Assassins Creed Valhalla Dawn of Ragnarok Review - Better Than the Original

donna ragnarok is almost here if you're a fan of a holla you probably are excited if you weren't you're probably wondering why a games dlc that then turned into a standalone title is getting so much discussion in the first place make sure to subscribe if you like reviews on all kinds of things dlc as well as games as well as walking the walks now regardless of my original thoughts on the ac games i've loved some i've hated some i've always been impressed by a lot of their dlc packages arguably atlantis is one of the best dlcs for a title i have ever seen expanding that title into something truly magnificent and valhalla has some pretty big shoes to fill so let's see if odin is as big as all the old myths used to say this game has enlarged from original dlc to a standalone product and is out on pretty much every single system aside from the switch i believe new weapons a large new land new enemy types new powers and a ton of new skills check-in boxes isn't how good games are made though first let's discuss the presentation now graphically the lander ragnarok is a mix of both the original valhalla and at times a little bit of phoenix rising of all things floating lands rocks dotting the sky and the world itself is filled with ice and fire causing you to sometimes have to activate new powers you've got to traverse them without dying and i truly enjoyed exploring here and while i won't spoil it there's a tremendous amount to see in the expansion and especially when that expansion's called ragnarok where valhalla other than some missions contain most of the environments to at least a somewhat believable landscape ragnarok doesn't have that limitation massive fortresses monolithic environmentally catastrophic moments abound it's a bit like the dial turned to 11 that also has another little tiny dial on it that also goes to 11. it does take a while to see some of those bigger set pieces but rest assured a lot of them are there it's some of the new enemies though that i enjoyed bosses and npcs that you battle across the entire lands and facing off against mythological one second and man the next was a switch-up i actually really enjoyed the yotenar's locations are steeped in winners you battle through them and then you put on a cloak of embers and magma so you can sneak through the moosepools magma villages in social stealth situations nothing says you're badass like a cloak made out of volcano vomit as well it is an awesome power and it just looks incredible the new armor the steeds the weapons and the powers are excellent and in line with what you would expect for this kind of adventure with this kind of subject matter what weaves it all together is that feeling of these factions fighting across the land as well as the dwarves beneath it and a little bit more of a living breathing world than the spiritual fantasy land a lot of people may expect when they originally jump into the game this is something that actually feels lived in which was not something that i personally expected and that allowed it to be a little bit more grounded and for the story to have just a little bit more pull speaking of poland this does pull some serious performance from your systems and sometimes a little too much consoles have had not the best time with valhalla some patches have made performance worse it's had screen tear visual artifacts that being said i didn't notice as many issues with ragnarok as i did with valhalla on the ps5 which i was testing both performance and the quality mode as well as pc versions that i'll talk about in a second across all the platforms though the lod switching is pretty rough it's got the pc having the lowest amount of noticeable switching and the performance mode on the playstation 5 doing it right in front of your damn face like someone just forgot to put crap down and throws a little putty to make a rock it is highly noticeable and even if it's on quality mode which is your 30fps it is still there now on the pc you have different options you can choose unfortunately still no dlss though you can choose render quality i'd like to see dlss in this but this is one of those titles that has amd radeon slapped on the front and so most likely we won't get that performance on the pc does seem a little bit higher than valhalla for me which i was surprised with but i would love to have seen some of these new tricks that these new graphics card can do getting that native support in this game overall i'd say ragnarok succeeds more in its design and its art offerings than any technical improvements don't expect that the effects the powers the new enemies the bosses locations are also very incredible looking but they are based within the valhalla engine this is an engine that is saddled with some consistently bad lod issues and other little problems here and there this is not going to fix those when it comes to the audio side of the presentation valhalla has some issues with the original release it had especially sample problems and channeling both seem to be mostly a thing of the past here ragnarok offers its own challenges with huge battles valkyrie battles unique powers not seen in the prior game and larger encounters that i wasn't really expecting here no just a normal you know fish but huge at least yes no not especially and it does pretty well with them i didn't get a lot of that nasty ass clash that we got with some of the samples in the original game and speaking of the original game you guys know me i was a big fan of the original voice actors and i'm a fan of them here the work in last kingdom for knew was excellent and it really seemed to set him up to nail it as avor and valhalla the female lead also does a spectacular job here there's a little bit of switching here and there that occurs with all of the different characters that you meet but again because i was more invested in the story something i'll talk about in the gameplay section without spoilers i feel like they did a very good job it'll be up to you though when it comes to music i think everybody's gonna probably agree this is really good there's a number of new pieces there's deeper foreboding tracks that resonate with stringed instruments and there's one in particular that is really my favorite while all the work still sometimes sound a little bit like they were played inside of an old beat up barn and that sound processing that's added on top of it gives it a whole new feel that's what they were aiming for it reverberates over those original tracks and in the new ones it gives everything that sort of viking kind of feel and i like that there's larger more epic set pieces that mirror the larger confluence of forces and powers that this story ends up being the focus of i like the soundtrack and it is something i would listen to not only within the game but probably just sitting around and one thing that this game does not do is have you sitting around it jumps you in pretty quickly to see the ragnarok content you can enter it in really one of two ways by a mission in the main village talking to the seer and getting upgraded to a particular point to be able to do that or jumping into the brand new game choosing just