 What's up, everybody? I'm the hook and I'm the blade and together we're you know welcome to the Hook blade podcast Show about all things assassins creed. I'm joined as is tradition by your host Timothy Tim may I call you Tim? Yeah, cool. This is our 25th episode. That's kind of cool. Yeah 25 25 is a nice number That's 25 little play on the hook blade podcast title. Oh, yeah, dude You know, I'm gonna make a compilation of those by the end of the year This episode is part of our ongoing coverage of the launch of assassins creed Valhalla in the past few weeks We've talked about the gameplay. We've talked about the story for this episode I think we should turn our eyes and ears mostly our ears back to some of the earlier episodes of our podcast I want to listen to some of the things we said about the news and about our expectations for Valhalla and just I don't know See how they panned out. What do you think? What do you think about that idea? I think it sounds lovely I've combed through our library of Valhalla news roundups and news centric episodes to find some clips For us to react to respond to and reflect on Self-reflect this episode is all about self reflection Tim I think the nice thing about this this idea is I think it'll give us the opportunity to talk about some of the smaller Details and things with Valhalla that I think we didn't have room for in our review episodes But we've kind of talked about privately about some of these things and gone. Oh, I wish I could have said this I wish could said that. Yeah, there there certainly were some things in the occasional Valhalla news roundup That weren't like big you before details. Yeah covered So it'd be nice to revisit some of those smaller things and see what actually came to fruition I think it will be I think it'll be nice. It'll be fun. It'll be cool. It'll be good She has a little time listening to ourselves talk about Valhalla and then talking about ourselves talking about Valhalla Let me let me pull the clips Clippy time clip show we're doing a clips, you know, it's just kind of like Yes, this is kind of like there's like standard cable like ABC family shows where yeah They all have a clip show at the end of the season or worse the finale is a clip show. Oh, oh, I There's something really disgusting about the the slowly dawning realization that you're watching a clip show When it'll go into a whole scene from something you've already watched and you're just like Wait a second Is that all this episode is going to be is scenes I already know What's the show do you remember there was a show that did a clip show but all the clips had never happened in previous episodes at all Oh, I have no idea. There's a show that did that. I can't remember what it is might have been community That's the kind of shit they would do someone tell me in the comments. What show did that? But for now, I thought it would be appropriate to start with Tim This is the very first thing we said ever about Assassin's Creed Valhalla For I think both of us Valhalla is maybe the most exciting Assassin's Creed game in a long time Yeah, for sure. It's been a while Who are kind of fans of the more classic style of Assassin's Creed? It was hard to kind of get excited for games like Origins and Odyssey But Valhalla's is they're making the right moves. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, they're saying the right things They know what we want About an Assassin's Creed since probably unity Yeah You know Hey defense they were saying the right things. They were saying the right things. You were totally right about that Yeah, it's just it's funny how it's funny how it's funny how you made the distinction between orders and Odyssey like Valhalla Was gonna be any different. I know I mean we didn't we didn't even know anything really about the game looked like But I also like I think it was very easy to be excited for origins That's another thing that strikes me when I listen to that it's like like I was more excited For origins than I probably was for Valhalla because yeah, you just didn't know until you played origins How different it was going to be and origins has a has a great cinematic like the trailer Yeah, that's a great cinematic trailer. There was a part of the app that that first episode where we argued about the origins cinematic trailer Yeah, cuz I know that you don't like it too much It's fine. I like the what is it Leonard Cohen? That's a good. It's a good song I I just like I feel like the the battle on the bridge in the sandstorm is amazing. I love it. You want a darker Yeah, it's awesome. It is kind of dope Yeah, so we've got a lot from this first episode. Here's here's another little taste really, I think mixing old school and new school is kind of the The modus operandi of Valhalla the way that they've been talking about it is that they've been saying that a lot of things that are important to Classic Assassin's Creed fans like you and me are going to be kind of coming back into the fold for sure Yeah, I mean at least it's like they're pulling out all the stops here. Yeah, they sure are I Mean, all right, so they got Jesper kid back. That was like a sign. It felt like you know what I mean You for sure it was it's hard for me to like I try to I try to go back and wonder like How much of this did we make up? Genuinely, like how how much of this whole attitude we have in that first episode of like they're gonna they're gonna make classic fans happy again Did we pull that out of our ass? I feel like the the attitude around it was like whoa, okay guys now This is gonna be different because of now this is pod racing. Yeah It definitely wasn't just us. Okay, there are plenty of people that with the Jesper kid Announcement and with Darby and Ashraf. Yeah. Yeah, like that team again because can I tell you? I was I was really looking for a clip of us talking glowingly about Ashraf so we could go But we didn't really do that so we're totally in the clear there's also the detail about like Origins was Ashraf minus Darby So the Darby Ashraf team up was definitely worthy of being excited about because of black flag Definitely definitely that was I mean that was the big thing for me. Honestly. Yeah, so that team up kind of insinuates that Oh, hey, like this is like black flag Coming back pretty much. All right next clip Going to kind of the way that they're doing the longboat in this game, which apparently is called the dracar or dracar Dracar, I don't know. I'm gonna say dracar It is Some of you can call the same way you'd call a horse. They're kind of using it like a horse now There's one reason I clip this Dude, is it called the dracar? I have no idea. I don't somehow I don't think so that it is I don't think so either. This is a very minor detail, but I was listening I was like wait a second if it was that would say call dracar on the screen. It wouldn't say right It doesn't yeah, so it's not weird. That's one of those weird things. I feel like that had to come from somewhere Someone said that at some point, but I don't know weird shit There's no way that you just came up with it Dave It seems like in that little game play like really short trailer. We got yeah Avor like use a horn Yeah, and that that my first thought was that was like during a raid and that was what you would do To like signal the start of a raid but maybe that's calling the boat Maybe I think you're probably right about the raid thing. Yeah In case it's not eminently clear the way I like I I Hear my own what I'm saying in that clip, and I know that in my mind. I'm going Tim's fucking wrong Yeah, I yeah, I Yeah Because literally you just call the ship without doing anything, but you can use the horn Without being in a raid. So what is the purpose? I've