Review for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 10/11/2020
Version for PlayStation 5 from 19/11/2020
The search for a purpose, a meaning to give to one's life, is something that unites all men. Since ancient times, mankind has asked this question without ever being able to give a universal answer: everyone finds his raison d'etre, everyone finds his way and decides how to continue it. Many men have allowed themselves to be guided by their own ambition to reach their goal. For the Vikings, especially the semi-legendary King Ragnar Lothbrok, ambition was a key factor that prompted them to discover new methods of navigation, new routes of trade and consequently new lands. In spite of the predecessor Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Valhalla does not put us in the shoes of the descendants of a legendary king but in those of a character who, however, shares most of the characteristics, including ambition: Eivor Bite of Wolf.
Glory awaits us in the halls of Odin
Assassin's Creed Valhalla welcomes us with a great Viking classic: a banquet where, between revelries and dances, the Vikings celebrate a new alliance, of which an Eivor still very young symbolically becomes the bearer, led by his father Varin. The party, however, is destined to be short-lived because Kjotve, the leader of an enemy clan, attacks the village, carrying out a massacre. Eivor is saved and grows up, becoming the most trusted man of Sigurd, his adoptive brother and heir to the throne of Rygjafylke, continuing to harbor revenge against Kjotve. In a whirlwind of events, between raids, guerrillas and new alliances, both Sigurd and Eivor dedicate to abandon their home to venture to England, following in the footsteps of the Great Army led by Ragnar Lothbrok, to create a new place you can call home. Two members of the Occult order also leave with them, guided by valid reasons to follow the two brothers and their friends. While not converting Eivor, the two Occults will still have some influence on the Norwegian. Even with the support of the Occults, the members of the Raven Clan, once they arrive in their personal "new world", will still have to roll up their sleeves and start from scratch, procuring all the resources they need, together with the alliances, the true core of the narrative arcs of Valhalla.
The plot of the new Ubisoft title revolves a lot on this concept: Eivor in fact will have the task of touring all four kingdoms that make up England and making sure that these are friends of their clan and allies of Sigurd. The path, although initially it seems not too difficult, hides great doubts and dangers that you will discover only by playing. The narrative structure of Assassin's Creed Valhalla is very well structured: it is articulated by alternating real narrative arcs - one for each alliance to be stipulated - and the events of Ravensthorpe, that is the new home of the Clan del Corvo. A minimum of freedom of choice is also given on the order in which the alliances will be carried out and the dialogues will also adapt according to the events: some characters will in fact recognize us for the deeds performed in the other realms of England or not, depending on how we will have carried out our adventure. The narrative pace is not always at the highest levels but never falls below expectations: Valhalla will still be able to keep you glued to the screen, fascinating you both for its intertwining and for the secondary activities, which in this chapter take on significant importance.
Play..Like a viking!
Pad in hand, Assassin's Creed Valhalla stands out from its predecessors, stealing all that was good from past titles while leaving the negative sides behind. The combat system is more fluid than in Origins and Odyssey, but at the same time also more complex. The stamina bar has been introduced, which will wear out whenever we perform a dodge, parry, heavy hit or miss the target with a light attack. In the event that this bar runs out we will no longer be able to dodge or deliver powerful blows, finding ourselves forced to stay on the defensive until it recharges at least a minimum. Even the enemies will be endowed with vigor, which we can steal them by hitting them with melee attacks, performing parry with our trusty shield or shooting arrows at the highlighted weak points: once the enemy bar is completely discharged we can perform special moves, causing extensive damage. These novelties go well with the "Raids" that replace the Pitched Battles of Odyssey, making it much more realistic and well scripted.
In Odyssey, despite being surrounded by opponents, often and willingly only one of them threw himself on us: this does not happen in Valhalla, where the enemies will have no hesitation in attacking us in groups, giving us a hard time, above all playing on the higher difficulty levels. It will be the Raids in the first place to provide us with the useful resources to shape Ravensthorpe and make it grow, building new structures that will gradually provide us with services that will yield us silver or other advantages. It will also be developing Ravensthorpe that we will progress in the narrative, a sign of the fact that the Viking village assumes a central role in all respects. Regardless of this, it will still be very satisfying to see our camp grow and become richer and more lively. The resources will also be important for the equipment, as they are useful to enhance both the level cap and the actual parametric increase.
