 What's up everybody? I'm the hook and I'm the blade and together we're you know Welcome to the broke blade gamecast to show about all things assassins creed I'm your host Lawson with me as always is your host Timmy Turner. What's five? Oh My god, dude, have you played have you played assassins creed vol? I have Have you played have you heard of? It's this cool new Viking game you get to like Fight some witches and you get to be like a Viking so last week we did our first impressions This week, I mean we wanted to do like a full review. We wanted to go in-depth talk about everything story all that all that good shit, but Well, Tim, you're you're what halfway through the story. How far are you in? Thank you probably around there? I I'm closing on 50 hours, so I was at nine hours the last episode So I've been playing quite a bit every chance I get so yeah, yeah You're pretty much where I was last episode that that yeah, that seems about right. Yeah, I'm it. I'm at almost a hundred hours And as you know Timothy My game is broken now So I can't even Finish the ending which has been pretty much we're gonna finish it last night I was I was I went to bed excited before yesterday like tomorrow I'm gonna finish assassin's creed Valhalla. I'm gonna know what happens in the ending the present day I'm gonna get all of that. I've heard a couple of spoilers most of which unfortunately after my game broke and I mean, I'm excited to play the ending But that excitement is certainly hampered now that I cannot do it It's pretty miserable, um, I got to one of the later quests not not quite at the Directly the end of the game though. It's definitely like in the final arc or two and At a pretty pivotal moment. I'm not able to progress There's a cutscene that's supposed to play that isn't playing and I'm basically locked in a room With no way out and no way to continue I've tried pretty much every single common sense troubleshooting step that you could possibly do I've reloaded earlier saves restarted the console. I've uninstalled the game and reinstalled it I've moved my save to another platform entirely with Ubisoft connect and tried there and Still no luck and because this comes so late in the story and Ubisoft according to their known issues list Isn't even aware of this problem They have about 12 or 13 quests that are bugged out for some users and this one is not on the list Right, so I've sent reports to every venue that I have any access to on their forums subreddits Twitter DMs actual support contact. I've done as much as I can It's in God's hands now. It's in Odin's hands now, you know, I didn't help me Part of it is probably because no one on the fucking planet besides you with some other mods are even at that point in the game Like they've just they made a big deal they celebrated on all their Twitter accounts We just pushed a hot fix for the broken quest that's in the first arc of the game And I get it's in the first arc So those players aren't getting to to do anything but but those players who may be like five hours into the game Look, if if all I had to do right now was replay five hours, I would probably do it That's just simp I am for Assassin's Creed. I would replay five hours. I will not replay a hundred hours Oh my god. No, are you kidding me? I wouldn't either. We're hopefully either either it gets patched before next week Or I will have to watch it all on YouTube or or we'll do a little we'll do a little work around I'll borrow the keys to Tim's Stadia account and all Peak into the ending or something we'll figure it out I'm just really upset the reason I bring this up is not to vent which I mean, it's a little bit to vent But I've also vented plenty Thank you to the subreddit mods who have been there for me as moral support during this this troubling time I've probably I think I think I've complained enough to the point that now they're in that that shout They're like, okay, awesome. We get it your games broken. Shut the fuck up I'm saying this because I I I want you to know dear listener as you're as you're Experiencing this podcast episode that like I'm a little upset with the game in general I'm gonna try not to to let it cloud my Thoughts on other things. I think I have the mental capacity to do that So we're just gonna move on now, right Tim. You're 50 hours in we got a lot of of your thoughts At the nine-hour mark of what you were thinking about the game So I guess a good place to start would be Have your thoughts on on some of the claims you made the opinions you had last week has any of that changed Significantly for better or worse I'm glad you asked because there was one thing that I didn't want to address that has changed for the better in terms of the like Exploration and random collectibles that you come upon and the way in which you get them and some of the world events I have come around a little bit on that there was something that just turned me off from them first for those first nine hours But I'm actually now finding that that's the most fun I can have in this game is just going and getting random gear and collectibles and whatnot. So I have come around on that I totally see what you're saying now about the like, you know shooting an arrow and knocking down a you know a Pulley of things yeah and knocking down a ladder and stuff and something I wanted to mention to you is I Totally don't think that that kind of like handcrafted like little environmental puzzles for collectibles needs to be exclusively to vahala I if anything if anything about this game can survive Future games. I think it's that that kind of handcrafted experience And I got to say like if we do get a game that is more parkour forward I could totally see like oh you shoot this beam and so that it comes down to where you can you can run across it and stuff Like they can mix these. Oh, yeah I could see this in a game like unity where you shoot the phantom blade and knock a ladder down or you know, whatever But totally so that's the thing I've come around the most to and it's actually the thing that I hope survives this this game the most is cuz they could totally do this in like a more urban setting 100% 100% agreed and I think that I want that and I also want the Sort of level to which they really nail, you know, the emergent storytelling in that context as well reading letters in almost every building you go into that reference things that happen in other world events and other quests and Just generally I mean that's been one of my biggest enjoyments with the game though I will now actually because you've given that caveat. I'm gonna caveat something that I said last week for the worse because I talked a lot about the quest which Early game now. I'm going to say was was grant bridge shire Which is the quest where you have to investigate those three