anything (with this track record, perhaps Eivor should consider firing her).
Eivor arrives at Hamtunscire with past allies where Soma informs him of Guthrum’s plan to negotiate a peace with Aelfred. Unfortunately, the Wessex King lets slip that he executed Ubba, leading talks to break down and the Vikings to betray the armistice once the King leaves. With news that Aelfred is stationed in Chippenham, the Vikings hatch a scheme to surprise attack the hamlet, leading to you doing your typical sh!t of making preparations and rescuing stragglers. Cue the assault wherein Aelfred’s lieutenant, Goodwin, informs Eivor he knew about the strategy and launches his own counter-assault. The Vikings prevail, albeit at the cost of Soma, Hunwald (tytytytytytyty), and Hjorr. Eivor reports back to Randvi, a wedding is held for Gunnar, and then we’re done.
It’s so easy to rag on the grand finale, from Soma having the only dedicated mocap death scene to this pathetic skirmish as a whole being less epic than even the castle sieges of prior arcs, but honestly the bigger issue is that there’s no sense of completion. You beat Hamtunscire and then what? Nothing. It’s treated as another standard region in the countryside. There’s no importance to its chronological conquest, no credits, no special cutscene, no epic speech, nothing. All these hours you’ve invested toiling away at the Alliance Map amount to no vibe of accomplishment.
I also found it very disingenuous to end the game this way, implying the Vikings won when in reality Aelfred would mount a vicious campaign, beat the GHA at Edington, force Guthrum to baptize, and put a cap on the Viking Invasion, all within the next few months. It truly begs the question of why the developers bothered including Guthrum and Aelfred as major players in the plot if their plan was to subside the battle they’re most famous for participating in. The comparison I’ve always drawn this to is a hypothetical AC release set during the American Civil War with Grant and Lee that opts to not incorporate Overland, Petersburg, or Appomattox Court House in its storyline. It’s like, what was the point in having those guys when you won’t even show the greatest historical event they shared?
Now, the counterargument I’ve heard to this is that Valhalla was going to produce a lot of post-launch content and it wouldn’t have worked to end with the Vikings losing. Except, a brief look at Wikipedia shows the Treaty of Wedmore let the Norse keep most of their conquered lands (something outright acknowledged in The Last Chapter, though more on that later), meaning Ravensthorpe wouldn’t have been affected by the Battle of Edington anyway. In addition, every single DLC produced for the game takes place AFTER the end of the war, meaning they were either way going to deal with that timeline. Considering Black Flag had no issue showcasing the pirate utopia collapsing, it’s disheartening to see Ubisoft not commit to the same principles with the Vikings, especially when it would’ve put a thematic cap on the character arc that began in Norway with Eivor realizing that taking a knee is sometimes the better tactic over constantly fighting to the end. Alas, this is what happens when you have a narrative that goes on longer than it should - you lose sight of your original ideals.
Regarding that post-launch content, Valhalla was Ubisoft’s first attempt at turning Assassin’s Creed into a live service game. Numerous free updates were thrown in to keep players engaged in the hopes of coaxing them into purchasing MTXs. Unfortunately, the non-permanent ones have long been removed, meaning I cannot speak on such activities as the holiday festivals. The additions that have remained, though, I will gladly describe, commencing with Tombs of the Fallen. These are five vaults to excavate at your discretion, and while we’ve had tombs in the franchise before, this marks the first time they’re puzzle oriented. I haven’t found all of them at the time of this review’s publication, but the ones I did were definitely fun - nothing too challenging, but miles above the versions we got in the Tomb Raider reboot.
Next-up are River Raids. As the name suggests, they’re basically a mode built around the monastery blitzes from the base game, featuring multiple rivers full of goodies to reap: villages have rations to heal your crew, military posts supplies, and forts/monasteries unique loot. Some changes were implemented to no doubt address criticisms of the vanilla version and make the ordeal a bit more tactical. For example, your crew members (called Jomsvikings), can go down permanently if you don’t revive them with rations, and continuously attacking the same area increases local defenses. River Raids are fine enough, but the problem is not enough was done to diversify things- you’re ultimately conducting the same types of assaults ad nauseam, with the same configuration of posts. And once you scavenge the special drops, there’s no real reason to continue forward with the process unless you’re one of those completionists who wants all the new items in the new store (which, lo and behold, require a special currency you can ONLY earn from River Raiding!). If that weren’t enough, be warned that there is a grindy aspect courtesy of the developers requiring you to upgrade your Longship’s hold to increase its capacity. Several other pet peeves of mine include the broken stealth, emptying of your ration pouch each time you launch a raid, and the inability to uncover a location’s identity unless you leave your ship to walk within its radius (sailing by the harbor should’ve been more than enough!).
Last is The Forgotten Saga, a roguelite mode set in the past wherein you control Havi attempting to rescue his son Baldr from the Goddess Hel. Again, I haven’t done much of it at the time of this review, but what I did play was actually pretty enjoyable. The realms are beautifully-designed, each run is different courtesy of the RNG items, and you do feel like you’re getting stronger. The option to stealth your way through certain parts with the one-hit KO assassination significantly aids in the completion of areas, and combined with there being an actual Isu story, I’d say it’s worth attempting. Just keep in mind that it’s still fundamentally the same gameplay loop as the River Raids in that you’re either fighting or killing.
We’ve still got one final story to cover, and that is of course the Order of the Ancients. The reason I’m talking about it last is because it canonically takes place after everything (and should be done so lest you risk incurring a bug). Valhalla semi-models this questline after the Cult of Kosmos from Odyssey wherein you have to hunt down all these members across England. Odyssey had 42 individuals: here you’ve got 45, divided into 15 zealots, 29 adherents, and 1 Grand Maegester. In Odyssey, I found the cult system to be rather basic, consisting of you doing very arbitrary tasks that somehow added up to uncovering a persona’s identity, and unfortunately that same framework has been carried over to Valhalla (a shame considering a mini-sleuth subplot involving actual detective work could be intriguing if Ubisoft ever dedicated more time to fleshing out the parameters).
Alas, we have to deal with the reality in our stead, and the system here has, at least, been slightly improved upon. For starters, 13 of the members are encountered during the various arcs, and no clues are required to deduce the Zealots, meaning only 16 have to be tracked down separately. Secondly, there are three checkboxes per member, compared to Odyssey where it was around 5 (IIRC), making it much easier to finish (England being smaller than Europe doesn’t hurt either). Finally, and this is admittedly more of an aesthetic change than anything, but every single Order individual (including the Zealots) has a Confession scene, which, at least for me, gave an extra incentive to hunt them down. Confessions have of course been a tradition of the series (save Unity and Odyssey), and while the non-story members don’t have the same production value as their narratorial counterparts, it was still nice being able to witness an inner dialogue between them and Eivor.
The finale is also pretty good, consisting of you simultaneously being granted a meeting with the Poor Fellow Soldier and Grand Maegester, King Aelfred! Yes, it turns out they are one and the same, with Aelfred having inherited the Maegester title from his lineage. Through a beautifully-written conversation, the Wessexian discloses his disgust towards the Order’s anti-humanist ideals and pagan leanings, and how he used Eivor and the Hidden Ones to eradicate them so he could build something more God-fearing from their bones. This is of course a reference to the future Knights Templar that will evolve into the eternal enemy of the Assassins, the Templar Order; an ironic yet satisfying conclusion to Eivor’s quest.
Now, some fans have pointed out that this ripped-off the ending of the cult storyline in Odyssey wherein Aspasia also grew disillusioned with the Kosmosians and exploited the Eagle Bearer to destroy them so she could grow something else. The outline is definitely the same, but I felt Valhalla’s was much better executed for a number of reasons: 1) the tale, as stated earlier, is a lot longer in Odyssey, meaning the ending inherently had greater expectations; 2) Valhalla's sets up future AC games by having the more modern Templar Order, whereas the Cult was just another proto-Templar society that failed to last; 3), slightly subjective, but I thought Aelfred was a far more memorable and developed character than Aspasia (it certainly doesn’t hurt that he has a constant presence throughout the story compared to her); and 4) it was a straightforward scene, not hampered by pointless dialogue options/choices like Odyssey’s (I still can’t get over them giving a romance option).
Years after the base game came out, Ubisoft finally sent everyone The Last Chapter, a free DLC meant to provide proper closure to Eivor’s storyline (that was personally overseen by Darby compared to the other expansions). The Last Chapter is literally an assemblage of six cutscenes you have to trigger at certain points in the world, the framing being Basim wants to witness how Eivor’s story ends, and for a low-budget rushed resolution, it’s surprisingly fine. I know from reading Darby’s responses on the Reddit AMA that the writers wanted to do more in terms of granting extra final interactions between Eivor and her compatriots, and that inability to succeed is definitely TLC’s biggest drawback. You’ve got Hytham, Aelfred, King Harald, and Guthrum, the four representing different factions that try and draw Eivor back into the fold (Hidden Ones, Templars, Norse Vikings, Danish Vikings respectively), and while it was thematically well-intentioned, it can’t help making no sense for goodbyes to be dedicated to loose characters like Harald and Guthrum but not close comrades like Randvi, Styrbjorn, and Sigurd.
The general synopsis of Eivor deciding to come to terms with Odin’s memories and embrace them was a nice twist, but even then it’s treated as a rushed framing device that simply caps the beginning and end of the DLC, denying players a look at a fascinating concept in AC history wherein a Sage opts to coexist with their Isu brethren over being completely taken over.
Still, I’ll give The Last Chapter props for somewhat addressing qualms I had with a number of Valhalla’s finales: Eivor acknowledging Odin is another entity; Guthrum and Aelfred explaining the post-Edington peace treaty/Guthrum converting to Christianity, and a surprisingly-introspective explanation from Eivor as to why he won’t join the Hidden Ones.
The modern-day, however, is where The Last Chapter truly shines -- seeing Basim mess around with the Animus, his commentary throughout the ordeal, and of course the ending convo with William Miles made for some really fun content, and while the conclusion doesn’t end up going anywhere (Basim uploads his genetic code presumably for Miles to relive in the Animus, only for Mirage to not have a modern-day portion), I did enjoy Rota’s performance.
Please keep in mind, however, that Ubisoft was a bit lazy with regards to certain narratorial facets, namely that there’s no differentiation between male and female Eivor for the abovementioned intro-and-outro, and not only was there no differentiation, they didn’t even bother putting in the Odin model from the Confessions (nor let Magnus use his Odin voice)! Female Eivor is Eivor, while male Eivor is Odin, regardless of who you chose initially, so that may come as a surprise to players like myself who spent hundreds of hours playing as one gender.
My final quibs are two-fold: first, having the player run around trying to find the memory units felt like a cheap way of artificially elongating the content; and two, they apparently recast Aelfred’s VA in his dialogue (no doubt scheduling conflicts as Ubisoft is famous for bringing back prior actors). When all is said and done, though, The Last Chapter was a good move by Ubisoft: yes, a story finale shouldn’t be produced years later in a hasty manner, but at least we got something proper (not to mention hearing the opening chords of Ezio’s Family play at the end is always awesome).
It’s time to address the technical facets of Valhalla. The first thing I texted my brother when I booted up this game was how it might be the best-looking title I’ve ever played, and I proudly stand by that claim over 60 hours later. The new Ubisoft Anvil engine has completely done away with texture streaming, giving you fully-furnished environments from the get-go no matter where you travel, and trust me when I say that that’s a noteworthy facet considering the diversity and seamlessness of the world. This is the first AC game to indulge in the biome schematic, and while I’ve never considered such biogeographical units necessary for free roam variation, I can’t deny it prevents a sense of déjà vu during your many excursions across England. The frigid mountains of Northumbria, seasonal spice of Mercia, mistiness of East Anglia, and springtime tide of Wessex all converge into a community worth touring. This is probably my favorite map in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and considering the prior beauties, I don’t say that lightly. From the desolate Roman ruins and mythical structures to the sights of warfare and working-class hobbles, there’s a real feeling of a past life wherever you amble, and such vibes go a long way towards maintaining an immersive bubble- you’re just another part in a long history overlaying this land.
Helping matters is the fact that Valhalla does away with the conventional confetti system that’s blotted Ubisoft minimaps since the days of Brotherhood, replacing them with light orbs: blue for mysteries, gold for loot, and white for artifacts. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like such a change would matter since the undertakings are unveiled upon entering their vicinity anyway, but you’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes to not be distracted by a minimap. This is the first AC game I played without one, and I found the experience to be so beneficial I hope future entries never revert to the old style.
Character models are a bit of a step down from Odyssey- I didn’t detect as much detail in Valhalla’s physiognomies as I did in its predecessor’s, though thankfully that’s made up for by the lack of stilty-ness that rendered Odyssey’s figures uncanny at times. Cheekbones and eyebrows, in particular, move a lot more naturally, even as you slather them with body paint. It’s the textiles, however, that deserve the most praise as the precision that has gone into their assemblage is a sight to behold. Leather, cloth, fur, it matters not -- all look intricately stitched as they fold around Eivor’s chassis. I was especially impressed anytime light refracted off metallic pieces, providing an authentic sheen that shifts with your movements accordingly.
The lighting overlay, in general, is fantastic, being another rendition of the dynamic system Origins pioneered. I’ve always been a sucker for the sight of streaming sunshine through forested enclaves, and as you can imagine, Valhalla has that in abundance. Combined with the day/night positioning of the sun and varied environmental hues, and you get a motley of aesthetics that ayont the worlds. Unfortunately, there are some downsides to this refulgence, specifically the game’s indulgence in filters. These were clearly done in a bid to either amplify the lambency or diminish overcasting, but the end result can’t help but make certain areas appear artificially lit. In snowy scapes, for example, you get a white cover; foggy ones blue; fiery ones red; and underwater light blue. I feel the game would’ve been better off utilizing a more natural source for the majority of its lighting during these parts, though YMMV.
Besides that, there were a number of defects I encountered playing on my Xbox Series X: clipping between sheathed weapons and clothing (predominantly on horseback), draw distance generation issues for foliage and flora; occasional framerate drops; bird wings lagging while synchronizing, Eivor getting stuck during parkour animations; and your classic AC pathfinding quandaries with NPCs. Nothing is game-breaking, but it’s evident this was a title held back by its dual-gen release, and should be approached accordingly.
Other miscellaneous graphical plights include the lack of footprints when trudging in frost, shoddy animations for animal finishers (good concept, but should’ve been axed since they weren’t ready), comically-exaggerated splash effects, rainfall being surface-level impact points over a genuine environmental component, and fire looking incredibly dated (your torch is fine enough, but set a blaze or bushfire and you’ll witness combustion that wouldn’t look out-of-place in the original Gothic).
