The IP "Assassin's Creed" has always been praised for its strong historical and cultural colors and legendary heroic stories. In recent years, the "Myth Trilogy" has boldly broken through the original gameplay, expanding from the original Box Court map to a vast open world, and also transforming from traditional action games to ARPG.

Although since the birth of the first "Assassin's Creed", the author has been constantly recommending this series of epic works by friends around me, but he was unable to try it in depth due to inadequate play, unacceptable operation, equipment functions, time arrangements, etc. Later, he tried it out because of the high price and the open world that was too repetitive and empty. It was not until recently that a "temporary worker" incident in Taiwan that I won the myth trilogy for less than 50 yuan. Among them, "Assassin's Creed: Valhalla" also became my first "Assassin's Creed" masterpiece to pass the level.

I don't know if anyone remembers such an old news

The iterative RPG system will eventually live up to expectations

I don’t know when, Ubisoft’s major games have been labeled as “canned” and “formalized open world”. It seems that it has become the common feature of different games. The boring side quests and the exhausting game experience of the previous work "Odyssey" have minimized my expectations. But after real experience, the innovation and improvements are still eye-catching.

This game abandons the previously criticized level suppression and complex equipment system, and transforms the original "level" into "intensity". Of course, players can also simply and roughly understand it as a new level system. After some experience, you can clearly feel that level suppression no longer exists. Except for the strength gap is too large (100~200, ordinary difficulty), it is not difficult to challenge the level higher.

There are many such head-on confrontations in the game

Players don't need to save money to replace new equipment at a specific level. In addition to the upgrade quality, all weapons use iron ore and leather at their fingertips. A weapon or even a full set of equipment can be used from the beginning to the level of completion. Different weapons are just different moves, derivative tactics and entries. Players are no longer forced to update their equipment by level, but actively change their equipment in order to try a new experience.

Combined with this level and equipment system, there is a brand new skill tree. Players can experience the sneak assassination of traditional assassins, and they can also experience the Viking warrior's berserk style with their heads raised. If you really don’t know how to add points, you can still obey fate’s arrangements and let the system allocate points “as it goes”. It is worth mentioning that there is a "advanced assassin" skill in the direction of "Assassin", allowing players to assassinate targets with higher strength than themselves. Just press QTE at the right time. If it really doesn't work, there is also a switch for assassination and one-hit kill in the settings. This move completely solves the problem of not being able to assassinate the target smoothly created by the previous level pressure.

Bold innovation and seek change while maintaining stability

More shocking combat system

When you see this title, you may ask: Is the action system also considered an innovation? Didn’t there be any of the previous two works? It is true that the action system is not the first to create this game, but the exciting combat experience of "Heroic Spirit Hall" allows players to choose "nothing without saying anything" more easily. The smoother combo and skill tree enhancement of the action can easily allow players to fight against one hundred. With different active skills and passive enhancements, the protagonist Aivor's combat power can be completely comparable to a long ship. With the addition of the posture bar and the ending animation - you don't have to add attack stacking damage blindly, but you can use bounce and counter and heavy attack to eliminate the enemy's posture bar to trigger execution. In this way, the benefits of frontal hard work are raised to an unprecedented level.

In England, you deserve a home

In open world games, if players have a full sense of substitution, a home system that reflects the atmosphere of life is essential. You need to obtain supplies through robbery and build service facilities such as blacksmith shops and tattoo shops; and you also need to help the villagers build better and warmer houses. However, if you just build a few houses and put a few ornaments in your bedroom, this home system will undoubtedly be a stagnant pool. If you want to make NPCs who are together day and night come alive, you also need to add some exclusive side missions.

Here, you can go to the back mountain with the children to adopt a wolf cub that is about to be domesticated by the hunter; you can watch the dreamy white elk with Petra of the Hunter's Hunter's cottage; you can also witness the traditional Nordic wedding of the blacksmith Gunnar and the Gloucestershire bride Brigitte; occasionally play the judge from time to time to deal with trivial matters between the villagers. These stories make the characters more full of images, and they are no longer cold wooden people.

