Worth it?
I personally haven't played it yet - I'm currently playing Origins - but a friend of mine who did claims it's the weakest out of Origins, Odyssey & Valhalla.
He played the first 2 DLC Paris and Ireland but said he won't buy the 3rd, longest, mythology inspired one.
From what I can remember of professional reviews the game has an overabundance of rather ininspired door puzzles where you have to search larger and larger areas for a key to a door / chest with the solution usually being a crack in a wall through which you can shoot another door open to get the key.
Also apparently the game does a lot of show and tell where you have to follow NPCs around while they explain customs and traditions to you.
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While I couldn't respond immediately I saw your message and will respond to the points you brought up as good as I can from memory.
Sorry this shifts the discussion from the original question posed by OP to AC Origins so consider this a free Bump 😅
I didn't really mind Bayek's personality. Granted... he's a bit of an empty canvas but in my opinion that's a technique many games use to make it easier for the player to identify with the character.
What I did mind very much on the other hand is how absurdly simplistic and short some of the main story missions are. I remember missions from Brotherhood or Syndicate where I would spend 45 minutes or maybe even an hour making my way into an elaborate complex of buildings before finally reaching the assassination target. Or even the unique, scripted Assassination opportunities in Syndicate which almost rivaled the Kill Opportunities in Hitman.
In contrast let's look at the mission The Scarab's Lies, the one in the city freshly reclaimed from the desert that promises a new better life to peasants from all around Egypt. The whole mission plays in an unrestriced area where you can move around freely without any of the guards getting suspicious.
I ended up climbing the main temple, took out 3 guards on the roof, one aerial assassination and the mission was over. It took me less than 10 minutes, probably more like 5. In comparison to the earlier previous regions I found the reclaimed city kinda interesting and did all the Scarab related sidequests first so it was quite anticlimactic the main Story mission was so insultingly easy.
It gets better in Memphis and the Fayum region - and this was in my opinion also the point of the game where you can start to see the first signs about the regional storylines, where every new area has a distinct feel to it that's supposedly the good part about Valhalla's story. (like the cult of the dead in Memphis or the oppression of ethnic Egyptians in the Fayum)
Maybe the tester considered the eagle OP and ended up not using it as much.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy soaring around as Senu immensly and marking enemies while I infiltrate a fortress but for marking quest objective I think it takes away quite a lot from discovering the beautiful locations on my own and you don't really get to appreciate the georgious architecture because 5 seconds after I switch to Senu the target is already marked despite being on the opposite side of a 100m wide temple, hidden behind 4 walls.
The fact that the eagle can see through walls when marking objectives actually bugs me quite a bit. It's one of those small things...
On the other hand I liked that guards and targets now have a rudimentary daily routine and have to eat, sleep or even take a leak. Too bad they didn't actually add animations for most of those activities.
When it comes to hunting Hippos or crocodiles... the lack thereof might actually be a good thing in my opinion. I know nobody forces me to do them but all those animal locations are just the typical Ubisoft busywork.
And... I'm probably spoiled by Red Dead Redemption 2 but the animal animations are soo clunky. Taming animals was the first expensive skill I went for because it sounded so cool but I ended up rarely using it because it just didn't feel fun.
Also I think it would have really helped if you could give tamed animals rudimentary commands - even if it's just Stay, Follow and Attack the enemy I'm pointing my bow at - so you could use them tactically instead of just a short lived diversion.
Sorry for the wall of text 😅 My buddies played the game like 5 years ago so they're not really open to an in depth discussion anymore.
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From what I can remember of professional reviews the game has an overabundance of rather ininspired door puzzles where you have to search larger and larger areas for a key to a door
The game rewards exploration. I guess it's a flaw now. And none of this is story related so that's entirely skippable too.
Also apparently the game does a lot of show and tell where you have to follow NPCs around while they explain customs and traditions to you.
That's news to me and I played well over 60 hours now.
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The game rewards exploration.
But does it really if you can simply switch to your eagle and those cracks in the walls get marked immediately? Again I haven't played Valhalla yet so I can't say first hand yet.
I elaborated on this in my wall of text above but in my opinion when it comes to finding quest objectives Senu actually takes away from discovering the beautiful locations from street level on your own and appreciating the georgious architecture.
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But does it really if you can simply switch to your eagle and those cracks in the walls get immediately marked?
They don't. The raven helps you spot point of interests over small distances but not everything, and I don't know where the "cracks in the wall" comes from but treasures, loot and exploration quests take a large array of forms. It's not about finding cracks in the wall with some magic auto-detect system.
when it comes to finding quest objectives Senu actually takes away from discovering the beautiful locations on your own from street level and appreciating the georgious architecture.