Performance aside, I think my biggest problem with Valhalla’s presentation is its reversion to the “talking heads” dilemma that plagued Unity through Origins. Talking heads, to elucidate, is a term my boy GManLives coined in his Skyrim review, referring to a lack of cinematicity during dialogue. You know, those instances wherein your character and another are technically having a conversation, but don’t appear to be engaged with the other due to the placement of the camera. Yeah, they’re standing opposite the other, however, you inherently lose interest since they’re not framed in a way that conveys they’re the centerpiece of attention. It solely happens in non-mocapped scenes in which the developers simply had the actors record the lines and processed their bustle through an animation algorithm, which, to reiterate, would’ve been fine had they preserved some sense of dynamism in the convos. But no, you often have to move the camera yourself to better enunciate things. If Valhalla had come out after Origins, it wouldn’t have been all bad given the precedent; unfortunately, Odyssey actually alleviated this by adopting a Mass Effect-framing, and while you do get that in the story, the vast majority of your side content is hampered by talking heads.
Further infringing the side stuff is the voice acting. I don’t know what it is about the English accent, but everytime Ubisoft has utilized it for generic civilians, it always sounds mediocre, as though they hired low-effort thespians to save money, and that continues to be the case here. To avoid an absolute, of course not everyone sounds bad, but it’s saying something when Oblivion and its cast of three had better portrayals than the more eclectic assembly here (you even get this recurring mismatch wherein an older-sounding lady voices younger lasses).
Thankfully, the main line is great, with Magnus Bruun and Carlo Rota, in particular, giving standout performances as Eivor and Basim respectively. I was really impressed with Bruun’s ability to distinguish between Eivor and Odin, lacing them with a masterfully concurrent similarity and dissimilarity. With regards to his female counterpart, Cecilie Stenspil, the parts I’ve heard on YouTube indicate her to be terrific as well, and anyone who claims she’s significantly inferior to Magnus is lying- your choice should come down purely to gender preference. That said, there was one person I wasn’t a big fan of, and that was Gudmundr Thorvaldsson as Sigurd. His acting itself is top-notch, but all too often his timbre came across as garbled.
For Part 2, see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1378235/
2022
Ghostwire: Tokyo was one of two PS5 demos I remember seeing early-on that actually looked next gen: the dark rainfall, heavy polygons, and full-fledged modeling making prior tech seem average by comparison. Alas, like most titles, the actual product doesn’t quite live up to those lofty trailer heights, its final assemblage ultimately being a box of good and bad components.
Since I already mentioned them, let’s dive into the graphics. As stated before, Ghostwire relies on a realistic schema, albeit one tinged with blatant anime influences. What this means is particular effort went towards the proportioning and detailing of the many effigies in the game (from the enemies and dedicated NPCs to of course your protagonist), however, they’ve been layered with a fantasy stylization reminiscent of Shounen cartoons. You’ve got hand seals from Naruto, dashing from Birdy the Mighty, charge-ups from DBZ, floating from Bleach, and even the finger ray from Yu Yu Hakusho. Poses, movements, actions; all boast a similar exaggerated flair that’ll no doubt be familiar to fans of the aforementioned genre -- when Akito screams, it can’t help but bring to mind scenes out of Berserker or Evangelion; when he rides a bike down Tokyo Avenue, Akira is instantly evoked.
And yet, this is decidedly against the looming verism about you: buildings and apartment complexes are photographs straight out of a tourist guidebook; humans actually look Japanese; the metal on cars and railings echo ferric sheen; heck, even the Kanji-shaped rain about you splashes and drops like the real deal. It’s an interesting contrast, and one that very much works in the game’s favor, its contents often playing like a CG version of a Katsuhiro Otomo work.
I’m still not done with the praising- a gorgeous chromatic aberration effect has been programmed into each of your abilities, turning their transitions, surges, and discharges into chipped specs of prismatic wonder; puddles and water surfaces galore reflect the shifting firmament above you; and Akito’s hand may be the first video game appendage I’ve ever seen to hold hair, veins, AND flexion creases in one go.
Tl;dr - Ghostwire is a stunning achievement (in some ways too stunning, though more on that later). Really, my only true criticisms come from the performance side for fellow PC gamers out there: this was not the best port. I’ve read stories about the game crashing on computers, and while I was thankfully free of such freeze-ups, I did have to cap the framerate at 30 to prevent noticeable lag. Given that I don’t expect these issues to be officially resolved anytime soon, you’re better off playing Ghostwire on the PS5 (lest you find time to fidget around with the settings).
On a petty note, I would’ve liked to have seen some greater illumination effects, particularly from Akito’s strikes, as they were pretty sparse in the main game. The lack of collision impacts from spells was also disappointing despite technically making sense in the scheme of things -- see, for most of your playthrough, Akito is granted access to the spirit KK’s powers, these gifts manifesting themselves as three blasts: a weaker green one, a stronger water one, and an all-purpose (yet sparsely loaded) fire one. With combat manifesting, more-or-less, as a glorified first-person shooter, you’ll need to utilize all three of them in your hours of skirmishing.
It seems fine at first, but the problem is the whole system ends up getting repetitive due to the lack of variety; there’s minimal difference between the abilities, leaving their utilities no more varied than swapping between your two main guns in a Call of Duty game. Yes, fully upgraded, you gain access to some changes like freeze fields and flamethrowers, but these drain your ammo significantly and, more importantly, don’t fundamentally change up the scope of the combat- you’re still blasting away at the exact same foes in the exact same manner. There are occasions where Akito is separated from KK, “forcing” you to rely on Akito’s bow and stealth takedowns (the same insta-takedown system seen in other games); however, these are either meticulously scripted to the point of easiness or short-lived courtesy of it being simple to remerge with the specter.
And it’s a shame because so much effort blatantly went into the crafting of the numerous archetypes you’ll run across, from prancing headless schoolgirls to flying banshees, yet you’ll rarely ever have to deviate from your standard tactic of simply spamming them until their core crack opens to be wrenched out. Even the bosses, which feature some of the best creative designs I have ever had the privilege to witness in gaming, come down to simple trials that do a massive disservice to their virtuosity. And that really speaks to what I was saying earlier about Ghostwire being heavy on visuals to a fault; it’s a game that dedicated so much time and money towards the art assets, that it failed to give players any reason to consistently engage with said assets.
Nothing exhibits this better than the playpen you’re set off in, a free roam Shibuya that stands as one of the worst open worlds of this generation. Yes, it’s gorgeous, the neon signs, Chinese lanterns, and innumerable decorations giving it an enriched feel; however, it’s utterly pointless, existing purely to capitalize on the open world hype that has flooded the industry post-Skyrim. Why do I say this? Well, I’m so glad you asked. For starters, the streets are lifeless, devoid of any persona courtesy of the opening Rapture event, and while other titles like the Arkham games have indulged in similar premises, they at least made-up for it with engaging enemies: thugs who would banter and taunt like three-dimensional human beings. The most you get out of Ghostwire’s phantoms, au contraire, are hapless growls mixed-in with the occasional jump scare.
Next is the anti-wanderlust attitude implemented for most of your journey in the form of a toxic fog. The only way to clear it is to engage in the tried-and-true Ubisoft tactic of “syncing” viewpoints (depicted here as cleansing Shinto gates), an aspect that would’ve been fine were it not for the fact that the game all but goads you into freeing them in a specific sequence, no doubt to artificially elongate the story’s runtime (more on that later). If that weren’t enough, Akito’s primary option for city traversal is simply dashing about as though we were back in the Morrowind Days. To the game’s credit, Ghostwire features a rooftop traversal system that’s actually quite fun to use, but the problem is it’s often a pain in the @ss to even get to those heights and initiate the flying. Hovering tengu offer Hookshot-level access points from the streets; however, they’re placed so inconsistently you’re better off finding nearby stairwells to ascend to the top, which as you can guess, is just as tedious and dull as the real-life exercise.
Finally, much like LA Noire, there’s simply nothing interesting to do here. Collectables are a dime-a-dozen, collecting spirits as numb as pressing a button, and side missions hampered by a severe lack of cinematic structure (more on that later). To add more sludge to the dredge, each of these activities almost always comes with a helping of combat, meaning you’re constantly thrown into the world of repetitive fighting again and again with little break. Ghostwire is a game that truly would’ve been better off adopting the Witcher 1 or Alpha Protocol format of free roam levels; stages where the artisans could’ve handcrafted some unique experiences versus fitting everything into this fruitless sandbox.
The fact that I haven’t touched on the narrative once should give you an idea as to how little it elevates the gameplay. It begins on an interesting note with the aforementioned mass disappearance of Tokyo’s denizens, yet quickly falls from that perch when you realize the writers had no idea how to stretch things into a solid 8 hours. I’m not lying to you guys when I say a good third of the game’s length comes down to Akito darting around blessing specified Shinto gates, and it’s not like the other two thirds are that memorable either. Missions often involve the the duo either doing reconnaissance or investigating some lead only to screw things up in the inevitable confrontation. It’s not that it gets monotonous ACI-style, but more-so that it’s nowhere near as invigorating as a ghost tale should have been. Heck, a lot of the game’s deeper storybeats (Akito’s feelings of regrets towards his comatose sister Mari, the main villain’s tragic motivation, KK’s mysterious backstory) are turned into exposition dumps ala cutscene or in-game speechwads, as though the writers couldn’t figure out how to naturally incorporate them into the main campaign. Due to this lack of build-up, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the ending feels very unfulfilling to the point where I was actually hoping for a sequelbait post-credits scenes.
Not everything is morose; in fact, one of the greatest accomplishments Tango achieves is their development of Akito and KK’s friendship. Two people of different generations (and corporealities) are forced to work together, and it’s honestly a delight to see their relationship go from reluctant (if slightly hostile) acquaintances to partners who trust each other wholly, and a large part of that success derives from the fantastic chemistry between Kensuke Nishi and Kazuhiko Inoue. I played Ghostwire in the default Japanese, and these two actors do a phenomenal job bouncing off each other in a way that never veers into naggy girlfriend territory: a seed of mutual respect underlies each of their convos even as they trade jabs seriously and unseriously. I criticized the sidequests earlier, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t engage them primarily to hear more banter between the leading men; THAT’S how great their interplay is. I have to give a particular shoutout to Inoue as he does a masterclass in wading between sarcastic wit and serious melodrama (the Eastern equivalent of Dave Wittenberg’s Kakashi). Nishi is great, but there were times where he veered a little too heavily into screaming shounen boy.
Regarding the rest of the bunch, you’ll encounter KK’s former team members every now and then, and they also have some solid castmates behind them: underutilized, but otherwise well-met. The remaining major players, namely Akito’s sister and head honcho Hannya, unfortunately, stand as the weakest links, the former being overly-cloying, the latter giving that deep boring accent heard a dime-a-dozen for anime villain subs aplenty. Besides them, sidequest NPCs suffer from the TES problem of being a select few rehashed (though I suppose they did serve their purpose), whilst cats sound awful to the point where I’d recommend plugging your fingers in your ears as a favor to the organs.
Of course, Ghostwire had an English dub, and while I only listened to it briefly, I don’t think I’m out-of-step in saying that the Japanese version is superior, largely due to the stronger chemistry between Akito and KK’s VAs. Those concerned about following subtitles need not worry as Ghostwire, unlike Metro, actually does a great job focusing dialogue on non-actiony parts: I would say the end fight was the only place where it got difficult concurrently scanning and duking it out. That said, for those who want to stick with the English acting, know that it does do a better job with the two aforestated average Japanese voices, Mari and Hannya (unfortunately, they chose not to redub the cats…).
SFX, on the other hand, is respectable, standing as a successful sonoric assemblage of AAA engineering. Though the artisans admittedly had their work cut easier with the lack of city life, the smooth aural transition from ability-to-ability, no matter how quick, more than exhibits their proficiency. I just wish they had programmed more gnarls and wails for the enemies as these entities not only came across as indistinguishable from the other, but were genuinely unmemorable in retrospect.
The score by Masatoshi Yanagi sadly stumbles into similar territory. It’s evident he wanted to lean into leaden spiritualism, but in doing so completely forgot to write memorable tunes. The majority of his tracks are atmospheric to a fault, too eidolic to be backgroundy yet prosaic enough to be indelible. His OST does change-up with the boss compositions, all of which incorporate some bass synth; however, they’re miniscule in the grand scheme of things, with Same Path being the sole piece I actively/passively enjoyed.
Overall, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a fine game. That it was robbed of an artistic achievement nomination at both the BAFTAs and Game Awards is a crime, a sentiment you will very much agree with should you explore the metropolitan bastion Tango has crafted before you. For many players, prancing around a real-life Tokyo with a razor-tongued Yūrei will be reason enough to jump on board; for all others, evaluate the entire enterprise and decide accordingly.
NOTES
-The streets of Tokyo are eerily clean. At first I thought this was just the developers being lazy with the trash placement, but no, having recently gone to the city, it is THAT litter-free (and a sign of just how behind the rest of the world the US is in some areas). That said, the fact that the developers didn’t insert a SINGLE undergarment into the myriad of clothes piles you happen upon strikes me as bizarre self-censorship.
-Strangely, Akito expresses surprise at phone booths existing in Tokyo, despite me seeing plenty of them during my trip there (like, the EXACT same green version as the one in the game).
-The sheer amount of small talk crafted between Akito and KK is astounding- you’ll be hearing new lines even towards the endgame.
-Loved the laser lines that go through the duo’s hands.
-You can tell the team at Tango fell in love with their country’s culture. From a database full of Shinto/Buddhist lore to sidequests centered around specific figures, you could learn so much from playing this game.
-For the record, not every side mission is blandly crafted -- an escapade set in a schoolhouse, in particular, stands as one of the best secondary outputs in video game history. I just wish they could’ve dedicated a similar effort to at least half of them. There are a number where you think you’re going to be facing some unique critter, only to encounter a slightly-reskinned version of someone/something you already fought.
-There’re light RPG elements in the form of a skill system, but it’s very basic -- you’ll get the hang of it without me needing to type up a paragraph explaining things.
-There are no stealth upgrades as far as I remember.
-Like other Sony IPs, there’s a heightened sense here called Spectral Vision, and it’s pretty cool, taking the hand drop from Dead Space and combining it with a filter reminiscent of Detective Mode.
