Carlos Rodriguez

4.5 the mechanics the folklore the quests love it all. the writing leaves a little something to be desired and i wish i had something more to show for the 240,000 spirits i saved other than ed's recording telling me good job bro and an achievement. otherwise beautiful game

Yikes. Okay so I was very excited about this game because I really do love Norse mythology and history in general, so I was hoping to fall in love with this one much more easily than Odyssey. BOY was I wrong! First off: The combat and movement is extremely clumsy and erratic. Half the time I can't get my Eivor to jump off of something or simply climb. Fighting is a chore and aiming is somehow worse in this game. Second: They sanitize history to the point that Eivor feels like a heroic knight. Vikings made VERY prominent economic use of thralls (slaves). They would take slaves in almost every raid and sell them later. It was a huge part of their economy. But you can't even hurt civilians in this game, let alone SEE civilians getting taken as slaves. I understand wanting to make the player character likeable but to woobify a damn viking is ridiculous to me. Mismatching weather and exaggeration of Roman ruins I can handle. Its aesthetically pleasing! But at least let the vikings act like vikings. Third: I don't understand why, but the graphics are just not as good in Valhalla compared to Odyssey. Makes no sense to me but it keeps looking like a game Dragon Age: Inquisition. Not exactly the greatest. Fourth: The game is EXTREMELY buggy. Make sure to constantly save. If you enter a city for the first time wrong or the NPC's suddenly just don't want to cooperate, reload or look to the Internet. Godspeed Good things about this game: I love having a settlement! I love the limited armor and weapons, it feels a lot less cluttered. That's pretty much all I can say. I couldn't get very attached to most of the characters or the storyline, and I'm 80 hours in. Overall, it feels like Odyssey was much better.