There is nothing new here. It's just another Metroidvania-like game, with the usual Anime aesthetics. And, of course, Anime comes with the usual sexualized sprites, obviously targeting teenagers. Animations are annoying. Characters dance like strippers literally every single second they don't walk or attack - which I'm guessing is just another silly attempt to attract teenagers. So typical... and even if you like that kind of animation, it will get old very quickly, as it happens all the time, the exact same way. Graphics are ok. Nothing special, but if you like pixel art, that's probably the best part of the game. Sadly, even that is ruined by the silly animations. Sound is... not worth mentioning. Combat is barely passable, as it gets old pretty fast. No, thank you. Honestly, it's hard to find something nice to say about this game. The final verdict is a very generous 3/10, and that for the pixel art only. Do not waste your money on this, even when it is on sale.
Disclaimer: I have nothing against Beamdog; my critique is about the game itself. I own the original game and my critique is about that. Seriousy, what exactly is this... game? First of all, this is not an RPG, no matter how you stress the term. Sure, there are stats as in any RPG - except it makes no sense, since only one stat really matters and all the others are close to useless. Sure, there is combat, but it is so clunky that even fans of the game admit combat just sucks. You read a lot of text. Nothing wrong about that per se; I actually enjoyed other games involving long text reading. But in this particular game you read a lot of text just to get any useful information burried in an ocean of endless verbosity that goes on for an eternity. Some say this is a great visual novel. Well, I am sorry but it is not, unless you never read a real novel.. It starts as a hell of a text reminding necrophilia, and it keeps throwing tons of mediocre text to the player till the end. I can think of countless books in the literature which are really great novels and this sort of a game cannot stand a comparison. If I want to read a novel, I have plenty of choices, thank you very much. I don't need a long text pretending to be a video game/visual novel. So there is nothing good in this game? Well, nothing is all black nothing is all white, and this is not an exception. It does have some few moments. Some side quests have a rather interesting plot (but still ruined by the non-existant gameplay); in rare cases there is a good sense of humor too. But those good moments are few and far between, sunk at the bottom of an ocean of below-mediocrity. My advice: Do not waste a dime for this. Either pick a GoG game worth the money asked, or buy a book. The Trial by Franz Kafka is one of the many examples. Now all those admirers, go ahead and click "No" below. But I forgot, you already did that before reading what the other side has to say. As if I care, really.
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.
