Assassin's Creed Valhalla (2020)

There is some good about this game - I played about 60 hours, so I was definitely enjoying it for a while - but there is so much more that is bad that I'm leaving this game unfinished.

The biggest negative for me was the bugs. In nearly every play session I encountered a bug. Most of the time it was annoying but harmless, but still many times it was game-breaking, forcing me to restart the game - that is when it didn't just crash. The game is clearly unfinished and the bugs make it unplayable. The kicker for me was realizing that, due to a bug, an entire questline was made unavailable to me. There's an entire portion of the game that I literally cannot play because of a bug.

Another issue is that the stealth is completely broken. Enemies detect you immediately after you leave cover, or, when they get suspicious, they have a supernatural sense to determine your exact location. And I had the stealth setting set to Easy. I eventually gave up on it because it's so much faster and easier to just barge in and fight, but in an Assassin's Creed game, you want stealth.

Finally, the game is way too long. Like I said, I put in 60 hours, I honestly haven't done much of the extras, and I'm still not done. It's fine to have 100+ hours of content, but at least make it optional. Some of the main quests were honestly so drawn-out and boring and for no reason; many of them could have just been made into side quests. I don't know when developers got into their head that longer = better, but that's not the case. I'd rather spend more time on a short game that I actually like than continuing to put the bare minimum into this.

Really disappointed in this because I love the series, but I'm backlogging this until the bugs are fixed. I'm unfortunately going to have to do a lot more research when the next installment comes out to make sure I'm not wasting my money on another unfinished, unplayable title.

2/5

Put this game down in the end to play Cyberpunk 2077.

Enjoyed the exploration and gear progression systems - finding and using the upgrade materials was an engaging gameplay loop. I also enjoyed that some of the exploration tasks required me to think and scan my surroundings, a big step up from walking towards a marker on my screen. Combat was janky and pretty whack. Stealth was somewhat satisfying but made trivial by combat, and very shallow. Story was low-tier garbage and even if I had no other games I would not have stuck out with this. Graphics were good.

Trying to play as a full run-through with completing all territories, I really enjoyed this game out of the gate for about 30-40 hours. There are a lot of novel mini-bosses and cool minigames, but after about 40+ hours, the mechanics, general fighting, and base attacks started to get really stale and repetitive. Also, some of the stories for the side territories were honestly so boring that I feel like it would have been better to just not include them at all.

I went from really enjoying it to getting bored with it and pushing myself to get through the end story. End story is kind of anti-climactic, unfortunately.

This game suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. Assassins creed is about assassination - targeted, stealthy strikes. That just doesn't mesh with the vikingr (raider) fantasy - where a loud battle horn is sounded as you and your raiders approach enemy strongholds.

That said, the combat was fun, the story was interesting, and the progression is well done. I really disliked the modern portions of the game (where you warp back to modern times) and it felt very tacked-on, but I'll take it if needed.

It was also far too long - with the need to subjugate every province in England being a bit of aslog in the end. There are just too many. My playtime clocked in at over 71 hours - which is just a hugely long time. Too long for a game like this.

In any case, this could have been 5 stars - the setting (England, Asgard, etc) is spectacular. The combat is pretty fun. The sneaking works well when you get to do it. The difficulty was a bit on the easy side (which is usually how I prefer it). It runs at a smooth 60fps on the series X, and as such felt pretty next-gen. I enjoyed it!