Recent reviews by exchaby

Version: Complete Edition
Total progress 73%
Time played 19(steam) + 113(ubisoft connect) hours

[h5]pros:[/h5]
- insane amount of content
- you can pet dogs, you can even have your own dog, and the coolest thing about it is the fact that its actually a wolf
- you can kill Ivar the Boneless, something I wanted to do since watching the TV show "Vikings"
- viking stuff
- assassin stuff
- cool finisher moves, like chopping a head off with an atgeir

[h5]cons:[/h5]
- insane amount of boring content, with repetitive "puzzles" (wasting 150 Gb occupied space on your hard drive)
- random game crashes
- controller support is worse than in older AC games
- boring finisher moves like barehand UFC choking that lasts forever
- combat is not challenging


Generally speaking, its not a bad game... But AC Valhalla is definitely not my cup of tea, even tho I like the viking themed games (Valheim), open world RPGs (Elden Ring, The Witcher), medieval combat like any of the Dark Souls...
I dont necessarily mind grinding or suffering, but... I just dont want to play this game anymore - and the feeling is not new, I felt bored way too often during my playtrough. Thus the thumb down...
If you are more into soulslike, like me, I'd suggest: buy the base game only, on sale, then decide about the rest of the package.

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After playing dark souls I-II-III / Elden Ring for thousands of hours and enjoying the stealth aspect of Sekiro, I thought that I should try out an Assassins Creed game. Just as I was thinking about which one to buy, Valhalla on Steam got a "free to play this weekend" event, making it easier to choose between this one and Odyssey.

Steam reviews actually deceived me tbh. I saw the mixed score, but most of the players are just complaining about the lack of achievments(those people should touch some grass), so I thought the overall rating of the actual game must be pretty good to balance that.

The "free weekend" experience was a real rollercoaster. The plot seemed interesting enough, but some of the "side quests" were somewhat boring, while the grind for upgrade materials was extremely annoying(unfortunately I went all-in, not knowing that there is no need to smash every rock for iron, and they respawn anyways).
I had no real doubts tho, I was curious about the story and the character development of Eivor, with so many interesting skills and abilities.

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[h5]Steam vs Ubisoft Connect:[/h5]

After playing the game on Steam for free for 19 hours, I decided to buy the Complete edition. I was able to grab it on Ubisoft for 39 euros, only to find out that it means I have to reinstall the game, I cant contiue playing on Steam.
As the game progress is not affected thanks to cloud saves, at that point I should've just uninstall the Steam version and install it through Ubisoft Connect. They are not fully "compatible" by default, but there is a way to add the Steam version to your Ubisoft Connect library, then verify those files.
Unfortunately it requires additional 150Gb of space, even if all the files are already there.
Unfortunately the verifying method probable includes redownloading the whole package again, so its not up to you ssd speed how long it takes, but the download speed of the servers/your internet.

[h5]Controller support[/h5]

I'm playing with Xbox Elite 2 controller, and turns out its not supported by Valhalla (unlike older titles). The analog sticks went crazy when I fired up the game through Ubisoft Connect, and there is no customization at all. I dont even want to go into the details as my blood pressure is over the roof just thinking about it. Its just unplayable, you cant control the camera basically.
I searched the internet for a solution, and the best advice the support ever gave to players is: "add the game to your Steam library and play it by launching from there".
Dont get me wrong, its not a hard thing to set up, and Steam is running on my PC anyways. But charging 140 euros for a game that doesnt have proper controller support, than saying "go play it on Steam cause Valve solved it", but "no, you still wont get the existing achievments on Steam ever"... Its just a free controller customization software for Ubisoft Connect...
At that point I was like, if the game turns out to be good I'm in trouble, because I dont want to support this company. I wont mind paying for another AC title, I just dont want Ubisoft to get the money.

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I havent played the game in 2 days now, even if I'm still pretty curious how the story will end. Its just too boring for me to play this game.

At this point I'm skipping all the myths, chasing artifacts and wealth, even solving the recycled puzzles for gear and books of knowledge as I wont use them anyways.

Clearing areas with stealth methods is still somewhat fun, even though its stupid that you can kite soldiers to your position to assasinate them, and nobody cares that half of the garrison is gone. And its not rewarding. Even if I screw up something and the alarm goes off... I can just massacre the whole crew on max difficulty, while being underleveled. Only 2-3 of the mobs are attacking you at the same time, the rest is just circling around like the figurants in stupid action movies.
There are too many camps, fortresses to clear (from the perspective that I find it kinda boring).

I turned off the aiming help, but the hitboxes are probably just busted because even the spear hits everything except when I aim the opposite way of my target.
There is one particular skill that made the whole combat trivial, slowing down the time after perfectly timed dodges. Without that I did struggle against some zealots, but...I'd have to artificially make my character weaker, to make the fights more interesting? That stinks.

I just wanna progress with the story, so I'm working on those alliances but the last 2-3 didn't bring me closer to my goal. Didn't even find any members of the Ancient Order by completing those "pledges".

The last time I played, the game crashed while I was raiding some monastery. I wasn't raiding because I find it fun at this stage, but because I was close to that location already, and guess what: reaching certain points of the map, far from fast traveling locations is annoying...

There are some bright spots tho, for example I pretty much enjoyed the Forgotten saga game mode. There every hit matters, bringing in much more excitement.

Will I ever come back playing? I dont know. Maybe I will just watch some vids on YT how could the story unfold.

Big variety of cool and fun weapons, armors, rings and gears. Lot of areas to explore (with insta teleport between all bonfires, no lordvessel required), many-many fights, some of them really challenging.