Since I already mentioned them, let’s dive into the graphics. As stated before, Ghostwire relies on a realistic schema, albeit one tinged with blatant anime influences. What this means is particular effort went towards the proportioning and detailing of the many effigies in the game (from the enemies and dedicated NPCs to of course your protagonist), however, they’ve been layered with a fantasy stylization reminiscent of Shounen cartoons. You’ve got hand seals from Naruto, dashing from Birdy the Mighty, charge-ups from DBZ, floating from Bleach, and even the finger ray from Yu Yu Hakusho. Poses, movements, actions; all boast a similar exaggerated flair that’ll no doubt be familiar to fans of the aforementioned genre -- when Akito screams, it can’t help but bring to mind scenes out of Berserker or Evangelion; when he rides a bike down Tokyo Avenue, Akira is instantly evoked.
And yet, this is decidedly against the looming verism about you: buildings and apartment complexes are photographs straight out of a tourist guidebook; humans actually look Japanese; the metal on cars and railings echo ferric sheen; heck, even the Kanji-shaped rain about you splashes and drops like the real deal. It’s an interesting contrast, and one that very much works in the game’s favor, its contents often playing like a CG version of a Katsuhiro Otomo work.
I’m still not done with the praising- a gorgeous chromatic aberration effect has been programmed into each of your abilities, turning their transitions, surges, and discharges into chipped specs of prismatic wonder; puddles and water surfaces galore reflect the shifting firmament above you; and Akito’s hand may be the first video game appendage I’ve ever seen to hold hair, veins, AND flexion creases in one go.
Tl;dr - Ghostwire is a stunning achievement (in some ways too stunning, though more on that later). Really, my only true criticisms come from the performance side for fellow PC gamers out there: this was not the best port. I’ve read stories about the game crashing on computers, and while I was thankfully free of such freeze-ups, I did have to cap the framerate at 30 to prevent noticeable lag. Given that I don’t expect these issues to be officially resolved anytime soon, you’re better off playing Ghostwire on the PS5 (lest you find time to fidget around with the settings).
On a petty note, I would’ve liked to have seen some greater illumination effects, particularly from Akito’s strikes, as they were pretty sparse in the main game. The lack of collision impacts from spells was also disappointing despite technically making sense in the scheme of things -- see, for most of your playthrough, Akito is granted access to the spirit KK’s powers, these gifts manifesting themselves as three blasts: a weaker green one, a stronger water one, and an all-purpose (yet sparsely loaded) fire one. With combat manifesting, more-or-less, as a glorified first-person shooter, you’ll need to utilize all three of them in your hours of skirmishing.
It seems fine at first, but the problem is the whole system ends up getting repetitive due to the lack of variety; there’s minimal difference between the abilities, leaving their utilities no more varied than swapping between your two main guns in a Call of Duty game. Yes, fully upgraded, you gain access to some changes like freeze fields and flamethrowers, but these drain your ammo significantly and, more importantly, don’t fundamentally change up the scope of the combat- you’re still blasting away at the exact same foes in the exact same manner. There are occasions where Akito is separated from KK, “forcing” you to rely on Akito’s bow and stealth takedowns (the same insta-takedown system seen in other games); however, these are either meticulously scripted to the point of easiness or short-lived courtesy of it being simple to remerge with the specter.
And it’s a shame because so much effort blatantly went into the crafting of the numerous archetypes you’ll run across, from prancing headless schoolgirls to flying banshees, yet you’ll rarely ever have to deviate from your standard tactic of simply spamming them until their core crack opens to be wrenched out. Even the bosses, which feature some of the best creative designs I have ever had the privilege to witness in gaming, come down to simple trials that do a massive disservice to their virtuosity. And that really speaks to what I was saying earlier about Ghostwire being heavy on visuals to a fault; it’s a game that dedicated so much time and money towards the art assets, that it failed to give players any reason to consistently engage with said assets.
Nothing exhibits this better than the playpen you’re set off in, a free roam Shibuya that stands as one of the worst open worlds of this generation. Yes, it’s gorgeous, the neon signs, Chinese lanterns, and innumerable decorations giving it an enriched feel; however, it’s utterly pointless, existing purely to capitalize on the open world hype that has flooded the industry post-Skyrim. Why do I say this? Well, I’m so glad you asked. For starters, the streets are lifeless, devoid of any persona courtesy of the opening Rapture event, and while other titles like the Arkham games have indulged in similar premises, they at least made-up for it with engaging enemies: thugs who would banter and taunt like three-dimensional human beings. The most you get out of Ghostwire’s phantoms, au contraire, are hapless growls mixed-in with the occasional jump scare.
Next is the anti-wanderlust attitude implemented for most of your journey in the form of a toxic fog. The only way to clear it is to engage in the tried-and-true Ubisoft tactic of “syncing” viewpoints (depicted here as cleansing Shinto gates), an aspect that would’ve been fine were it not for the fact that the game all but goads you into freeing them in a specific sequence, no doubt to artificially elongate the story’s runtime (more on that later). If that weren’t enough, Akito’s primary option for city traversal is simply dashing about as though we were back in the Morrowind Days. To the game’s credit, Ghostwire features a rooftop traversal system that’s actually quite fun to use, but the problem is it’s often a pain in the @ss to even get to those heights and initiate the flying. Hovering tengu offer Hookshot-level access points from the streets; however, they’re placed so inconsistently you’re better off finding nearby stairwells to ascend to the top, which as you can guess, is just as tedious and dull as the real-life exercise.
Finally, much like LA Noire, there’s simply nothing interesting to do here. Collectables are a dime-a-dozen, collecting spirits as numb as pressing a button, and side missions hampered by a severe lack of cinematic structure (more on that later). To add more sludge to the dredge, each of these activities almost always comes with a helping of combat, meaning you’re constantly thrown into the world of repetitive fighting again and again with little break. Ghostwire is a game that truly would’ve been better off adopting the Witcher 1 or Alpha Protocol format of free roam levels; stages where the artisans could’ve handcrafted some unique experiences versus fitting everything into this fruitless sandbox.
The fact that I haven’t touched on the narrative once should give you an idea as to how little it elevates the gameplay. It begins on an interesting note with the aforementioned mass disappearance of Tokyo’s denizens, yet quickly falls from that perch when you realize the writers had no idea how to stretch things into a solid 8 hours. I’m not lying to you guys when I say a good third of the game’s length comes down to Akito darting around blessing specified Shinto gates, and it’s not like the other two thirds are that memorable either. Missions often involve the the duo either doing reconnaissance or investigating some lead only to screw things up in the inevitable confrontation. It’s not that it gets monotonous ACI-style, but more-so that it’s nowhere near as invigorating as a ghost tale should have been. Heck, a lot of the game’s deeper storybeats (Akito’s feelings of regrets towards his comatose sister Mari, the main villain’s tragic motivation, KK’s mysterious backstory) are turned into exposition dumps ala cutscene or in-game speechwads, as though the writers couldn’t figure out how to naturally incorporate them into the main campaign. Due to this lack of build-up, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the ending feels very unfulfilling to the point where I was actually hoping for a sequelbait post-credits scenes.
Not everything is morose; in fact, one of the greatest accomplishments Tango achieves is their development of Akito and KK’s friendship. Two people of different generations (and corporealities) are forced to work together, and it’s honestly a delight to see their relationship go from reluctant (if slightly hostile) acquaintances to partners who trust each other wholly, and a large part of that success derives from the fantastic chemistry between Kensuke Nishi and Kazuhiko Inoue. I played Ghostwire in the default Japanese, and these two actors do a phenomenal job bouncing off each other in a way that never veers into naggy girlfriend territory: a seed of mutual respect underlies each of their convos even as they trade jabs seriously and unseriously. I criticized the sidequests earlier, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t engage them primarily to hear more banter between the leading men; THAT’S how great their interplay is. I have to give a particular shoutout to Inoue as he does a masterclass in wading between sarcastic wit and serious melodrama (the Eastern equivalent of Dave Wittenberg’s Kakashi). Nishi is great, but there were times where he veered a little too heavily into screaming shounen boy.
Regarding the rest of the bunch, you’ll encounter KK’s former team members every now and then, and they also have some solid castmates behind them: underutilized, but otherwise well-met. The remaining major players, namely Akito’s sister and head honcho Hannya, unfortunately, stand as the weakest links, the former being overly-cloying, the latter giving that deep boring accent heard a dime-a-dozen for anime villain subs aplenty. Besides them, sidequest NPCs suffer from the TES problem of being a select few rehashed (though I suppose they did serve their purpose), whilst cats sound awful to the point where I’d recommend plugging your fingers in your ears as a favor to the organs.
Of course, Ghostwire had an English dub, and while I only listened to it briefly, I don’t think I’m out-of-step in saying that the Japanese version is superior, largely due to the stronger chemistry between Akito and KK’s VAs. Those concerned about following subtitles need not worry as Ghostwire, unlike Metro, actually does a great job focusing dialogue on non-actiony parts: I would say the end fight was the only place where it got difficult concurrently scanning and duking it out. That said, for those who want to stick with the English acting, know that it does do a better job with the two aforestated average Japanese voices, Mari and Hannya (unfortunately, they chose not to redub the cats…).
SFX, on the other hand, is respectable, standing as a successful sonoric assemblage of AAA engineering. Though the artisans admittedly had their work cut easier with the lack of city life, the smooth aural transition from ability-to-ability, no matter how quick, more than exhibits their proficiency. I just wish they had programmed more gnarls and wails for the enemies as these entities not only came across as indistinguishable from the other, but were genuinely unmemorable in retrospect.
The score by Masatoshi Yanagi sadly stumbles into similar territory. It’s evident he wanted to lean into leaden spiritualism, but in doing so completely forgot to write memorable tunes. The majority of his tracks are atmospheric to a fault, too eidolic to be backgroundy yet prosaic enough to be indelible. His OST does change-up with the boss compositions, all of which incorporate some bass synth; however, they’re miniscule in the grand scheme of things, with Same Path being the sole piece I actively/passively enjoyed.
Overall, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a fine game. That it was robbed of an artistic achievement nomination at both the BAFTAs and Game Awards is a crime, a sentiment you will very much agree with should you explore the metropolitan bastion Tango has crafted before you. For many players, prancing around a real-life Tokyo with a razor-tongued Yūrei will be reason enough to jump on board; for all others, evaluate the entire enterprise and decide accordingly.
NOTES
-The streets of Tokyo are eerily clean. At first I thought this was just the developers being lazy with the trash placement, but no, having recently gone to the city, it is THAT litter-free (and a sign of just how behind the rest of the world the US is in some areas). That said, the fact that the developers didn’t insert a SINGLE undergarment into the myriad of clothes piles you happen upon strikes me as bizarre self-censorship.
-Strangely, Akito expresses surprise at phone booths existing in Tokyo, despite me seeing plenty of them during my trip there (like, the EXACT same green version as the one in the game).
-The sheer amount of small talk crafted between Akito and KK is astounding- you’ll be hearing new lines even towards the endgame.
-Loved the laser lines that go through the duo’s hands.
-You can tell the team at Tango fell in love with their country’s culture. From a database full of Shinto/Buddhist lore to sidequests centered around specific figures, you could learn so much from playing this game.
-For the record, not every side mission is blandly crafted -- an escapade set in a schoolhouse, in particular, stands as one of the best secondary outputs in video game history. I just wish they could’ve dedicated a similar effort to at least half of them. There are a number where you think you’re going to be facing some unique critter, only to encounter a slightly-reskinned version of someone/something you already fought.
-There’re light RPG elements in the form of a skill system, but it’s very basic -- you’ll get the hang of it without me needing to type up a paragraph explaining things.
-There are no stealth upgrades as far as I remember.
-Like other Sony IPs, there’s a heightened sense here called Spectral Vision, and it’s pretty cool, taking the hand drop from Dead Space and combining it with a filter reminiscent of Detective Mode.
This is a review of the DLC for Never Alone. For the main game’s review, please see: https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/1648515/
Note - as this game rehashes almost every asset from its predecessor, no in-depth discussions will be had on the GFX or sound
Foxtales is the sole expansion to Never Alone, offering another retelling of a (presumably popular) Iñupiaq tale. Is it worth the trouble? Well, that’ll depend on how much you like deep sea diving!
Yes, like Avatar 2 did for Avatar 1, Foxtales primarily revolves around water as you and your canidaec companion weather the icy seas in search of a runaway mouse. Puzzles are once again simple quid pro quos, the lion’s share entailing you utilizing stones to both circumvent obstacles and breakdown barriers blocking spirit winds. Interestingly, despite the title of Foxtales, your unnamed boy arguably plays a larger role in each stage due to him being the only one capable of navigating the boat and tossing boulders.
Speaking of the protagonist, graphically the game is a bit on the lazy side as the devs didn’t bother altering the character model to separate his sex from his predecessor’s. There was inconsistent gendering in the first game too, but I was willing to chock that up to translation errors: here, though, he is consistently referred to as a Boy despite being visually indifferent from the female of Never Alone.
Ironically, your Fox companion was given a slight makeover & new animations, his fur boasting a slight silver mane and his model doing things like putting paws up on the side of the boat and ducking whenever a rock falls into said vessel.
But ultimately there’s nothing much to say about Foxtales: it’s less than an hour, has a story with an unclear message, and is basically unconnected to its predecessor. It’s not inherently bad; however, filtering a potentially-strong cultural tale through a forgettable lens doesn’t exactly do it favors.
NOTES
-I’ll give the devs credit for crafting new enemy types rather than reskinning old ones.
Note - as this game rehashes almost every asset from its predecessor, no in-depth discussions will be had on the GFX or sound
Foxtales is the sole expansion to Never Alone, offering another retelling of a (presumably popular) Iñupiaq tale. Is it worth the trouble? Well, that’ll depend on how much you like deep sea diving!
Yes, like Avatar 2 did for Avatar 1, Foxtales primarily revolves around water as you and your canidaec companion weather the icy seas in search of a runaway mouse. Puzzles are once again simple quid pro quos, the lion’s share entailing you utilizing stones to both circumvent obstacles and breakdown barriers blocking spirit winds. Interestingly, despite the title of Foxtales, your unnamed boy arguably plays a larger role in each stage due to him being the only one capable of navigating the boat and tossing boulders.
Speaking of the protagonist, graphically the game is a bit on the lazy side as the devs didn’t bother altering the character model to separate his sex from his predecessor’s. There was inconsistent gendering in the first game too, but I was willing to chock that up to translation errors: here, though, he is consistently referred to as a Boy despite being visually indifferent from the female of Never Alone.
Ironically, your Fox companion was given a slight makeover & new animations, his fur boasting a slight silver mane and his model doing things like putting paws up on the side of the boat and ducking whenever a rock falls into said vessel.