Witness the blacksmith's wedding. They won't give out rings, but they will give each other armbands, and the blacksmith specially created a sword

There are always some fantasy stories with Petra

Name the wolf cub you found in the children

Experience the coolness of the world in world events

If you have played the previous work, you will definitely be impressed by Ubisoft's open world with a list of question marks on the screen. Behind the massive question marks, all kinds of boring and repetitive gameplay have also been criticized by players. In this work, Ubisoft Montreal is finally willing to write a complete script for the side story.

There are various world events in the various blue light spots on the map, which you can understand as a question mark similar to the one in "Red Dead Redemption 2: Redemption". There are many stories in it, and it may just let you collect something, escort someone, play a boxing game, or even just say a few words.already. It is very different from the original one-click three consecutive "find people, kill, and save people". At the same time, the game uses weak guidance in various tasks designs. You need to observe the on-site environment and listen carefully to the instructions of the task publisher. A careful choice can avoid an unnecessary sacrifice.

Sometimes the little mouth that has been smeared with honey is more useful than the sharpened axe

You can still pet cats in your spare time

The author remembers that next to a ruin, there was a North warrior with an axe on his head. He wanted Evor to pull the axe off, but in this way, the warrior would be sent to the Temple of Valhalla. We don't know what he had experienced before, but it must have been a cruel battle; I also saw an Ansa girl waiting hard under a big tree, and she told Aivol that as long as the last leaf on the big tree in front of the door fell, his father would return to her side. We don’t know where this man who traveled for his family went in that war-torn era. Is it a glorious death in battle, or a hard but low-income job, or a meal on the plate for wild beasts in the forest, or a hijacked by robbers, only a long sigh that penetrates the medieval times came from the blank space of such a story. We could do nothing but ejaculate the last leaf and gently place it on the girl's bedside, hoping that she would see her father when she woke up tomorrow.

Horrible sacrifices of living people found in certain places

In this land of England, there are many wonderful stories waiting for players to explore. Although that era is difficult, everyone is living bravely.

The Heroic Epic of Viking Warriors

According to the author's information outside the game, the main plot of the game is basically in line with historical facts. Players need to play the role of Aivol of the Black Crow clan from Norway, and follow the footsteps of his ancestor Ragner and gain a foothold in the land of England. As an outsider, Aivor needs to form alliances with various regions, and when necessary, he must become a driving force for the change of the regime. There is also a classic hidden line hidden under history, namely the confrontation between the invisible and the ancient preface.

The stories in each region in the game are relatively independent, and some of them are fascinating. For example, in East Anglia, you have to match a transnational couple to finally get married and witness the growth of the young king; in Cambridge, you need to help the Danish lord Soma recover lost land, and perform a suspense drama to uncover the traitors around her; in Gloucestershire, you will witness the cultural conflict between Christians and local polytheistic beliefs, and you will also witness responsible leaders sacrifice themselves for the people just to achieve good weather...

The "wicker man" Ku Nong who sacrificed himself

Growing up and being able to stand alone in King Anglia

Cambridge Lord Soma

The most worth mentioning is the Battle of Chipenlem in the later stage of the game. Although this beheading operation has undergone a certain artistic processing,Putting aside this incident, one year after the Battle of Warem, putting aside Alfred, caught off guard, fled in a hurry, putting aside pagan army, didn't know Alfred would not talk about Alfred in Acener. The "replica" of this raid is quite impressive. However, after this war, Aivol and his allies suffered heavy losses.

So where did Emperor Alfred go in history? After this battle, he lived in Acener incognito until he finally summoned his army to make a comeback. On May 12, 878, he fought a decisive battle with Guslun (also translated as Guslun) at Eddington. The decisive battle ended with Guslun being surrendered and converted to Christianity.

