I was totally absorbed in Valhalla until I finished it. Then there was nothing to do.
I actually hadn't played Odyssey until after I finished Valhalla. I played all the AC games up to Unity, which I rage quit.
I found Odyssey better is some respects - huge open world, rich environments great character progression. The voice acting was far better IMO. Valhalla's main character, male and female, both sound lifeless and without emotion. Odyssey is funny, the animations full of expression. You feel like they are real people.
I didn't like the endless arms race in Odyssey. You are never really "finished." It's cool the game let's you restart with all your equipment, which makes early play a lot easier but the enemy scaling means you can't really relax about keeping up with upgrading the equipment, which is still insanely expensive. Then they tossed in weight management to boot while you can't just not pick up common equipment. You have to spend time managing it. Valhalla's system is better. Max it out and forget it.
Bottom line, I finished Odyssey then immediately began a new game with the female character to see the differences and make different choices.
Not so with Valhalla. I found the idea of a female Viking character taking out huge Norsemen in single combat to be not believable. The character feels wrong as a female. In Odyssey it felt different because of the fact that the character has Isu blood, which makes them something of a super human. It allowed me to suspend disbelief in a way Valhalla doesn't.

@kreutzgang
I enjoyed finally getting rid of Dag.

@kreutzgang
Yeah, I tried the "let the Animus decide" thing and it kept me female the entire time until I turned it off.
As for the female Viking thing, I know there were some female warrior types in lore known as Shieldmaidens. There is some doubt about their existence. The majority of scholars think that there were no female Viking warriors as this would have been antithetical to the Viking ethos. Even though women shared equal rights with men (they could own land, initiate divorce, serve as clergy, and run their own businesses), their sphere of influence was largely domestic. Women took care of the home, the elderly relatives, and the children and were unlikely to be tolerated slipping those responsibilities to join men in battle.
a lot better than I did trying to play as a female Eivor. That may have been due to better voice acting and expressions and story telling. I don't know.
The female Viking warrior just felt wrong.
BTW, I haven't tried Syndicare either.

@forcefrank
Reaching settlement Level 6 was......underwhelming.
For all the effort it takes, virtually the entire game, I was expecting something special.
Nope. You get acknowledgement it's done. Nothing else changes.
I really think we have to wait for the DLCs to have a proper "ending" as we did in Odyssey.
We still have no idea how Eivor ends up buried in Vinland, alone.
There's also the matter of a certain ISU who's loose.

@kreutzgang
That doesn't surprise me. The Alexios voice actor was great in the good guy role. He sucked as the villain.
The Kassandra actor did ok in both roles but I though Alexios was the better hero.

@asgardian02
I wouldn't play the game if it made me play female.
I've tried both genders in Odyssey and Valhalla as well as Fallout and Skyrim. It never feels "right" playing as a female in the way playing as a male does.
In a physical combat game it just feels off to have a woman squaring off against a much larger and stronger male opponent and kicking his butt.
Like in Odyssey when you have to do the Olympics. Here's Kassandra, a relatively small girl in a Greek bikini beating the absolute crap out of a guy the size of the Hulk with nothing but her fists. It was bad enough when I played that as Alexios and he won without breaking a sweat.
I'm fine with letting players choose. Should have always been that way. But don't force it on me.

@kreutzgang
That doesn't surprise me. The Alexios voice actor was great in the good guy role. He sucked as the villain.
The Kassandra actor did ok in both roles but I though Alexios was the better hero.

@asgardian02
I wouldn't play the game if it made me play female.
I've tried both genders in Odyssey and Valhalla as well as Fallout and Skyrim. It never feels "right" playing as a female in the way playing as a male does.
In a physical combat game it just feels off to have a woman squaring off against a much larger and stronger male opponent and kicking his butt.
Like in Odyssey when you have to do the Olympics. Here's Kassandra, a relatively small girl in a Greek bikini beating the absolute crap out of a guy the size of the Hulk with nothing but her fists. It was bad enough when I played that as Alexios and he won without breaking a sweat.
I'm fine with letting players choose. Should have always been that way. But don't force it on me.

@wildhunt
In actuality, there should be no weapon in ancient Greece that could stand up to Isu technology.
The spear alone, fully powered, would be unstoppable. Less logical is how you managed to bring back the Atlantean weapons created in a simulation to the real world. That never got explained.
But the should always be game changing weapons in any fight. The Bright One sure didn't like the full powered spear.

It's like they copied the fishing mechanic from RDR2, which also sucks in exactly the same way.
I did the minimum there the story required and never fished again.

@forcefrank
Reaching settlement Level 6 was......underwhelming.
For all the effort it takes, virtually the entire game, I was expecting something special.
Nope. You get acknowledgement it's done. Nothing else changes.
I really think we have to wait for the DLCs to have a proper "ending" as we did in Odyssey.
We still have no idea how Eivor ends up buried in Vinland, alone.
There's also the matter of a certain ISU who's loose.

@kreutzgang Agree about the female Greek warrior. I think it was the quality of the voice acting and storytelling that made the difference for me.
I've just completed the story arc with Alexios as Diemos and to me, he's not convincing at all as a bad guy after playing through as him. He's just too good natured and convincing as the good guy to pull it off.
I wish they had put in some missions where Diemos goes with you to eliminate remaining Cult members. I have Diemos as a crew member and when I board an enemy ship I can pretty much let them handle the rest of the crew as I go after the Captain. The fight is over in seconds.

@kreutzgang
Yeah, I tried the "let the Animus decide" thing and it kept me female the entire time until I turned it off.
As for the female Viking thing, I know there were some female warrior types in lore known as Shieldmaidens. There is some doubt about their existence. The majority of scholars think that there were no female Viking warriors as this would have been antithetical to the Viking ethos. Even though women shared equal rights with men (they could own land, initiate divorce, serve as clergy, and run their own businesses), their sphere of influence was largely domestic. Women took care of the home, the elderly relatives, and the children and were unlikely to be tolerated slipping those responsibilities to join men in battle.
a lot better than I did trying to play as a female Eivor. That may have been due to better voice acting and expressions and story telling. I don't know.
The female Viking warrior just felt wrong.
BTW, I haven't tried Syndicare either.

@kreutzgang
I enjoyed finally getting rid of Dag.

I was totally absorbed in Valhalla until I finished it. Then there was nothing to do.
I actually hadn't played Odyssey until after I finished Valhalla. I played all the AC games up to Unity, which I rage quit.
I found Odyssey better is some respects - huge open world, rich environments great character progression. The voice acting was far better IMO. Valhalla's main character, male and female, both sound lifeless and without emotion. Odyssey is funny, the animations full of expression. You feel like they are real people.
I didn't like the endless arms race in Odyssey. You are never really "finished." It's cool the game let's you restart with all your equipment, which makes early play a lot easier but the enemy scaling means you can't really relax about keeping up with upgrading the equipment, which is still insanely expensive. Then they tossed in weight management to boot while you can't just not pick up common equipment. You have to spend time managing it. Valhalla's system is better. Max it out and forget it.
Bottom line, I finished Odyssey then immediately began a new game with the female character to see the differences and make different choices.
Not so with Valhalla. I found the idea of a female Viking character taking out huge Norsemen in single combat to be not believable. The character feels wrong as a female. In Odyssey it felt different because of the fact that the character has Isu blood, which makes them something of a super human. It allowed me to suspend disbelief in a way Valhalla doesn't.