But ultimately there’s nothing much to say about Foxtales: it’s less than an hour, has a story with an unclear message, and is basically unconnected to its predecessor. It’s not inherently bad; however, filtering a potentially-strong cultural tale through a forgettable lens doesn’t exactly do it favors.
NOTES
-I’ll give the devs credit for crafting new enemy types rather than reskinning old ones.
2014
This review contains spoilers
Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom
Resident Evil is a frustrating classic, its various systems a conglomeration of deliberately obtuse design. Back in 1996, I can definitely see where the appeal came from; however, the years since have not been kind, and in hewing so close to that original blueprint, Shinji Mikami’s remake fails to be a worthwhile endeavor.
The rot sprouts chiefly from the gameplay, its tendrils manifesting in multiple ways, beginning with the lack of genre certainty. Resident Evil made headlines back in the day for pioneering survival horror, yet you’d be hardpressed to guess that in light of the confusion on display. See, survival games entail avoiding enemies as much as possible whilst conserving ammunition; RE, on the other hand, gives you NO method evading foes for most of your playthrough: you can't hide, you can’t distract, you can’t even stealth past. Instead, you’re stuck facing zombies in cramped corridors that, 90% of the time, provide no wiggle room for maneuvering around, forcing you to either take a hit as you try and squeeze past them or, you guessed it, shoot the bloody bastards. If that weren’t enough, you’re often privy to enemies (Crimsons, Dogs, Hunters, etc…) who are significantly faster and consequently warrant constant skirmishing. Combined with the plethora of available handgun magazines (on normal) and you’ll never be at a loss as to which strategy to employ.
Some of you may be thinking well Red, what’s the issue with RE being more action thriller than tiptoe nightmare- if it works it works. Sure, but the problem is Mikami was not interested in going that route either courtesy of the number of handicaps he’s put on the combat. For starters, zombies take a lot of firepower to knock down, and unless you get lucky with a critical shot (+) or waste inventory space (much MUCH more on that later) on gasoline, you’ll inevitably have to redeal with them when they revive. Shooting in tight spaces with slow discharge speeds also gets infuriating as zombies are very liable to reaching you before you break them down. On top of all this, the pistol is utterly useless against the stronger variants described above, meaning you’re heavily obliged to pull out your stronger weapons if you wish to avoid a premature death; weapons with nowhere near the amount of collectable ammo as your sidearm.
As you can see, when both halves come together a strange in-between is catalyzed that’s far from enjoyable for either side -- the survival horror is too action-oriented, and the action horror too diminutive; you can’t go in guns-ablazing nor play hide-and-seek; enemies must be engaged with yet that engagement is crippled. It’s as though the creators didn’t know what schematic they were going for and opted to throw in a bit of everything, only to unintentionally spoil the broth- you’re not playing Doom and you’re not playing Clocktower, but their deformed offspring.
Credit where credit is due, every location after the initial mansion does greatly open up to the point where you can dash about (specific) enemies, but considering you’ll be spending at least 2/3s of your time in the iconic manor, it’s slim pickings in the long run.
Still, I might’ve been able to tolerate all this were it not for the sheer number of quality-of-life deficiencies that had NO business being there considering the GameCube’s hardware. The first thing you’ll notice are the many many MANY loading screens -- every single door, I kid you not, every SINGLE door prompts a fade-to-black animation as the game renders the next space, the limning taking a good 4-6 seconds EACH time. Should this have occurred between locales or even wings, I would’ve understood, but why the bloody hell do I have to wait for the f!cking closet next door to open? For a title released the same year as Sunshine, Wind Waker, and Metroid Prime, it’s inexcusable and feels like it was done purely as an authentic (read- outdated) throwback to the OG release.
Next are the short backpack slots I alluded to above. Now, as everyone knows, inventory management is an integral facet of most survivor games; however, REmake unfortunately makes this aspect more aggravating than tensive by way of mandatory occupation: that is, you’re only granted six slots and four of them are replete from the get-go -- your pistol, clips for it, a secondary ordnance, and ink ribbons, leaving a meager two for ALL REMAINING quest items/collectables. Why are those four compulsory? Well, I’m so glad you asked- on account of the unavoidable combat, you need your revolver; on account of brawnier foes arising out of nowhere you need a stronger weapon; on account of [weaker] enemies taking five shots/piece you need extra bullets for at least one gun; and on account of typewriters (RE’s version of checkpoints) not always having an item box nearby, you need ink on hand lest you wish to risk losing your gleaned progress.
As you may expect, all of this feeds into the third worst feature of the game; the sheer amount of backtracking. Having to run between chests and rooms turns into routine clockwork as you’re essentially only working with two free spaces, neither of which are sufficient for the countless quest items you’re required to pick-up, and I just don’t understand why the devs didn’t bother creating a separate placeholder for such trinkets. Inventory management should ideally be relegated to vital resources (healing herbs, mags, weapons/tools)- putting a cap on that whilst allowing unlimited slots for the others would’ve gone a long way towards making the game enjoyable.
Nonetheless, I know plenty of people will argue any horror stockpile must encompass every collectable, in which case there were still other options available like stationing multiple item boxes on a floor or giving players the ability drop objects (seriously, I don’t understand how this wasn’t a thing- include a disintegration contingency if you really wanted to discourage this).
We’re not done with the backtracking complaints. One of the grand innovations of REmake is the presence of locked doors with their own keys and unique loot, meaning you’ll often come upon chamber upon chamber that you cannot access until a later point in time. That’s all well-and-fine, but the problem is the map doesn’t indicate which key unlocks which (or even which room is which), meaning, unless you explicitly jot it down elsewhere (or rely on a guide like moi), you’re going to be darting everywhere like prime Usain Bolt.
Fourthly, there’s the fact that there're, as stated earlier, checkpoints, and not just checkpoints but checkpoints with limited save slots. I’ve never been a fan of their presence in non-2D platformers due to it being an antiquated carryover from the arcade era that doesn’t accommodate the lives of adult gamers; however, even if I accepted it as a critical component of the RE experience, throwing in a finite amount of tokens that waste inventory space struck me as vexing for the sake of being vexing. I get the intent was to avoid save scumming, but considering the backtracking and number of cheap deaths here, such a measure would’ve significantly counterbalanced things.
Finally, we need to talk about the fixed camera angles, a style that made RE stand apart from the crowd but appears out-of-place by modern standards. All cards on the table, I didn’t have an issue adapting; however, the shifting slants do get tiresome during firefights as the constant cuts can change your field-of-view to the point where a previously visible enemy is rendered hidden. I have no idea why Mikami thought singular rooms needed 4-5 perspectives when 1-2 would’ve sufficed: for fresh acolytes out there, expect the Taken 3 fence experience during exploration.
Puzzles constitute a large part of RE’s experience, and while not bad, the lion’s share of them falter in funness due to the aforementioned flaws -- some necessitate backtracking to get a key sited elsewhere, others contain lethal consequences for inputting the wrong combo (a particularly degrading factor in light of save states and healing material being few and far between).
Much has been made about the horror atmosphere REmake pioneered, and unfortunately even on that front things remain mixed. Because of the aforestated annoyances with the zombies I personally found myself more nettled than thrilled- having to dance around a table with a biohazard as I pushed an armoire or instantly evading a foe via clicking a door, for example, weren't scary in the slightest.
Still, I’d be lying if I said there aren’t some genuinely creepy moments and superb jumpscares out there, and I believe a large part of that has to do with the score (++) by Shusaku Uchiyama, Makoto Tomozawa, and Misao Senbongi. If there’s one thing Mikami and his team did masterfully, it was the sound editing as the music beats are superbly integrated into the game. You’re not hearing a constant treble in your journey, but rather specified cues that play depending on certain triggers (i.e., location, story beat, status, etc….). The tracks themselves are excellent, walking that fine line between unsettling harmony and sense of discovery (boss tunes being the exception of course), with morose bass instruments seeing a lot of usage. I was a particular fan of the trio’s save room melody, which sounded like a warped rendition of the Zelda theme from Ocarina of Time.
SFX is a lot more limited in non-cinematic scenes, with the baseline zombies boasting that stereotypical yawn pop culture has come to associate with them. Other enemies don’t fare any better, and I can’t say anything stood out: things are adequate, not exemplary.
Still, it’s miles above the horrendous voice acting here, which, alongside, the script, truly comes across as AI generated, and I’m not just saying that to make a relevant techno reference. Literally listen to any scene on YouTube and it’ll resound like one of those artificial conversations some user-generated algorithm concocted. Part of the reason I began this review with the gameplay is that there really isn’t anything to talk about with the story- a security ops team is sent in to find their missing comrades who disappeared after investigating cannibalist occurrences in Racoon City. Arriving at the venue, the members find their comrades dead, before hauling ass to the adjacent manor after attracting the attention of several Cerberus hounds. Following this, the group decides to split up, with you having the option to take control of either Jill or Chris; their stories offering some, but ultimately inconsequential, differences as they uncover the secrets of this abode.
It sounds like a decent premise, but the reason I say there isn’t anything to talk about is because of how awful the storytelling is. Your protagonist wanders around seeing and learning about the horrifying stuff that went on, but doesn’t bother commenting on it, reporting on it, or outright suggesting they call-in back-up and get the f!ck out of this place. It also never made sense to me why Jill or Chris were wasting time uncovering the secrets of the chateau when it becomes clear something dreadful is occurring and that their teammates are not who they appear to be (+++). I kid you not when I say the game has less than 20 lines of dialogue total, a good chunk of that deriving from the intro cinematic: no one phones in anything, no one acts like a professional, heck no one seems human.
And it’s a shame because the lore you find strewn throughout residence is absolutely enticing, chockful of stationary detailing a juicy backstory involving some inhumane experimentation and mentally ill scientists. If there was ever a pristine example of how to divulge a game’s mythos without being overbearingly expositiony, it would be REmake without question- I just wish Jill would have responded to at least ONE of these journals as they deserved some canon reciprocity.
Regardless, it goes without saying that I don’t recommend the Resident Evil remake. Outside of the above lore drops, there really isn’t anything enjoyable- the combat is irate, survival horror nonexistent, and QOL failures abundant. It seems clear the majority of the production budget went towards the visual redux as this truly is a stunning title that holds up in 2023: textures (at a distance) are stringent, interior design immaculate, and the character animations exact- I’m not lying when I say REmake may have the most naturalistic poses for its figures as your protagonist moves, climbs, and holds firearms like an actual human being would.
But graphics only go so far. Reading the Wikipedia summary will garner better delight than playing this title.
NOTES
-I cannot stress enough how beautiful the game is. Enemy animations, foggy grounds, and decaying wallpaper add to the atmosphere.
-Some artisan at Capcom found the time to program jiggle physics for Jill. Wish that same effort had been put towards alleviating at least one of the flaws.
+Yes, I know a shotgun aimed up can do a one-hit KO at close range, but that takes up precious slugs and serves to highlight the insipidness of the combat system- there’s even a part in the story where Jill (the person I chose) learns about crushing zombie skulls as a means of permanently stopping them and does EXACTLY that in a cutscene, only to be unable to do it during the actual gameplay (on that note, what was even the point in having an aiming system when it doesn’t help 90% of your weapons?).
++The hall of mirrors always left me uneasy, even when I got past the point of no enemies, and that most definitely had to do with the accompanying arrangement.
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SPOILERS
+++So it turns out Wesker and Barry were both traitors working with Umbrella to kill off all S.T.A.R.S units deployed to investigate. My question is, why didn’t they bother offing Jill and Chris during the MANY opportunities present to them? It made no sense to let them meander about Umbrella’s halls on the off-chance of unearthing the truth.
I will also say that Wesker’s voice actor (Peter Jessop) is actually quite good compared to, well, everyone else, but given his minimal lines (the majority of them delivered before his death), it’s ultimately a waste.
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Resident Evil is a frustrating classic, its various systems a conglomeration of deliberately obtuse design. Back in 1996, I can definitely see where the appeal came from; however, the years since have not been kind, and in hewing so close to that original blueprint, Shinji Mikami’s remake fails to be a worthwhile endeavor.
The rot sprouts chiefly from the gameplay, its tendrils manifesting in multiple ways, beginning with the lack of genre certainty. Resident Evil made headlines back in the day for pioneering survival horror, yet you’d be hardpressed to guess that in light of the confusion on display. See, survival games entail avoiding enemies as much as possible whilst conserving ammunition; RE, on the other hand, gives you NO method evading foes for most of your playthrough: you can't hide, you can’t distract, you can’t even stealth past. Instead, you’re stuck facing zombies in cramped corridors that, 90% of the time, provide no wiggle room for maneuvering around, forcing you to either take a hit as you try and squeeze past them or, you guessed it, shoot the bloody bastards. If that weren’t enough, you’re often privy to enemies (Crimsons, Dogs, Hunters, etc…) who are significantly faster and consequently warrant constant skirmishing. Combined with the plethora of available handgun magazines (on normal) and you’ll never be at a loss as to which strategy to employ.
Some of you may be thinking well Red, what’s the issue with RE being more action thriller than tiptoe nightmare- if it works it works. Sure, but the problem is Mikami was not interested in going that route either courtesy of the number of handicaps he’s put on the combat. For starters, zombies take a lot of firepower to knock down, and unless you get lucky with a critical shot (+) or waste inventory space (much MUCH more on that later) on gasoline, you’ll inevitably have to redeal with them when they revive. Shooting in tight spaces with slow discharge speeds also gets infuriating as zombies are very liable to reaching you before you break them down. On top of all this, the pistol is utterly useless against the stronger variants described above, meaning you’re heavily obliged to pull out your stronger weapons if you wish to avoid a premature death; weapons with nowhere near the amount of collectable ammo as your sidearm.
As you can see, when both halves come together a strange in-between is catalyzed that’s far from enjoyable for either side -- the survival horror is too action-oriented, and the action horror too diminutive; you can’t go in guns-ablazing nor play hide-and-seek; enemies must be engaged with yet that engagement is crippled. It’s as though the creators didn’t know what schematic they were going for and opted to throw in a bit of everything, only to unintentionally spoil the broth- you’re not playing Doom and you’re not playing Clocktower, but their deformed offspring.
Credit where credit is due, every location after the initial mansion does greatly open up to the point where you can dash about (specific) enemies, but considering you’ll be spending at least 2/3s of your time in the iconic manor, it’s slim pickings in the long run.
