Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on the Xbox One.
Normally, when I post one of these, it is usually within the first few days or at least a week after first starting the game. This one though, it is a hundred and forty hours after the fact.
It is no secret whatsoever that I am a huge fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I have played pretty much every major title since the first one, and I am still a big fan to this date. For the longest time the Ezio Saga, if you will, had been my favorite until AC Origins. I am a sucker for Egyptian everything, so that was right up my aisle. And then Odyssey came out, and then that one was my favorite (😂). And now, Valhalla.
Basically, what I am trying to say here is that Ubisoft has found a way to make these games better and better, taking the good things about them and improve upon them. Making each iteration better and better, to me, at least. AC Origins I replayed that one at least 3 times, and so Odyssey.
In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you take the role of Eivor Varinsdottir (male or female), A Viking rider in Norway and long story short, you set out to England, against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Why, well because they can, and they will. If you have played Origins and or Odyssey, the game play and game mechanics are very similar. The same exploration sense of it, parkour and more parkour, leap of faith “eagle” (or raven in this game) vision. All the things that make and Assassin’s Creed and AC game.
In addition to all of that, you have the raids, basically as the word implies, you raid towns, military bases and Monasteries. By doing these raids you gain materials and supplies that will allow you to improve and buildup your settlement. By improving your settlement you get access to some perks which are somewhat necessary to progress in the game as you can upgrade your gear, stats and such. Raids are mostly besides the main story, they are sort of like side-boat-quests kind of thing. In this game, you can either travel by land or by water. I often choose to travel mostly by land simply because you can train your mount to be faster, with more stamina and to swim. So, once you can swim, well, you just go and forget you have a boat (or at least I did), until you want to go to town and do some raids.
The main story of this game it’s pretty huge, I believe people in the internets and some reviewers say about 70-80 hours, or something like that, full of good story telling, and lore My first play though was about 110 hours. The reason why is that I was having so much fun with the game that at any moment that I felt like I was close to the end, I would go out of my way and do side quests, which this game has a lot of the side quests. Some side quests can be, simple word events, like helping someone. Some others are cursed areas, and you need to lift the curse. There can be some secret missions, secret items, drinking games, and some dice game called Orlog, which I had a hard time understanding it at first, not going to lie. And all these side quests are scattered all over the map and the map its massive!
Often times I found myself just going around the map hunting for specific armor pieces and going into areas where I wasn’t supposed to, given my current level.
Now, I am not certain if this is going to be a little spoilery, talking about then protagonist’s dreams.
So, I guess this is a warning ⚠️ - ish
Anyhow, at some point in the game you visit some dreams, some visions you’re having. And they are very Norse Mythology driven or related and that was a lot of fun to play. Although I enjoyed playing it, I did not appreciate that part of the game on my first play through as much as I did the second time. In between play throughs I was listening to the audiotape Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, and then I realized that most of the missions in that part of the story, where Nordic tales, somewhat adapted to fit that part of the game. They weren’t word by word or event by event, but I would say pretty close, and it was awesome to see an adaptation of those stories in the game.
So, yes as you may have gathered by now, once I finish the game I started a second save file. This time around I am focusing more on the main story line, not doing much of the side quests and whatnot. Making different decisions and different approach.
If you’d ask me “Gaby, shall I get this game?”, I’ll say abso-fucking-lutely”! If you are willing to put in the time that is. The game is a lot of fun, I got this game for Christmas and, in between the two plays throughs I’ve got about 130 hours. And just today, as I am posting this, they came out with a new update that adds more raids and missions to the game, so let’s see how many more hours I’ll be putting on this one (😅)
I believe the game now, the standard edition can be acquired or less than 40.00 USD, but if you’re like me, you’ll be spending way more on it as you can buy armors, weapons, and other goodies from the Ubisoft Store 😜
