Assassin's Creed Valhalla

[Khaldun]

At that point of wretched OCDness I think. Tired of the repetitiousness of most of the gameplay--I feel as if the main inventiveness went into locked door puzzles and irritating cave parkour where you almost can't fall unless you try. The story arcs are generally good and engaging but I'm really not in this for a movie broken up by random time-wasting shit and some frankly stupid sidequesting--I really don't want to be sex counselor for medieval English weirdos and friends to every uncomfortable child in the British Isles. But I've invested enough time that I will have to see this to its end. It hasn't actively annoyed me as much as the Victorian England thief siblings one did, but it hasn't pleased me as much as Odyssey and Origins.

Reda gave me an assassination quest yesterday that asked me to kill one of the dummies outside the Hidden Ones' Bureau in the village. Um, ok.

I kind of wish AC could just 100 percent drop for all time the present-day frame. I'd rather think I'm just playing through the complicated historical story of Templars and Assassins, honestly. Every single time I come across anything that references the animus etc. I'm like ugggggh fuck this shit you're making me think about Desmond.

I really also am just so tired of plots that force my character to be stupid. I don't think it's about metawareness. When Eivor is supposed to be aware that people betray people, Eivor is aware of it. When Eivor needs to be stupid for the sake of the plot, Eivor is stupid. Eivor is supposed to be a reader and a skald who knows the sagas; the sagas are full of betrayal, false testimony, people being framed, paranoia, poison, and madness.

[Hawkbit]

I'm still slogging through this. I ended up dropping the difficulty down to medium and it really helped with the tedium of battle. I found it simply more fun to steamroll everything and collect all the things than to be actually challenged by combat. There's some really cheap fights that just aren't fun on hard mode.

I thought the map was pretty small compared to Odyssey but in reality England is darn big.

[Tale]

My gaming time is very small these days, but I'm spending it in AC Valhalla because I just like it. It feels good to play. I don't think I'll manage to finish it ever, but it's fun.

Edit: I actually bought the game again in the Boxing Day sales on PC (started on PS4 Pro) because savegames are cross-platform, so I just picked up where I left off. PC is actually way more immersive with finer controls and faster loading times, but PS4 is convenient to just pick up and play when I can't be at the PC.

[Khaldun]

I didn't finish it with genuinely bad feelings. I finished it with modest frustration but also hey, some good times. I can think of fifty ways it could be better easily--small touches--but it is fine for what it is.