Still, I might’ve been able to tolerate all this were it not for the sheer number of quality-of-life deficiencies that had NO business being there considering the GameCube’s hardware. The first thing you’ll notice are the many many MANY loading screens -- every single door, I kid you not, every SINGLE door prompts a fade-to-black animation as the game renders the next space, the limning taking a good 4-6 seconds EACH time. Should this have occurred between locales or even wings, I would’ve understood, but why the bloody hell do I have to wait for the f!cking closet next door to open? For a title released the same year as Sunshine, Wind Waker, and Metroid Prime, it’s inexcusable and feels like it was done purely as an authentic (read- outdated) throwback to the OG release.
Next are the short backpack slots I alluded to above. Now, as everyone knows, inventory management is an integral facet of most survivor games; however, REmake unfortunately makes this aspect more aggravating than tensive by way of mandatory occupation: that is, you’re only granted six slots and four of them are replete from the get-go -- your pistol, clips for it, a secondary ordnance, and ink ribbons, leaving a meager two for ALL REMAINING quest items/collectables. Why are those four compulsory? Well, I’m so glad you asked- on account of the unavoidable combat, you need your revolver; on account of brawnier foes arising out of nowhere you need a stronger weapon; on account of [weaker] enemies taking five shots/piece you need extra bullets for at least one gun; and on account of typewriters (RE’s version of checkpoints) not always having an item box nearby, you need ink on hand lest you wish to risk losing your gleaned progress.
As you may expect, all of this feeds into the third worst feature of the game; the sheer amount of backtracking. Having to run between chests and rooms turns into routine clockwork as you’re essentially only working with two free spaces, neither of which are sufficient for the countless quest items you’re required to pick-up, and I just don’t understand why the devs didn’t bother creating a separate placeholder for such trinkets. Inventory management should ideally be relegated to vital resources (healing herbs, mags, weapons/tools)- putting a cap on that whilst allowing unlimited slots for the others would’ve gone a long way towards making the game enjoyable.
Nonetheless, I know plenty of people will argue any horror stockpile must encompass every collectable, in which case there were still other options available like stationing multiple item boxes on a floor or giving players the ability drop objects (seriously, I don’t understand how this wasn’t a thing- include a disintegration contingency if you really wanted to discourage this).
We’re not done with the backtracking complaints. One of the grand innovations of REmake is the presence of locked doors with their own keys and unique loot, meaning you’ll often come upon chamber upon chamber that you cannot access until a later point in time. That’s all well-and-fine, but the problem is the map doesn’t indicate which key unlocks which (or even which room is which), meaning, unless you explicitly jot it down elsewhere (or rely on a guide like moi), you’re going to be darting everywhere like prime Usain Bolt.
Fourthly, there’s the fact that there're, as stated earlier, checkpoints, and not just checkpoints but checkpoints with limited save slots. I’ve never been a fan of their presence in non-2D platformers due to it being an antiquated carryover from the arcade era that doesn’t accommodate the lives of adult gamers; however, even if I accepted it as a critical component of the RE experience, throwing in a finite amount of tokens that waste inventory space struck me as vexing for the sake of being vexing. I get the intent was to avoid save scumming, but considering the backtracking and number of cheap deaths here, such a measure would’ve significantly counterbalanced things.
Finally, we need to talk about the fixed camera angles, a style that made RE stand apart from the crowd but appears out-of-place by modern standards. All cards on the table, I didn’t have an issue adapting; however, the shifting slants do get tiresome during firefights as the constant cuts can change your field-of-view to the point where a previously visible enemy is rendered hidden. I have no idea why Mikami thought singular rooms needed 4-5 perspectives when 1-2 would’ve sufficed: for fresh acolytes out there, expect the Taken 3 fence experience during exploration.
Puzzles constitute a large part of RE’s experience, and while not bad, the lion’s share of them falter in funness due to the aforementioned flaws -- some necessitate backtracking to get a key sited elsewhere, others contain lethal consequences for inputting the wrong combo (a particularly degrading factor in light of save states and healing material being few and far between).
Much has been made about the horror atmosphere REmake pioneered, and unfortunately even on that front things remain mixed. Because of the aforestated annoyances with the zombies I personally found myself more nettled than thrilled- having to dance around a table with a biohazard as I pushed an armoire or instantly evading a foe via clicking a door, for example, weren't scary in the slightest.
Still, I’d be lying if I said there aren’t some genuinely creepy moments and superb jumpscares out there, and I believe a large part of that has to do with the score (++) by Shusaku Uchiyama, Makoto Tomozawa, and Misao Senbongi. If there’s one thing Mikami and his team did masterfully, it was the sound editing as the music beats are superbly integrated into the game. You’re not hearing a constant treble in your journey, but rather specified cues that play depending on certain triggers (i.e., location, story beat, status, etc….). The tracks themselves are excellent, walking that fine line between unsettling harmony and sense of discovery (boss tunes being the exception of course), with morose bass instruments seeing a lot of usage. I was a particular fan of the trio’s save room melody, which sounded like a warped rendition of the Zelda theme from Ocarina of Time.
SFX is a lot more limited in non-cinematic scenes, with the baseline zombies boasting that stereotypical yawn pop culture has come to associate with them. Other enemies don’t fare any better, and I can’t say anything stood out: things are adequate, not exemplary.
Still, it’s miles above the horrendous voice acting here, which, alongside, the script, truly comes across as AI generated, and I’m not just saying that to make a relevant techno reference. Literally listen to any scene on YouTube and it’ll resound like one of those artificial conversations some user-generated algorithm concocted. Part of the reason I began this review with the gameplay is that there really isn’t anything to talk about with the story- a security ops team is sent in to find their missing comrades who disappeared after investigating cannibalist occurrences in Racoon City. Arriving at the venue, the members find their comrades dead, before hauling ass to the adjacent manor after attracting the attention of several Cerberus hounds. Following this, the group decides to split up, with you having the option to take control of either Jill or Chris; their stories offering some, but ultimately inconsequential, differences as they uncover the secrets of this abode.
It sounds like a decent premise, but the reason I say there isn’t anything to talk about is because of how awful the storytelling is. Your protagonist wanders around seeing and learning about the horrifying stuff that went on, but doesn’t bother commenting on it, reporting on it, or outright suggesting they call-in back-up and get the f!ck out of this place. It also never made sense to me why Jill or Chris were wasting time uncovering the secrets of the chateau when it becomes clear something dreadful is occurring and that their teammates are not who they appear to be (+++). I kid you not when I say the game has less than 20 lines of dialogue total, a good chunk of that deriving from the intro cinematic: no one phones in anything, no one acts like a professional, heck no one seems human.
And it’s a shame because the lore you find strewn throughout residence is absolutely enticing, chockful of stationary detailing a juicy backstory involving some inhumane experimentation and mentally ill scientists. If there was ever a pristine example of how to divulge a game’s mythos without being overbearingly expositiony, it would be REmake without question- I just wish Jill would have responded to at least ONE of these journals as they deserved some canon reciprocity.
Regardless, it goes without saying that I don’t recommend the Resident Evil remake. Outside of the above lore drops, there really isn’t anything enjoyable- the combat is irate, survival horror nonexistent, and QOL failures abundant. It seems clear the majority of the production budget went towards the visual redux as this truly is a stunning title that holds up in 2023: textures (at a distance) are stringent, interior design immaculate, and the character animations exact- I’m not lying when I say REmake may have the most naturalistic poses for its figures as your protagonist moves, climbs, and holds firearms like an actual human being would.
But graphics only go so far. Reading the Wikipedia summary will garner better delight than playing this title.
NOTES
-I cannot stress enough how beautiful the game is. Enemy animations, foggy grounds, and decaying wallpaper add to the atmosphere.
-Some artisan at Capcom found the time to program jiggle physics for Jill. Wish that same effort had been put towards alleviating at least one of the flaws.
+Yes, I know a shotgun aimed up can do a one-hit KO at close range, but that takes up precious slugs and serves to highlight the insipidness of the combat system- there’s even a part in the story where Jill (the person I chose) learns about crushing zombie skulls as a means of permanently stopping them and does EXACTLY that in a cutscene, only to be unable to do it during the actual gameplay (on that note, what was even the point in having an aiming system when it doesn’t help 90% of your weapons?).
++The hall of mirrors always left me uneasy, even when I got past the point of no enemies, and that most definitely had to do with the accompanying arrangement.
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SPOILERS
+++So it turns out Wesker and Barry were both traitors working with Umbrella to kill off all S.T.A.R.S units deployed to investigate. My question is, why didn’t they bother offing Jill and Chris during the MANY opportunities present to them? It made no sense to let them meander about Umbrella’s halls on the off-chance of unearthing the truth.
I will also say that Wesker’s voice actor (Peter Jessop) is actually quite good compared to, well, everyone else, but given his minimal lines (the majority of them delivered before his death), it’s ultimately a waste.
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2012
This review contains spoilers
Because of the nature of the story, it’s impossible to discuss Spec Ops: The Line without spoiling its contents. Having said that, I do think this is one of those titles every gamer will play at some point in their lives, so let this review stand as less of an overview and more of a discussion regarding its merits.
Minor spoilers discussed for the original Modern Warfare Trilogy as well as Black Ops I and II
Spec Ops: The Line is one of those games I both admire and unadmire -- it takes a thought-provoking approach to military shooters, only to subvert them in the most erroneous way possible, and while I would’ve loved to have seen more titles like it, I ultimately can’t recommend the game itself as a must-play venture.
It should be noted in advance that the story we got was not what was fully intended by the writers: in an article published on Cracked.com back in 2016, Spec Ops co-writer Walt Williams disclosed multiple changes the narrative underwent during development (be forewarned spoilers are present), and so I am definitely sympathetic to the fact that the story would’ve been more consistent had things gone as originally planned(+). That said, because of the high reputation Spec Ops continues to hold among the gaming community, consequent criticisms will be unadulterated regardless of this piece of prescient knowledge.
The problems stem from multiple sources, but I suppose the premise is as good a place to start as any: a semi-apocalyptic timeline wherein Dubai is ravaged by horrendous sandstorms (err, more than your garden variety anyway). Prior to the events of the game, a battalion of US soldiers nicknamed the Damned 33rd opted to disobey orders and evacuate the city, resulting in a loss of contact with their overseers. Months later, a lone transmission broadcast by the infantry’s Colonel Konrad causes the US Government to send in a small Delta Squadron to conduct reconnaissance and find out what exactly transpired.
It may sound solid to an outsider, but Americans holding a basic understanding of their military will know just how nonsensical everything is upon closer inspection. For starters, on what planet would a US satellite be unable to see through dusty wind? We’ve had this technology nailed to a tee going back to the 60s, let alone the 2010s timeline of Spec Ops, yet you mean to tell me no such spacecraft was capable of keeping track of Konrad’s movements?
The idea of HAVING to send in personnel becomes further idiotic the second you find out the CIA had previously infiltrated Dubai, meaning the government already had a source of information on the ground! Are you honestly going to tell me with a straightface that the DOD and CIA were not communicating with one another in any capacity (the same two agencies that, mind you, worked hand-in-hand during the Cold and Iraq Wars?).
And let’s talk about Konrad - even if I bought into the idea of him disobeying orders, in what world are the thousands, let me repeat, thousands of soldiers under his command going to go along with a mutiny (let alone the innumerable Captains and Lieutenants)? This was clearly a homage to Apocalypse Now, which served as a major influence on the plot, but the difference is, there, Kurtz oversaw significantly less troops, making their switch in allegiance all the more believable. Here, though, there’s no reality where a mass of armyheads would betray their country because a single higher-up said so.
The final stretch of incredulity extends to the actions done by main protagonist himself, Captain Walker, and while significantly less heavy than their aforementioned forebears, they end up being arguably the worst of the bunch given their purpose in jumpstarting the plot: that is Walker’s decisions to ignore orders. Unlike Konrad’s men, Walker is, at the very least, explicitly portrayed as a by-the-book veteran, so why is he not following such basic protocol as reporting in attacks by members of the Dubai populace? Long before he snaps, why is he not doing the very thing he was explicitly asked to do ala sending in information about the status of Dubai (it’s not like he forgets this mission since his squadmates are constantly reminding him every other scene)?
I know fans will retort that every military game takes creative liberties for the sake of storytelling, a notion I agree with, yet Spec Ops’ errors struck me as a bit hypocritical given its themes of deconstructing such titles over their lack of realism. Plus, unlike Call of Duty, a couple of easy rewrites would’ve gone a long way towards ameliorating, if not outright correcting, these issues (++).
But look, we’re just dancing at the outskirts -- Spec Ops biggest issues are two-fold: one, its inability to craft morally-grey situations; and two, its aggravating attempts at critiquing player agency.
Regarding the first, Spec Ops’s storyline operates under the banner of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” a fascinating concept that’s been privy to some of the best storytelling in fictional media. However, the problem with Spec Ops’s version is that it’s more interested in manipulating gamers than actually weaving a good tale - almost every “ambivalent” scenario Walker and his buddies come across is deliberately obscured for the sake of a gotcha moment (a tactic that feels less like organic development and more like shock value). Real ethical murkiness seeps from having a decent understanding of the facts and consequently making a Scylla & Charybdis decision: that is knowing things could go north or south, but ultimately concluding that the outcome of one justifies its selection over the other.
Sadly, only once does the game do anything akin to this, with the rest of the story otherwise consisting of Walker being tricked into committing acts of Genevic violence, and what makes this particularly annoying is that you’re almost always responding out of self-defense. The Damned 33rd constantly ignore Walker’s words and shoot on-sight, in turn forcing players to engage in extended firefights that give way to those aforestated war crimes, and as a result, I never once felt guilt-tripped by Walker’s deeds because I knew things would’ve played out differently had the issues been forthright over this force-feeding method. Yes, in wartime, you’re never acquainted with all the facts, but as I more than illustrated above, the game wasn’t exactly heavy on veritable recreations from the get-go.
Interestingly, the infamous White Phosphorus scene exhibits this flounder best, with Walker gulled (read - coaxed) into using the eponymous incendiary against an opposing unit, unaware that there are civilians in the mix. Despite the intentions of the writers, it just didn’t work for me because there was never any indication that citizens were moved to this area, nor a single reason why this particular weapon had to be employed when previous scenarios had you gunning down similar numbers of troops amass no problem. Ironically, what I found far more haunting (and what I wish had been focused on instead) were the sundry of burning troops you meander past following the ordeal: hearing their screams and singeing, it genuinely dawned on me just how sickening my actions were, something I can’t say occurred with the so-called “plot twist”.