ragnarok as the content but i would suggest that you end up having a save from valhalla and moving into it and there's reasons why which i'll talk about so in ragnarok odin sun boulder has gone missing so what's a mythological pod person mind leaper supposed to do well they go in and they try to save him and that's your job you quickly make friends with some dwarve allies who inform you that the dwarves themselves have dug deep they're sheltering themselves in well shelters to escape these battles on the surface of the land unlocking the shelters as you progress is sort of unlocking main bases in all of the other games not only does it give you a place to go and rest but upgrade weapons get to items many times further the story of ragnarok itself and hear other stories about what's going on around you ragnarok does have a number of new weapons and powers and skills one of the major elements here is that odin is given the power of the hygge rip which is a gauntlet that lets him collect the souls and abilities of slain enemies and gather their powers for himself powers like the ability to wield ice protect himself from fire transform into a bird and fly across the land and even teleport short distances yes by the way that makes sense as you play the game if you like your odin with a sign of necromancy you can also raise enemies to fight beside you you can switch these powers out as you go of course battle is handled pretty much the same as valhalla wielding a huge number an assortment of weapons and shields and items with those new powers you have to explore the land and track down those kidnappers and that's where the skills come in now i won't say that they're a game changer but a lot of these skills are skills that we didn't get in the original game and they're added on the first time you go to the skills section they sort of pop up at the cusp of the original games skill trees and there's a lot here i liked and you certainly do have some gameplay that builds on valhalla if you liked valhalla and adds in that mystical bent but if you're sitting here thinking that sounds a lot like valhalla it is if anything ragnarok is more it's more battles it's more land it's more items there's more powers it's more skills it's not out there to change what ubisoft felt worked it's to augment it and really tell the conclusion of this part of the story and to expand the world exactly as atlantis did and i think it actually does it very well there's a first a couple reasons i liked this story more than the original game i'm not sure why i was more impressed maybe it's the mystical bits and the mythology here and the interpretation of what ubisoft wanted to give us for these enemies of myth some of them that you fight that i liked but more importantly odin isn't the strong guy here his enemies are legion he's not the strongest one out there he needs to gather friends and allies to his cause to help him fight those enemies and track down his son and i think that worked well to feel just a little bit different and less of a been there done that kind of style i certainly won't say that there aren't some quests that you're doing that you're like no this isn't necessarily absolutely awesome it's just the story that wraps it up made me have no real issue going through those to get to the meat of the story this isn't to say also that there isn't a ton of exploring or new puzzles or new mysteries and even more information on the actual valhalla main game story with the story from this weaving into the main title especially in the middle game and i don't want to spoil that i just mean sort of narratively ragnarok's position as an expansion seems like it makes sense it's massive there's a lot to do but at the same time it doesn't go out there and do anything that says hey man we know you didn't like valhalla so we fixed everything its connection and in fact its deepest roots into the main story stop that from being a thing for better or worse and lastly for better or worse let's talk about the length of the game now all of these games anytime somebody says the game is 80 hours usually that's playing minesweeper on the map walking north and south north and south one foot away from each other this game is actually quite large i don't think most people are going to complete it 100 if you do who knows how long that will take because like a lot of these titles there's all these various little things you can do and mysteries and story events but you are easily looking at 25 to 30 plus hours it just all depends on how you want to go about it how you want to play it and more importantly the difficulty because that's going to make a huge difference in how long the game actually is difficulty's such a big deal to me especially when it comes into connection with fun factor and ai i enjoyed ragnarok more than valhalla now valhalla felt bloated to me and while this is of course built upon the new skills and powers and enemies and the mythology one of the issues i had with valhalla is it had a very interesting front you know maybe 10 hours for valhalla that became an issue because the game was so big it always felt like it dips its toes in as well but never really went full holy hell sure it tried but it couldn't really do that it saved some of the more expansive stuff for ragnarok i felt that that was here it's condensed more it's a bit more moment to moment and that was enjoyable to me so as you guys know i do rate games on a buy weight for sale rent or never touch it again rating system this i like the story i'm gonna say this is actually worth getting valhalla felt bloated it had a lot but that content and the number of it didn't necessarily mean i wanted to go out and do it and it had a lot of technical issues this game ragnarok one of the big pluses here i didn't really run into any bugs which was surprising i was able to go through it without any real issues i liked valhalla just not as much as i was hoping ragnarok i liked more than i was expecting i like the story notoriously they're hit and miss for everybody though when it comes to stories so i can't really speak to that it depends on what you will like if you like mythology and you want a little bit of a change and jumping into the more mystical maybe like you felt with atlantis this is probably going to do it for you if you are not a valhalla or assassin's creed fans this is not for you so i hope you guys like these videos i hope you like the walk in the walk check those out check out all of the videos that you'll be seeing for me i'm sure you've noticed some changes to all of the different stuff that i've been doing i'm gonna keep that up it's just part one of the four changes that you'll see with acg hey peace out i hope you guys have an awesome week regardless if you're playing this or you're playing elden ring which you should be watching the walk in the walk or you're playing horizon zero dawn or you're playing some new game in the next coming week gta 7 maybe with its thousands and thousands of dollars of microtransactions i just hope you're having an awesome time

Channel: ACG

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Id: M7m9LFPmuk0

Length: 12min 48sec (768 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022