never been able to figure out what using the horn does what it makes sense to use it to call your ship like that's not out there No, I don't know why I clearly thought you were wrong about those like you're not calling this ship That doesn't make any fucking sense. I don't know why that was where I was at the time That was where you called the line I was like, you know, I think you're definitely right about the raid thing But the ship no and I and the truth is it's both and you can just use it If you start a raid or you call the long ship a vor blows the horn, which is the most ear piercing fucking sound That's ever been recorded. I don't know what happened. Did you just hit use horn? I thought maybe that was like a ghost of sushi might have a function You could call remaining enemies to you So if you're in a camp and you're like, I can't find the fucking bad guys You call them which happened to me a bunch in the hollows like I'm trying to kill people I don't know where they are, but right horn doesn't do that. Anyway, I have occasionally just used horn and Nothing seems to come of it. I thought what was gonna happen was they were gonna be like environmental puzzles that required Some kind of sound activation or whatever, but maybe it's just for fun. Maybe it's just an immersive detail Maybe it's like in ghost of sushi where you can clean the blood off your sword It's just for fun when Darby says there's a story structure to this game that has not been seen in any video game before That gets me pretty torqued. You know what I mean? Well, um, I mean that that has me excited I'm not sure like because also, I mean you have the we do know that romance options can be used to Like win over allegiances. Yeah, which is a nice Yeah, yeah, well, it's a great way to use romances instead of just fucking people Like cutting the black and then that was fun, wasn't it? Yeah, so probably like there are different ways You could benefit your settlement And going with certain people in the world could benefit your settlement in different ways. Yeah, not even a little bit My favorite thing about that clip is reminding myself that at one point Darby said this was a story structure that had never been seen in a video game before But I don't think that's true They don't think that's true Darby. I'm sorry I don't think it is. I mean, it's definitely like unprecedented like it's How how how awful it is the playthrough is definitely unprecedented, but If you're gonna say that like the episodic structure is new to video games, it's not even new to Assassin's Creed I mean Corey may always said that like they you know, the memory sequences were like episodes in a season of television But like I was thinking about Red Dead Redemption 2 earlier today Because the time that it takes to beat both of these games is pretty close. It's pretty similar like and Like I can tell you for sure. I finished Valhalla like a week ago. I remember more of Red Dead Redemption It's more like a meaningful emotional story So like it's not even impossible to tell an impactful story in that exact amount of time But approaching it like you're gonna do a season of TV where every episode but five is complete filler It was not the move, but I digress. There certainly was like Five seconds of time where it seemed like they came out about the romance options being to win over alliances And then yeah immediately backpedaled on it. And so we weren't reporting negative We weren't reporting incorrectly. It's just they immediately corrected it and Speaking of backpedaling They've talked about how the world is smaller and it's more detailed. It's less Like this big world with every like randomly generated for it or whatever it feels like you don't just have this huge map It signals a shift in what their priorities are because absolutely most Assassin's Creed games. You probably have corporate saying Well, can we get the map a little bigger than last time? Just so we can say it's the biggest man. Yeah Yeah, I want the trailers to say it's the biggest map That was so immediately backtracked that we actually had a correction in the comments that we posted on that episode The first episode we ever did Saying yeah, no, they were actually it is the biggest map. It is the biggest map. They've ever done. Fuck them Yeah, yeah, it's it's cuz it's it's funny how I Feel like the correction came in trying to be like no no guys It's the biggest one, but the original statement of it not being the biggest one was a positive for so many of us Yeah, it literally was a big positive and now but then they came out. They're like no guys. Don't worry. It's the biggest Look, there are plenty of handcrafted elements and in Valhalla, but the world is pretty empty when you're just going between the locations certainly But also let me call out something I wanted to appreciate that I haven't really gotten the opportunity to appreciate on the podcast Which is that the forts there is definitely fewer of them than in Odyssey there are a lot fewer forts and When you do go to a fort, it's not like you have four or five items on a checklist We have to loot for treasures and kill the captain and kill the the whatever and and then at the end It's like congratulations. You completed the fort instead the fort just exists on the map It's not specially designated as like a hostile fort or anything And the only time you need to go there is either the story demands it or there's a collectible in there And that made a big difference in how I experience the world Feeling like I could just get in get out like I just run and grab my shit and go I hope they continue on that direction. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't just More to do in the forts. It was just a matter of like you said either a collectible or story brought you there But it's definitely if you if you played Odyssey You'd have a completely different because there's plenty to do in the forts and after about five of them You'll never want to do one again. Well, like I'm you'll have to do a hundred. I'm sure it's worse I just yeah still though There's not much to do inside of a fourth and just to grab an ingot Like if there was gear in the forts, I'd much rather go into there, but ingots out of I mean here's usually in restricted areas. I often if I find a fort, it's just an ingot inside Here's a fun one What's the one other thing they've talked about along those lines is kind of changing Overhauling the leveling system to where there won't be like player level Energy level necessarily it's more about the gear you have and the skills you have And how that kind of prepares you as I feel like I'm getting a A whole experience without having to like grind and deck out an entire skill tree that I'm happy. Yeah Well, okay, that's the interesting thing about that clip to me is I feel like this game escapes the status of grindy like on a technicality Because the common definition of grindy Is that you keep having to break away from the main story and do side content In order to get your level up for the main story But everything in this game is considered main story So technically you're not grinding. However, if they took all the filler ass Quests and made them optional And that was the only difference you would definitely be grinding by that standard. It's like a very Technical difference that lets them escape the grindy designation Probably the most egregious example of this is there was a complete miscommunication about how power works in the game It's yeah, it's not an accumulative thing of gear and runes and whatnot It's just the skills that you get and funnily enough It's the same amount of xp required to to quote level up each time But yeah, your power is only ever impacted by you buying