100% Complete Presented by: Microsoft, in 2024, via my X-Box One Series S
I have played most of the Assassins’ Creed franchise but none gave me as much pleasure as Valhalla. There are some who say that this installment was bloated with side quests and completely missed the point of stealth combat – but for me that was the best part of the game. I played mirage afterwards and it wasn’t a patch on Valhalla. I love a good collectathon, trying to get all the trophies in order to get that magical 100% complete.
Valhalla might not be a true Assassins game but it had all the elements I look for in a game. I was able to play as a single character – Eivor which could be a man or a woman if I remember. There was a little bit of personalisation available but then your character develops through the game. I liked the style of combat, as blunt as it was, I liked the variety of weapons which were for the most part period correct.
Being an English man, I could see where the game developers had to cut corners in order to make the game work. It wasn’t meant to be a faithful recreation of the period but had enough elements to satisfy my nerdiness. There were sections of the game that seemed beyond me, but if that happened I could usually find a way round until I did complete the quest.
This is the only game where I have ever completed it to 100%. In the early days of the NES there was virtually no chance of it. Game Over meant starting back from the beginning, back before the punishing level that finally felled you. Then with Lara Croft’s adventures, there was the chance to save the game but inevitably I’d end up saving in a place where I got stuck in a no win situation. With modern games, each step of the way is saved – so you only go back to before the big nasty came and put you in your place.
Completing the game is only a question of time but the real difficulty is completing the game to 100%. Do all the side quests, collect all the collectables, & then do the secrets. There is a sense of satisfaction from getting all the minor trophies, especially when you can see how rare the trophy is. Collecting them is also in the pursuit of that rarest of trophies – the 100% complete.
If you manage to achieve this as I did in Valhalla, then you can say to yourself “I’ve completed the game” and on to the next one. Beyond a virtual trophy there is nothing more than the personal satisfaction of knowing that you have done everything the game developer wanted you to do and more. So the challenge is then to start all over again with a new game.
I end the ‘awards season’ with this anecdote not only because it is the most recent and brief, but because it highlights a problem with life. If you focus your life on the pursuit of awards then life will inevitably get in the way. Awards are somewhat for looking back on the times that you have achieved something meaningful. They are like nicknames, you can give them to yourself but they aren’t as meaningful.
This introspective gaze stops you from seeing everyone else around you and living in the moment. With each one of these awards, the award itself wasn’t the focus of the memory but everything that happened leading up to that award. If you play a video game for the pursuit of a trophy then you aren’t focused on the true magic of the game. It isn’t about succeeding but the interesting ways in which you get diverted and fail. Thus it is with life.