In addition to these thought-provoking local stories, you can also experience the daily lives of ordinary people in the accompanying "Journey of Discovery", have a time-wide encounter with Kassandra on the Isle of Skye; and can also travel to Asgard and Jortonheim through the potion of the Prophet Varka.

Developer interviews on the journey to discovery

Asgard

Meet our Miss Maraka

If canned food becomes a big meal

After presenting so many highlights, we also had to turn our attention to the other side of the coin - to see its shortcomings.

The first thing that is to bear the brunt is the exploration experience of the game. Apart from the world events mentioned before, other collection and gameplay should be a means to promote players to further explore. However, each treasure chest has added puzzles of unknown significance, and some puzzles are even more crazy nesting dolls. Just imagine, when you find a treasure chest, the first thing you face is to find the door latch in the room, then find a tricky angle to shoot an arrow open. Facing the stone wall of the next room, you need to bring an oil tank from outside to blow the wall open. This is not the end. The treasure chest is so close that you need to find the corresponding key. In addition, this game uses a weak guidance system. Except for the items and characters related to the mission and some treasure chests, other interactive items will not be told to you. No matter how powerful the Eye of Odin is, it will be useless. The above examples are relatively simple, and some other routine puzzles of "Where is my door?" are even more crazy. This also leads to the rich resources in the later stage of the game and the players have almost no desire to collect.

God knows how many people's collection habits have been cured by this combination of latch and key

In addition, the plot of this work also has some complaints. It was the previous Emperor Alfred. On the day of the raid, Avor yelled, "Leave Alfred to me!", and only two days later, not to mention that the king took the initiative to reveal the anti-intellectual operation of his hiding place. When I saw the king again, Aivor seemed to meet an old friend, and he smiled and completely forgot that Alfred had killed his three allies before, and even more forgot that he was just a tool man who was used by Alfred to help the invisibles work! What Ivor got was nothing but the last piece of the ancient Order Pendant pendant and a key that was completely worthless. We all understand UbisoftI want players to completely rewrite history in the game and kill this recognized British "father of the Nation", but since they have been fictional, why not add more content to express the reconciliation between the two? Such a far-fetched plot is really incomprehensible.

The incognito Alfred

Smile to get rid of grudges

In addition to these games themselves, the author also found some technical problems on XSS, which is reflected in the fact that the game failed to cooperate with the new Xbox's "Quick Recovery" function, and there is a very low probability that it will crash inexplicably, or that the progress cannot be saved from time to time, and the game needs to be restarted.

Conclusion

Maybe Ubisoft really can't tell stories, but as another author said: "I slowly realized that Ubisoft can't tell stories anymore. It's just that Ubisoft's focus has become to shape a complete and grand game world and a system, thus ignoring some details. The overall story of "Assassin's Creed: Odyssey" is very grand. The protagonist turns from a small mercenary to a guardian who travels through thousands of years. Players can experience it all the way. It's just that it's too patterned in some small details, such as a side mission, which is the canned smell in the mouths of many players."

The improvements in "Assassin's Creed: Valhalla" have greatly weakened this "canned flavor", and players can experience the unique charm of the wild 9th century (then China was already late Tang Dynasty) from world events and NPC's exclusive missions. This realistic style has always been an important factor in attracting a large number of fans. After all, no one likes to read cold text records, and not everyone can listen to history classes, but letting you play a role, experience the lives of people of that era in an immersive way and feel the cultural charm of that era is a wonderful temptation that no one who loves games can resist.

It just so happens that the latest DLC "Dawn of the Doomsday" of "The Temple of Heroes" is about to meet you. This time, you no longer need to trace the origin of Nordic myths, and you no longer need to scratch your ears and faces for unrecognized gods, because you are Odin, the king of the gods.

If you are a big fan of Assassin's Creed, like action games, or are interested in world history and Nordic mythology, be sure to try this new flavor of canned food.