This review contains spoilers
AC: Valhalla is an absolute slog. The longest Assassin's Creed game that I've played, it takes some of the worst trends of the most recent AC games and continues down the abyss.
Unlike AC Odyssey, Valhalla is just missing some location charm. I never found the world of Valhalla all that special or interesting. Nothing really about it drew me in or had me wanting to ride my horse instead of fast traveling if given the option.
All of the armor is back, except they've managed to make it rather pointless. Because of the weapon upgrade system in this game I found it a lot harder to actually compare armor I was picking up and whether or not it was better or worse than what I was already using. Is the armor I just picked up better than what I've got on right now? Maybe! I gotta upgrade it a handful of times and then maybe I'll have a better idea.
The armor and weapon I was using was pretty much what I used from hour 60 until the end of the game 60+ hours later. There are so much armor crates to pick up though, it just becomes useless.
The game feels more action focused than the previous counterparts, thanks to the raids this game focuses on thanks to the Viking setting. These raids let you take your Viking army into enemy areas to pillage and kill. These are kinda neat and were helpful in splitting up some of the monotony of the missions and other side quests. Plus, some of the resources you gather in these raids will help you update your village, which is a pretty useful thing.
You'll have a main base of operations in AC Valhalla with a variety of buildings and side quests that can be discovered. Building need to be built though and that costs resources. If you have enough resources, you'll be able to upgrade your weapons in house, find a rare monster hunter, get temporary stat boosts, and even explore a rogue like side quest.
That rogue like (lite maybe? I don't honestly know the difference at this point, anyways) I really didn't do much to explore as I was already 90 hours deep by the time I unlocked this but it seemed like an interesting side quest that can help you obtain a rare currency that can be used for special armor, weapons, and I believe some village upgrades (again, didn't spend a ton of time in this so I might be wrong about this last one).
The game this time around does give you the ability to one hit stealth kill any enemy in this game. It's not turned on to start but this welcomed feature is something I did enjoy over the previous two Creed games.
Overall the combat isn't half bad as well. I found it to be super monotonous near the end or whenever you figure out the timing of every enemy. I eventually started to feel like Neo in the Matrix and that's sort of when my brain shut off.
I found the main character, in my case a female Eivor, to be pretty awesome. Not as cool and awesome as Kassandra from Odyssey, but I still found hanging out with Eivor to be pretty neat in an otherwise bland world.
Eivor's story is also fairly interesting. The side quests are neat, though triggering these world events/side quests are a pain in the ass or not all that clear. They don't always spell out what you need to do or go, no markers get added to your map for easy discovery for instance, so they can be hit or miss and not worth the hoops needed to jump through to solve.
The game features a handful of other reoccurring quests that are all uninteresting but feature experience needed to level up or other additional items.
The game's main story though is probably the first in a long time to really address its modern timeline. The modern timeline has somehow still been going, but mostly tossed to the background. It pops up from time to time but any storylines or connective tissues are kept fairly light.
That's not the case here and Valhalla gets weird near the end. I won't go into too much detail but I enjoy when Assassin's Creed gets weird with it's modern timeline and Valhalla is no different.
In general, these three last AC entries are just really hard to judge when they all feel so inflated and a drag. I have a decent amount of pros to Valhalla, much like I did with Odyssey, but after a set time the game plateaus and just becomes a brain shut off game that I'm just trying to find the finish line for.
All I know is the highs in Valhalla aren't near the highs of Odyssey. On top of that, this game was exceptionally buggy for me.
Multiple quests, including main line quests and the final The Order (the cult like system featured in Odyssey) were all filled with bugs. I'd do an objective at times, only for the game not to recognize it and not let me complete the task/mission. Multiple times I had to look up ways to troubleshoot a mission and how to get past the bug I and many others seem to have discovered. When your game is already so damn long, having to do this and extend missions because you have to restart it or look up a way to get around something, it gets super old super quick. Especially since sometimes the solution was restarting from a previous save.
I've technically never finished The Order side quest in this either due to a bug that meant not picking up a medallion.
It leaves for a very nasty taste in your mouth. That after 10-20 hour games can suck. That after a game of 130+ hours is super frustrating. Overall, this is the weakest version of these RPG element-style AC games. If the already long run times of AC Games were getting tiresome for you, this is a game that is worth avoiding. If the daunting length isn't an immediate no, there is enough pros in here to recommend. Hopefully you won't have the bug issues I had and it'll be a better experience for you overall.
