100% the game the other day and will make a review about it.
Completed it on hard mode then when nightmare mode was unlocked did everything else on nightmare mode.
Played it on:
- highest settings on PC
- gold edition ( everything included )
- price 80 bucks.
Total play time: 60 hours for 150% it. ( will explain in bads )
Starting with the bads:
- Map is a mess, u gotta turn in circles like a retard for hours long in order to find all treasures u have missed at different locations and u always miss something. no clue why they went for this terrible system.
- map again, lots of icons are to big to the point they cover up to much of the map so u cant teleport without disabling stuff etc. this also needs to be fixed.
- crashes, it pretty frequently at times probably 15 crashes over 60 hours of gameplay tho so yea not that great.
- vaults 100% it can be extremely annoying to the point u probably want to ignore it to have a fun experience, reason for this is not good enough fine control of your character even while it requires it and a wonky physics system at times.
- cant get gear out of a vault once u completed it before, u gotta redo the entire vault and finish it all over again
- unclear at the start how vaults work, i though u had 3 difficulty modes and got the reward at the last difficulty for example, which wasn't the case so i basically had to redo all the vaults all over again when i figured that out.
- nightmare cannot be selected straight out, u gotta go through hard mode first. Not a good system.
- game statistics are completely off for this game, in 30 hours of gameplay i had more walking done then in valhalla in 140 hours, which is frankly impossible. I sit now at 2x the distance in vallhalla. its completely broken or basically they are lying on purpose to make there game look bigger then it really is.
- 100% isn't 100%. Half the content on the map wasn't even done by me when it was already on 100% no clue how they even calculate it, completely borked.
- Some gear and god talents are extremely overpowered to the point it breaks the game. Example freeze bow, u can freeze targets for 70% chance on hit with 6-7 seconds long apply towards the target or something. With 20 arrows u can practically spam u can basically freeze lock anything and everything to dust. Even the last boss i didn't saw a single attack he did he was perm frozen on the spot constantly until he was dead.
- game is way to small content wise u basically will complete the game if you don't 100% in 20-30 hours, for a console like game its fine, for a assassin creed kind of game its a joke.
- not worth its price currently for me, i paid 80 bucks version for the game and all dlc with the understanding i would get at least 100 hours at a minimum from the base game its more half that.
- game needs about 8 more gods in the game in my opinion.
- The game needs to be basically 3 times bigger then what we got now ( with reduced puzzles and loot systems ), a norse region with 2-3 lands and asian china with 2-3 lands added with it, and some bonus extra content like atlantis maybe area would have made the game feel like far more complete it just feels really lackbusting on content really at this point and frankly not worth its price again.
I got the feeling they stripped the dlc content away form the base game as result. AC valhalla had something like 23 maps, this game has what 5 maybe 6 as the middle part is nothig.
- game is not clear if u need to go to all area's and do a bit in each area or stay in one area until u are done. As quests send u all over the place.
- game pushes u into one direction if you go a certain build, because gods in those area's enhances that build u use for example.
- not enough map variety visually, there is only really 3 different enviroments. show icy one map, 2 maps forest and grass ( loved the looks of that ), barren and death are the rest. which made the game kinda samish a lot of the time.
- extra bonus quest was indeed lackbusting to say the least even worse then valhalla somehow. Terrible. not worth it.
- fly controls are wonky for fine movements which makes some vaults really difficult and frustrating.
- some skills / talents are needed to do certain content and u won't be able to do it without it. Luckily the game warns you sometimes about it but not all the time. which means u basically have to push yourself through the main skills aka story also with it in order to not walk into obstacles, not fun for exploration.
- while skill amounts is fine for the content that's in the game, i wish it had a bit more like another bow skill
- mount feels largely useless as flying and teleporting around is quicker and the content is so cramped together u just don't use it much, the running speed feels lackbusting and blurring the screen out while doing so is annoying.
- frame rate is kinda rough, i dropped frequently under the 60 fps at ultra settings on 1080p on a 1080ti. didn't expect that out of the game. But oh well still was doable i guess.
- normal walking animation which u probably never use is kinda iffy.
