Jotun: Valhalla Edition

It was really boring playing this game. It took me 3h45m to finish it. Most the time you run through levels without even fighting. There are some nice nordic lore elements to discover in every level - which I really liked - but the gameplay gets really repetetive and boring very fast. In general the movement and attack speed of your avatar is really slow. Naturally the levels took even longer to complete. At the end of every level is a bossfight - 6 in total. For me 4 fights were really easy (including the last boss) and two were somewhat hard (Lightning and Fire). The design and graphics are really nice though. I got it for free - so I don't mind having it in my library. You should only buy it if you like to discover the world and learn something about nordic mythology. This part of the game is very well executed. If you look for fast paced action you shouldn't buy it.

I don't know, who classified this as an RPG. It's a frustrating arcade platformer, with idiotic controls, in which you will die very often. Total waste of money.

Well I thought this game would be kind of like Bastion. It has a similar cell shaded/hand draw look to it, similar gameplay of isometric action, and even the moves your character can do are kind of similar like attacking and rolling dodge. Both have great sound tracks too. But that's where the similarities end as Jotun is horrible from a gameplay perspective. It only took me about 5 minutes to realize it, as I was walking for 5 minutes without encountering a single enemy or thing to do. Literally walking around trying to figure out what this game was about besides pretty visual backgrounds and pleasant music. Unfortunately that's about all there is to it. The controls are so sluggish you will die a bunch until you brute force your way through some boss fights. The couple fights I did were pretty dull scripts, a boss that blatantly telegraphs their attacks so you can dodge. It's just not fun. And while the atmosphere is outstanding, there's hardly any story to keep me playing for that.

The game has an excellent artistic section, which is worth appreciating. The soundtrack is enveloping and pleasant to the ears. The mechanics of the game are simple and repetitive, and not very scalable. In addition, it is possible to finish the game in less than 5 hours. In summary, it is a good independent game with nothing to emphasize.

There are many fun levels. However, RNG starts to play a major role in some stages. There are few things I hate more in gaming than investing a lot of time in a level, and then having bad RNG ruin my run. The graphics are beautiful.