skills Like I completely took off all my gear. My power never changed weapons doesn't matter So I would have much preferred power to be this accumulation of things. So that way. Oh, um, I don't have enough power Well, maybe instead of Needing to just level up. I could go and upgrade my weapons or upgrade my armor So it would have been this symbiotic relationship between power and the world that I don't think they achieved I think that's what they tried to present it as but I don't think they really got there on one hand You know, they told us You can go to any like area in the game at any level and you won't be gated away from doing particular content And that's clearly not true. No, um, you know You can run into a zealot in an early area and just not be able to fight them That is content that is Gated off because you are supposed to get to a higher level before doing it at the same time I also found, you know Certain instances I could go I could start a raid in an area that was way higher level than me Or even a boss fight was someone way higher level than me and I could hold my own it would be challenging But I could hold my own which is a stark contrast to In odyssey where you pretty much just can't do anything if you go to a higher level area So like on some level it does not feel like a level gated experience Except for when it tells you over and over and over again like This area is higher power than you you're gonna get fucked up this enemy's higher level than you you're gonna get fucked up It's it's like kind of a skill thing you can get around it and I applaud that but very sloppy communication And if you also Switch the setting to assassinate always if you can not pull your hair out with the stealth Then there is a way to go to a high powered area and just still be stealthy It is difficult, but there is a way I suppose I want to give them credit for that while also realizing that telling that telling us there's no leveling system in this game Was like a bold face lie. They they made a big deal about the word power and I just would have much preferred if I was able to Be incentivized to get newer gear or new weapons because that would raise my power Um instead of it. Yeah, it's just it's like it's like a pointless synonym This game has no levels, but you can you can upgrade to a higher tier. Yeah, you know pretty much Exactly. Yeah, they're kind of trying to make the settlement this very like immersive Simulator like place to live. I think they're maybe taking some cues out of the red dead redemption 2 playbook here You know, you can talk to your war chief about what you're doing. You can Check on the other inhabitants who will mostly be characters in the game. You can interact with things You can lay down in your bed. You can go to sleep. You can fish you can go fishing Finally, yeah, that's finally honestly, I take it back. I don't want fishing The fishing was Fine, I never did it unless I had to there's actually No reason to fish because you can just shoot all of them. I mean other than conserving arrows But it's much faster to just shoot the fuckers I don't hate the fishing but the only reason you have to fish other than like the fishing challenges Is those fucking altars that are like I need 10 Small bull heads and fucking good luck Good luck getting those fucking things You can google best place to find small bull head And you're gonna go to a place that has like three small fish in the entire body of water And like one of them is a bull head and you'll just have to spend a fucking hour shooting fish Kill me. I won't do it. I saw an altar that required 30. Yeah, that that can eat my ass immediately No, thank you. Not doing it. That's the other thing too. Sorry. Not the backtrack But you have altars you have the legendary animals all of those things when you beat them They give you skill points every mystery gives you a skill point But like how about though like instead of just I because I feel like I just expedited a leveling process by Fighting the enemy it'd be neat if if it just notched up my power instead of oh, hey Here's now skill point currency go spend it. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's weird like usually I feel like all they did was a very simple flip Where in most games you have leveled up now you have skill points to spend In this game. It's like we have given you skill points. You can spend them to level up, right? So it's like the exact same thing. It's just a different order of actions Speaking of we were just talking about the whole guaranteed assassinate thing The if you try to insta kill an enemy that's really high level there might be like an unplayably hard Like rhythm tapping game like lockpicking guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah like a lockpick I'm cautious about that. I have to give them some credit though I think it worked fine. I never used it because I just turned it. I turned the setting off I mean I had it on I found it amusing I got peer pressured into turning it off. I played it like that for a while And eventually I turned it back on again just to feel alive. I guess I don't know I was concerned at this in this clip That they would tell us you can technically assassinate anyone in the game That's a higher level than you but then you have this rhythm game And I just thought that if they were really that much higher It would be impossible to pull off the timing And I guess I never really tried it to see if that would be the case But in my experience, I never ran into that. I never ran into one that was so hard I could not possibly do it except for one that forces it Uh, that gives you like literally a sliver that's that's genuinely meant to be impossible Like one time in the game that happens I thought it was going to be like here. Let's just make it exactly like odyssey And just give you a really hard QTE and then no one will be able to do it and we'll get what we wanted But it was good. It was fine. You can mount wolves As as as a vehicle apparently I don't I'm not I'm not sure about that. Yeah, I'm not a wolf expert But I don't know if there are wolves big enough that you can mount I like that one Cause I don't think you can other than the fucking DLC mountable wolf Yeah, it's not like you can just find one in the in the in the open world and tame it We really we did we all thought that you could just Find a wolf and mount it well, dude Those early screenshots of the game made it look like you just had like animal companions You and the bear you and the wolf like how are you supposed to know anything else? Yeah, that's poor communication on their part I think and then it got even more interesting when Darby made honestly an excellent point on twitter like Yeah, we can do goofy shit with the animus like you've always been able to you didn't literally wear Ezio's robes when you were playing is biac you dumb fucks There is an extreme of it where it's like let's just do everything goofy and just say it's an animus hack Right, that's how you get the purchasable like unicorn long ship pack You know drogger or whatever things that just make you look like a fucking Like you're riding a skeleton horse that's on fire. That's just ridiculous And they it's the same justification as this but but it's true like is is riding a wolf mount I don't know. Yeah, is that worth doing we can call it an animus hack if it makes white wolf whispers happy It's worth it. That's true. They say parkour throughout the world will be meaningful and rewarding I have no idea what that means, but i'm excited about it I Still though, I still have no idea what that means Listen the parkour is going to be meaningful and rewarding What do you want to bet that whoever it was maybe it was ashraff Just sort of