Does anyone else feel like they completely watered down AC Valhalla compared to Odyssey. To me Odyssey will always be one of my all time favourites purely on the size of the game. I know quite a few people complained about the size of Odyssey and Ubisoft wanted to make the players happy but it is happening to a lot of games these days. Games are becoming smaller and easier to cater for the general gamers and not the hardcore gamers. I know a lot of people complain as they don't have the time to sit there and grind the game out with exploring and side missions and so on and I understand that. But it feels like the hardcore grinders are being forgotten about. After completing AC Valhalla I was disappointed. Even when I first travelled to England I said to my friend when I started exploring that the map was empty compared to Odyssey. It felt like a step back.

Then it got me thinking. How much harder would it be to release two different types of games. 1 being completely story driven with minimal exploring (AC Valhalla) and a more expensive version with story, side missions and even more exploring (AC Odyssey) of the same game. Caters for the general gamers and the hardcore gamers

I prefer Odyssey for the huge world and for the really interesting sidequests, and I also prefer Kassandra to Eivor, but I still really like both games because both stories are great, same for the characters. For me, it's a bit similar to comparing Odyssey to Origins. I prefer Odyssey, but Origins is great, too. That being said, I don't think they would release two different types of game, maybe they'll just alternate.

@theonlykanga ngl, I think vahalla is my least most favourite assassin creed game. I've never been so disappointed in a game to be honest. Origins and Odyssey were a far superior games. Granted, they weren't perfect, but vahalla was just meh. The story had some great bits in, but a lot of rubbish which made a mockery of the viking age with out inaccurate they are, and they mostly just felt like compulsory side quests that rips the player away from the main story. The gear looks so ott and fantasy, it doesn't feel like a historical fiction game, rather than a full on fantasy. In another thread, I said that I was laughing over the fact the witcher has better interpretation of vikings than an actual game... About vikings.

@sam_boo26 for me Origins was good but not the best. You seen with Origins where they were going. Big map but unfortunately it was empty. Then Odyssey they stepped it up. A huge map and they actually filled it in. But then supposedly Valhalla had more land mass then Odyssey but it felt as empty as Origins. I enjoyed the story, some what, of Valhalla but not as much as Odyssey. And the biggest thing about Odyssey is the side quests. They actually used their imaginations with them and you could see that. While Valhalla had the characters and the story it lacked everything else that they were working towards from Origins to Odyssey

@max18400 I agree it was very disappointing. If you read my reply to the other person Origins was the start of something good. You could see their plans. Big map but empty. Odyssey fixed that. Valhalla ruined it. They tried to hard to make the game graphics stand out but they didnt deliver on the content. As for the whole inaccurate version of vikings I never really delved into the whole viking era so I cant comment on them being inaccurate or not.

I'm about 15 hours into Odyssey but I would say that there are aspects of both that I prefer over the other.

In terms of voice acting and characters, immediately Odyssey. Voice acting was kinda poor and inconsistent in Valhalla with Eivor and a lot of side characters. Some of the mains were fine though.

The open world....too early to tell but so far Odyssey. Valhalla has better graphics (minus maybe character models) but the world of Odyssey is quite beautiful with many memorable locations already.

Combat Mechanics is where I would get very nitpicky as this is where most of my enjoyment can go into a game. And neither games excels so far for me--I came from Ghost of Tsushima and that game kicks AC's asses. Odyssey has a poor "cancel animation" implementation--meaning you cannot dodge or parry out of mid attack animations and whatnot. Its actually quite frustrating since it creates a clunkiness. Valhalla has similar issues but it's definitely improved upon. Weapons also feel like they have weight and you can actually feel the impact of them hitting an enemy. Odyssey lacks this. My staff sounds like it's hitting coconuts and my sword seems like it's cutting paper. Not flesh and metal and the "impact" is just not there. The sound effects are just superior in Valhalla in this department.

