AC: Valhalla has been fun so far. Looks beautiful on my generic PS4, so I can only imagine what it looks like on a PS5 (or even a PS4 Pro on a good TV).
I'm not too far in terms of the story, but it's got me hooked already. 'Odyssey' hooked me because of the historical setting, though the story itself was kind of meh... 'Valhalla,' on the other hand, has me engrossed in how the story will unfold.
I'm probably 10 hours in, but I haven't even reached the title card yet... I've spent a lot of time running around mountains, getting comfortable with the controls and how the character responds to them.
Combat is throwing me off a bit. I usually play on 'normal,' but I decided to go for the challenge with this one and bumped it up. May have been a mistake, considering it's an adjustment to learning how to dual-wield weapons in this one. You have a primary-hand light and heavy attack with the right bumper and trigger, and a secondary-hand attack with the left bumper (left trigger is for switching to ranged attacks). However, you don't REALLY attack with the left hand... you have to use it to parry, and choose careful times to hold the button down to perform a combo attack that will use both the secondary and primary hands. Kind of counter-intuitive, but not necessarily a bad thing, as it takes away a hack-and-slash element that would be present if you were just spamming light attacks back-and-forth between L1/R1. You have to be strategic about choosing your dual-wield combo, and also how best to use the secondary hand in general.
Sailing is fun in that the water and setting looks good as you get around, though they've taken open-water hostility away. It seems like mayyyyybe they lifted "Story Time on the Boat" from God of War, as you can order you crew to share stories with you to pass the time while sailing, but the stories are less about lore, and more about your crew building chemistry by sharing stories about raids they were on together, so it is a bit different (and not nearly as well written as GoW).
Stealth play is a little different, but still good. Enemy awareness is dialed up, especially on a harder setting. It's tough to be a sneaky viking.
They reworked the ranged attack mechanics to make the 'predator' bow the obvious stealth-playstyle compliment. Hunter and Light bows use third-person views, as is normal in the game, but the 'predator' bows switch you to first-person view when you aim, having you look through the bow's sight and down the shaft of the arrow. Different, but cool, and makes it feel rewarding to pick enemies off from a distance as you sneak between points of cover.
I'm excited to sink 100+ hours into this game, unless something drastic changes after seeing the title card once I've played the next main story mission.
And that's a preliminary 'IrishLion Reviews Assassin's Creed' entry for Ubisoft's latest title. I know you all were waiting for it with great eagerness.