thought of that on the spot and they're just like Yeah, the parkour I would if I had to call it two things I'd say meaningful and rewarding not even a little bit is it though And like I remember oh no, no, no I remember watching uh, you know the whole ashraff interview then and he was like Yeah, like we've really handcrafted a parkour experience for players that want to take advantage of it They they can and and it's gonna be very rewarding That I can count on the number of my fingerless hand the times That that actually happens You can count every finger on your stump exactly to tell me how many times Oh my god, dude. Yeah Editors note Tim does not have a stump for a hand It is never more rewarding to to just climb up because like usually it's like hey just go fight him There's one instance that I that we all know of with the ruid where you can climb up around him But that's the only time I ever well I suppose there was two if there's anything he could be talking about here It would be like the chasable tattoos And those suck. Yeah, those are not meaningful or rewarding. That's very technically a handcrafted parkour experience in the same way that I could scribble a bunch of bullshit Uh, put it around tape it around like the walls of my living room and and say I had an escape room That would be a handcrafted experience It'd just be a really shitty one Right, and I think it is worth mentioning too that you can essentially Complete the entire game with the gear that you start with Yeah, and you can do transmog as well Which you know means that you are able to kind of customize the look of your gear without Sacrificing the stats, which it should be in every game. Yeah, because as as you upgrade the uh the gear Apparently it'll change it'll change appearance But you can go back to the original appearance if you want to not even kind of No, I don't know how that happens How is how is transmogrification or even just the concept of changing the appearance of your upgraded gear? How is that so challenging to implement that you can promise it with certainty? Months before your game launches and have it not show up in the final release The thing is is there is completely a function in Breath of the Wild where once you upgrade your gear You can you can change the appearance back to the original Look like that's the thing and that's what they were trying to emulate Why couldn't they do it? I don't understand. There's nothing more heartbreaking in Valhalla than the first time You have a favorite set of gear and you upgrade it all the way to the mythical And you're immediately like fuck go back because it looks like a pimp like just Through a bunch of gold on your shit and it looks really gaudy and stupid now So you want to go back and then you realize that you relied to you can't it's stuck that way Reload to save you daft fuck because it's your only salvation Like at least just let me like spend another ingot to change the appearance back It's something anything But just let me change it and just let me do full transmog I mean look we have to remove about 20 posts a day from the subreddit asking for transmog So I know I'm not saying anything right controversial here But it is just really weird that they straight up told us like months ahead. Yeah, you know transmog Yeah, yeah our game has that No, it doesn't Someone someone from Valhalla someone on the dev team. Let us know what happened there. We want to know Uh, well, they've also like said that there are viking rap battles. Yeah, flighting Whatever that's about I liked flighting. I like the way I also like the way it worked The way it would give you christmas. Yeah dope. Cool. Whatever. I enjoyed flighting. I want more flighting I want a flighting spin-off Flighting flighting should be flighting is the naval gameplay of Valhalla, I think it was my favorite. Yeah, it was my favorite like side activity in the game I really enjoyed it 100% when I saw that little mask icon pop up on my map. I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah We're in for a good time. You know what though here are two suggestions that might make flighting better I remember I was telling you I think it would have been neat if there were multiple options that would Give you the win of that round Because sometimes there aren't multiple like there's just one you have to choose But also it'd be neat if there were charisma locked options in flighting that you could unlock the more Flighting games you won previously. That would have been cool, too That's actually that's kind of that's kind of neat. I like that idea And I also just ultimately I wish that there was more charisma based choices in the main game that you could utilize Because that wouldn't let me feel like yes, that would make me feel like it was all worth it So those two things After telling us that the canon options in the game are the ones that require charisma Then there's only like 12 in the whole game. That's not very useful Flighting's cool. I like it I would like to now say with some pride for a weird flex to the only audience that would Understand I never got a single flight wrong in the whole game. Wow. Look at you. I know I'm really impressive. I know don't all line up now to to give me a smooch on the cheek There was one that uh, there was one that the guy was being very like sexual in his flights to me And I that was kind of weird. I didn't I didn't want to answer with the correct flight because I didn't want to trade your romance option turns out That's not what it turns out at the end of it. He's like, hey, you want to go bang and I'm like, no Because I'm with randy Yeah, I was like, I don't really want to play into this. Exactly. That was me, too I was like, I don't know if I want to do this with this guy Ah, yeah, it was a little it was it was a little horny. It was a little horny So really at the end of the day what we're expecting out of Valhalla is Taking the ingredients of gameplay that were introduced by origins and changed a little bit in odyssey And putting them towards a more like focused smaller cohesive experience That one hurts Nothing is smaller or more cohesive about it Hmm Fuck that you were hoping for the best And then this is the one tim that as you know is going to haunt you forever I I'm very optimistic about it. I I think that gameplay was gonna is gonna knock our socks off And knock our socks off it did fast forwarding to episode six Our Valhalla Gameplay demo reactions were out of the we're out of the world of episode one We're into episode six. Here's what we've got. I think this is just a deadass witch that we're trying right now Well, I mean real witch how often is avor gonna be drugged I mean when when she bites the witch or the giant wolf Yeah, you know or has to hack and slash a boss 100 times The answer is all the time apparently avor gets drugged like every day I think you said that in the episode Avore gets drugged so many times It's like it's about as cheap of an excuse as like, oh, it's just an animus hack. I'm like, oh avor's is high If we're just tripping balls through the entirety of the game She dropped too much acid and started seeing odin. It's that something. Yeah Yeah, I know that you personally are not a big fan of the mythological stuff, right? No, I mean I'm I guess I'm into it if it's like a contain DLC type deal Yeah, but when it bleeds into the actual game, I mean Because I always prefer the more the more grounded entries. So until now Yeah, it's really ironic because my favorite part of vahala is the mythical worlds Which I still don't I can't fully relate to myself Like I messaged you about it like if this popped up in ac2, I'd hate it Yeah Because there's so little for me to grab on to in vahala in general The myth