Speaking of upgrades, one of the elements that struck us most is Eivor's growth system, which will progress on two different aspects: parametric growth (linked to talent points) and skill learning. Both of these aspects go hand in hand with an essential feature for each chapter of Assassin's Creed, that is exploration, which is finally no longer relegated to a simple wandering to collect collectibles. If we would like to make Eivor a real Viking leader we will have to explore, as well as fight, and this radically changes the perspective of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, giving grace to one of the most beautiful activities ever in the saga.
Let's go into detail: as far as the growth of Eivor parameters is concerned, everything will be in spending the talent points in a sort of network where each node represents a parametric increase or a soft skill (such as being able to kill high-level enemies with stealth attacks with a QTE), very similar to the spherography of Final Fantasy X. The novelty lies in the fact that the talent points will not be earned only by leveling up but also by completing certain activities or secondary missions, of which the map is very rich. At the same time, while exploring, we will also have to search for ancient manuals, thanks to which we will learn new battle techniques, that is the real abilities, usable through the backbones, just like in Odyssey. The same will apply to equipment: each piece will be conquered by exploring, those who will be given to us as a gift can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The news related to exploration does not stop there. Synin, the Raven of Eivor, will no longer highlight every single enemy on the map or objective, making it all too simple. He will still give us some important information about it, reducing the search areas, but it will still be up to us, returning in the role of Eivor, to go and "get our hands dirty". Speaking of which, not to be forgotten is the now classic hunt for members of the Order of the Ancients, always nice to complete. Also in this case the clues of the various members of the English section of the order, which thrived following the lack of the Hidden, future Assassins, we should get them with our own hands, following the indications on the documents that we will find during the various hunts. Among the other secondary activities to devote to, when we will be in pause from our berserkr fury, there are also the drinking and flyting competitions, pleasant pastimes useful for supplying ourselves with silver. By winning the flyting competitions we will be able to increase our level of charisma and unlock new dialogue options that could be useful in certain circumstances. Thanks to its variety and for the many other reasons we have told you about, wanting to get lost in the map of Valhalla is natural and in case you haven't understood it yet, we liked it too much!
Between war horns and blood
The combination of the music of Assassin's Creed Valhalla and the magnificent reconstruction of the setting of the four English kingdoms is practically perfect. The OST contributes significantly in the identification, in bringing the player down into the game world: perhaps given the setting it is easy to do so, given the characteristic and captivating rhythms that Vikings has inhabited the spectators. Many might think that Assassin's Creed Valhalla drew inspiration from the famous Michael Hirst series and so it is, useless to deny it. Assassin's Creed Valhalla does it, however, in an intelligent way, taking only the atmosphere, the rhythms, sometimes the direction, but while always remaining original, having its own identity. Ubisoft has behaved in a reasoned and wise way, preserving the quality of its title, with a script and a direction of the highest level. The characters are also well researched and characterized (get ready to meet Ívarr). The drawback, from the point of view of the staging, are the cutscenes in play that sometimes do not perform as well as they should: we happened, a couple of times, to see the sync between the audio of the dubbing and what happened on the screen. Closed an eye on this detail, as far as the dubbing is concerned there is nothing to complain: we tested both the English audio.
Graphically the title has undergone an improvement compared to the demonstrations a few months ago: everything seems to be more defined, more fluid, the lighting effects more realistic. The polygonal models of the characters are detailed and well cared for. The fps are stable and we have never seen a single drop, managing to keep in every game session. Only once, during our run, did it happen that the title crashed, closing suddenly, but without making us lose our progress. Apart from this we also found a few bugs scattered here and there, as pngs that should have followed us but that remained fixed as stakes or companions who did not show up on the spot when they should have: small details but equally annoying, even if it is not anything that in any case it is not said that it cannot be solved with a patch , maybe even on day one.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best title in Ubisoft's ideal new trilogy. The French house has learned from the past, assimilating the good of Origins and Odyssey to infuse it in Valhalla, eliminating the superfluous and learning from their mistakes. Playing with Eivor ends up being fascinated by the world of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, especially if you are already drawn to the Viking culture before you even got your hands on the title. The exploration has been valued properly, being tied hand in glove with the growth of Eivor, which leads to getting lost in long but fun game sessions, without even realizing the time passing. The bugs, albeit annoying, are not enough to undermine the validity of this last chapter of the saga, which ends up placing itself in the ranking, hands down, above its recent predecessors. Don't miss it!
► Assassin's Creed Valhalla is an Adventure-type game developed and published by Ubisoft for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 10/11/2020
Version for PlayStation 5 from 19/11/2020
