Jotun: Valhalla Edition

Love the graphics, love the atmosphere, love the setting, music is appropriate... and unfortunately, that's about it for me. The controls are far too agonizingly slow and clunky for me to enjoy the game.

The artwork in this game is honestly something I've been looking for, for many years. Banner Saga came oh so very close to being it, but I have to admit I was a little disappointed that it was a turn-based game, and you didn't get to have directly controlled combat (don't get me wrong, I love Banner Saga). This game was both rewarding to find and to play. I love the fairly linear gameplay, and yet there is flexibility to play the levels you want to play. The sound and music make this very immersing in a good way. There were several times that the climactic music sent slight chills of excitement through me. There are moments in the game that let you see a vast distance. I loved that. I very much also appreciated the lore that we learn about the Norse mythology (Something I wouldn't have minded if Banner Saga did--There I go comparing those two again, sorry). However, I could have done with some more learning and story. I understand though that, that can be a very difficult balance to make. You definitely don't want too much, unless you have a very good writer. I love the concept of telling stories though video games. All in all, I was very satisfied with this game. i wasn't expecting to commit to getting their next game, but after playing this one through, I think I just did :).

I got this game for free and because of this I had practically zero expectations. I wasn't expecting 2D Dark Souls so the general lack of enemies didn't bother me that much. There are still some challenges outside the Boss fights and they vary from area to area. After you beat the game, you can challenge yourself and try to beat tougher versions of the Jotun. Story seems like a classic Norse legend and it's a strong point of the game. It can be divided into two parts, the first is about the protagonist herself which is delivered just by the narrator and could be improved by some visuals, and the second about Norse mythology, which is presented by the beautiful hand-drawn scenery and enemies. The quality of sounds and voice acting is brilliant. Controls with mouse and keyboard are surprisingly good, there is an option to rebind all keys, but it doesn't fix the biggest problem. Switching through skills. It's tedious, you know what skill you want to use, but might not know how many times you need the press the button to get to that skill. We have tens of usable keys on keyboard, why do we need to press one button to scroll through a menu? Overall very pleasant experience, would recommend.

After beating this game i will give it a 5/5. To clear things up, this is not your regular action fast-paced action game. This game has it's priority in telling you a story within northern mythlogy with a lot of pretty nice artworks and a few not too easy boss fights. Most time of this game you will wander around, sometimes solving little puzzles, explore the map and enjoy the environment. I really enjoyed the journey and finished the game with about 5,5 hours playtime. Might be a bit too costly without sale bonus, but if you can get it for about 5 bucks, it's pretty worth it.

In Jotun, you play as a female Viking warrior. There is a central area, and from there you can enter five different sections. Each section has two "levels", with a boss at the end (the first section is a bit simpler). There is also a final boss in the end. The game is very short; took me about 8 hours to finish it, and that includes all "secret" areas. If you explore each level, you can get some new abilities (6 in total) and 3 health upgrades, There are no enemies, other than the bosses in the end of each level. So what you do in each level? well, you deal with some puzzles and tricks. Each level has different tricks to deal with. Most of them are nice and well implemented. In general, the levels are very well designed, and the graphics are nice. Story is minimal, inspired by Nordic mythology. The only interesting thing about it is the narration, which is in Icelandic (with subtitles in English). A very unusual choice, apparently to give some Viking flavor in the game. The boss fights are the biggest part of this game. Your warrior has two attacks, one fast but weak and one slow but powerful. You can also roll to dodge enemy attacks, and there is a roll-and-hit attack. Add to that the 6 special abilities mentioned earlier, and you have a rather minimal arsenal which in fact works very well. However, the boss fights are very unbalanced. Four bosses are very easy, and can be killed in the first try. Other bosses are more challenging, which could be a good thing - if it was always fair. In a few cases, difficulty was increased with some cheap, unfair methods. It is obvious that developers were not afraid to take some risks, making the game different than the crowd. This is a decision to applause. However, the game is short and implementation could be way better. Therefore, the final verdict for Jotun:Valhalla is 2.5 stars out of 5 - a short, mediocre, game, which could be much better. Full price cannot be justified. I would recommend you buy it if it is on sale.