the mythological worlds are actually pretty cool by comparison And so normally I wouldn't like them But I just felt like they weren't enjoyable in this game And it's funny because I was so ready to be pissed off about them and I actually really enjoyed them Yeah, and you know something you said about them to me I think you mentioned on the podcast where you were like well the combat and the weirdness of this this whole game system makes more sense in Asgard in the mythological context Like I didn't really get what you meant and then it actually took me playing I was playing like the demo on stadia to immortals phoenix rising and it's ostensibly the same combat as odyssey But definitely having it in the mythological world of that game Just makes it feel more at home. I wasn't able to make that connection in vahala because of the worlds being so similar to england that like It honestly didn't really at least asgard itself being so similar that like I didn't really think of myself all the time as being in this mythical Astral plane sort of the thing But I Totally get it now. Yeah, I just feel like you know the exaggerated movements and like the crazy kill animations and stuff and It just makes sense for me more like playing as havi and fighting these these yachtner It just it just makes them them yacht are really making a big old problem in our backyard. Is that how you say it? I didn't know yoten are those those yacht are out there I Them yachtners are really I don't I don't I don't trust them as far as I can throw them myself Those yachtners need to stay in yotenheim And not come on over here to asgard I reckon I'ma get that builder to make me a shield so I don't have to see no more of them yachtner again Go back where you came from yachtner Ha ha ha You need to turn on around walk on back over that bridge and get back into yotenheim All these yoten are coming across that rainbow bridge When I was a boy you need to turn your ass you turn your blue ass around and buzz off The way that it was described originally before we had saw very much is that like the combat was crunchy and weighty It doesn't quite look that way. Do you think it's crunchy and weighty? No, I don't think it's crunchy You didn't then either you still don't I just wanted to check on that I wanted to see if you thought it was crunchy and or weighty. That's all I liked what they talked about in the forward demo of You know, you see a house Out and about it's got a chest in it And then there's kind of a puzzle you'll have to figure out to get access to that chest And that's maybe the one thing I truly love about this. I know yeah It's yeah, it's you you had no idea about just how much you would have it You were actually going to enjoy that system. It's like even hearing about that idea like many things I just didn't trust them to do it as well as they ended up doing it for sure for sure Like it was a good idea, but I was like are they really all going to be different little puzzles that are all interesting I mean, obviously some of them aren't they're not all winners But I very rarely felt like I was repeating a puzzle some of them are really really awesome and rewarding so Totally some very memorable ones to go back to our first like vahala episode when we played the game I was pretty negative about it. I completely came around on it. They are awesome and I really enjoyed them Yeah, I think you just hadn't done any of them at that point It was like you'd only played for nine hours. So of course you only saw 0.0004 percent of the content of the game by that point So I forgive you. I want you to know I thank you. I appreciate that Something I do care deeply about as an Assassin's Creed fan is what's happening in the modern day story And knowing that I can come across bits and pieces of it In the in the overworld of the game in the main game That's like that's awesome. And it was kind of just pretty awesome. Do you mean just the modern day in general? Yeah, it's maybe not clear in the clip. I'm talking about the anomalies there. Oh, the anomalies were cool warning Very mild spoilers for the modern day in coming Skip to 43 minutes and 20 seconds to avoid they were the anomalies were great Overall modern day and this game was not Not great. Not great. No, no, no I want to I still I still want to give them credit that things happened. There were things that happened in it That's a good. Okay. Well, here's a hot take actually I would have preferred Unity level of modern day over over over what actually did happen totally would prefer unity Disagree hard disagree I I have more respect for ambition that fails than I do for lack of ambition Well, but you said before though that like you think that unity's modern day is better than say origins because it doesn't it's not trying I just don't think that I could describe origins as modern day is ambitious like it's it's actually very very unambitious and it's pretending to be ambitious And that's what I don't like about origins is that there's technically third person playable modern day But nothing happens And there's no story or character to it at all whatsoever So it's it's like the same I'm left with the same feelings that I had in unity But at least with unity It was all cutscenes anyway It was never pretending to be more than it was Origins is pretending to be more than it was Valhalla Is exactly what it seems to be it just isn't good That's fair. I I suppose I just there was enough about Valhalla modern day that pissed me off that I would just prefer Just unity again. Definitely some poor choices I I I want to respect that they took swings with it like they They had a big idea for it and they they did it and But like with you know, say odyssey, right where that's kind of a big swing having a Cassandra or lexio show up in the modern day And also bad just like Valhalla Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. I I prefer both of those approaches to to what unity gave us personally, but I feel like is bad modern day better than no modern day I vote yes, but if you think differently, I understand. No, I think no, I think I think bad modern day is but well It's it's it's tricky because I can recognize the ambition I appreciate it and you and I were both like you and I are both so excited after that first modern day scene I just feel like the way things wrapped up. Yeah, we're so Unsatisfying in a way that like I would have rather than just take a break and not do it in this game And let's still announce do it, you know what I mean, right? Or you have that feeling as I think a lot of people have where it's like you have the opportunity to be conclusive Like a good ending and and this is coming straight from the world of tv When a season of tv ends you want to feel mostly concluded But you want that one little dangling thread to pick up on in the next season, right? At least at least one little dangling thread if you have everything is left open You're more interested in dying than you are and watching the next season at that point Because it's just like so frustrating and then it gets cancelled and you're like well, fuck me Fuck my life, I guess because everything's on the cliffhanger and never gets resolved, right? Yeah happens all the time And it makes you go. Okay. Well if you're a writer and you're writing something you're not guaranteed to get a follow-up to Don't play that game. Just conclude it Leave one thread just a single thing a single question You know daredevil season three ended and there was a little tease of bullseye and that was all that they needed Yeah, it ended very conclusively otherwise Exactly and like that's the thing is is there is a craft to like like making a cliffhanger not Frustrate you. Yes not to get out too off topic