Another notorious part involves Walker being deceived (noticing a trend here?) into helping a CIA crony sabotage the Dubai water supply; a scene that only prevails because the game deliberately turns Walker into a moron (+++) in addition to conveniently killing off every exposition-y character who would’ve told him the truth about the agent (whose motivations, on their own merits, are full of horsefeathers++++). Contrived is the perfect word to describe this part because that’s the kind of framing the game unfortunately utilizes in order to render its many tragedies a success. Compare this to Assassin’s Creed I or Witcher 2 where Geralt and Altair were put into decently-detailed scenarios in which you were able to make a concerted decision: a decision that may have caused more damage than good, but never once seemed coerced.
Still, in spite of my disagreements, I actually would’ve commended Spec Os had it not indulged in that aforementioned secondary quandary of emotionally-blackmailing players as though they did something wrong. It does this through its death screens (no doubt a parody of the CoD equivalent) which, if you’re lucky, you won’t be seeing too many of courtesy of how infuriatingly condescending they can get. You get such pretentious polemics as: “This is all your Fault,” “Do you feel like a Hero?,” and an additional one about the parching of Dubai’s citizens that I didn’t jot down verbatim (amongst others+++++), all of which struck me as wholly unnecessary because it’s not like the game provided a pacifist route or legitimate choices for players to willfully exert agency on.
Now of course, being a beloved game, I’ve heard counterarguments to some of these qualms, namely that Spec Ops is a deliberate response to Call of Duty’s cartoonish approach to war, a claim that makes no sense to anyone who's actually played those games. Like seriously, from Black Ops II on-back (i.e., the titles that were out at the time of Spec Ops’s release), can anyone actually think of a moment where actions against civilian targets weren’t treated seriously? The chemical gas attacks in MW3, the death of Noriega’s sister in BOII, the nuclear explosion in MW1, Castro’s assassination attempt in BO1, etc…all led to serious consequences for the protagonist(s). Even No Russian (a mission which, by the way, provided far more player agency than any chapter in Spec Ops ever did) literally resulted in the advent of World War III, so I genuinely don’t know what commentary the devs were going for if this was actually their intention.
Another big rebuttal I’ve heard is that Spec Ops was meant to be critical of gamers who decide to play war titles without thinking about what they’re doing, a facet that, if true, would genuinely trigger me. Nothing pisses me off more than when a video game’s grand or ulterior message is to not play it -- the purpose of any published title, irrespective of its tangents, should always be to be experienced. Telling players that they were dumb to embark on a journey advertised to them would be deceptive, sly, and downright egotistical on the part of the writers.
Perusing the Wikipedia article will inform you that the writers wanted to showcase a realistic decline in the mental state of soldiers at war, something that is generally overlooked in conventional military shooters. Now, I’ve never served in the armed forces (and I suspect neither have Williams and Richard Pearsey); however, I’ve read enough books and spoken to enough veterans to feel confident in saying that this psychological change is not as instantaneous as the hackneyed approach Yager Development took here, condensing a months-long process of deterioration and dehumanization into what feels like the span of a few days. Walker’s transformation, in particular, is preposterous because it entails him immediately developing a split personality, something that literally doesn’t happen overnight. To add salt to the wounds, the game rips-off Black Ops 1 by treating this as a plot twist (though unlike BO1, the dialogue here is overtly-obtuse to the point of not lending an organic layer to said revelation).
Listen, I know I’ve been rambling, but it’s only because I’m passionate about video game storytelling, and I feel Spec Ops could’ve done a better job executing its well-intentioned parameters. It generally tells a good tale about the fall of three men trying to do the right thing, and honestly succeeds in its depiction of PTSD (the spontaneous screaming/acts of violence, Walker’s nightmares): it’s just everything else was severely lacking in either tangibleness or believability. Even as an adaptation of Heart of Darkness it stumbles because you just don’t get a sense of Konrad’s (i.e. Kurtz’s) descent into madness due to the game shoving most of that backstory into optional collectibles (more on that later). There’s also a whole spiel I have about the “true ending” that I’ll detail in the notes section (++++++).
Like I said though, this is a story you will get invested in, and that’s honestly due less to the script and more to the stupendous voice work and chemistry of the main stars. Nolan North, of course, needs no introduction, his performance as Walker arguably standing at the top of an already-esteemed resume. The way he vocally depicts Walker’s crumbling mental state and increasing anger, in particular, deserves immense praise as a gold standard in voiceover work. His coworker, Omid Abtahi, does an equally superb job as thirdmate Lugo, often being handed the most fervently-charged dialogue behind North, and successfully orating it.
Christopher Reid takes the reins as Walker’s second-in-command Adams, and he’s admittedly the weakest of the trio, failing to astutely exude the multitudinous emotions his character undergoes. Still, his camaraderie goes a long way in the game (his conversations with Walker, in particular, being a consistent highlight).
The remaining NPC cast is admittedly hit-or-miss. Jake Busey, for example, is surprisingly good as the shock jock Radioman Delta Squad overhears for most of the game, but he’s unfortunately counterbalanced by Bruce Boxleitner’s Konrad, who not only lacks Brando’s pristine elocution, but dons a nasal impersonation of Kiefer Sutherland from Phone Booth (he also gave the man a bizarre accent for no apparent reason).
If you’ve heard anything negative about Spec Ops, it’s probably had to do with its shooting mechanics, though I honestly feel the lion’s share of these perceived issues would’ve been ignored with better soundwork: firearms lack impact, bullet blasts resound the same across every non-metallic surface, and you don’t hear enough sand crunching in spite of the abundance of grains. Had things been more visceral, particularly during gun battles, I genuinely think a lot of people would’ve flipped their opinion on the gameplay as it’s honestly fine, occupying your standard cover shooter system of pick-and-pop. There are a few enemy varieties (including juggernauts straight out of MW2), but the battle strategy remains the same, and I guarantee you any deaths you accumulate will derive primarily from running out into open areas.
The biggest supplement to the whole shebang is a Mass Effect-esque command squad wherein, at the click of a button, Lugo & Adams can be directed against a specific target. The AI for the duo is actually quite good, with the two of them not only following orders well, but actually hitting/pursuing their targets to a tee. The only downside is the inability to give them specific directives in terms of what tactics to employ (i.e., whether to lob a grenade, provide suppressing fire, snipe, etc….), leaving their choice-of-attack up to either RNG or the occasional on-screen prompt. When they do go down, you’re able to revive them with a quick tap, though be forewarned this does leave you open to bullet fire.
On that note, Spec Ops is definitely more realistic than its contemporaries in terms of damage calculation as, even on the normal difficulty, Walker can only take a few hits before his screen goes red. And seeing as how you’ll rarely be up against minimal foes, you’ll definitely want to avoid darting into the open kamikaze-style lest you wish to die quickly.
But that’s at least understandable - what isn’t understandable are some of the bizarre gamepad calibrations: the semi-tank control scheme where you have to rotate Walker separately from the camera in order to dictate his direction; running being relegated to a singular button tap; and vaulting being keyed to same button as melee.
I talked about the intelligence collectibles earlier, and those are definitely more akin to the backpacks from Spider-Man than their Call of Duty counterpart in the sense that they’re recordings which divulge vital information on either something that occurred before the events of the game, or on present thoughts from Walker on something at hand. They’re excellently scribed and definitely provide integral lore in a way the main campaign never does, but the problem is you have to go out of your way to locate them. I don’t know who thought this’d be a good idea over placing them directly in the player’s path, and what’s worse is, if you want to view them later, you have to exit the game and select them from the title screen despite certain ones pertaining to the specific chapter they’re found in -- tl;dr, it made no sense.
Graphics are the one area Yager truly went all-out on as Spec Ops has aged incredibly well. Character models, in particular, boast extraordinary detail you’re not liable to finding in a lot of games these days, beginning with the fact that you can actually see streams of sweat on Walker’s face alongside the progressive-accumulation of caked dirt and dried blood. Character diaphragms enlarge in an arc motion when breathing, compared to the balloon-shaped expansion typical of most releases, and texturing, as a whole, is incredibly deep, adorning textiles and architectural materials equanimously. Though primarily in desert-strewn areas, you’ll often duke it out in exteriors reminiscent of the 33rd’s past history (makeshift gyms/army barracks) or interiors mimicked off of real-life locations from the iconic city (the Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa, various resorts), both of which do a phenomenal job giving a lived-in feel to the world. The use of colors, even under the baked overlay of Spec Ops illumination, were especially fantastic, often giving rise to some of the most gorgeous vistas I’ve ever had the privilege to witness in gaming -- one room could literally be home to dashes of rainbow, another pure blues, and still another murkier lighting reminiscent of the climax of Apocalypse Now.
The desert is more than a backdrop, with grenades causing cloudbursts, breakable glass giving way to sandslides, and the occasional habūb slipping into battle during scripted moments. Part of me wishes these latter storms, in particular, were randomized over predetermined as such moments of granular chaos were absolutely thrilling: red-orange typhoons terrorizing everything in their path.
Still, the highlight of the game has to be its murals - painted canvases embellished upon numerous walls you run across in your 7+ hour journey. The artisans behind them did a phenomenal job satirizing the military-industrial complex, their works frequently contrasting idealistic propaganda with the ongoing carnage of Dubai. Some of my favorites included a burnt American Flag above a pile of dead soldiers, a hot girl vacation ad next to a guy shooting himself, religious divinity amidst massacred civilians, and a diamond adorned with pig blood amongst numerous others I recommend you seek out.
Other miscellaneous graphical bits I enjoyed were the heat waves that rose from discharged turret barrels, visibly seeing empty magazines fall to the ground while reloading, and those darkly gorgeous loading screen illustrations showcasing Walker in varying poses of melancholy.
In terms of visuals criticisms, I had a couple of minor ones ranging from clouds being stationary to Lugo’s hat lacking proper texture streaming, but my biggest ones concerned two aspects from the desert: one, the extensive brightness of sunlit areas - maybe it was because I just got done playing Resident Evil 2, but there were several places where I felt the lighting was overblown; and two, the inconsistency of footprints - not every sand surface yielded them, and even when they did, they often took the form of instantly-formed blobs rather than an organically crafted boot imprint.
Finally there’s the score by Elia Cmíral, and I was pretty disappointed with it. The biggest issue is Cmíral (and Yager in general) were clearly more interested in recreating those rock-based moments from Apocalypse Now than conceiving something standalone, and they apparently settled on doing so via adding such motifs to almost every single album piece. I’m not lying when I tell you guys that the same electric guitar and drum riffs occupy at least 75% of the OST, and if they didn’t, something harmonically-similar did to the point of being aurally-indifferent. There were also numerous times where the music was completely at odds with the thematic content on display, the worst instance of this being the finale with Walker finally meeting Konrad (seriously - go take a listen to it). I’m usually a fan of alternative rock, but unfortunately I can’t say its use in a serious war game was good pickings (oh, and to add salt to the wounds, your ears are privy to a horrifically screechy rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner via the title screen theme).
And that, in a nutshell, wraps-up all my problems with Spec Ops: The Line. As I said in the beginning, I respect what the writers were trying to do, and it would’ve been great if more video games had built on this formula over sticking with standard AAA templates(+++++++), but the game itself tragically has too many flaws to be worth a solid recommend.
I do believe everyone will play it at some point in their gaming life, and for those who have, I encourage commentary/debate because I acknowledge I could very well be ignorant to some major boon that was simply overlooked.
Then again, if a video game can inspire these kinds of discussions to begin with, maybe it already succeeded at its tasks.
NOTES
+To anyone even vaguely-interested in the process behind video game scriptwriting, I highly-recommend checking out that article irrespective of your views on Spec Ops.
++The Damned 33rd had fallen into civil war, so why not have one faction do the counterinsurgency tactics over throwing in the CIA? And rather than make Walker Delta, why not turn him into a Black Ops soldier? You’re already having him act like one anyway.
+++The CIA is explicitly depicted as being untrustworthy to the point of Walker’s teammates warning him otherwise.
++++The US Government already disavowed the Damned 33rd, so what exactly was the CIA trying to cover-up? Any war crimes committed by the unit would’ve been condemned the second they came to light.
+++++The slogan that really got under my skin was one that asked whether I even remembered the original reason for coming to Dubai. The answer is yes homie, you created a campaign no longer than your average CoD one: of course I remember what transpired two days ago.
++++++The writers reportedly claimed that Walker died in the helicopter crash and that the last act of the game is actually him in Limbo. Firstly, this doesn’t make much sense given that a lot of major events, including the deaths of his comrades and the Konrad Revelation, are disclosed post-crash, but second, why would you scribe a video game about maintaining convictions to the bitter end, only to take away that ending from gamers? What was even the point in having multiple choices if they were all “fake” by your own admission?
This is truly a case where Death of the Author should be applied in spades as I think leaving the conclusion up to the player is far more wise - you got three different finales representing the three most possible outcomes: one, Walker acquiescing to his guilt and killing himself; two, Walker acquiescing to his trauma and becoming self-brainwashed; or three, Walker ultimately opting to seek help and Dubai’s citizens privy to rescue by the US Military.
+++++++To be fair, the Modern Warfare reboot and (reportedly) BioShock Infinite did similar takes on American Exceptionalism, so perhaps some post-Spec Ops influence did happen.
-I’d say the one aspect of the graphics that is visibly outdated is surprisingly the choice of font. I don’t know how to describe it, but it genuinely looks like the kind of typeface you’d see on early-360 shooters.
-Spec Ops was delisted from Steam, and no one seems to have any idea as to why that happened.
-The sound mixing has Walker sounding louder than his brethren, which can get obnoxious during firefights when he’s screaming orders. That said, I did like how, if one person was out of your vicinity, their voice would be filtered through the radio (I believe ACIII did the same during the modern-day sections).
-Talk about a blast from the past, one of the NPCs here uses an iPod!
-The intro credits throw in your name as “special guest____” if you needed further proof that the writers were disapproving you as much as they were Walker.
Minor spoilers discussed for the original Modern Warfare Trilogy as well as Black Ops I and II
Spec Ops: The Line is one of those games I both admire and unadmire -- it takes a thought-provoking approach to military shooters, only to subvert them in the most erroneous way possible, and while I would’ve loved to have seen more titles like it, I ultimately can’t recommend the game itself as a must-play venture.
It should be noted in advance that the story we got was not what was fully intended by the writers: in an article published on Cracked.com back in 2016, Spec Ops co-writer Walt Williams disclosed multiple changes the narrative underwent during development (be forewarned spoilers are present), and so I am definitely sympathetic to the fact that the story would’ve been more consistent had things gone as originally planned(+). That said, because of the high reputation Spec Ops continues to hold among the gaming community, consequent criticisms will be unadulterated regardless of this piece of prescient knowledge.
