my honest opinion

[ERIK X]

hi, i just wanna see if im the only one who feels like this so lets start

i enjoyed ac origins and odyssey even tho they were rpg ish but Valhalla really isnt enjoyable at all, the way characters talk is so boring and it feels like a theatre show ... i really forced myself to play until power 57 that is something i guess but it made me so bored ... stupid missions where u have to follow a guy walking slow asf for 5 KM, go pick up a flower

i liked to see Basim tho i was like eyo its him =)) and the Raids were cool but its not really enough

[craigsters]

Did you bother to go see Randvi in the long house about the alliance map? the story is in the alliance map

[lucent]

I did a couple mystery quests on the side I thought were silly. Other than that I love the viking setting.

I compared it to a mmorpg with out all the players and I still stand by that. Have you ever played one where you travel across a zone on foot. Then camp out waiting for something to spawn over and over. When you die, you have to run all the way back to get your corpse.

This game does away with that for myself. Also when I get tired of dying in other games over and over. It's nice to play this game.

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by ERIK X:

hi, i just wanna see if im the only one who feels like this so lets start

i enjoyed ac origins and odyssey even tho they were rpg ish but Valhalla really isnt enjoyable at all, the way characters talk is so boring and it feels like a theatre show ... i really forced myself to play until power 57 that is something i guess but it made me so bored ... stupid missions where u have to follow a guy walking slow asf for 5 KM, go pick up a flower

I'm almost in the same boat. I did really like Origins and Odyssey, but Valhalla feels rather lackluster to me. It's still enjoyable enough to keep playing, but it feels like a substantial step downwards from previous offerings.

I just wrote a fairly detailed summary in another thread, so I won't repeat it here.

Perhaps the best way to enjoy Valhalla is actually just rushing through the main story.

[ERIK X]

Originally posted by craigsters:

Did you bother to go see Randvi in the long house about the alliance map? the story is in the alliance map

yes i did the story until i killed that guy who betrayed Soma or what was her name

[craigsters]

Originally posted by ERIK X:

Originally posted by craigsters:

Did you bother to go see Randvi in the long house about the alliance map? the story is in the alliance map

yes i did the story until i killed that guy who betrayed Soma or what was her name

So storming the castles wasn't fun? East Anglia quest where the funniest ever and all the quests with Ivarr where wild and f_ucked up

[ERIK X]

Originally posted by craigsters:

Originally posted by ERIK X:

yes i did the story until i killed that guy who betrayed Soma or what was her name

So storming the castles wasn't fun? East Anglia quest where the funniest every and all the quests with Ivarr where wild and f_ucked up

it was ok not gonna hate but simply the way characters talk and the semi cutscenes are really a 0/10

[ERIK X]

Originally posted by craigsters:

Originally posted by ERIK X:

yes i did the story until i killed that guy who betrayed Soma or what was her name

So storming the castles wasn't fun? East Anglia quest where the funniest ever and all the quests with Ivarr where wild and f_ucked up

like tbh i was skipping the dialogues almost every time so much non sense just for killing someone

[Dwane Dibbley]

I didnt liked Origins at first. It went too far from AC. But once you take it just as generic openworld RPG it was good. And Oddysey even improved it. But Valhalla... It feels like they were out of ideas so they took random parts from various ACs and FarCrys and slapped it somehow together.
Beginning is pretty bad and ugly, but once you get to england and 100+power for some actual skills and abilities, it gets better. But its wild rollercoaster some parts are terrible, some parts are good.
Like clearing Ravensburg 3 times in one day feels weird at best (once for loot, then later for main quest, and once more for side quest). But then you find out you can actualy clear raids solo/stealthy before calling in your ship for loot, which is kinda good. But then you have to slowly walk with terrible NPC just to break his script and thus failing to finish quest...

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by craigsters:

So storming the castles wasn't fun? East Anglia quest where the funniest ever and all the quests with Ivarr where wild and f_ucked up

Storming the castles can be fun, but that's not (mainly) what I'm playing an Assassin's Creed game for.

In the beginning of the game, Ivarr is possibly one of the worst characters I've seen in a recent Assassin's Creed game. He's basically just a collection of cliches and in-your-face "bad guy" tropes, is reckless to the point that it would be impossible for him to still be alive, and has no regard for the well-being of anyone. He does get better later on, the talk with him before Ceolwulf's coronation gives him some much-needed personality. But until then, he's a character like a booger: 12-year-old boys may find them "cool" based on an "haha, it's gross!" feeling, but once that childish fascination is gone, what remains is pretty yucky, ugly, and hardly worth talking about.

I should say though, that I've only completed the Grantebridgescire and Ledecestrescire storylines so far. Based on the historical figure he's (very loosely) modeled after, I would expect Ivarr to also play a role in Northumbria and potentially Wessex, so there's definitely an opportunity to turn him into an interesting character, rather than a puerile caricature of how some writer apparently imagined a Viking leader.

Regarding the East Anglia quest, I'm currently at the start, and the clash of Danish and Saxon culture is nicely represented in the struggle between Oswald and the brothers of his wife-to-be. The overindulgence in rhyming I a bit grating though (storytelling and wordplay _was_ an important part of Norse/Viking culture, but if I remember correctly, they would have used Alliterations instead.

[craigsters]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Originally posted by craigsters:

So storming the castles wasn't fun? East Anglia quest where the funniest ever and all the quests with Ivarr where wild and f_ucked up

Storming the castles can be fun, but that's not (mainly) what I'm playing an Assassin's Creed game for.

