Jotun: Valhalla Edition

This game is great IF: - you are looking for entertainment and not frustration, which is what most "super challenging" indie-games of today offer - you can live with its rather short playtime (I think it took me around 6 hours to complete it the first time), because you have a live anyway and can survive without countless hours of building up a character or training yourself in repetitive tasks or missions - you like the idea of an isometric action-adventure, with levels in it totally lacking enemies to kill I understand most of the more neutral reviews, but actually I take most of their critics as positive points... I have a job and a family and I am thankful if a game doesn't torture me with its (for me) extreme difficulty. I'm not a bad gamer, but I'm simply not twelve anymore (which is a fine age to be in) and I have better things to do with my very limited free time, than forcing me through repetitive attemps of beating a frustrating game. In Jotun, I really liked the balance of more peaceful exploration and (mildly) challenging bossfights. The great music and camarawork really makes a few sceneries worth remembering and I had a great time in the game. I even think about starting it over again.

Great game. I've finished it in about 4 and a half hours and missed only 1 secret item. I loved the sense of scale of the environments and the voice over was spot on. Don't forget you can go back to the void through the menu without backtracking the whole level (some players complained that they had to tediously go back to the beginning of the level after completing it to come back to the "hub", well you don't need to). I liked that you could walk around, relax and enjoy the art of each level with close to no combat, and then fight some enormous gods. Recommended!

Summarized: Game looks awesome. Viking theme is decent. Controls are stiff. Boss battles that unfortunately fail due to clunky controls, but are almost good. Kinda boring otherwise. 2.5/5. That's all that can be truly said about this game. It looks great visually and the trailer got my blood pumping for a fun, 3rd person, Nordic themed, aesthetic adventure with cool bosses. It only truly delivered on the visuals, and it is undeniably beautiful and has outstanding artwork. Not to mention it is all hand-drawn, which is highly commendable. The viking theme is also enjoyable and is enhanced by the artwork. There's not much good to this game beyond that. Let me start with the controls. I use a controller and it worked fine, but having no rebindable keys annoyed me slightly. It's a minor nitpick and a 3rd party program solved that problem so no big issue, but should be mentioned. This unfortunately didn't solve the other issues. The movement is a slightly awkward. The axe swings are slow and lifeless. The strong attack feels like it takes 3 second to connect, which I get since it should be a high risk, high reward, but it's too extreme to be viable. The roll is stiff and isn't optimal for using too often since it doesn't chain with movement well, which, again, I can understand, but still felt annoying. This doesn't seem like these would be a huge issues, but in a boss game like this, it is HUGE and can ruin gameplay. The boss battles feel regrettably slow. Certain games can pull off the slow boss battles as long as there is a good amount of tactical investment. I think if the controls were more fluid the boss battles would be amazing, and make the rest of the game really worth it. Especially since there are a lot of good ideas in the boss battles themselves and made it sad they couldn't be fun. They forced me to think and plan before I acted, and I would have loved it if the controls were good. The rest of the game is just, "eh." I really wanted this to be good.

With the enticing theme of nordic mythology, a pretty hand-drawn art style and boss battles with huge giants Jotun has a promising set-up but ultimately fails to deliver. I went into Jotun hoping for a good dosage of nordic mythology but Jotun first and foremost tells the story of Thora, a viking warrior that is given another chance at reaching valhalla after having drowned in a ship accident. This story is told through sparse dialouge delivered in Islandic and most of the references to mythology are encountered as the places you will visit. You will make your way to the tree top down to the roots of Yggdrasil for example and while this is undeniably pretty I found the sparse text in fact too sparse to get me involved in either the character's journey nor the beautiful setting. This is also confirmed by the although stunningly drawn levels that basically feel empty. Exploring them isn't that fulfilling since it consists of finding not that well hidden upgrades and solving few not that difficult puzzles. While the story telling feels hollow and levels liveless, the controls as well fall short and feel rather stiff. Visual feedback and responsiveness in battle are unconvincing and leave the player floaty and unconnected to the world and her oponents. But the ultimate let-down of Jotun are the boss battles themselves. Claimed to be difficult I found myself beating the giants in 3-5 attempts and shockingly to me I beat two right on the first go. Furthermore I can't say that I found the designs of the giants particularly memorable or convincing in a game which gears itself towards boss battles. In the end I can't quite hide my disappointment in Jotun since on paper I should have more than liked it, but it lacks real impact for what it proposes and unfortunately remains flat and empty, basing too much on its looks and too little on its actual gameplay and story telling.