people and see which one is the traitor, right? I loved that quest. It was amazing And I think that it set standards for the rest of the game that it hasn't really been able to live up to because I Am now towards the end of the story. I have not seen anything that did quite what that quest did Right. Yeah, there there are sometimes environmental clues and and things that will tell you the insights of characters, but using the environment and using the details within it Baked into the world to to answer a question or solve a mystery It's not something that really happens and even when the game does that kind of story later There there are plenty of quests where you have to evaluate how trustworthy someone is, right? They're all coordinating you off into these investigation areas that are tied to the story just like Odyssey would do and They're not just setting you loose in a world letting you do Quests within it and explore to find those answers. So Eh, I gotta dock them some points I really wish they would have done Committed to that experience and I hope that now that they've seen how well it worked That like they they'll know in the future on on future games that they can really that they can nail that And I have to give a shout-out to on Twitter. There was a woman Talking about she wrote that that whole quest arc. She developed it basically and so I want to I want to send some Appreciation her way because you know we talk about how cool Darby is every week, right and Darby didn't write this quest It was written by I'm looking Olivia Alexander. Thank you Olivia. Alexander. You did a great job on that quest. I loved it. It's probably the best one Thank you, Olivia. Thank you, Olivia. Yeah, I gotta say That kind of senior that kind of felt like the natural evolution of what murder mysteries could have been yeah Not so much just like hey Here's a square of investigation things go press go press a button on them and that and that be it Yeah, I will say though my even while I was doing it I wasn't too stoked about it because I don't know I just kind of I didn't feel like the lasting repercussions of whatever I chose really mattered Like if I chose incorrectly, I I believe I chose correctly I Want to know what happens when you choose incorrectly. Maybe Dylan can let us know I think he tweeted To rule aka Dylan can let us know he tweeted something about how he made the wrong choice So I want to know I okay Well, so I can't I can't quite comment on that I guess because I made the wrong choice and I looked it up and I and I reverted my save so The what I what I do know is that yeah the the initial cutscene plays out exactly the same Yeah, but I don't know what the end of the arc does differently because I do know that as a reward for getting the right choice She you get a gift I don't know if maybe you just don't get the gift if you choose the wrong option and stay and Stick with it. I don't know what I liked about the the the whole thing is that as a as a mystery It works really well in that it gave you a clue Right that really seemed to indicate one guy But then if you probed any deeper and you checked out all the clues that you could You could figure out that it kind of didn't make sense for it to be that guy and that's like really good writing actually There's also something though is like I've noticed with with those types of like who's the trader Who's the you know who's the rat whatever type quest in these games like for instance when you're talking to Soma and you're like Hey, I'm suspecting it's this person. She kind of nudges you in the right direction. She's like yeah He has no reason to do that. So Well, I give it credit like if you said the Soma, I suspect it's this person Whoever Soma kind of agrees with your assessment the most then that's pretty much who did it I mean, maybe you're right about that particular instance But I feel like that's just as likely to be a red herring as anything else if Soma agrees with oh It's this person in this case sure it turned out that that was the right person But when I played I thought well, she's leading me that way, which means it maybe isn't that guy So I do have to give credit usually in these murder mystery contexts when when it's treated as actual gameplay and not as a storytelling device, which is an important distinction, right because Obviously unity and cynic it had murder mysteries and that was gameplay you had to actually figure out who the bad guy was sometimes it was really easy sometimes it was kind of hard in Origins and Odyssey there are investigation areas all over the place, but you're never actually thinking about anything It's just a way to interact with objects and construct a story in your mind of what happened here that they tell you what it is And it's purely like it's like an interactive cutscene basically you just look for the thing interact with it It tells you what happened this game has plenty of those especially later on But the whole Grandbridge Shire arc was different in the sense that it wasn't according to off area the clues were already in the world And you actually had to think to figure out who it was that's that's gameplay right it's not just moving the story along and Props props to them. I was going somewhere with that and I completely forgot what it was you were telling me Yeah, okay I was gonna say that like Usually there's something that tells you exactly who did it there's a clue that confirms it and the only gameplay is just finding that clue and Recognizing what it means. I didn't feel like that was the case with this, which is why I give it some props, right? But we can talk about other things now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I do agree with you I would have liked to see that pop up more because the rest of them are aren't nearly as open-ended as that one I've still had a couple of arcs where there were some genuinely interesting choices But and I guess it's probably time to talk about that now the choices Mechanic in this game and I know this is bordering on story, but I I think I consider a gameplay And I don't think the ending of the game will change my opinion on this much The choice is pretty much don't matter. Yeah, not at all No, this is not a choice-driven game contrary to what has been said about it. I And look I played Odyssey and you know, I've said many times Odyssey. It's genuinely pretty choice-driven There are a lot of important choices you can make that have repercussions that are easily visible I hate the way it handles the ending and how the choice is determined the ending But this game which I'm sure is gonna have a similar sort of thing where you'll have a good ending bad ending What have you still it feels like the choices don't make much of a difference outside of their respective arcs I've never