A not clear, not thought out review of AC Valhalla because I need to put my thoughts down somewhere
Pros
Raiding
Building up your settlement
Fighting style/weapons/finishers
Music, graphics, layout of the land
HORSES CAN SWIM NOW HOLY
Runes are interesting, add to the game
Bringing Reda back! I love that he’s straight up immortal now in canon
Cons
Holy shit the controls are finicky, and no longer have multiple button layouts, I LIKE MY OLD SCHOOL CONTROLS, R2 IS FREE FUN BITCHES NOT SQUARE
Graphical glitches
Hardware glitches/Kicking me out of the game every 3 hours
Runes/Weapons/Inventory in Gen. needs to be better organized
Runes could have been simplified by having them as engravings like Odyssey
Animal/Fish Populations need better spawns and diversity
THE STORY?
There is ZERO reason for Eivor to go after the Order of Ancients, other than Haytham and Risad (and Sigurd I guess) politely asked her to. Literally no reason. Kassandra and Bayek both had clear motives to go after them, Eivor only has motive to go after Kjvote and Gorm.
Can’t speak to Sigurd after you rescue him other than once. Does he hate me? Does he know I kissed his wife? Can i just say hi to my brother to break up his silence and brooding? There’s so much TIME in between actual plot points that make up the bigger story it feels very disjointed. I’m 130 hours or so in. PLEASE have something else happen.
Stealth mechanics suck. Can’t snipe from bushes because drawing your bow lets people notice you (Like Origins). Can only Assassinate MAYBE 2 people at a time, and that mechanic is glitchy right now. Even if I’m unnoticed and in range, sometimes I don’t get the prompt to chain assassinate. Sometimes I do, but its an NPC being watched so I wait for the prompt to count down without hitting the button and it STILL throws the axe. Now Im in open combat. Yay.
Synin. Doesn’t pick up smaller animals to tag them with leather. Doesn’t tag enemies or even tell you if they ARE enemies. Should be able to spot schools of fish.
TL;DR Too much Origins, not enough Odyssey