3/5 ★ – KHFanXIII's review of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the final game in what many are calling the "RPG trilogy" of AC games. Going forward AC is shifting into a live service model which doesn't really interest me. Unless AC Infinity ends up being a huge return to form I think this will be the last game of the series I play (outside of spinoffs I missed out of years ago). If you've read my last review, you know I absolutely hated Odyssey and it was crowned my new least favorite AC game. How does Valhalla stack up? Is it better? Could it possibly be worse? Is it a good signing off point for me for what used to be one of my favorite series? Well... Okay let's start off with the story. It is fairly interesting. I was more engaged in this story than I was in Odyssey's and I find Eivor to be a more solid character due to a change in the dialogue choices this time around (yes they've returned, no I don't like them in general, but they are better this time) that I'll get into later. I only have two real problems with the story. Firstly, it is stretched out WAY too long. A good half or more of the story arcs in this game could've been cut. It's way too bloated and filled with what feels like filler content. If the story was shuffled around to focus more on Sigurd and Eivor (which is what the main plot of the game is about) and less on the random people Eivor forms alliances with, I think it would be for the better. Either lessen the scope or make some of the alliances optional so you don't have to pledge to every single territory. My other major issue was with the ending. Like Odyssey, it just kind of ends with nothing too satisfactory. The credits don't roll on some big reveal or revelation (in fact they don't roll at all). Now, there ARE big reveals and revelations in the story TOWARD the end (but there was still like 5-6 hours left) and the plotlines of the game are concluded, but the game just kind of ends. I suppose it's better than Odyssey in that at least it doesn't end on a dinner scene with your family (lol), but it really just ends on you telling Randvi that you've conquered everywhere. My major praise of this game's story though is that Modern Day stuff is back BABY *AND* it's good. It's not anywhere near as good as it was in the good ol' days, but having it be absent or shitty like it was in Odyssey or Origins makes the return to form here feel refreshing. They even took some inspiration from AC Brotherhood and integrated some of the Modern Day plot directly into the Animus so you don't have to feel like you are getting thrust out and being forced to do it. A lot of it is optional but I definitely recommend if you are interested in the series. And a lot of this good story stuff is due to one of the fan-favorite writers of the series returning to pen the game. You can immediately tell this game is written very differently when compared to Odyssey and it feels a lot closer to an AC game in tone, intrigue, and complexity. It's not perfect, be that due to the newer gameplay style of this trilogy or Ubisoft overlords, but it's the best we've gotten in this trilogy since Origins (and in some cases, I feel it's even better than that game). Unlike Odyssey which (for some fucking reason) decided to go further back than Origins, Valhalla takes place afterwards meaning the Hidden Ones are already established. In turn, this means more AC iconography is in this game (the hidden blade, the hoods, etc.). This immediately makes it a more appealing game to me. I dunno who's idea it was to set a game prior to the Hidden Ones being formed, but it was a stupid one. This in turn (along with a couple of other things like the return of social stealth, even if it is pretty gimped) makes this game the closest we will probably ever get to a classic styled AC game again. The Cultist system from Odyssey (one of the very few good parts of that game) has returned and is better than ever! Unlike Odyssey where the Cultists were pretty much random guys who you could just accidentally kill as you are roaming across the game raiding camps and such, each and EVERY Order of the Ancients member you kill in Vallhalla has a cutscene in the memory corridor (another returning fan favorite)! You are also unable to randomly accidentally kill any of the Order members because you must first find clues in order for them to spawn. This makes each member of the Order feel important and I honestly love it. I know it was a lot of work for the dev team, and every cutscene isn't some super long thing, but just having them there makes this system so much better. One thing I should mention by the way, is in the menu there is an option for Guaranteed Assassinations. Let me explain this a bit. So in these new AC RPG games, even if you sneak of behind someone and stab them with your hidden blade, if your damage numbers aren't high enough, they will still live. This is the exact opposite of the older games where hidden blade stealth kills were always a one-hit instakill. Now, Valhalla fixes this in two ways. The first way, is they added a skill you can obtain which will let you one-hit kill anyone, if you can time this QTE correctly. Higher level enemies will be harder to kill as the QTE window will be smaller, but still possible. The other way (and the way I played through the entire game) was the Guaranteed Assassinations option. This means, no matter what (no QTE required) you can do a stalth one-hit instakill with your hidden blade. This made the game feel a lot more like classic AC and really made stealth feel rewarding. I honestly recommend turning it on if you want to have any of that old AC feeling. Parkour in this game is the same as the other games in the RPG trilogy, if not slightly better due to the level design being a bit more tailored to it. It's still super brain-dead easy with only having to hold X (or A if you're on Xbox) and up, but at least it's something. The sidequests in this game are pretty varied tho. The main quests in this game are called World Events and usually the stories within are pretty interesting. They could have you hunting down someone, escorting a guy, raiding a camp, or even a tailing mission (a previous staple of the series) which I haven't done in awhile. Other types of quests include Flyting which is kind of like a rap battle lol. You're trying to match the cadence and rhyme of your opponent but also insult them. It was pretty neat and I enjoyed it. There are also the Animus Puzzles. These are where you'll get the bulk of the modern day story and they are pretty fun and probably the most challenge you'll get out of the parkour system. They kind of remind me of the training area of Brotherhood or the tutorial of AC3. Orlog is another side quest. It's a type of dice game and it's kind of hard to explain, but I ended up playing quite a bit of it. I thought it would be boring and torture like the games in AC3 but I thought it was really fun. The biggest issue that plagues this entire series though, is the copy-paste content. Now, I get it. It's impossible to fill a world this big with interesting, engaging side-content in ever nook and cranny in just the couple of years they get to develop these games. HOWEVER, why not just shrink the world? Make it smaller so you don't have to make so much content. As it stands however, the majority of content in this game is clearing out bandit camps. Unlike Odyssey at least there isn't a checklist, but it still feels pretty similiar. Most of my time in this game was spent traveling picking up loot and it was honestly super boring. So, while yes, this is a major improvement on Odyssey, I still wouldn't say this game is anywhere near as fun as even the worst classic AC game. Overall, I liked it, but I just can't play any more of these games anymore. It's too packed to the brim with vapid content that I just can't afford to sink my time into anymore.