had really strong repercussions for a choice that made me feel bad about making right I've never had and obviously as we've noticed the dialogue is full of choices that are completely redundant They are completely useless. I I've ran out of fingers on my hands to count how many times it happens I will say one thing and then I'll say it and then awkwardly Avor says the thing that they really wanted you to say and The conversation completely goes in that direction. Like what the fuck? What was the point? Why let me choose what like Avor says plenty of things that I don't choose to say I understand that they every now and they need to pop up a little dialogue choice But if Avor is just gonna take the conversation in the other direction anyway, sometimes they can are completely contradictory I could say one thing and then a force has the complete opposite right after and and there's also the fact that there are a number of moments in the story that I Want to choose something different, but I'm not given the ability to choose. Yeah. Yeah, it's which makes you really feel like Okay, am I actually controlling this character or a hundred percent only when the game wants me a hundred percent It's frustrating because they choose what you say Anyway, when you make a choice, but when you really do want to make a choice It's like yeah, no actually you're not allowed Right and then and then beyond that Sometimes I'll make choices that I would think would have a huge consequence And I'll make them knowing that there will be a consequence and then no consequence happens and then I just feel like Well, what the what the hell was that all about and right really at the end of the day The choice mechanic of this game feels completely unnecessary I don't think I've seen plus, you know, I've made choices that should have been should have been disastrous should have been terrible represent I have made choices that should have killed people and Everything turns out fine. Sometimes in the most ridiculous way is possible Well, and you've said before, you know, just don't half-ass the choice element like if you're gonna do it do it Yeah, don't pretend it's more than it is, you know, like the preference is no choices But if you're gonna do it like this is objectively worse than both options either This is worse than no choice at all or full a hundred percent like diverging path RPG game Short level of choices like I can't help but think that if Darby just went full send into that then we'd be getting a better Experience overall not this in between like half-assed sometime like literally legitimately I feel like my choices don't matter so much that I start making the really obnoxious like ridiculous choices because I know Nothing's gonna happen. Yeah, I mean, I think the game's length counts against it in this regard, too If you're making a game that takes 50 to 60 hours if you're rushing through the story That's somewhere close to the estimate given on how long to beat calm making it by far the longest assassin's creed game in history If that's the game that you're gonna make if it's gonna be that long Obviously your resources to have really strong branching paths where certain characters weave in and out of the narrative Based on your choices. It's just not feasible. Right. I agree with you. That's a pretty strong I mean if you want to sell your game on the presence of dialogue options Maybe make a game that actually uses them effectively and and in a quality way that enhances the experience Like every time they talked about well, we built this game around choices. It's an inherent and important part of the story I can't buy that for a second anymore I think that it was something that Ubisoft imposed on the development team that they did maybe the best they could but it just You can tell that the game they want to make is actually clashing with the mechanic of Dialogue options completely it just feels like we're not getting the best version of these events when we have this Completely arbitrary redundant choice based off of it ultimately like yeah, I don't want choices in these games But I can't enjoy it as like your typical choice-based RPG game It won't let me do that because they're so yeah limited in surface level choices anyway So now I'm in this I we're in this in between where it's not really enjoyable as your typical assassin's Creed story It's not really enjoyable as like an RPG, you know diverging path game Yep, I think that pretty much sums it up. I feel like because of that as well There really aren't much stakes when it comes to the Alliance map Allying with one person does Allying with one person doesn't neglect another there's no utilization of your allies either You know that whatever random part of the story I'm gonna call upon those people because of course I'm gonna call upon those people because I had no other choice It's not like I was picking between two different places I feel like it actually would have been a a choice on my part if I if I had the choose between two different regions With both having their own pros and cons But instead of that and that would also give people a completely unique experience like oh well I went with East Angula instead of Lincolnshire or vice versa Yeah, you're kind of just going down this path that they set for you and it gives you the illusion of choice Like and not even that effectively like if the most I can do is choose the order in which I play memory sequences You know that syndicate did that it's very you know Yeah, like it's fun only even if it actually worked. I know it hasn't happened to me personally But I've heard of people who got spoiled On what happens in other arcs because they chose an arc right that by whatever metric you should have done in a different order Even though it gave you access to all three to certain points. So like can't give them credit for that they talked about it in the in the advertising like this idea that You would have to make alliances intentionally based on Certain gameplay factors, but the alliances is not a gameplay mechanic. It just is not it is a story telling device That's leading you from place to place which let me let me Let me hit you with a hot take real quick go for it That's very much in line with what you're saying you ready for a scorching hot take. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I'm so ready I'm so ready. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. You know how they said that in this game There is no side content Everything is main content. Yeah, I do I Would like to pose the thought that there is no main content Because think about like they're okay There were side quest storylines in Odyssey that were just as deep and meaningful in their storytelling, you know Approach as any given arc of Assassin's Creed Valhalla There are a couple of main plot threads that weave in and out probably adding up to like Two or three actual arcs of the story having any bearing on anything like that The rest just feels like side missions. It feels like side quests. I Don't know how else to put it the whole episodic structure that they went for I'm I'm a huge fan of in theory But in practice and execution the way that they did it. I felt like Nothing I was doing was actually moving the story for yeah If I care about, you know, the the the hidden one storyline or I care about the Sigurd storyline or XYZ storyline that's that's in there I'm gonna have to get through a lot of random other guff to see what happens next in that story Yeah, it's it's just I really think it it's just a weird way to pace a story too I feel like I can't ever keep momentum because oh, there's been a development actually in the story Now I'm gonna have to go and pledge my allegiance to do to two different regions and go fuck off and do things there before I can See the you know the outcome of this and so that means like everything. That's actually like impactful It like it gets put on the back burner for a little while It's really hard to keep momentum up for a you know, like I'm quote main story that lasts that long Yeah, and it's just like When there are so many arcs as I believe there are that you could just Cut out of the game and not really lose anything of substance It's like it's like it's like I'm listening to an album with a hundred songs on it Of course, they're not all some of them are like bottle episodes like some of them I don't like have most of them are bottle episodes. I guess we're kind of getting this story talk here But yeah, I just don't like we got to be careful. I mean, let's just say like this is mostly I mean, yeah, this is a mild spoiler episode. It's part one of our review, you know Next time we'll get into more story concrete, but but we can I guess talk Delicately about some of these things now like walking dead at the telltale version like that's infamous for giving you the illusion of choice But at the very least if you choose something to say as as as Lee like he'll say it Within and and like you can just choose to be quiet in that game And you're just you just don't you just don't say anything you've stayed from responding and Characters from can fluctuate between loving you and hating you within one conversation Like I I feel like with this game it it straps you down and it's like, oh, hey You like Stowe, don't you? Well no matter what the fuck happens. He's coming back in a later arc So have fun with that, you know, and it's like it takes all the agency out of me It takes all you know, like and like illusion of choice is fine If it's getting the emotional response that that the game wants you to have like I'm okay with there being choices That are not really choices. I recognize that's part of the it's part of the job That's what you have to do in order to make me feel like my choices matter Not all of my choices necessarily can matter, but when it's so transparent as it is in this game And it's so easy to figure out that like hey my my choices aren't really gonna mean much Obviously, that's that's defeating the whole purpose. I'm not coming away from this experience Feeling like my decisions as Avor really shaped the face of England and really gave me an experience That is substantially different from the one that every single other player is having I remember when we first got that you before thing Darby was talking about how That quest can end in so many different ways and it really can't there's maybe two options maybe, you know Like yeah, I feel like they were kind of overselling on that aspect because it's very restrained But to the point where it's frustrating because why am I gonna bother participating in this conversation if a force is gonna say What I don't want them to say anyway, so so Timothy We talked last week about raids. I have some pretty strong opinions about them My Feelings haven't changed significantly, but I've also stopped doing a lot of the right because I started actually wanting to finish the game Which you know just shows me I guess Have your feelings about raids changed at all not really not really for the better I kind of begrudgingly do them sometimes if I like there's actually one one ray that I actually thought was in a unique location And so I actually had a decent time doing it But I guess my biggest complaint about the raids and this also comes into the assaults, too I think there's it's just kind of strange to me how there's no quantifiable way that like how your side is doing Hmm. There's nothing stopping me from just Staying with my crew and helping them in battle or going and taking out archers and stuff because all it's all Completely reliant on me getting the loot and leaving so there's nothing stopping me from just focusing on that And so a lot of the times I find myself and especially in the assaults. I am just running to the next objective I'm not stopping to help my my my crew. Also. I think what would have been a Fine fix to this is just to put a bar at the top of your screen and have one side Your side and one side is the other and it's like a struggle And so the more things that you do yeah You can so now you have a tangible way to see that your side is doing better because otherwise there's nothing Motivating me to stop and fight with them. I just run past it all because they're gonna battle forever anyway So that's that's very apparent in raids I also think this speaks to another issue. I have with the raids and assault and settlement in general You have no idea how how big your your force is you have you know how big your settlement is But you don't know how how many people are there how many fighters you have how many warriors you have and so How about how about if I free prisoners while I'm doing a raid they come home with me like black flag Did this very simply by giving you a crewbar? Yeah You just had a leader of crew members and that was fine like you lost some in those battles But you and you would also you and you would regroup some after you plunder to ship And so it'd be nice if I got a little screen after a raid that said hey You've won over ten crew members good for you and like and then that gives you an advantage in your next Right. Yeah, you're exactly. It would give you you're painfully right. That's exactly what I'm getting at It is you've never been more right about anything else in your life. That's what I'm getting like I swear to God Like yeah, I was so positive about the raids and the sieges last week not well I wasn't positive about the raids but I was positive about the sieges I was like well, have you done the siege really fun and I wish I could go back in time by a week and shoot myself