But Odyssey has a better difficult curve in place (though still a bit easy), much cleaner interface for stats, and a more fleshed out rpg system that's easy to get a handle on. BUT I do think Valhalla was in a good direction. Just poorly finished. A rebalance is needed for stats between the Skill tree and gear so gear feels much more impactful. Hard caps on stats need to be rid of and the rune system needs cleaned up. Having the Skill Tree was great but it didn't correlate to difficulty very well. I like the concept but it failed to deliver and needs refined. If it was much better in balance and refined, I would most likely prefer this system of Power Level over the traditional Level system that Odyssey has that all gear is tied to.

And a major proponent to this difficutly is Healing Mechanics. Theres probably more in Odyssey I have not witnessed yet, but use of Adrenaline over Rations is a much better system. It creates a give and take system: use an ability for damage or heal? Only issue is Odyssey should NOT have tied it to an ability slot and instead have it as a standard with its own button. But this design is similar to Tsushima and it works very well. And Valhalla needs to rework Grit....good God how did this pass as a "balanced" perk lol? Not only that, enemies need to hit harder and be faster at Hard levels.

For boat Mechanics and gameplay, 100% Odyssey. No brainer here. I know open sea battles would not entirely fit into Viking era but I feel Ubisoft could have definitely done more here. In Odyssey...man it's epic when your crew is chanting and battles are occurring on the high seas.

The lack of Bounty system is also missed in Valhalla and in some form or another, should have stayed. Same with the ability to have territories change hands between factions. Another opportunity for endgame potential missed here in Valhalla. This would fall under "open world" Mechanics for me.

Overall, Odyssey does seem better in the "open world" design and is much more fleshed out. But combat, Odyssey only edges a bit. Both have goods and bads. If Valhalla was more difficult and rebalanced, then definitely Valhalla here--would also give more reason for stealth attacks. Rations could he overlooked as a mechanic since we would be needing them more often if the game was properly difficult. In the end, Valhalla does feel like a step backwards as its just not completely fleshed out mechanically. That's my take thus far.

@theonlykanga Honestly i don't get what many like about Odyssey, it felt so cartoonish and Arcadey from the combat to the so called historical world of ancient Greece. Is it because i'm 32? Maybe i'm just older than the average Assassins Creed player but i find Odyssey to be a Cartoonish woke version of Ancient Greece that turned the combat into an arcadey super duper button bash fest. Characters were boring and Ai as thick as the first Assassins Creed. I mean in two generations they really couldn't improve the Ai?

@paddy234 Pretty accurate assessment, but I enjoyed Odyssey as a character and build customization game. I couldn't bring myself to look at it as an AC game though.

@paddy234 I can understand your point of view. I never said the graphics were the stand point for me. Or the fighting mechanics, they were a pain, my point is the overal size of the game. The exploration. The grind to clear the map. To visit every location. The endless side missions. Valhalla was too small in that aspect, and now the next one is meant to be a low budget game to get us through until 2022 China, it just seems the games are getting smaller but costing us the same money. I dont want to be spending the same amount of money every game for "better" graphics and less content.

@theonlykanga

in fact it is truly easy to cater a game towards casual and hardcore gamers alike though.

With a good combat system and correct difficulty stages everyone could be happy.
However in Valhalla hardest setting is still easy and the game isnt balanced at all.

I am taking Doom Eternal as an example here again, that game is easy to learn but very hard to master and thats exactly what gives hardcore gamers a nice challenge, they will play the game over an dover until they mastered the game enough to advance to the next diificulty stage, Where as casual players just play the game once and will be done.

@paddy234

whats with the assumptions??

I am 40years old and seriously how can you say Odyssey looks cartoonty? When in Valhalla youw alk around in a American Football suit
Armor looked so much better in Odyssey, combat was much more fluid and smooth as well.
The world actually has a lot of activity for you once your done with the story, where as Valhalla is just a big empty world with nothing to do.

