My cousin said that he was bringing over a game that I might like, the game he brought was called “Assassins Creed Valhalla.” He offered if I wanted to try it and I was having second thoughts about playing it, but I accepted, and as soon as he let me play the game I immediately got addicted. I wanted to play it every day I could, though, I stopped myself from playing too long because that would be unhealthy for me. The game was so fun in many different ways, I even finished it twice as the main story is 40+ hours long, depending on how the person plays it. I am going to be reviewing “Assassins Creed Valhalla.” “Assassins Creed Valhalla” is the 12th game of the Assassins Creed games and was released on November 10, 2020, by Ubisoft. AC Valhalla takes place hundreds of years after “Assassin's Creed Origins” and Odyssey. In this game, players are playing on the maps of 9th century Norway and England. In this review, I will review the characters, the gameplay, the visuals, and the tie to the Hidden One's Brotherhood. Now there are a few “spoilers” that will be in this review, so just a forewarning.

The main character's name is Eivor; Odin, the Norse God, is related to Eivor, and Eivor is a reincarnation of Odin. Eivor is a Norse Viking Drengr: Courageous Warrior. Even though Eivor is an amazing character in my opinion, he has no connection to the Hidden Ones: an assassin group, like every other character in the AC series, and that is a flaw to this game.  Another cool thing I like about this game is that the player gets to choose the gender, boy/girl, of Eivor, even though Eivor in the actual history was a girl, the player can still choose the gender. Even though it is much harder to feel connected to these characters because in this game the player gets to choose what they want to do, not like Bayek in AC Origins when the player doesn't have choices in dialogue and such. Eivor is a very cool, very tough, strong Viking and the best fighter of his clan. 

Now about the fighting these next two paragraphs will be about the fighting/gameplay/ abilities in AC Valhalla.  In my opinion, the fighting in this game is very fun, here are some reasons why. The weapons and loot in this game are much more spread out unlike in AC Odyssey and Origins, certain weapons have different power-ups that allow different fighting styles and gameplay. There are a lot of opportunities in this game to fight different kinds of enemies and different kinds of fights which make this game a lot of fun. The only flaw in my opinion to this game's fighting is that it does take a while to kill enemies which makes certain quests longer, for example, when the player fights Loki’s son: Fenrir the Wolf, in Asgard when he is power level 400, it takes a while to defeat Fenrir, but, in some ways, this makes the fighting much more exciting and heart racing. To be able to do more damage to the enemy or add different powers to the weapons, the player is allowed to upgrade their weapons going from common to mythical by collecting these materials, carbon, nickel, and tungsten ingots.

Now to my favorite part about this game, the skills, and abilities. The abilities in this game are very fun to use. The player can find abilities by finding special books that teach how to use a certain ability. There are twenty-two abilities, eleven for melee and eleven for ranged. The player can find these abilities by searching throughout the map and finding icons of these special books and if he/she collects these books they will teach the player how to use this ability. I really like how they added abilities because it makes the game more enjoyable and interesting. The skill tree in this game is my favorite out of all the AC games. It is much easier to level up and there is much more variety in power-ups for this game which means the player doesn't have to do as many side quests to level up for the main quests which makes the game feel much longer and boring. On certain parts of the map, there are different skill powers to make the game more challenging, which for some people makes the game more enjoyable like me. 

Speaking about the map, this map is great, so, let's start with graphics. This AC game by far has the best graphics out of any AC game. Something I really like about the graphics is how much time they put into the little details such as the little pores on Eivor’s face or the details on the roads stretching throughout the enormous map.  AC Valhalla takes place from 872-878 AD, and the map has a great portrayal of what 9th century England would look like, such as the aged Greek ruins used as bases, or the towns made up of churches and straw/ mud huts. The map in AC Valhalla is very huge and has lots of stuff to do in it, for example, climbing up a steep mountain, swimming in a peaceful lake, raiding a monastery, and a lot more where that came from. The map is so enormous in fact that getting 100% on the game would take hundreds of hours and would be a long grind. I also like how they introduced the trust dive into this game like all the Hidden Ones do when jumping off of a tall structure in previous AC games.

Now about the Hidden Ones, the tie into the Hidden Ones is pretty bad. In AC Valhalla there is almost no tie to the Hidden Ones which the game did a pretty bad job at, but not as worse as AC Odyssey. The Hidden Ones are an assassin group who have been in almost every game up until this point. Though, they did bring a few characters into AC Valhalla such as Basim and Hytham. Basim and Hytham gifted Eivor with the Hidden Blade as a gift for welcoming them into his clan. The Hidden Blade is a weapon used in every AC game used to assassinate evil people and is a very terrific weapon to use if the player doesn't feel like fighting big groups of people, Or just wants to use stealth as their main killing option.  

In conclusion, I reviewed the setting in which AC Valhalla takes place, and I reviewed the characters, the gameplay (fighting, skills, and abilities), visuals, and the tie to the Hidden Ones in AC Valhalla. So in my opinion based on my review, I really do like this game but there are a number of flaws in this game that the creators could have done better, but I do appreciate all of the great things they have done with this game. It is most definitely worth the 60 dollars, and I am so glad that my cousin decided to bring that heart-racing, an electrifying, breathtaking, entertaining, and fantastic game called “Assassins Creed Valhalla” over and let me try.