in the head Because I was completely wrong Because I did realize pretty quickly after making that statement that like Even if no matter how interactive you think the siege is it isn't actually making a difference because it's gonna play out the same way And there are plenty of times where it's like hey, do you want to weaken their forces a little bit before you go? No, I actually don't want to because it's not gonna matter. It's not gonna matter You know what would be lovely is if as soon as I start the siege and I actually did the side quest to weaken their forces I I can see a tangible way that my efforts were paid off It would it's a great opportunity to revive a sort of Central idea of the assassin's creed games in a very different context because as we saw in ac1 ac unity the idea of gathering information to give you an advantage on an assassination mission was a core part of the experience And now that assassination missions pretty much don't matter Uh, but sieges and raids these are things that like they've in this game They've taken the place of an assassination as the endpoint of an arc as the thing you're building up to So what if I could gather information that would actually make that tangibly? Easier or tangibly more satisfying What if the siege was the black box and I could scout with my eagle find opportunities to change the tide of battle But they don't give you a frame of reference for who's winning the battle because it doesn't matter It's not it's not gameplay. It's purely story. It's just not and you would you would be incentivized To build up your your your crew more because When you go into battle or I could go wow, I look at this I look at this raid I want to do or the siege this next in the story and I don't have enough You know the forces or weapons like you know Oh, I need to upgrade my battering ram so that I can do a siege and then I do it And I feel like I've accomplished and unlocked and earned something and it's strange because like the jack though I feel like represented a lot of that like you're going to upgrade your ship to take on bigger ships So why can't you upgrade your your your viking force longship to take on to do better to take on bigger raids? And so why can't I bring like fucking three long ships to a raid? That would almost make that would almost make the yams viking mechanic make any goddamn sense, which it currently doesn't Also blossom speaking of the settlement Why the fuck does the settlement not generate income for you? That seems like the biggest missed opportunity that for the settlement possible I I have stopped upgrading my settlement because What I I don't get anything from it I know that you can like call a feast and get a buff for a little bit But if it was giving me silver It would kind of give this game a a good economy or giving you we're giving you ingots like nickel copper Titanium yes, well, that's the thing is I was thinking like okay So you go to a raid you get the raw materials and supplies to build up your settlement And then after you build up your settlement you start getting more silver or more ingots So it has this natural organic flow and it incentivizes you to do raids more but at the moment I Only do raids if I want to build up my settlement to get nothing It doesn't really it's not it's not a very rewarding system in that in that way It's it's pretty half-baked and I I'm I'm only realized like fully realizing now in this conversation just how Half-baked the entire mechanic of the viking experience is like it's just it's a veneer. It's a facade It's an aesthetic. It's it's the look of of Rolling up your your long ship to a coast and and sending them to go grab shit And you just run around you collect the things you fights and people It's like about as interactive or meaningful as like a conquest battle in odyssey Which was about the lamest thing you could do But even that gave you bars at the top to tell you how well you do it Yeah, and and it's it's really just it's really just a matter of like you go to a raid or an assault And is in a selfish thing in the world because you are just running to the next objective Like and they have some of these mechanics where like you destroy You can sabotage the big crossbows that they could shoot you with and stuff And that'd be nice is if every time that happened your bar got a little bigger You know like and I know I don't I'm said I know I'm suggesting is a little like Surface level, but that that's really all I need to be in the battle Even if they did that it would have boiled down to just like the conquest battles where you You you see those bars, but it doesn't matter because if you do go objective to objective You are going to win like there's no question So there was really not a lot of thought or strategy going into those and there probably wouldn't be here either But it's like yeah If I could unlock a way to maybe get through a door faster or whatever And and the way it would matter in the end is if that meant saving the lives of my crew And and I'm not losing as many crew members, which I need to do more raids And see exactly there's like really easy game design ways to make this work Now I have to imagine that if we are thinking of these ideas The developers probably thought of these ideas and either they decided they were not the best ideas for whatever reason Or they could not implement them in the time that they had I don't really know what it is If if building up your your Viking crew is gonna is gonna Is gonna allow you to be more successful with the assaults and allow you to be more successful with the raids and such You're gonna want to not lose as many of them as possible And this was present in black flag whenever I lost a crew member because I was I wasn't Taking the ship fast enough. I was like, well, great. That sucks It would be nice if because of the settlement mechanics if some of the people that you took on with you They were like your pals and so you're gonna be in said device to protect them more and The better you can do at raids There should there should have been the system where the better you can do at raids The better materials you can get the better you can build up your settlement the more money that you can make It would be a symbiotic relationship between you and the raiding mechanic, but it's really yeah, like you said It's just kind of a facade. It's really just you running into a place Just taking all the loot and leaving while a insubstantial battle happens around you. Yep. Yep 100% I yeah, I don't get how it's as as lame as it is. Um And shame on ubisoft for giving us such weak garbage just kidding. I'm not really I don't feel that strongly about it But it is it is a missed opportunity. I feel like with the whole viking setup They had the opportunity to give us the best of