@asgardian02 I have only played a small bit of Valhalla so far but i'm already enjoying the combat so much more than odyssey as at least the enemies don't take 50 slashes to take down. I also love that it feels heavier. Reminds me of origins. As for Odyssey being Cartoony, i just meant the overall feel of the game with combat and the super duper moves and how poorly Ancient Greece was represented. Ancient Greece was extremely different to us in so many ways especially their morals, values etc and that should have been represented (to some limited extent of course). Instead we got a world that i can only describe as Paradise for the woke crowd portraying the fantasies of it's development team and doing everything possible to be as inclusive as possible to a certain group of people. Thats just what Ubisoft and companies like EA do, they make games they THINK we want and it's why they can never hit the quality of other AAA titles that create Art out of passion. Like EA, they don't even care, all thats needed is high sale numbers so the content is mostly generic.

Despite all this i did feel Origins was different however as there was more depth to the world, more quality to the game, i'm hoping Valhalla is the same as i play through it, i'm already getting the same vibe and magic i got from origins.

Both Games are Great

If you go from Bugs I would say definitely AC Odyssey, because there weren't any bugs for me.

The Main Story was in both games great

But at least AC Odyssey was better, because the Side Activities were better.

@paddy234 vahalla is a poorer depiction of the viking age than odyssey was for classical Greece. Yes, there was a lot wrong in odyssey (historically) but there was also a lot right. Vahalla is so historically bad its laughable, its not past the point of creative licencing to the point of actually taking the [censored]

I didn't start this thread as a comparison of graphics or combat or such things it was purely aimed at the overal size of the games. The size of the maps. The collectables. The side missions. Locations. My point was Valhalla was an empty game compared to Odyssey. The map was empty.

I liked that in Valhalla were not in every corner an Enemy Camp to fight. I found Odyssey a little bit too much Packed. What made the Situation any better was the fact that you can't kill every Soldier with one Kill in Odyssey.

@max18400 Sorry i disagree, Valhalla depicts the savagery of the Vikings. Odyssey dressed up the culture of Ancient Greece to somehow become recognisable and relatable to the woke crowd. They were obviously pandering to a crowd of people. They did the same with Valhalla to the more secular "Viking is cool crowd'' but at least they didn't hide their savagery and brutal nature

@theonlykanga Valhalla has plenty of grind. The difference is, that in Odyssey there was lots to do for people who sink a lot of time into games, but it was actually fun. In Valhalla, it is just mindless grinding. The main campaign is mostly decent, but as I've said many times before, it should have just been a linear game with minimal side content, as it feels like that's what it was designed to be and then slapped into an open world that doesn't know what to do with itself. Even the sieges are linear, and you cannot infiltrate forts that are part of the main story before you do them in the main story (well you can, but the enemies just spontaneously respawn), and after you've done the equivalent part of the narrative, they are allied. How they can market it as having more replayability than Odyssey is beyond me. I tired myself out so much trying to keep playing when there was nothing to do besides occupational therapy on the excitement level of deleting emails, that now I don't even feel tempted to check out the Easter event.

Making two games seems excessive, but they seem to be really bad at satisfying both camps - the storyline only ones and the ones who want to explore everything. The best solution would be a setting, where people can pick "story only" and then have more xp in that option, but those people won't have the side content at all, or just a fraction of it. Apparently people who only wanted to do the main campaign felt irritated by Odyssey as they'd have to do other stuff to progress, whereas in Valhalla, if you do anything outside of the main missions, you will get grossly overpowered at some point. Ubisoft seems to struggle to find a middle ground and seems to suffer from listening too much to complaints (though this forum in particular gives the impression they don't listen to anything at all). So b/c Odyssey had people moaning about having to do side content, they then assumed no one apart from some masochists wants to do side content or something.

@kreutzgang Did you not find the Characters of Odyssey to be utterly boring and lifeless? The writing was so poor that the side quests didn't interest me

@paddy234 Can you please explain what's "woke" about Odyssey? If you mean female MC, okay, but you can pick Alexios. If you mean gay people, that was normal in ancient Greece and you can be gay in Valhalla too.