Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Games
1467

I plan to run through Valhalla again, as male Eivor this time, when I pick it up cheap. I played through it the first time as part of the Ubisoft subscription thing, which I then cancelled (cheapskate me). I still don’t think it’s as solid or as ambitious as Odyssey, though arguably it is more focused. England simply doesn’t hit me with the same sort of atmospheric “wow factor” that Greece did, though the combat is quite a bit better.

Can’t argue with it garnering game of the year nominations in whatever genre people want to assign it, though.

1468

What did you play as the first time? I highly recommend letting the game pick the gender. It will not affect your England play through at all (that I can tell nearly 100 hours in) and has so far proven to be the canonical and logical choice story wise. But I guess you would know that better than me if you played through it all already. :) This is more for the benefit of new players on the fence with that choice.

Also, I understand if you already played as female Eivor and want to experience the other voice actor.

But I really like female Eivor and the voice actor’s portrayal of the character. So I have a hard time imagining replaying it as a guy.

As for myself, Valhalla is my top RPG, top open world and top game of the year. So I have no issue with PC Gamer’s ranking.

1469

I played female Eivor, letting the game choose, but it never switched, except for the Asgard stuff. Which was, meh. Unlike with Odyssey, where Kassandra was for me the clear choice (though Alexios is not half bad himself), here the male Eivor seems to make a lot more sense, though admittedly I’m fine with the anachronistic gender equity stuff, and appreciate a female bad-ass as much as anyone. I just found female Eivor’s voice annoying, though some really liked it.

1470

It seems that female Eivor is canon so don’t get too attached to the soft-spoken viking dude Eivor.

1471

I enjoy Eivors voice, but her personailty doesn’t always make sense to me.
Female Eivor is canon to the main story, while male in Asgard. Which also makes sense since Eivor is (and was, traditionally) a female name. My aunt’s name is Eivor! :)

I finally killed one of the twisted sisters (Lerions daughters, that is). Great feeling

1472

Eh, I really don’t care much, just want some variety for the second play through. I mean, these things eat up hours as it is.

1473

Isn’t there some unplayed open-worlder you could give a go rather than repeating one…? HZD? RDR2? Any other AC :)

1474

I highly recommend Ghost of Tsushima. It’s the best Assassin’s Creed.

The only downside – and it’s significant – is that it’s a PS4 exclusive.

1475

No consoles here. Don’t really find they fit my play/life arrangements. I hope Ghosts gets ported though.

I still need to do RDR2 and HZD, both of which I have. And will before I replay Valhalla. But I’m the type who re-reads books rather than finding new ones. I rarely see new movies, instead preferring to watch my favorites over and over again. Heh.

1476

By the time you’ve been through RDR2 and HZD we’ll know what the next gen ACs look like :)

1477

Not really. HZD is not longer than AC: Valhalla from what I’ve seen so far (I haven’t finished it yet, but had been clearing the maps before I switched to AC and will go back to it afterwards). And some people here take no time at all to play through those games.

As for RDR2, I don’t know enough to comment. No interest in it, personally.

HZD (counting it as a PC release) and Valhalla
alone have made for an awesome open world games year.

1478

Dare I ask why you have RDR2 if you have no interest in it…?

1479

I do not own it if that’s what you are asking. That’s why I said I did not know enough to comment. I played through quite a bit of the first one. But wasn’t really interested in this one after watching some people play it and reading reviews. For some reason, it doesn’t do anything for me.

1480

Ah I confused my W posters…

1481

I bought RDR2 when it came out, but my PC then had a CPU that was not up to snuff. When I got a new machine a few months later, I never got back around to playing it any more. Which is a shame, because I want to.

1482

I just finished the Suthsexe arc and Vinland.

Coming this far, I have to say:

The plot doesn’t thicken, I feel it’s getting thinner and more confusing.

And: good Odin how I hate Sigurd, why haven’t I punched him yet. Kinda regret saving his ass

1483

Yes Sigurd, Eivor and basim all beg to be punched. Dag too. So much that I suspect I’m going to turn on 3 of the four and maybe turn on myself too.

1484

That bit in Vinland will make more sense after Jotunheim. I enjoyed the change of scenery over there. But I think my not playing many other AC games might have led to me missing a reference that might make sense to others? Was a certain object Eivor leaves behind featured in another game?

Which one is Suthsexe? Is that the Sigurd rescue? If so, I haven’t seen it yet. I’ve been putting it off after Randvi told me I would need allies. On the plus side, it means no Sigurd in my story right now.

I’ve been exploring Lincolnshire I haven’t played much during this break though. So you will likely pull way ahead of me and be the one giving me hints and explanations soon @kristina.

Not sure why Eivor grates so much for some. But, hey, as Octavian might say: De gustibus non est disputandum.

I like her wry sense of humour. It comes across more as the game progresses. She feels a responsibility to her clan and is conflicted about the prophecy. But, overall, she is an enjoyable no nonsense character for me.

1485

I’ve been going to the different regions by tye power level of it, in lack of other guidance. So I did Lincolnscire and Essexe before going to Suthsexe (and of course all the other areas below level 160). It makes sense storywise, and you get two allies more in the fight to rescue Sigurd. I don´t think the other, higher level areas would provide more allies, but correct me if I´m wrong.

Vinland was also level 160, but it made less sense to go all the way to America instead of saving Sigurd, so I did that one after Suthsexe. It was a nice break, even though the extremely long cutscene when the story arc there is finished with a language there´s no way of understanding had me a bit wondering what the point of it was.

So now, I´ve come to Jotunheim, and can I say it´s the worst, bugged out hellhole I´ve ever played. Not exaggerating, this is worse than Cyberpunk (on my PS4). Keys floating mid air, unreachable, Eivor getting stuck in trees, mountains and snow, cutscenes glitching, hands stuck in heads, it´s a complete disaster. Even without the bugs it´s shite, for some reason, the Jotuns in the area respawn at an alarming rate. I´ve gone in to lairs to pick up both mission related stuff or frickin chests (yes, you can hunt tear stones here too, only they are blood stones), only to have jotuns I killed a minute ago respawn while I´m still creeping around in their dungeon. Oh and also all the animals in the world are disguised Jotuns.

For me, this part of the game ruins the whole experience of the game. They definitely could have integrated this seemingly important part of the story in some other way. Honestly just to leave out the stone collecting would have been a lot better.

Oh well, I´m a bit worked up atm since I´ve spent the last 15 minutes falling down a shaft in a tower, and since Ubisoft refuses to fix the bugs in their game (I´ve read hundreds of posts about the same bugs I have, and they just throw in their “open an old save =)” response which is just… oh well. I guess I´m gonna have to put my completionist-OCD aside and just come to terms with that I´ll never collect all the stones (one of the bugs prevents me from getting to one of them).

Can´t wait to get be done with this ice mountain and travel to Jorvik.

1486

Oh, I´ll also never get to finish Octavians mission since that too is bugged, and Ubisoft recommends me to open a previous save.

I don´t dislike her at all, and I agree about her having humour. I enjoy her quite a lot, but she´s confusing sometimes with her outrage at some story parts (her screaming about Basim having twisted Sigurds mind in the Saga Stone - arc for example was very strange to me), but I guess a lot of the confusion goes with me playing her as a nice person who loves cats and wants to help people and has a lot of moral, that doesn´t always go with the lines Ubisoft has given her, lol.