I see your point but I guess it comes down to how you play. I very rarely use the raven and it's not mandatory to use it. I agree it would be way less immersive to just fly around and spot things from there. But then, as you point out, that was also an issue with the previous games so that doesn't make Valhalla "worse than Odyssey and Origins", which seems to be the party line for some reason.
I get that a lot of players who loved the franchise didn't like the direction it took starting with Origins but Valhalla is pretty much aligned in that direction, no better no worse than the others.
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I get that a lot of players who loved the franchise didn't like the direction it took starting with Origins but Valhalla is pretty much aligned in that direction, no better no worse than the others.
I'm only 120 hours into Origins so at this point in the "trilogy" with the new mechanics it all still feels kind of fresh to me. But after 3 games with a very similar engine and mechanics I can also see why they'd want to go back to a more old school approach with Mirage without all of that RPGy stuff.
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I see your point but the same can be said about the AC franchise as a whole. After 3 games of Ezio and the OG, the franchise was kind of the same over and over.
Pretty sure everyone who is super pumped about Mirage and the return to the "good ole days" of the franchise will be trashing it 5 mn after it releases for not living up to their expectations. That's the way of the world now I guess.
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will be trashing it 5 mn after it releases for not living up to their expectations.
Most definitely 😅 In my personal opinion doubling down on the unique kill opportunities from Syndicate and Unity (despite them being somewhat limited in scale) would have been the right call for the franchise mechanic-wise but then again we already have Hitman.
And I suppose it just costs more to make the video sequences for the unique kills and get all those triggers right. But Ubisoft is the kind of company that could afford it.
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In my personal opinion doubling down on the unique kill opportunities from Syndicate and Unity (despite them being somewhat limited in scale) would have been the right call for the franchise mechanic-wise
Oooh interesting. I haven't played Hitman much because my old laptop couldn't handle it after my gaming laptop bricked but I think they definitely could have made it in a way that was more AC franchise than Hitman.
I'll be honest, I loved playing ACV but the stealth mechanism is broken and assassinations are not the strong suit of the game, that's for sure. I miss that and while Syndicate and Unity were not the best reviewed games in the franchise, that mechanism really made them fun.
And I suppose it just costs more to make the video sequences for the unique kills and get all those triggers right. But Ubisoft is the kind of company that could afford it.
Exactly, and it's not like the latest AC games have been made on the cheap.
I'm worried about Mirage just being a game they are throwing us before they make a definite move toward an Assassin's Creed "service" like they have been trying to do with Rocksmith (and mostly failing if the constant emails I'm getting about it are any indication). It feels like they have been back-pedalling on AC "Infinite" because it wasn't ready (COVID lockdowns didn't help) and so they've kinda started something else to bridge the gap but without much creative work put into it.
I hope I'm wrong.
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Got the game with my PS5, but really enjoyed it.. easy 100+ playing hours so if its worth it depends on the value you put on possible playing hours :)
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If you have decided that you're gonna buy it, but you can still wait for some time (the current sale ends in almost 3 weeks), consider doing some good and buying it ONLY AFTER they are going to implement steam achievements (obviously until the sale ends) - this way it might send some good message. https://steamcommunity.com/app/2208920/discussions/0/3542672490614781076/ - 300 pages and going, hopefully it would result in just simply being heard, people don't want anything extra, just plain equality. Maybe your voice can also be crucial in this matter.
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Maybe Ubisoft will change their mind but I read this the other day.
Ubisoft confirms Assassin's Creed Valhalla won't get Steam Achievements
No proper elaboration by Ubisoft as to why not so I'll just leave this quote from one of the negative reviews here: 😄
You can't make checklist simulator games and be surprised when people ask for the pen and paper to actually check off a list.
Edit: Changed the article to the original source.
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It feels like the pushback might actually be working in this case - https://prnt.sc/9-qeuppUFoL7
I think they just underestimated the problem and thought that just the minority of BUYERS are concerned with that.
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If it turns out to be true that's good news.
I've always enjoyed platinuming the earlier games like the Ezio trilogy or Black Flag and 3 - except some of the multiplayer Trophies in Brotherhood where you bascially had to organize a group and stage them 😅
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Seriously, I don't know when cards and achievements replaced gaming but it was definitely a sad day.
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Same discount but a very different price over here:
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liked it, tried on Ubisoft+, but may not pay full or half price
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It's a pretty good deal but I would wait for a better one on the complete edition. The expansion is brilliant and the DLCs are very fun to play.
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Is this worth it?
Assassin's Creed Valhalla deal
Steam
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