the homestead the best of the assassin You know management system and the best of the black flag ship rpg crew management All in one system and instead we actually got None of that none of it whatsoever. We got nothing good It's just it's it might a raid might as well be a cutscene for as interactive as it actually is Just that simple 100% so other gameplay things that we can talk about How have your feelings changed in any way about the combat system in this game? Um, I will say that like lately it's just gotten easier. It's gotten a little easier. Um, and so I'm not hating it as much just because it's easier, but just because it's easier doesn't mean it's any more fun Right, so I'm not having as much. I'm not having any more fun with it. I'm just I'm leveled up enough To Not have to die every two seconds or whatever things are clicking more for sure um, and there are like Flashes of a good combat system here. It's just it's it's a total mess when you're fighting multiple people You're just swinging your your your weapons and hoping you hit someone boss battles are Not as fun as they probably think they are Oh my god, dude. Yeah, there are some fucking shitty boss fights. I'm gonna say there's one I won't Give any story details about it, but it's part of the mythological sequences And it is quite possibly The worst experience I've had in an assassin's creed game Since the charles lee chase at the end of ac3 Think about that Think about that You've played that recently. You know how much of a shit show it is And genuinely in 2020 the year of our lord We got a boss fight in an assassin's creed game that is so painfully bad Might actually be worse than the charles lee chase I mean that completely sincerely It made me actually want to die not because it was hard not because it was frustrating But because it was long so So painfully long that it really made me feel like Like at that point i'm just insulted like does the game have any respect for my time whatsoever If i'm gonna put the the time into this game that it's demanding I put in and i'm gonna have to spend 30 minutes of that on a goddamn Boss fight where you just chip away pixel by pixel with each hit On a health bar of an enemy who can clear half of your health In the same in one hit like just insulting just seriously genuinely. Yeah insulting, you know, it is Fuck you assassin's creed ball coming Speaking of the combat like there it is very ironic that the most fun I have in this game is gathering new gear and gathering, you know different You know wealth and collectibles and whatever and so I get a new piece of gear I'm like, oh, that was awesome. That was rewarding. That was fun. But then I'm like, oh well now I got to use it in the combat system If the combat the combat was more rewarding it's a great point Then I it would be even better when I got a new piece of gear because Getting it was enjoyable and rewarding and now using it in combat is more enjoyable and rewarding And I just the combat system is not there for me People know what I prefer an ac combat. This is one of the worst ones probably at the end of the day I just I I know I said this last week, but I want to double down that like I get that this combat for a lot of people is fun I get that it's a little bit more modern. It's a little bit more in in depth It's it's it's a it's a deeper system than then assassins creed combat usually had before this trilogy. There is some worth to that but Conceptually the way it works I just don't like how unrealistic it is. That's a personal taste thing. It's not a quality thing Other than having really long damaged sponge boss fights, which I think is an objectively shitty thing My opinion on the combat is entirely personal to me. I just like cinematic Actiony, you know, like realistic combat like I want to feel like there are stakes to a battle Yeah, honestly. Yeah, sure. AC one combat is fine. It's better than this Obviously, I don't think it's better than like, you know revelations combat even but it's good. It's fine But yeah, it's just like if I'm had if I've had this realistic serious viking adventure where I've just made a serious choice It's now putting me in an armed combat against somebody I care about and then all of a sudden we're like Jumping into the sky doing fucking bayonetta fighting moves. Yeah, it's so right drinking poisons and throwing fireballs at each other It's like, okay. Is this a realistic viking adventure. Is this a grounded cinematic experience? You know where I can stack stones and you know think peacefully about my memories in childhood Or is this a game that I would play out of fucking Chuck E cheese. What is it? What is this game? That's how I feel. Yeah. Yeah, it's the boss fights in the combat in general is Kind of the complete opposite of the tone that they were trying to go for in certain parts of the game too Yeah, for sure. Like, uh, it's a little difficult to imagine. I'm having a conversation with this person As we are flying through the air and falling down mountains and It's not it's not that ridiculous, but it it's close. It's close. It's close It does kind of make me think of something though. Here's let me let me hit you with a positive I've been pretty negative this episode. Let me let me give you a little positive And I was gonna I wanted your opinion on this too. Okay. I think world events are Better than side quests as they existed in origins and odyssey by quite a bit. I like that. They're usually really short They are not there to justify a gameplay Experience they're there to just tell you a goofy little quick story that you interact with very slightly and then move on I I find it to be a good system for what? Quests and side and world events how they can expand the world how they can give you more information about things Even if a lot of them are honestly sillier than I think this game Really should have That said again like Side quests in odyssey they're there to make you go do a thing. It's always fetch quests It's always go to this fort and get my friend brother person And then you're just clearing for it's just like you're doing in the main story Just like you're doing if you're running around collecting stuff. It's all clearing forts I can run to a guy in a world event and he can say some dumb shit to me And we have a brief conversation and then maybe I do a little environmental puzzle I make a tiny meaningless choice And you know, I'm I'm well on my way. There have been some really good and interesting ones A lot of really silly ones, but again, I just have to say like That's another thing I would not mind seeing again in a future installment That sort of framework for having a world event rather than a side quest I I think this is probably what like Parastories wanted to be like this like yeah, there is something