Unlike AC Odyssey, Valhalla is just missing some location charm. I never found the world of Valhalla all that special or interesting. Nothing really about it drew me in or had me wanting to ride my horse instead of fast traveling if given the option.
All of the armor is back, except they've managed to make it rather pointless. Because of the weapon upgrade system in this game I found it a lot harder to actually compare armor I was picking up and whether or not it was better or worse than what I was already using. Is the armor I just picked up better than what I've got on right now? Maybe! I gotta upgrade it a handful of times and then maybe I'll have a better idea.
The armor and weapon I was using was pretty much what I used from hour 60 until the end of the game 60+ hours later. There are so much armor crates to pick up though, it just becomes useless.
The game feels more action focused than the previous counterparts, thanks to the raids this game focuses on thanks to the Viking setting. These raids let you take your Viking army into enemy areas to pillage and kill. These are kinda neat and were helpful in splitting up some of the monotony of the missions and other side quests. Plus, some of the resources you gather in these raids will help you update your village, which is a pretty useful thing.
You'll have a main base of operations in AC Valhalla with a variety of buildings and side quests that can be discovered. Building need to be built though and that costs resources. If you have enough resources, you'll be able to upgrade your weapons in house, find a rare monster hunter, get temporary stat boosts, and even explore a rogue like side quest.
That rogue like (lite maybe? I don't honestly know the difference at this point, anyways) I really didn't do much to explore as I was already 90 hours deep by the time I unlocked this but it seemed like an interesting side quest that can help you obtain a rare currency that can be used for special armor, weapons, and I believe some village upgrades (again, didn't spend a ton of time in this so I might be wrong about this last one).
The game this time around does give you the ability to one hit stealth kill any enemy in this game. It's not turned on to start but this welcomed feature is something I did enjoy over the previous two Creed games.
Overall the combat isn't half bad as well. I found it to be super monotonous near the end or whenever you figure out the timing of every enemy. I eventually started to feel like Neo in the Matrix and that's sort of when my brain shut off.
I found the main character, in my case a female Eivor, to be pretty awesome. Not as cool and awesome as Kassandra from Odyssey, but I still found hanging out with Eivor to be pretty neat in an otherwise bland world.
Eivor's story is also fairly interesting. The side quests are neat, though triggering these world events/side quests are a pain in the ass or not all that clear. They don't always spell out what you need to do or go, no markers get added to your map for easy discovery for instance, so they can be hit or miss and not worth the hoops needed to jump through to solve.
The game features a handful of other reoccurring quests that are all uninteresting but feature experience needed to level up or other additional items.
The game's main story though is probably the first in a long time to really address its modern timeline. The modern timeline has somehow still been going, but mostly tossed to the background. It pops up from time to time but any storylines or connective tissues are kept fairly light.
That's not the case here and Valhalla gets weird near the end. I won't go into too much detail but I enjoy when Assassin's Creed gets weird with it's modern timeline and Valhalla is no different.
In general, these three last AC entries are just really hard to judge when they all feel so inflated and a drag. I have a decent amount of pros to Valhalla, much like I did with Odyssey, but after a set time the game plateaus and just becomes a brain shut off game that I'm just trying to find the finish line for.
All I know is the highs in Valhalla aren't near the highs of Odyssey. On top of that, this game was exceptionally buggy for me.
Multiple quests, including main line quests and the final The Order (the cult like system featured in Odyssey) were all filled with bugs. I'd do an objective at times, only for the game not to recognize it and not let me complete the task/mission. Multiple times I had to look up ways to troubleshoot a mission and how to get past the bug I and many others seem to have discovered. When your game is already so damn long, having to do this and extend missions because you have to restart it or look up a way to get around something, it gets super old super quick. Especially since sometimes the solution was restarting from a previous save.
I've technically never finished The Order side quest in this either due to a bug that meant not picking up a medallion.
It leaves for a very nasty taste in your mouth. That after 10-20 hour games can suck. That after a game of 130+ hours is super frustrating. Overall, this is the weakest version of these RPG element-style AC games. If the already long run times of AC Games were getting tiresome for you, this is a game that is worth avoiding. If the daunting length isn't an immediate no, there is enough pros in here to recommend. Hopefully you won't have the bug issues I had and it'll be a better experience for you overall.