- gear skins could have been better they feel a bit disconnected from the armor pieces. which they went a bit more overboard with it. lots of the samish skins.
- i missed a massive city in this cartoon layout with actual villagers i always like that in ac games and frankly it felt kinda death on that front.
- skins u got from the gold edition where ugly and late to the party not worth it.
- missing rewards at the end of completing massive tasks at the end game that simple reward u practically nothing. dissapointing.
Now the good points:
- Absolutely lovely characters all throughout the game.
- humor was on point even while it was sometimes a bit to simplistic.U gotta like it ( ares area start was the best part i think )
- Main character looks good and the eyes are also really well done, no longer u have to look like a degenerate to please the ADHD kids out there also with the model of it.
- visually the game looks stunning at times.
A few pictures i made.
- Combat far better then ac games i played so far. The combat is snappy and fast and efficient. i tried to builds out 1 hunter build which i completed the main game with and 1 god build where god skills and sword where my main damage outputs. i ended up liked this more because it cleared stuff in nightmare quicker through more damage. It's a strong point of the game tho.
- Gear is well done in this game in my opinion. Its simple to understand and effective and easy to upgrade also
- upgrade process works well, easy to understand and upgrades feel worth it to the point u really want to get the coins for it.
- skills all have their own meaning, specially the aoe spikes and hammer with one getting faster to the breaking point of a mob is really well done.
- upgrade base is solid, nothing special but it works well. I like that the game has one central point u always go back towards much like valhalla.
- mount control is good the instant summoning makes the mount snappy
- flying is great as they did it for vaults less efficient but outside world is solid and works well. i like the mana potions so u don't really have to get x amount of mana in order to get to certain places u can just pot up and go.
- materials where easy to find and well done, never had a issue with it unlike in valhalla where materials like titanium where simple not found enough.
- game feels hard at the early game which i like.
- really liked the mythical bosses in the game.
puzzles / vaults etc.
the game has lots of different kind of puzzles i will split them up to make them easy to understand.
1) open world small easy puzzles
2) combat puzzle, where combat is involved but also simple simple puzzle solving
3) more like small even puzzles that require u to do things on timed solution or have to figure out a thing in the open world that unlocks a door.
4) main quest bigger end puzzles, a more bigger broader puzzle still in the outside world
5) vaults are basically shrines that go from easy to super hard that can take up to a half hour or a hour.
6) end main quest from a god dungeon, which is basically a bigger dungeon with multiple encounters and puzzles in it with a end boss encounter feels more like zelda like type of content.
The puzzles in general where unique and fun to go through, some were a bit difficult at times but in general they were pretty easy to do so. Not any bug was found with any puzzle i encountered and frankly it was a solid experience. I liked it far more than breath of the wild that simple didn't had much going on for it in the overworld. I do wish they made the land itself a bit more bigger so a mount would have made some sense and the content was a bit more spread out at times. The only issue was the armors in vaults. I personally got kinda burnt out on vauls real quick the moment they started to focus on fine movement which simple isn't doable well.
- Story was solid i liked it, not to much talking and dialogue that took u away from the game and it was fine.
- I liked the voices throughout your playthrough gives it a extra dimension.
- story is not in the way of the gameplay big plus here.
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun with it, however i can't ignore to feel that the game lacks content specially as it carries the same price as valhalla which absolutely curbstomps it content wise and feels like a far more bigger budget project entirely. The game should be cheaper or they should have cooked the title for a lot longer. Its a huge let down for me to the point that if the dlc's are not going to provide a huge amount of content equal towards the base game if not bigger actually, i will probably not buy there game again on launch day.
Now i get it, some people will be fine with 8 hours of gameplay for 60 bucks, other gamers will be happy with 20 hours of content for 60 bucks, i personally want hundreds of hours out of 60 bucks because that's my standard when i buy games these days and with that even games like valhalla are just on the edge of enough content for me to validate the price tag of 80 bucks. This game seriously needs a content update and a big one at that for me personally make it feel worth it and i will wait for the dlc for that to happen. The ball is in ubisoft court on that front.
Anyway. that was it.