about how emergent it is because I Let's say I'm going towards a yellow dot. I'm trying to get some wealth I see a world event that's right here in it and I like you said I know that it's not going to be an hour long thing. So I just I'm like, what the fuck Yeah, let me try it. Let me do it some of them Incredibly silly really stupid actually. Yeah Why don't I say stupid like they're just really goofy and silly and They're another kind of betrayal of the tone that can be achieved sometimes of riding through this country side It's all moody which is interesting because I feel like they're very in line with what the tone is of assassin's creed in general It's always been kind of tongue-in-cheek and I think it's okay But there's definitely yeah some extent to which this game specifically in this main story Doesn't quite fit. Well. Yeah for sure and there are some that are great and actually have like pretty meaningful Little little stories attached to them. Some of them are are ridiculous and that and that's where I think it's The problem lies the most is I'm not apprehensive of starting one because I think it's going to take long I'm apprehensive of doing one because it might be stupid and sometimes Sometimes I'll hear the the beginning dialogue of some of them. I'm like, yeah, I'm not doing it But some of them I hear like a little girl shouting for her father And I go down, you know and like then I'm like, okay. I'm gonna do this one because this one actually will probably be um, yeah, and so I do think that this is where like Side quests for ac could end up sticking with it's also nice too that like if I don't want to do a world event I know that we say that it would the gubisov should be able to allow us to not experience something But it is it is also kind of nice that I can see a world event And even walk past it and then come back later to do it another time The first time I did one I was just shocked like actually shocked that there wasn't like a quest marker to follow There wasn't like an entry in my quest for sure And that now it was gonna weigh on me for the rest of the game until I finished the side quest That's amazing that they were able to to make it work the way that they did Their buggy is hell I've had like four or five ones that are just so broken I cannot complete them and that's not fun because when you give us a game that the appeal of it is to Get all of the things and max out these bars that you're showing us on every territory Like I want to I want a little check mark next to the wealth bar the mysteries bar And then I can't do it because half the fucking quests are completely un Beatable that sucks doesn't suck as bad as not being able to finish the main story Which is now my new barometer for how she something can be in an assassin's creed But that that is that there is something I want to mention too about the world events Is it would be cool if there are a certain world event like and this would tie back into how I would like the settlement to actually function It would be nice if in a world event if I Like find someone and I'm like all right Just come back to my settlement with me and then my settlement has grown now and I have like like, you know what I mean like Not I wish it would grow more than just the buildings that I would build But all like it would be neat if some of these world events could end in me recruiting these people Then there's even more reason for me to do them. You know, yeah Like there are some people who I could totally just invite back with me And they could and then then they could unlock something for me at the settlement that I wouldn't have had otherwise That would make a really unique experience like oh shoot I missed that world event and so I didn't get that thing that you got in your settlement That would have been neat. Yeah, but yes, I do like they are emergent They're not super long so I can I know I can do one and not be Committing myself to an hour long side quest or whatever. Yeah Yeah, they're quality-wise all over the place and they're probably A lot more of them than they really need I think when you start to recognize tropes of common things that'll just happen across the world events like Every other one of them is going to involve someone who's like a little bit crazy and thinks they're seeing shit They're not seeing but there are also so many main story arcs You start to recognize the tropes within those and that you start to feel like you're seeing some of the same characters over and over again I played a couple arcs pretty close to each other That my mom was kind of in the room while I was I was playing my mom was like Around the living room. She was observing. She was like, you know commenting on on story events and stuff and like I'm just gonna say these names. So this isn't a spoiler if you haven't gotten to either of these characters Um, but if you have you'll know what I'm talking about Like she spent a good significant portion of time thinking chalebert and oswald were the same dude Because effectively, I mean, yeah, they are. Yeah 100 percent. So yeah, world events could be better I like what they're going for though. And I and that is another thing that I would be open to to sticking around um It just sucks that and and sometimes that kind of adds to the innocence and beauty of some of them It's like they don't always give you something in return But it would be neat if some of some of them Some yeah, some of them would turn into like, oh come back with my settlement with me and whatnot Yeah, or what if a a a world event led you to a main quest that you otherwise wouldn't have access to wouldn't that be interesting? Yeah, that'd be the closest you just off whatever get to putting effort into something that they didn't think 100 percent of players would get to but It would be possible. I do think that some of these world events could also be a little bit more Routed and like the assassin Templar like universe some of them are just are just random Citizens and whatnot. It would be cool if like I came across a hidden one or something, you know and like yeah Well, okay, so I think that gets me to I guess the sort of final point that I want to make is that If I were to make a list of all the things in Assassin's Creed Valhalla Mostly gameplay wise that I want to see come back in a future installment It would pretty much be these things the world event system, you know, maybe with better execution I'd be okay with seeing the settlement again something like the settlement The navigation not really navigation the environmental puzzles that exist in the world that you have to solve to get collectibles that actually make you think And the the fact that there's like a modern day story and a lore and a connection to the series past That is much more substantial than