But it's a great example of daredevil because they have like oh well, what if kingpin gets out or what if bullseye comes back? But it ends so conclusively that the show can get cancelled like it did and people aren't like You know angry they're angry for other reasons the single defining factor of like is a cliffhanger acceptable in my opinion is Entirely to do with your confidence that there will be a follow-up because You know, okay spider-man far from home spoilers for that movie It ends with peter parker's identity being revealed to the public. That's a fat cliffhanger, right? But you know spider-man 3 happens eventually like you know that that movie gets made because of course it will You know, there will be a response to it with assassin's creed. We know there's going to be another game But like I pointed out on twitter syndicate modern day had a pretty sizable cliffhanger It was definitely more satisfying than this like syndicate's modern day had a reasonable conclusion And then it brought up that thread of you have violet to costa the instruments of the first will they're up to no good Of course That never gets followed up on in the game. It ultimately gets resolved in a comic that nobody reads So now i've been created i've been given the expectation That anything interesting you could say happened at the end of this modern day story Which i'll try not to get into spoilers for the sake of anyone listening who hasn't gotten there yet I just don't have any faith that they'll follow up on it nor do I really like what they did there but for all the talk in this game of something conclusive all the Easter eggs and entry points from other games that kind of get referenced and connected and brought in You're really led to believe that you're going to get some finality and there is No finality and it just feels like a completely wasted opportunity and I hope I hope that the people involved knew exactly what they were doing They knew exactly what the next game wanted to do they fed into it deliberately And it was all constructed with the grander vision in mind But I have no reason to believe that that happened syndicate is still out there just being like the unsung champion of modern day in these games We've said it many times if we had gotten Syndicate style again, and like I would have much preferred that over what we actually did get the the fact that there's like a grander threat Even though I docked some points for being a really cheap and forced grander threat is like We haven't seen that in years that there's like an actual ticking clock of Something that's a problem that imminently needs solving in a mystery a question that needs answering In this game it has a lot of the ingredients. It just Doesn't come out to a dish that isn't shitty garbage trash. We're so in the weeds on this. We've got more clips to listen to my guy Can we listen? Do you want to listen to some more clips? Yeah? All right, cool. I'm I'm ready to love this game I'm open to loving this game because the truth is My standards are very low I mean they've really whittled me down to the point where like I should not be in a point. I should not be in a position where seeing an assassin Makes me excited My expectations were low and it still didn't make them Yeah, me too same I hate that because like again, I'm very easily impressed All this game had to do was be decent And I would have probably loved it like just if it was functional like keep in mind I love like assassin's creed syndicate. That's like the textbook Example of a story in assassin's creed that's purely functional, but it's nothing special Doesn't hit a strong emotional impact. It doesn't hit You know a thematic resonance Valhalla story is also just not Functional it's not emotional or thematically resonant. It's also just not functional. There's like I said in previous episodes It's it's a it's like five hours worth of story And it's all very rushed and it's spread across hundreds of hours of extraneous superfluous bullshit But uh, anyway, low standards lost and that's what they call me We got important stuff to talk about Like how um social stuff is back. Oh, yeah, I guess can we just talk about how appropriate that reaction was and I didn't even realize Is it I just one more time one more time we got important stuff to talk about Like how um social stuff is back. Oh, yeah, I guess We're so right and you captured so much sentiment in just That one and I was sitting there thinking at the time I was going Why is he being why is he being shitty about social stuff? We love that We love that it's back. Don't we love social stuff? But you must have knew you must have seen I There's just there was just nothing indicating that it was going to be anything more than just like occasional There was you know, it's like it was just a little like hey put on your hood and blend in or that it would work Or that it would work. Yeah But in this game you can just I guess you could always have your hood and cloak on it as it as it seems Yeah, and that's cool because I like that. It's good Yeah, I just have a stroke that we have to Huh, I just have a stroke so that's cool because I like that and it's good Can you make can you make that your ring tone? All right now I mostly included that because it amuses me but it also did technically include us saying a thing that was wrong so It fits with this episode Because I can you just have your cloak on all the time I mean there are times where it takes it off of you But and cut scenes and stuff it it can totally always be on yeah Oh, then never mind. We weren't wrong But I also I titled because I had to I had to put titles on all these Sound clips that I that I took this one's called cloak and stroke like during combat You popped your hood up, but then you could pull it right back down. Damn You really didn't appreciate that I called that clip cloak and stroke I'm sorry. Thank you. Essentially your health won't restore automatically So if you get really low on health, you have to eat food Right. Yeah, because that was yeah, that was mentioned in the official And I think because you had to because in the world of video games Everyone has always loved And having to hide and and having to hunt in assassin's creed games I am on I've always been on a personal mission To avoid hunting as much as possible And I feel like this is a choice they made specifically to fuck with me Yeah, just you specifically just me specifically. Yeah, we were very wrong about that Apparently, it's just mushrooms. They presented it though and in the way of like They go kill a deer to get rations, you know, like that was the way that I swear I thought that I would be able to get rations by fishing I I definitely I could not have made I don't think I pulled that out of my ass But I definitely tried while playing the game to like I went into my inventory I needed rations. I saw that I had fish. I was like, why can't I eat any of these? Why can't I turn these in? Well, you do get rations from fishing, but the fish is separate in your inventory Oh, really? I'm pretty sure I know for certain you get rations from killing any of the random animals You get rations for killing animals Yeah, if you shoot a deer or fox or squirrel, you can pick up rations and leather It's just there's not how did I how did I miss that? There's just you know Well, it's because you didn't play venlon first you fuck Ugh God no, I'm just saying like they they they tutorialize it in venlon, but not in the actual game So if you can go fuck yourself, I swear I missed that because like yeah, I would look at my inventory Be like, how do I turn the deer meat into food? Yeah, the deer meat is a separate thing that you can sell But you do get a ration from killing the