The problems stem from multiple sources, but I suppose the premise is as good a place to start as any: a semi-apocalyptic timeline wherein Dubai is ravaged by horrendous sandstorms (err, more than your garden variety anyway). Prior to the events of the game, a battalion of US soldiers nicknamed the Damned 33rd opted to disobey orders and evacuate the city, resulting in a loss of contact with their overseers. Months later, a lone transmission broadcast by the infantry’s Colonel Konrad causes the US Government to send in a small Delta Squadron to conduct reconnaissance and find out what exactly transpired.
It may sound solid to an outsider, but Americans holding a basic understanding of their military will know just how nonsensical everything is upon closer inspection. For starters, on what planet would a US satellite be unable to see through dusty wind? We’ve had this technology nailed to a tee going back to the 60s, let alone the 2010s timeline of Spec Ops, yet you mean to tell me no such spacecraft was capable of keeping track of Konrad’s movements?
The idea of HAVING to send in personnel becomes further idiotic the second you find out the CIA had previously infiltrated Dubai, meaning the government already had a source of information on the ground! Are you honestly going to tell me with a straightface that the DOD and CIA were not communicating with one another in any capacity (the same two agencies that, mind you, worked hand-in-hand during the Cold and Iraq Wars?).
And let’s talk about Konrad - even if I bought into the idea of him disobeying orders, in what world are the thousands, let me repeat, thousands of soldiers under his command going to go along with a mutiny (let alone the innumerable Captains and Lieutenants)? This was clearly a homage to Apocalypse Now, which served as a major influence on the plot, but the difference is, there, Kurtz oversaw significantly less troops, making their switch in allegiance all the more believable. Here, though, there’s no reality where a mass of armyheads would betray their country because a single higher-up said so.
The final stretch of incredulity extends to the actions done by main protagonist himself, Captain Walker, and while significantly less heavy than their aforementioned forebears, they end up being arguably the worst of the bunch given their purpose in jumpstarting the plot: that is Walker’s decisions to ignore orders. Unlike Konrad’s men, Walker is, at the very least, explicitly portrayed as a by-the-book veteran, so why is he not following such basic protocol as reporting in attacks by members of the Dubai populace? Long before he snaps, why is he not doing the very thing he was explicitly asked to do ala sending in information about the status of Dubai (it’s not like he forgets this mission since his squadmates are constantly reminding him every other scene)?
I know fans will retort that every military game takes creative liberties for the sake of storytelling, a notion I agree with, yet Spec Ops’ errors struck me as a bit hypocritical given its themes of deconstructing such titles over their lack of realism. Plus, unlike Call of Duty, a couple of easy rewrites would’ve gone a long way towards ameliorating, if not outright correcting, these issues (++).
But look, we’re just dancing at the outskirts -- Spec Ops biggest issues are two-fold: one, its inability to craft morally-grey situations; and two, its aggravating attempts at critiquing player agency.
Regarding the first, Spec Ops’s storyline operates under the banner of “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” a fascinating concept that’s been privy to some of the best storytelling in fictional media. However, the problem with Spec Ops’s version is that it’s more interested in manipulating gamers than actually weaving a good tale - almost every “ambivalent” scenario Walker and his buddies come across is deliberately obscured for the sake of a gotcha moment (a tactic that feels less like organic development and more like shock value). Real ethical murkiness seeps from having a decent understanding of the facts and consequently making a Scylla & Charybdis decision: that is knowing things could go north or south, but ultimately concluding that the outcome of one justifies its selection over the other.
Sadly, only once does the game do anything akin to this, with the rest of the story otherwise consisting of Walker being tricked into committing acts of Genevic violence, and what makes this particularly annoying is that you’re almost always responding out of self-defense. The Damned 33rd constantly ignore Walker’s words and shoot on-sight, in turn forcing players to engage in extended firefights that give way to those aforestated war crimes, and as a result, I never once felt guilt-tripped by Walker’s deeds because I knew things would’ve played out differently had the issues been forthright over this force-feeding method. Yes, in wartime, you’re never acquainted with all the facts, but as I more than illustrated above, the game wasn’t exactly heavy on veritable recreations from the get-go.
Interestingly, the infamous White Phosphorus scene exhibits this flounder best, with Walker gulled (read - coaxed) into using the eponymous incendiary against an opposing unit, unaware that there are civilians in the mix. Despite the intentions of the writers, it just didn’t work for me because there was never any indication that citizens were moved to this area, nor a single reason why this particular weapon had to be employed when previous scenarios had you gunning down similar numbers of troops amass no problem. Ironically, what I found far more haunting (and what I wish had been focused on instead) were the sundry of burning troops you meander past following the ordeal: hearing their screams and singeing, it genuinely dawned on me just how sickening my actions were, something I can’t say occurred with the so-called “plot twist”.
Another notorious part involves Walker being deceived (noticing a trend here?) into helping a CIA crony sabotage the Dubai water supply; a scene that only prevails because the game deliberately turns Walker into a moron (+++) in addition to conveniently killing off every exposition-y character who would’ve told him the truth about the agent (whose motivations, on their own merits, are full of horsefeathers++++). Contrived is the perfect word to describe this part because that’s the kind of framing the game unfortunately utilizes in order to render its many tragedies a success. Compare this to Assassin’s Creed I or Witcher 2 where Geralt and Altair were put into decently-detailed scenarios in which you were able to make a concerted decision: a decision that may have caused more damage than good, but never once seemed coerced.
Still, in spite of my disagreements, I actually would’ve commended Spec Os had it not indulged in that aforementioned secondary quandary of emotionally-blackmailing players as though they did something wrong. It does this through its death screens (no doubt a parody of the CoD equivalent) which, if you’re lucky, you won’t be seeing too many of courtesy of how infuriatingly condescending they can get. You get such pretentious polemics as: “This is all your Fault,” “Do you feel like a Hero?,” and an additional one about the parching of Dubai’s citizens that I didn’t jot down verbatim (amongst others+++++), all of which struck me as wholly unnecessary because it’s not like the game provided a pacifist route or legitimate choices for players to willfully exert agency on.
Now of course, being a beloved game, I’ve heard counterarguments to some of these qualms, namely that Spec Ops is a deliberate response to Call of Duty’s cartoonish approach to war, a claim that makes no sense to anyone who's actually played those games. Like seriously, from Black Ops II on-back (i.e., the titles that were out at the time of Spec Ops’s release), can anyone actually think of a moment where actions against civilian targets weren’t treated seriously? The chemical gas attacks in MW3, the death of Noriega’s sister in BOII, the nuclear explosion in MW1, Castro’s assassination attempt in BO1, etc…all led to serious consequences for the protagonist(s). Even No Russian (a mission which, by the way, provided far more player agency than any chapter in Spec Ops ever did) literally resulted in the advent of World War III, so I genuinely don’t know what commentary the devs were going for if this was actually their intention.
Another big rebuttal I’ve heard is that Spec Ops was meant to be critical of gamers who decide to play war titles without thinking about what they’re doing, a facet that, if true, would genuinely trigger me. Nothing pisses me off more than when a video game’s grand or ulterior message is to not play it -- the purpose of any published title, irrespective of its tangents, should always be to be experienced. Telling players that they were dumb to embark on a journey advertised to them would be deceptive, sly, and downright egotistical on the part of the writers.
Perusing the Wikipedia article will inform you that the writers wanted to showcase a realistic decline in the mental state of soldiers at war, something that is generally overlooked in conventional military shooters. Now, I’ve never served in the armed forces (and I suspect neither have Williams and Richard Pearsey); however, I’ve read enough books and spoken to enough veterans to feel confident in saying that this psychological change is not as instantaneous as the hackneyed approach Yager Development took here, condensing a months-long process of deterioration and dehumanization into what feels like the span of a few days. Walker’s transformation, in particular, is preposterous because it entails him immediately developing a split personality, something that literally doesn’t happen overnight. To add salt to the wounds, the game rips-off Black Ops 1 by treating this as a plot twist (though unlike BO1, the dialogue here is overtly-obtuse to the point of not lending an organic layer to said revelation).
Listen, I know I’ve been rambling, but it’s only because I’m passionate about video game storytelling, and I feel Spec Ops could’ve done a better job executing its well-intentioned parameters. It generally tells a good tale about the fall of three men trying to do the right thing, and honestly succeeds in its depiction of PTSD (the spontaneous screaming/acts of violence, Walker’s nightmares): it’s just everything else was severely lacking in either tangibleness or believability. Even as an adaptation of Heart of Darkness it stumbles because you just don’t get a sense of Konrad’s (i.e. Kurtz’s) descent into madness due to the game shoving most of that backstory into optional collectibles (more on that later). There’s also a whole spiel I have about the “true ending” that I’ll detail in the notes section (++++++).
Like I said though, this is a story you will get invested in, and that’s honestly due less to the script and more to the stupendous voice work and chemistry of the main stars. Nolan North, of course, needs no introduction, his performance as Walker arguably standing at the top of an already-esteemed resume. The way he vocally depicts Walker’s crumbling mental state and increasing anger, in particular, deserves immense praise as a gold standard in voiceover work. His coworker, Omid Abtahi, does an equally superb job as thirdmate Lugo, often being handed the most fervently-charged dialogue behind North, and successfully orating it.
Christopher Reid takes the reins as Walker’s second-in-command Adams, and he’s admittedly the weakest of the trio, failing to astutely exude the multitudinous emotions his character undergoes. Still, his camaraderie goes a long way in the game (his conversations with Walker, in particular, being a consistent highlight).
The remaining NPC cast is admittedly hit-or-miss. Jake Busey, for example, is surprisingly good as the shock jock Radioman Delta Squad overhears for most of the game, but he’s unfortunately counterbalanced by Bruce Boxleitner’s Konrad, who not only lacks Brando’s pristine elocution, but dons a nasal impersonation of Kiefer Sutherland from Phone Booth (he also gave the man a bizarre accent for no apparent reason).
If you’ve heard anything negative about Spec Ops, it’s probably had to do with its shooting mechanics, though I honestly feel the lion’s share of these perceived issues would’ve been ignored with better soundwork: firearms lack impact, bullet blasts resound the same across every non-metallic surface, and you don’t hear enough sand crunching in spite of the abundance of grains. Had things been more visceral, particularly during gun battles, I genuinely think a lot of people would’ve flipped their opinion on the gameplay as it’s honestly fine, occupying your standard cover shooter system of pick-and-pop. There are a few enemy varieties (including juggernauts straight out of MW2), but the battle strategy remains the same, and I guarantee you any deaths you accumulate will derive primarily from running out into open areas.
The biggest supplement to the whole shebang is a Mass Effect-esque command squad wherein, at the click of a button, Lugo & Adams can be directed against a specific target. The AI for the duo is actually quite good, with the two of them not only following orders well, but actually hitting/pursuing their targets to a tee. The only downside is the inability to give them specific directives in terms of what tactics to employ (i.e., whether to lob a grenade, provide suppressing fire, snipe, etc….), leaving their choice-of-attack up to either RNG or the occasional on-screen prompt. When they do go down, you’re able to revive them with a quick tap, though be forewarned this does leave you open to bullet fire.
On that note, Spec Ops is definitely more realistic than its contemporaries in terms of damage calculation as, even on the normal difficulty, Walker can only take a few hits before his screen goes red. And seeing as how you’ll rarely be up against minimal foes, you’ll definitely want to avoid darting into the open kamikaze-style lest you wish to die quickly.
But that’s at least understandable - what isn’t understandable are some of the bizarre gamepad calibrations: the semi-tank control scheme where you have to rotate Walker separately from the camera in order to dictate his direction; running being relegated to a singular button tap; and vaulting being keyed to same button as melee.
I talked about the intelligence collectibles earlier, and those are definitely more akin to the backpacks from Spider-Man than their Call of Duty counterpart in the sense that they’re recordings which divulge vital information on either something that occurred before the events of the game, or on present thoughts from Walker on something at hand. They’re excellently scribed and definitely provide integral lore in a way the main campaign never does, but the problem is you have to go out of your way to locate them. I don’t know who thought this’d be a good idea over placing them directly in the player’s path, and what’s worse is, if you want to view them later, you have to exit the game and select them from the title screen despite certain ones pertaining to the specific chapter they’re found in -- tl;dr, it made no sense.
Graphics are the one area Yager truly went all-out on as Spec Ops has aged incredibly well. Character models, in particular, boast extraordinary detail you’re not liable to finding in a lot of games these days, beginning with the fact that you can actually see streams of sweat on Walker’s face alongside the progressive-accumulation of caked dirt and dried blood. Character diaphragms enlarge in an arc motion when breathing, compared to the balloon-shaped expansion typical of most releases, and texturing, as a whole, is incredibly deep, adorning textiles and architectural materials equanimously. Though primarily in desert-strewn areas, you’ll often duke it out in exteriors reminiscent of the 33rd’s past history (makeshift gyms/army barracks) or interiors mimicked off of real-life locations from the iconic city (the Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa, various resorts), both of which do a phenomenal job giving a lived-in feel to the world. The use of colors, even under the baked overlay of Spec Ops illumination, were especially fantastic, often giving rise to some of the most gorgeous vistas I’ve ever had the privilege to witness in gaming -- one room could literally be home to dashes of rainbow, another pure blues, and still another murkier lighting reminiscent of the climax of Apocalypse Now.
The desert is more than a backdrop, with grenades causing cloudbursts, breakable glass giving way to sandslides, and the occasional habūb slipping into battle during scripted moments. Part of me wishes these latter storms, in particular, were randomized over predetermined as such moments of granular chaos were absolutely thrilling: red-orange typhoons terrorizing everything in their path.
Still, the highlight of the game has to be its murals - painted canvases embellished upon numerous walls you run across in your 7+ hour journey. The artisans behind them did a phenomenal job satirizing the military-industrial complex, their works frequently contrasting idealistic propaganda with the ongoing carnage of Dubai. Some of my favorites included a burnt American Flag above a pile of dead soldiers, a hot girl vacation ad next to a guy shooting himself, religious divinity amidst massacred civilians, and a diamond adorned with pig blood amongst numerous others I recommend you seek out.
Other miscellaneous graphical bits I enjoyed were the heat waves that rose from discharged turret barrels, visibly seeing empty magazines fall to the ground while reloading, and those darkly gorgeous loading screen illustrations showcasing Walker in varying poses of melancholy.
