Psyching myself up to jump into the latest overstuffed Assassin’s Creed game. I mean, I’ve played them all up to this point, I’d be foolish to just not play this one right? And I mean, Mirage is looming in the distance, I’m going to want to check it out somewhere down the road I guess. Man, gaming inertia is a real thing, I think once I get started I’ll enjoy it and get sucked in but it’s kind of hard to stand on the edge of these massive games and think about dipping a toe in.
Brotherhood is the last one I tackled, and although I loved it, it took a lot of me. Like the will to do it again for another AC game. There’s such a thing as too much of a good thing.
I wish all AC games were more like the first one, with about a 10-15 hour campaign. If that had been the case, I’d be caught up and waiting for the next one already.
The first game was 10-15 hours of essentially working through the same gameplay loop, over and over again. It gets very tedious, very fast. I was thrilled that with AC2, Brotherhood, etc. that they added more stuff to do and a wider narrative structure.
The problem was that they kept adding more and more stuff that had little to do with the overall game quest storyline or other narratives in later iterations. Not to mention what was originally pay-to-cruft ubinonsense with Unity. (Since fixed, thankfully.)
Any one of them is fine, but it’s hard to go all in on all of them at once.
I’d say the best part about Valhalla is that there’s something of an actual story - though it takes dozens of hours to get there. Imo but both Origins and Odyssey jump the shark about halfway or three quarters of the way through (respectively). Origins starts really strong and kind of ambles its way to a kind of ending. OTOH it’s kind of the most boring of the stories.
Valhalla has a really strong opening - maybe the best of any of the games. Honestly the biggest problem with Valhalla is that by depreciating skills and gear somewhat the grind feels more pointless, and post-apocalyptic England is sometimes less interesting than all the other settings.
I’m not sure which has the best Discovery Tour though - that might be the real question! Valhalla actually has a narrative while Odyssey has narrated tours, and Origins has that recorded display voice like a museum. I was actually struck a little bit by the narrative of the Valhalla tour more than the actual narrative of the game itself, there’s a twist I ended up enjoying and finding more sophisticated than most of the series usually is.
I’ve enjoyed every one of the Assassin’s Creed games, though I guess not each equally. I know that I will dig Valhalla, it’s just that I imagine it’s carrying forward that gigantic world like Origins and Odyssey did (and did very well) and I was pretty well done with both of them by the time I reached their conclusion. That’s the source of my inertia, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step but motivating myself to take that step can be quite the undertaking.
Well, for me, it didn’t get tedious yet. I think the way I structured it, after I got through the tutorial, I played for an hour after work for 9 assassinations in the game. So I’d get home, put my feet up, lay back and worth through the two activities required to unlock an assassination, and then do that assassination. The two activities had to be chosen from a pool of 5 activities in the game, but the 9 assassinations of the main plot were all very different.
So it was something like:
Night 1 explore new area in Damascus
activity a, b, kill 1
Night 2 explore new area in Acre
activity c, d kill 2
Night 3 explore new area in Jerusalem
activity e, a kill 3
Night 4 explore new area in Damascus
activity a, d kill 4
Night 5 explore new area in Acre
activity b, e kill 5
Night 6 explore new area in Jerusalem
activity b, c kill 6
Night 7 explore new area in Damascus
activity b, c kill 7
Night 8 explore new area in Acre
activity b, d kill 8
Night 9 explore new area in Jerusalem
activity b, d kill 9
Yes, by the end of the game, I was basically gravitating towards my favorite activities out of the 5, but I loved that each night I was exploring a new area of the game that I’d never seen before, and each night I was ending with a unique mission. It felt fresh to me.
I won’t deny that Brotherhood expanded the activities a lot, and the actual areas to explore were used and re-used in a lot of creative ways. But the sheer number of hours took their toll, as I said.
I really should check out some of the newer games though. I know what you and others wrote about Odyssey has me very curious. And basically the new games’ areas are so huge, it might actually be possible to explore a new area of the game each night again if I want, maybe?
Tip?
You can and will return to the starting region, so don’t feel obliged to do anything there that doesn’t grab you. Most of the game is still to come.
Loved me Valhalla.
Look up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla soundtrack and listen to Out of the North. May motivate you to play! I’m certainly on that Sigur Rós / Valhalla Rising film soundtrack frequency with this stuff which kind of gives this air of Scandi sadness to the Valhalla game.
Yes indeedy. They’re so big they introduced smart horses that get you to a quest marker without you having to do anything. Not that that’s exploration but maybe it gives you an idea of scope.
I think Valhalla is one of my least favourite AC games.
To expand on @Alistair tip: don’t feel obliged to do anything that doesn’t look fun in this game. Cause it won’t be. You will not unlock any interesting side quest (there are only a few sidequests and you can’t miss them, there are also World Events but they’re usually a one minute distraction) and there’s no bullshit level requirements like in Origins or Odyssey, so being underleveled just makes the enemies a little more menacing. Don’t let character progression system intimidate you, unlike Odyssey it’s impossible to specialize in this game and you will grow all the stats.
Also if you like a region and want to explore it make sure to finish main quest there first. The game will highlight a treasure behind locked doors that are opened by the main story and it will drive you mad if you try to find the way.
