I am late to the party. I have recently finished the main game on PS4 Pro. I still have a lot of exploring and some extra content left to do. I bought the Ultimate edition when it was on sale a while back.
I would give the game a solid B+. I thought Origins was a more enjoyable game overall, even though it was a lot shorter. In some ways, the grander scale of Odyssey was also its biggest detraction. Bigger isn't always better. Here are a few areas I think need improvement.
- Improve travel. I don't know why only synchronization points have fast travel, unlike Origins, which had city fast travel. Travel by horse is often worse as the auto-pathing doesn't work well and many areas are not suitable (too crowded or too steep and rocky).
- Simplify the item system. Having to sell or dismantle constantly becomes a chore. The upgrade and engraving system is needlessly complicated.
- Make the missions more meaningful. They are extremely repetitive. I'd rather have a lot less and have it be more interesting and unique.
- Same with sea battles, if you have them at all. They are all basically the same.
- Re-emphasize the assassin and stealth aspects to make it more strategic. Assassinating and predator headshots were nerfed too much. Enemies are alerted too easily by things they shouldn't see. I get making it more challenging, but this ended up not feeling assassin-y at all. It was often easier to pick off a few and then have a brawl.
- Make the smaller areas, like camps and cave, more unique. There is too much repetition. Again, I'd rather have less and have to figure out different areas than have a huge game that feels copy-and-pasted.
- Make the choices more meaningful or don't have them at all. Most didn't seem to have much of an effect. The few that impacted the game didn't really make me care.
- Some aspects seem more buggy or maybe just not as well done. Ikaros seems to miss tagging some enemies. Hit-boxes on some enemies were off. (I swear those boars don't hit me half the time!) Abilities seem to misfire sometimes, even though the targeted enemy isn't dodging or out of range.
- The clues and maps to find items frequently don't make sense, even after I find them. Definitely needs work there.
The theme here is quality over quantity. The game was good but not as enjoyable as Origins, Witcher 3, or Horizon Zero Dawn for me. There are great games in this genre, and it is tough to compete. I hope Valhalla takes the best of these and improves on them.
Here are a few things that I did think were noteworthy:
- The graphics are incredible.
- The scale of the world is amazing, although again, it soon starts to feel very repetitive.
- The mercenary system added an interesting twist. Having to watch my reputation and deal with the consequences was unique.
1 people found this helpful