In terms of visuals criticisms, I had a couple of minor ones ranging from clouds being stationary to Lugo’s hat lacking proper texture streaming, but my biggest ones concerned two aspects from the desert: one, the extensive brightness of sunlit areas - maybe it was because I just got done playing Resident Evil 2, but there were several places where I felt the lighting was overblown; and two, the inconsistency of footprints - not every sand surface yielded them, and even when they did, they often took the form of instantly-formed blobs rather than an organically crafted boot imprint.
Finally there’s the score by Elia Cmíral, and I was pretty disappointed with it. The biggest issue is Cmíral (and Yager in general) were clearly more interested in recreating those rock-based moments from Apocalypse Now than conceiving something standalone, and they apparently settled on doing so via adding such motifs to almost every single album piece. I’m not lying when I tell you guys that the same electric guitar and drum riffs occupy at least 75% of the OST, and if they didn’t, something harmonically-similar did to the point of being aurally-indifferent. There were also numerous times where the music was completely at odds with the thematic content on display, the worst instance of this being the finale with Walker finally meeting Konrad (seriously - go take a listen to it). I’m usually a fan of alternative rock, but unfortunately I can’t say its use in a serious war game was good pickings (oh, and to add salt to the wounds, your ears are privy to a horrifically screechy rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner via the title screen theme).
And that, in a nutshell, wraps-up all my problems with Spec Ops: The Line. As I said in the beginning, I respect what the writers were trying to do, and it would’ve been great if more video games had built on this formula over sticking with standard AAA templates(+++++++), but the game itself tragically has too many flaws to be worth a solid recommend.
I do believe everyone will play it at some point in their gaming life, and for those who have, I encourage commentary/debate because I acknowledge I could very well be ignorant to some major boon that was simply overlooked.
Then again, if a video game can inspire these kinds of discussions to begin with, maybe it already succeeded at its tasks.
NOTES
+To anyone even vaguely-interested in the process behind video game scriptwriting, I highly-recommend checking out that article irrespective of your views on Spec Ops.
++The Damned 33rd had fallen into civil war, so why not have one faction do the counterinsurgency tactics over throwing in the CIA? And rather than make Walker Delta, why not turn him into a Black Ops soldier? You’re already having him act like one anyway.
+++The CIA is explicitly depicted as being untrustworthy to the point of Walker’s teammates warning him otherwise.
++++The US Government already disavowed the Damned 33rd, so what exactly was the CIA trying to cover-up? Any war crimes committed by the unit would’ve been condemned the second they came to light.
+++++The slogan that really got under my skin was one that asked whether I even remembered the original reason for coming to Dubai. The answer is yes homie, you created a campaign no longer than your average CoD one: of course I remember what transpired two days ago.
++++++The writers reportedly claimed that Walker died in the helicopter crash and that the last act of the game is actually him in Limbo. Firstly, this doesn’t make much sense given that a lot of major events, including the deaths of his comrades and the Konrad Revelation, are disclosed post-crash, but second, why would you scribe a video game about maintaining convictions to the bitter end, only to take away that ending from gamers? What was even the point in having multiple choices if they were all “fake” by your own admission?
This is truly a case where Death of the Author should be applied in spades as I think leaving the conclusion up to the player is far more wise - you got three different finales representing the three most possible outcomes: one, Walker acquiescing to his guilt and killing himself; two, Walker acquiescing to his trauma and becoming self-brainwashed; or three, Walker ultimately opting to seek help and Dubai’s citizens privy to rescue by the US Military.
+++++++To be fair, the Modern Warfare reboot and (reportedly) BioShock Infinite did similar takes on American Exceptionalism, so perhaps some post-Spec Ops influence did happen.
-I’d say the one aspect of the graphics that is visibly outdated is surprisingly the choice of font. I don’t know how to describe it, but it genuinely looks like the kind of typeface you’d see on early-360 shooters.
-Spec Ops was delisted from Steam, and no one seems to have any idea as to why that happened.
-The sound mixing has Walker sounding louder than his brethren, which can get obnoxious during firefights when he’s screaming orders. That said, I did like how, if one person was out of your vicinity, their voice would be filtered through the radio (I believe ACIII did the same during the modern-day sections).
-Talk about a blast from the past, one of the NPCs here uses an iPod!
-The intro credits throw in your name as “special guest____” if you needed further proof that the writers were disapproving you as much as they were Walker.
1986
Played on the NES Classic
NOTE- as I did not complete the game, this review should not be taken as a serious critique, but more-so a set of observations
Metroid is another Nintendo cornerstone not made for the patient. It was released back in ‘87 to critical acclaim, garnering praise for its eerie atmosphere and emphasis on exploration, the latter eventually contributing to the notorious Metroidvania formula of today. Unfortunately, in lacking basic features, it stands as a trophy over anything else: beautiful to gaze at, a hallmark of intense feats, but ultimately not worth pulling out of the cabinet.
Your mileage will definitely vary, but for me personally, Metroid falls apart largely because of the absence of a map. Anyone who’s played any kind of excavation game knows that part of the fun comes from dispersing the fog of war on your mini-screen -- not only are you encouraged to traverse every part of the world for secrets and goodies, but it’s also made clear that you’re actively progressing.
Published in a time where games were expensive and not packed with requisite content, Metroid (like the original Zelda) opted not to include one, and in doing so has made its content tedious by modern standards. Unless you’re willing to pull out pen & paper, you’re left having to resort to either a guide or memory to keep track of where you were able to advance versus where you were impeded by an obstacle. If the game had consisted of one area, I might’ve been able to stomach this, but given that it’s (relatively) massive with four major zones, for me, it just wasn’t worth the effort.
My tolerance for artificial elongation has waned in my older years, and Metroid lacked enough entertainment value to warrant making an exception. Platforming and shooting are combined into one package, and while both halves are actually well-developed, they’re concurrently impeded by some of the most annoying enemies in the history of video games. You’ll often encounter multiple flying creatures capable of following you, adjusting flight paths, and tanking decent hits (at least from your base laser), and while their attack patterns are definitely memorizable, the difficulty combined with the short range of Samus’s armaments ultimately renders the excursion vexing.
For what it’s worth, Metroid is a gorgeous game. Despite being released a year after Super Mario Bros., it feels wholly advanced, with every asset, from the aliens and platform blocks to the door portals and projectile effects, having aged beautifully. Compared to SMB, where the aesthetic differences between worlds was more akin to reskinned hues, Metroid’s four regions actually feel distinct, as though you were stepping into a quadrant of Xens. The only thing I’ll criticize is Samus’s model, which more resembles an armored Hitmonlee than robotic space marine (or whatever theme they were going for here).
SFX is almost entirely limited to Samus: her movements, firearms, and leaping occupying most of the aural sphere. Besides minibosses, enemies have no cry, and it’s evident from the diminished dins elsewhere that the creators were looking to the score for atmospheric support, and on that front arcade icon Hirokazu Tanaka holds the reins. Similar to Koji Kondo’s SMB tracks, Tanaka has delivered a good yet sparse assemblage of tunes contingent on the location you’re operating in. Sadly, unlike Kondo, Tanaka was unable to smooth out the shrillness typical of the NES sound chip, meaning the game’s OST is mostly unpleasant to listen to (should you actually decide to play the game, I’d advise having the mute button/your own playlist on standby).
But that’s a decision to be made by each and every potential gamer. Metroid isn’t a bad game; however, the lack of a map really holds it back from being a long-term player investment.
NOTES
-If there was a story, it was left in the game manual.
-Experienced numerous moments of lag whenever multiple foes came on-screen; don’t know if that was because I was playing it on the NES Classic or because it was an authentic representation of what actually happened on the OG system.
NOTE- as I did not complete the game, this review should not be taken as a serious critique, but more-so a set of observations
Metroid is another Nintendo cornerstone not made for the patient. It was released back in ‘87 to critical acclaim, garnering praise for its eerie atmosphere and emphasis on exploration, the latter eventually contributing to the notorious Metroidvania formula of today. Unfortunately, in lacking basic features, it stands as a trophy over anything else: beautiful to gaze at, a hallmark of intense feats, but ultimately not worth pulling out of the cabinet.
Your mileage will definitely vary, but for me personally, Metroid falls apart largely because of the absence of a map. Anyone who’s played any kind of excavation game knows that part of the fun comes from dispersing the fog of war on your mini-screen -- not only are you encouraged to traverse every part of the world for secrets and goodies, but it’s also made clear that you’re actively progressing.
Published in a time where games were expensive and not packed with requisite content, Metroid (like the original Zelda) opted not to include one, and in doing so has made its content tedious by modern standards. Unless you’re willing to pull out pen & paper, you’re left having to resort to either a guide or memory to keep track of where you were able to advance versus where you were impeded by an obstacle. If the game had consisted of one area, I might’ve been able to stomach this, but given that it’s (relatively) massive with four major zones, for me, it just wasn’t worth the effort.
My tolerance for artificial elongation has waned in my older years, and Metroid lacked enough entertainment value to warrant making an exception. Platforming and shooting are combined into one package, and while both halves are actually well-developed, they’re concurrently impeded by some of the most annoying enemies in the history of video games. You’ll often encounter multiple flying creatures capable of following you, adjusting flight paths, and tanking decent hits (at least from your base laser), and while their attack patterns are definitely memorizable, the difficulty combined with the short range of Samus’s armaments ultimately renders the excursion vexing.
For what it’s worth, Metroid is a gorgeous game. Despite being released a year after Super Mario Bros., it feels wholly advanced, with every asset, from the aliens and platform blocks to the door portals and projectile effects, having aged beautifully. Compared to SMB, where the aesthetic differences between worlds was more akin to reskinned hues, Metroid’s four regions actually feel distinct, as though you were stepping into a quadrant of Xens. The only thing I’ll criticize is Samus’s model, which more resembles an armored Hitmonlee than robotic space marine (or whatever theme they were going for here).
SFX is almost entirely limited to Samus: her movements, firearms, and leaping occupying most of the aural sphere. Besides minibosses, enemies have no cry, and it’s evident from the diminished dins elsewhere that the creators were looking to the score for atmospheric support, and on that front arcade icon Hirokazu Tanaka holds the reins. Similar to Koji Kondo’s SMB tracks, Tanaka has delivered a good yet sparse assemblage of tunes contingent on the location you’re operating in. Sadly, unlike Kondo, Tanaka was unable to smooth out the shrillness typical of the NES sound chip, meaning the game’s OST is mostly unpleasant to listen to (should you actually decide to play the game, I’d advise having the mute button/your own playlist on standby).
But that’s a decision to be made by each and every potential gamer. Metroid isn’t a bad game; however, the lack of a map really holds it back from being a long-term player investment.
NOTES
-If there was a story, it was left in the game manual.
-Experienced numerous moments of lag whenever multiple foes came on-screen; don’t know if that was because I was playing it on the NES Classic or because it was an authentic representation of what actually happened on the OG system.
2007
Long before I decided to become a game reviewer, I used to jot down brief thoughts on the games I was completing in order to capture my feelings for personal archival purposes. Since then, I’ve of course evolved my craft into full-fledged write-ups, but I do think there is enough merit to some of these earlier critiques to warrant their publication, especially for titles I do not intend on replaying (in the near future at least). While I’ve thrown in some minor revisions, this is one of them.
GRAPHICS
-Graphics are simple, but everything is well-textured. Levels are made to look like an amalgamation between one of those padded rooms in an insane asylum and a cubicle. Tiles have a dirty marble shine to them.
-Color grading reminds me a lot of that scene in The Incredibles where Bob is talking to his boss: greyscaled and depressing.
-Terrible screen tear when turning camera, especially while in the elevator and immediate exit room.
-Love the sparks that fly when you fire the portal ray on non-portalizing material.
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GAMEPLAY
-The learning design is very good- this is what The Witness should have employed rather than a pointless open world. Each level doesn't feel hard because it employs mechanics from the prior ones.
-There is no run feature, meaning you have to do stupid constant jumping to move faster (think the stupid rolling from Ocarina of Time, only worse). Platforms also move slow, meaning you have to wait longer than you might have wanted to time jumps and stuff.
-
STORY
-The writing is genius. It's a satirical jab at the corporate atmosphere, similar to Office Space, but even if you've worked a terrible non-corporate job you will be able to relate to the various jabs: employee safety, employee record/grade, employee manuals/guides, etc...
-No backstory at all on the protagonist Chell. Game does offer some backstory on the facility. I guess it doesn't matter in the end since Portal is about gameplay over story, but I would have liked something at least.
-A lot of complaints about the runtime. The main story took me about 3 hours to beat, and the 8 "advanced" missions took me an extra 1.5-2 hours, meaning I invested about 5 hours into the game. To be honest, I actually feel the short length worked as the game starts to drag, especially in the third act where you're moving through the maintenance area.
There is technically more content in the form of challenges (least portals, least time, least jumping) for 8 levels, but I didn't really bother with them since they were a chore in the same vein as the time trials from Donkey Kong Country Returns.
GRAPHICS
-Graphics are simple, but everything is well-textured. Levels are made to look like an amalgamation between one of those padded rooms in an insane asylum and a cubicle. Tiles have a dirty marble shine to them.
-Color grading reminds me a lot of that scene in The Incredibles where Bob is talking to his boss: greyscaled and depressing.
-Terrible screen tear when turning camera, especially while in the elevator and immediate exit room.
-Love the sparks that fly when you fire the portal ray on non-portalizing material.
-
GAMEPLAY
-The learning design is very good- this is what The Witness should have employed rather than a pointless open world. Each level doesn't feel hard because it employs mechanics from the prior ones.
-There is no run feature, meaning you have to do stupid constant jumping to move faster (think the stupid rolling from Ocarina of Time, only worse). Platforms also move slow, meaning you have to wait longer than you might have wanted to time jumps and stuff.
-
STORY
-The writing is genius. It's a satirical jab at the corporate atmosphere, similar to Office Space, but even if you've worked a terrible non-corporate job you will be able to relate to the various jabs: employee safety, employee record/grade, employee manuals/guides, etc...
-No backstory at all on the protagonist Chell. Game does offer some backstory on the facility. I guess it doesn't matter in the end since Portal is about gameplay over story, but I would have liked something at least.
-A lot of complaints about the runtime. The main story took me about 3 hours to beat, and the 8 "advanced" missions took me an extra 1.5-2 hours, meaning I invested about 5 hours into the game. To be honest, I actually feel the short length worked as the game starts to drag, especially in the third act where you're moving through the maintenance area.
There is technically more content in the form of challenges (least portals, least time, least jumping) for 8 levels, but I didn't really bother with them since they were a chore in the same vein as the time trials from Donkey Kong Country Returns.