deer or fox or whatever it is or bear Fuck fuck me, dude. I guess so it's not like The the the health the medicine if you whatever You can just call it medicine the medicine is always on your person You can use it, but you have to either kill animals or collect them with raspberries and stuff. So I don't I don't love that. I understand what you're saying. I just never Noticed I played this game for 130 hours. I'm just saying I just never realized I'm just saying like based off of what we were saying in that clip It's not like you can't hold on to the things that you get from hunting you can So I can go hunting for an hour and hold on We also just weren't wrong like I thought I thought I was wrong and I thought the only way you could get rations was with mushrooms Or winter shantarelle or whatever, but um, but no, I guess yeah hunting and fishing Do give you rations. So it is Exactly what we thought it was but the the issue is I'm just colossally stupid It's not like I'm really fucking stupid It's not like you have to come from a battle and go hunt an animal and eat it You can hunt an animal preemptive to the battle and have the rations. So that's the only difference I want you to know tim. I completely understand how the system. No, I know that you understand I am just criticizing what I said in the clip I know you get it. I thought I feel like you've been trying to explain it to me this whole time No, no tim. I get it. I know you get it and then you'll be like You'll say like well rations are like medicine and I'm like, I know Well, awesome, this is not rations work in this game I'm like, don't fucking tell me again how the hunger works I I I kept repeating myself I wanted you to know that I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to my past self I'm glad I'm glad we were able to sort that out I'm glad we worked through it together the whole time. We're just like, I know I'm just stupid. I'm like, that's not what I'm saying Oh my god, I'm moving on the next clip I just hope they let me get the sisterhood logo as a face tattoo on my forehead Right. Oh, yeah. Well, well, I think I'm sure that there'll be tattoos that you could get like sleeves And then there are armor sets that probably show up your arms a little more I don't know. I just feel like having a tattoo on your back Because I feel like it'll also be in their style to like, you know Maybe there'll be a little blurb of text with some cute reference to like, right, right, right, you know Amunet there's sisters and they stab people, you know, it'll be good I'm wondering if like each tattoo for instance might have multiple placement options Like, yeah, we really don't know a lot about exactly how the tattoo system will work Like maybe if I want to put the sisterhood like on my arm, I could do that instead Like I think that'd be interesting if you can't customize it at all. It'll be a little boring and it was Yeah, they they don't have different placements. They only go where you want where they say they can go And it would be interesting if like you said if there was like armor that showed off the tattoos But I guess the answer to that is you're just supposed to if you want your tattoos to be visible You just toggle the visibility of your armor off It would make more sense like just in within the world if like the bear gear Didn't show off any parts of your body at all But the wolf gear perhaps because it's more More like light and stealth oriented that it would show off more of your arms at least That'd be one thing That makes sense As it stands it is pretty silly because Yeah, if you keep your gear visible, you're pretty much never going to see any of your tattoos other than your face tattoos Not even a little just sad. It's it's a little like it's again. It's like You've put this time and effort and there's all these collectibles I'm supposed to be able to grab and it's they're like the worst collectibles in the game to actually acquire And as a reward I can realize after about six arcs of the game That I will never even be conscious of what tattoos I have on And therefore I'll never use them. Uh, let me be clear though as soon as I got that sisterhood tattoo I slapped that shit on me too because you know, I'm an ally and I care It would have been neat if you I could have just put it on your arm Or you're or somewhere on your face like why just limit it to the back where no one can see it I want it on my ear lobe Right now I'll have to protest this by actually just getting that logo tattoo to my forehead It's a pretty like then it's a pretty sexy logo. Then Sebastian would love me. It's a pretty sexy logo. I'm not gonna lie It's pretty great. It's a really good logo. We love you sisterhood people Okay, next clip he kind of implies that maybe the whole alliances thing got overblown early on And that it's not quite that we get to choose who we ally with More that the alliances are dictated by the story and will you know Evolve as a consequence of the story, which is a good thing. I mean A fully freeform open-ended alliance system probably would not be able to produce much actual Gameplay content other than like oh if I align with this tribe, they'll send 50 plus more resources to my settlement You know somewhere instead convoy type shit, but if it's all part of the story Then it kind of addresses something that you know, we talked about last week with blue Where if I can always at any moment be fighting for either side, it's going to be boring But if the story says right now you're fighting for these people And then gives you a reason that in the next sequence you're fighting for those people That can be very rewarding Look man, I just I love having so many of these clips. I hear something that's like basically bad news and I'm like well, here's why it's actually really good And then and it ends up not actually being that good. You're being you're being an optimist I'm I am I am an optimist tim Every time we talk about the future of assassin's creed You're like this shit sucks. It's gonna suck forever till I die and I'm like maybe not No The next game might be good And like Everything I'm saying in this clip is reasonable speculation like You know Darby says the alliances have to do with story. What goes on in my head. I think okay Darby plus story equals good Alliances therefore by the transit of property must be good Speaking of alliances If it's being treated as a story point Who I'm allied with and you know, maybe I'm I'm sure there is actually quite a bit of choice In terms of like who you ally with and how that affects the story It just seems like his his answer indicates a more You know handcrafted system than just All right, you fuck this person you'll align with this tribe and they'll give you these resources And if you fuck that person and so on and so forth I just want to highlight the quote and I'm sure there will be quite a bit of choice There was not even there was not the the guy that you're you're hanging out with at the wedding could have died Like so I think the worst case scenario in that regard is that all those things can happen and and you can Make the choices that set those things in motion. Yeah, however What if they just don't matter Come the end of the game. So that's the worst case scenario Is that you can make these choices early on and they don't have an effect later on? I'll have you know, I had named that clip tim Stradamus Worst case scenario, what if the choices don't matter Damn Tim, I think that would be the worst case scenario. He wasn't lying. That really is the worst case scenario. Damn He wasn't lying The choices didn't matter Yeah, you can make the choice but it doesn't really affect anything The next clip is called lost or Domus, but I don't remember