In the beginning of the game, Ivarr is possibly one of the worst characters I've seen in a recent Assassin's Creed game. He's basically just a collection of cliches and in-your-face "bad guy" tropes, is reckless to the point that it would be impossible for him to still be alive, and has no regard for the well-being of anyone. He does get better later on, the talk with him before Ceolwulf's coronation gives him some much-needed personality. But until then, he's a character like a booger: 12-year-old boys may find them "cool" based on an "haha, it's gross!" feeling, but once that childish fascination is gone, what remains is pretty yucky, ugly, and hardly worth talking about.

I should say though, that I've only completed the Grantebridgescire and Ledecestrescire storylines so far. Based on the historical figure he's (very loosely) modeled after, I would expect Ivarr to also play a role in Northumbria and potentially Wessex, so there's definitely an opportunity to turn him into an interesting character, rather than a puerile caricature of how some writer apparently imagined a Viking leader.

Regarding the East Anglia quest, I'm currently at the start, and the clash of Danish and Saxon culture is nicely represented in the struggle between Oswald and the brothers of his wife-to-be. The overindulgence in rhyming I a bit grating though (storytelling and wordplay _was_ an important part of Norse/Viking culture, but if I remember correctly, they would have used Alliterations instead.

So you haven't done Sciropescire alliance map Quests yet then I take it?

[Psyringe]

Originally posted by craigsters:

So you haven't done Sciropescire alliance map Quests yet then I take it?

Indeed I haven't, I'm going through the scires with lower requirements first.

If Sciropscire represents a highlight of storytelling in Valhalla, then I'm looking forward to it. :)

In case this wasn't clear before - this also means that my assessment of Valhalla is very much a "work in progress" at this point. My impression after the Norway prologue and the first two scires in England is definitely that it's weaker than Origins and Odyssey were - not terrible, but a bit lackluster. But that assessment may of course change depending on how the rest of the game shapes up. :)

[Psyringe]

(Warning: This post will contain SPOILERS for the East Anglia and Sciropscire story arcs.)

Originally posted by craigsters:

So you haven't done Sciropescire alliance map Quests yet then I take it?

So, I'm not sure if you're still interested in this particular discussion, but I've completed a few more quest lines now, including the ones from East Anglia and Sciropescire. I think we may be looking for different things in this game's stories. ;)

I did like the East Anglia arc - it nicely depicted the cultural differences between Saxons and settled Danes, but also the willingness of working together against common enemies. I particularly liked that the writer withstood the temptation of forcing a romance into this plot. Oswald and Valdis clearly aren't in love, but they respect each other, accept their differences, and have a common goal (peace) which they want to support with their marriage. That's a very believable and authentic depiction of a marriage between nobles in these days, and I felt very immersed in this story.

The Sciropscire arc that you mentioned, however, felt very weak to me. The main problem is once again Ivarr, whose recklessness and childish impulsiveness are so overdone that I find it impossible to take the character seriously. With such a personality, he would have died long ago, and he wouldn't have been able to maintain the support of his army. He doesn't feel in any way believable or authentic to me - instead, he feels like a caricature of a Viking, seen through the eyes of someone who was raised on superhero comics and wanted to create a villain. He's also very far removed from the Ivarr that we know from Old Norse sagas, though that's within the artistic license and not a problem in itself. I just think he's written very poorly (though I have to give credit to the voice actor for doing a great job with the material he was given).

The second problem with the Sciropscire arc is the plot design. The writer starts by forcing the player into an implausible fight, they have to make their "villain" act in a way that's hard to believe, just to make the fight happen. Then they want us to believe that the future leader of Sciropscire would - in a situation where fighters from both sides, looters, bandits, and raiders all roam the land - go into the woods without guards, so that they can have him killed.

Then they try to work a twist into the plot, but make it blatantly obvious that Ivarr was the killer (Ceolbert said he wanted Ivarr to accompany him, Ivarr doesn't have an alibi and just says he "wasn't in the mood", the Britons didn't have a reason to kill a leader they just made peace with, and killing Ceolbert fits Ivarr's terribly overdone "supervillain" personality). When Ceolbert suddenly said he'd go hunting, it was immediately clear to me that he'd get either captured or killed, and when I found him dead, Ivarr was my first suspect. The whole situation just felt so contrived. It felt grating that it took Eivor so long to see the obvious.

Finally, the writer turns Ivarr into a megalomaniac who tries to kill a strong and loyal ally (Eivor), apparently in the mad (and, by Viking culture, clearly mistaken) hope that such a dishonorable act would somehow add to his own glory.

So, I'm not saying that Valhalla is a terrible game or that all of its stories are poor (again, I did like the East Anglia arc, and the Grantebridgescire arc also provided nice glimpses into Dane culture, the Lunden arc wasn't bad either if a bit simple). But I think the Sciropscire arc in particular is just awful. It's a contrived mess of ill-chosen plot devices and supervillain tropes superimposed on Viking culture, effectively making a mockery of it.

But if you liked that story arc, that's of course fine. I certainly don't claim that my reception is the only valid one. :)

[lucent]

I don't think craigsters posts anymore because his Steam version keeps crashing.

Originally posted by craigsters:

It's seriously full of ctd's, don't buy it, trust me, you'll thank me later

[Geeks On Hugs]

I loved Origins and Odyssey and I love Valhalla even better. I guess some of it might just be down to individual tastes.

[=Palynzer=]

The best of the trilogy.