Those of you who said Valhalla gets off to a strong start were right, I am enjoying the beginning of the game. The story is kind of standard, you’ve got your basic revenge plot, and the mechanics of playing the game are naturally enough very Creed like. But I really like the characters here, everyone seems interesting and believable in their own viking way. They seem a lot better drawn than they really needed to be, and I’m interested in where things are going. I liked the assassins who showed up early - thought they were going to try to do some kind of fake out or misdirect but nope, they’re just a couple of assassins along for the ride in a kind of 13th Warrior kind of way. Off to a good start!
Ha, this game has insult sword fighting! OK, insult poetry slam/rap battles I guess. And I’m finally getting the hang of the dice game, I think. Lots of ancillary activities to do, easy to sink time in and forget what I’m supposed to be doing. I did finally arrive at England (spoiling that even if it’s early game stuff and most of you have long finished the game) and now I get to do the whole AC3 community building thing too. Man, I should have played this a long time ago.
I’m on my third or so play through, and I find it really relaxing and fun in a non-intense sort of way. Beautiful world, even with the often brain-dead NPCs, and the mechanics are fun if repetitive. The loot system still blows, but it’s still interesting to find new things to use as cosmetic transmogs.
Yeah, I don’t totally get the loot system. Or I guess I should say, I don’t really get how it gels with the upgrade system. I see I can collect many crafting materials and I guess I’m intended to continue upgrading my gear, but just going by other AC games I’m betting I’ll be collecting much better gear soon, that will outclass even my upgraded stuff I currently have. So I’m just sitting on all my upgrade materials, though maybe that’s the wrong call.
Honestly the loot system is the worst of all the recent AC games, so it’s not you. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, it’s not immediately clear when something is better or worse, it’s not clear about resource management over the long run. Honestly after having gotten through more than half or 3/4 of the main campaign ( I haven’t finished yet) just use the resources as you get them. I’ve never hit stuff that made me excited to use it like in Odyssey.
I haven’t spent a more than a hot second with the dice game. When I looked like it was going to take 10-15 minutes I bailed and have never looked back. No criticism for those who do, it looks fun, but I have to manage game time more efficiently now.
There’s also an online resource you can gather. After 40-50? hours of playing I’ve never collected enough to buy even one of those shop’s items. So not wasting time chasing those either.
What I like about the RPG AC games is exactly this. Game as a service mechanic is a blight upon mankind and infinite resource gathering is a psychological manipulation. But if it’s ever supposed to be used it’s here in games that are supposed to be sightseeing tours. Just give me a reason to walk those beautiful cities and landscapes. Previous games had collectibles but these aren’t too involving and are too detached from the game (if there was a reward for them it was usually for collecting every single one of them which assumes a lot of player commitment). Origins and Valhalla give you a constant stream of XP for basically any action as well as dropping collectibles everywhere that also gave rewards. I think Odyssey did it best by adding infinite quests which forced you to get out of your comfort zone or gave you a reason to stay in a specific place some more. Especially in Origins a lot of locations felt like a waste cause the only reason to come there was for a chest or something, and even big cities like Alexandria only had several quests in them. Technically Valhalla and Origins have generated quests from the Magical Boy but they’re much simpler and in general there are fewer global systems in that game that give quests context.
I don’t particularly like Valhalla but I can totally see myself eventually firing it again and doing all the tasks in that game. All just to breathe in the scenery. I feel like I’m done with Origins - I did all the quests in the original game and DLC sidequests are not that interesting - but I can’t rule out that one day I’ll come back and fight those giant gods or Ornstein and Smough elephant fight.
Oh, one other thing - are the drinking games worth doing? I got through the first couple pretty easily, but the latest ones I’ve found are trickier. There’s almost no margin for error, so if I miss the timing or don’t get the balancing thing right, it seems I’ve pretty much lost. I know the dice game gives me runes or buffs and the rap battles boost charisma, but it looks like the drinking game just pays money and I’m not really in need of that, so I’m wondering if I can safely skip those.
After Origins and Odyssey people complained about loot treadmill. I think it’s a good idea cause the game throughs new powerful items on you that actually play differently, and you have to pay to upgrade your old equipment and continue playing in the same way. It’s the opposite of what most RPGs do when a new good equipment needs investing cause the old one is upgraded and has gems in sockets etc.
Valhalla addressed those complaints by making it so that you don’t need to switch equipment at all. I finished the game on max difficulty using the starting gear (raven armour and dad’s axe). When I got enough resources to upgrade something legendary thing and switched to it I haven’t noticed the difference. Equipment basically doesn’t matter as long as you like it’s moveset. You will soon weep when the game throws another axe at you instead of more tungsten.
I recommend the hammer because clunk.
You can skip every activity in the game except for rap battles, because charisma sometimes opens new options. Nothing fancy though, so you don’t have to worry about that. Rap battles are also fun, and so is dice game if you’re into it.
You will also have to do a lot of drinking during the game and world events and even to track some Templars.
Interesting, I’ve still been using that same equipment so far. I upgraded dad’s axe because the blacksmith gave me a free ore to do so. So that’s quite different from Origins and Odyssey then, where I can’t necessarily expect to be receiving new and better gear as I go along. I was absolutely drowning in weapons and armor in those games before too long.
I guess there isn’t really “leveling” anymore, at least the way it was in earlier games. There’s still xp, which I’ll need to get new skills, and there’s a derived power level from adding skills and looks like certain regions expect you to reach that power level before you can safely explore them. At least that’s how it looks to me.