Kassandra was the star in Odyssey but on Valhalla male Eivor is the better performance by far. Female Eivor is cringe and one note. After 30 hours with her I couldn't take it anymore and switched. I wish I had played as him from the start.

Good: many of the quests are really well conceived & executed, with quite a few of the 'world events' being charming, tragic, hilarious. The NPCs are generally plausible & the World Event stories well thought out, and paying close attention to what they actually say is important. The gameplay mechanics are quite good for the most part (I really like the 'elite' assassination mechanic in particular). The fortress assaults are very well done, with a real sense of being part of a larger battle (much better than the strange scrum-like battles in AC:Odyssey). The fight with Odin annoyed me at first but once I figured out what to do, it is actually a stroke of genius & made perfect sense, requiring a bit of lateral thinking rather than just trying to dig the same hold deeper.

Bad: the real stand-out clunker is the interminable end-game boss fight with Basim. One of the cardinal sins of game design is inconsistency of rules/mechanics, and this fight uses mechanics not seen anywhere in the game prior to that point (this enemy has no health, can only be taken down using a mechanic seen only in this fight, and that is *terrible* game design).

Ugly: missed opportunities like using the vast collection of collectables you eventually amass to decorate your bedroom (I think you get to add a jack o'lantern & a book... whoopty doo). The disguise ability should be less generic (how about we steal a monk's outfit first time we use that 'blend in' ability or some such). The traders should be less generic & have different stock from each other.

The game is somewhat 'politically correct', but by the dismal standards of modern game design, it is not too in-your-face, which is admittedly a low bar to jump (female warriors should be very rare & a sub-Saharan African blacksmith appearing in a Viking village in England without so much as a word of explanation where they came from & how they got there is glaringly & hilariously incongruous 😁).

I was very excited to get and upgrade the native Indian gear, I spent hours upon hours to purchase all gear pieces. I finally unlocked the last piece and quickly traveled back to England to get it upgraded only to find out it is bugged and will not show up in your inventory. I know you can transmog the look, but I wanted to upgrade them for looks and perks. I’m of native Indian descent and this really offends me. New game plus should also be implemented