any game in the last five years giving us playable modern day Giving us, you know codex pages a the truth style video. That's That's really fucking cool. I really like that stuff Those are the only things in Assassin's Creed Valhalla that I enjoyed so much on their own in a vacuum That I'd be like, yes come back in 2021 22 Give us another Assassin's Creed game and those things can stay everything else shitty parkour the really floaty arcadey combat The fact that stealth is not really super viable for most important parts of the game I want to see all that thrown into a blender and then poured down a garbage disposal and then left in a dumpster And then shipped off to a landfill in Montreal like I just want it gone forever. No, thanks There is something like worth mentioning about how a lot of the arcs kind of end in this big assault And there's just no viable way to do stealth in any of those. It's just like fuck you you're doing combat now No, yeah, and and as I said last week that we were misled that we were told that a lot of these things We would be able to stealth attack assassinate them. Why can't I at least stealth attack a zealot? Why can't I sneak up on a zealot and at least take away some of their Unimaginably fucking huge health bars. There's no reason for it in the story or the world of the game Why oh these enemies I just cannot hit the r1 button and get any of their health down It's just that the game wants me to spend an hour of my life Chipping away at a stupid fucking health bar To get a memory corridor, which I appreciate that is there But most of the zealots they're like total non sequiturs like nothing they're saying makes any sense Oh, yeah, well, I I suppose that is worth mentioning too is I've had more time with the Ancient hierarchy thing still love it still great that could totally stay around Yeah, that can stay around too. I think especially if it were tied more closely into the main story of the game But yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And and if they really leaned into more emergent ways of bringing it into the fold Ubisoft in general is getting better at doing these more systemic games watch dogs legion is probably the gold standard right now for Creating emergent storytelling with a system Like what if what if a world event led you to in order the ancient that you have to kill? You know like that like some of that like I think if they could interweave some of these things like And if world events did have maybe more various outcomes Sometimes, um, I'm not saying I want them all to be like super duper important Well, and that's kind of what what odyssey did with its cultists is is it had you say, um, you know Well for this one to get more clues you have to go help the people in this region And that always boiled down to doing side quests and that's kind of right, which is fine I think that's okay to have some of them tied to side content just like they would with world events But I also think the more emergent they can get with it the more like naturally those things can arise the better Sure And and I'm not saying that like I want every world event to have to lead to an ancient or whatever I just mean like If there was like maybe five of the thousand world events that like led me at least to a clue That that that that would be cool. And you know what at the end of the day Give me give me the exact same order of the ancient screen that currently exists in the exact same system And then just title it Templars and I'm already gonna be happier Yeah, yeah, it's just gonna make me happier And I always like like coming across a clue in the open world and I'm like, oh cool And knowing like I am seeking it out sometimes. Yeah, I definitely as you said, I definitely want to see it more attached to the main story like and just Like you know, like I said last episode I would if that was just the main story and all of the Targets had little, you know, like every target was kind of like a sequence or whatever dope Cool, perfect. Definitely dude. Definitely In terms of like gameplay and whatnot. I've had the most like even the movement system is awful I've had the most enjoyment in your Vic. I feel like that was that it was built the most for parkour I told I didn't I say to you that it that I thought your Vic was pretty good for parkour I don't know Because like it feels like you can actually get from Point A to point B just on rooftops and ropes for a lot of it It's also it's also just like built in a in a way that like looks inviting to climb on So listen listen up people listeners of the show hookblade It's been fun talking about mostly gameplay stuff this week next week. We are Somehow by the grace of odin going to finish the story and know what happens at the end of the story And we're gonna see how that goes Um, and that's what we're gonna be talking about next week on the hookblade If you enjoyed this episode, you know, if you're on youtube, give us a like give us a subscribe if you haven't subscribed already Ring the bell so that you can find out about sexy hot new attractive episodes in your inbox subscription box every single week And uh, if you're not on on youtube if you're on Spotify apple music podcast breaker overcast radio public any of the Bill Jillian podcast platforms You can show us some love on twitter follow us at hookblade Send us a tweet a neat little tweet. You can send us a fleet I don't think you can send it to people but fleets exist now That's something that started today as we're recording this. That was fucking stupid. What the fuck is a fleet? Terrible idea stories rip off. You hate to see it. Um, other than that You can also leave us a review on apple podcast. That really helps us a lot. We still just have one from nick bearish Thank you, nick. You're very handsome. Thank you, nick. He's an apple review. We're gonna call you handsome on the show Yeah, also leaving the comments what you guys are thinking about vahala gameplay Do you like the combat system? If you do don't comment I want to know here's my question for you commenters comment commentets commentresses Tell us What are the things in vahala you want to see in the next game? They can be anything things we talked about things we haven't talked about what are the elements of the design the gameplay The the facets of the story that you're like I want them to do more of this because I feel like we all need some positivity in this dark dark world I've been the hook. I've been the blade and we will see you next week Where's the tempster? Oh, I think I lost to you That's not good Yeah, yeah. Hey, I'm back. Sorry. I have no idea what happened. You've been gone for like the last two minutes in the night Well, yeah, and I said yeah, I said I I uh, I mean I said it into the microphone. So you'll have it either way