why let's see what's up You can build a bureau for assassins and then you can talk to the seam in there and he'll Send you to kill people that sounds fun It seems like maybe those assassin missions might like they're they're based in the cities And they have more of a focus on social stuff It's like they're taking a little assassin's creed game and they're putting it into like it's 10 percent Of a game that otherwise has nothing to do with assassin's creed It's like I never thought about it like that like like hey guys Do you want the assassin's creed part of this game? Well, go build the bureau in your settlement and we'll give you a Tiny bit of it. It's gonna be there. All the missions will probably be in the cities and they'll have social stealth Yeah, pretty much and you know, it's funny about that And I don't consider this a spoiler because people are talking openly about it on twitter The whole idea that the cities are essentially a stealth remake of ac1 Which is more or less true What I want to know is this is the question of the day If you counted the time that you spent on those three arcs And you added it up. How much more time does it take to do just those arcs? Then it takes to play assassin's creed one Yeah, what do you think as an experiment? I went back and I'm replaying ac2 Yeah, and I am just about done. I'm getting up some codex pages and I am 12 hours in Yeah, and I've done the Altair armor And like so I've done that I've completely upgraded the Mono journey for the most part like I I'm doing the side content. I'm doing the assassination contracts too I'm still only at 12 hours. Yeah, I'm I'm checking out apparently to beat assassin's creed one It would take you like It says 15 hours There probably aren't 15 hours in those three arcs of Valhalla, but damn, I bet it's probably like Seven I don't know each arc. I mean it feels like they take like three hours a piece Most so like, you know, that could be nine hours there and just those three arcs That could be pretty close to just a remake of ac1 That's uh Terrifying actually because it makes me feel like the odds are not as good that will actually get a real remake of ac1 Which I I'd really like to see, you know, yeah You'll be in the main missions and there'll be these really deep gritty dark stories with You know themes of honor and glory or whatever the fuck And it's all very serious self-important and then there's like a side quest where you run into a prisoner And she's like I need you to get a bunch of these eggs for me And then you bring her the eggs and then she eats them so that she can fart really really loud and hard and smelly To disrupt someone else in the prison. I think I I didn't pay that close attention. Yeah World events. Yeah Some of them are pretty silly How do you think From all the ones that you played like do you feel like the silly ones threw off the Tonal balance of the whole game or where they contextualized as such Brief minor diversions that it didn't really make as much of an impact. What do you think? Yeah, they're definitely like there are probably 10 out of all the world events I've done that I actually like enjoyed Not so much enjoyed, but what I mean is that I felt You know like had like a neat little story attached to it out of all the ones I've done I enjoyed a lot of world events that I played Certainly more hits than misses in my experience, but I yeah, I don't know that I feel like the balance of just because they're also short Even though there are quite a few of them Like even though some of them get really goofy I ultimately didn't feel like it it threw off or confused the tone of the game It would have been neat like I know this before but if world events led you to certain things Like it'd be cool if a world event like spawned a quest line That would have been cool like not all of them obviously But maybe just a handful led you to like cool quest lines. Yeah, no agreed completely Well, also, is there nothing impactful to do in these eyes guard sequences if it's just a drug trip? Yeah, if it's just a combat horde mode simulator or something I would rather freeze my balls off actually turned out it is more than a combat simulator horde mode thing And I still kind of wanted to freeze my balls off though Yeah, it's certainly more meaningful than what we originally thought it was going to be that's for sure Definitely more important to the overall game All right, here's the last clip that I that I took If this is so good that it just makes me go I would never trade this in For a more conventional game with a a straight forward player choice or a straightforward You know protagonist gender. Yeah, that would make a difference to my perception and ultimately It wasn't Yeah, not really I mean, so, you know broadly speaking across all of these things. It's really interesting how If you listen through from like episode one to this episode of the podcast everything that we talked about Valhalla It goes from like huge excitement to like we've started to temper that excitement with like Oh, you know what there's some things about this that i'm not super stoked about and I think even going into the game with those lower expectations I was still disappointed Yeah, definitely It's interesting. I think that a lot of the players who they start out with this game and they're really impressed by The fact that there's a little bit more narrative significance. There's a little bit more like there's certainly a higher quantity of like actual story things happening in any given moment Uh that people are like wow, this is really great. And I think that more and more what we're going to see Players reach the end and they go. Yeah, I'm not so sure about this whole thing And that'll be the beginning of the the end for the honeymoon phase with Valhalla Yeah, there's certainly a very strong honeymoon phase going around Definitely And look if you love the game, I don't want to take that away from you But you're but also you might feel differently about it in a month. Yeah, exactly. That's all like I'm not telling you, you know Hey right now you're actually dumb and stupid, but a month from now you'll have the perspective that we do and you'll be smart and cool Um, I'm not saying that what you're saying is they will never be smart and cool Yes, thank you. Thank you if you like Assassin's Creed Valhalla You are dumb and stupid. Just kidding. You're not and I'm glad that you like the game I wish I liked the game. Yeah, me too Oh to be so burdened by my intellectual superiority that I cannot enjoy this fucking game No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding guys. I'm serious. I'm just kidding I'm sorry I'm sorry Valhalla is fine Ultimately at the end of the day, I think that Gives you a pretty good perspective on How the reality of Valhalla compared to our expectations of it some little moments things we thought were true ended up not being true Some things that we thought might happen worst-case scenarios usually Didn't yeah, definitely, you know, and there may have been people who are listening now that didn't hear those earlier episodes So it'd be nice for them to to get that right if you're if you've never listened before this is like We're giving you like four episodes in one here. 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We appreciate you so much Stay tuned and subscribe And most importantly subscribed and keep your hands ready on the trigger On the To kill yourself after listening to this episode I thought you were going to I thought you were about to say like like button or something or no trigger This has gone very dark very keep your hand on the quiver Well, I have been the hook and I've been the blade. Good night everyone. Have a wonderful evening