Jotun: Valhalla Edition

The gameplay is just alright. Very basic light attack, heavy attack, roll controls. The roll feels kind of clunky and unresponsive without the speed boost, like a max weight roll in a Souls game, and I think the heavy attack should be a few frames faster. I wish that the light attack had a 3 hit combo instead of just stopping at 2, or maybe allowed you to chain the light attack into a heavy finisher with some precise timing or something. 2 light attacks at a time just don't seem adequate, for lack of a better explanation. Some of the boss fights are kind of lame and the achievements definitely seem padded (beat every boss without taking damage, beat every boss in under a minute, etc etc) but ultimately it was alright. Sometimes frustrating and a lot of backtracking if you missed something in an area, which you are inclined to get because it's the only way to receive or upgrade your god powers, so if you miss anything then it's a bit of a pain to go all the way back with such low movement speed pre-speed boost god power. They show you the secrets that you missed in the main zone's plaza maps at least which is convenient, so at least you always know where to find what you missed. The environment, however, is beautiful. I really love the artistic approach they took here with all the Norse mythology and the way some of the puzzles unfold. I found myself stopping just to take screenshots on nearly every open-world zone because of how incredible and cinematic it all looked. The devs put in a lot of effort to make it a very pretty game on many levels, and I appreciate that a lot. Even the "ugly" bosses are nice to look at just because of how fluid and clean the animation was. I also really liked the authenticity of having the narration be in Icelandic with English subtitles, to really give you that extra bit of immersion. The soundtrack for every zone was also very fitting as well, really helping push the narrative for that specific area. Walking across the ice lake with that music is the most genuinely unsettling thing I've experienced in a game in a LONG time. All in all, a very pretty game aesthetically, but an average game. I had enough fun to justify the play time and the artwork is gorgeous, but I don't think it's worth full price in the current year. You're not missing much by not playing it but if you do want to give it a shot, get it on sale. If any of the devs read this, please, PLEASE fix the hit boxes on Odin's spears. They do not line up at all. Just one more patch. I get that it's supposed to be a challenging game, but the player should be fighting against the in-game enemies and bosses, not the game mechanics themselves.

its so-so. kinda fine. the empty world gets annoying, the "story" is annoying, the maps are annoying and the gameplay eventually gets annoying too, even with the different "god powers". for the good part: soundtrack, hand drawn art and bosses fights are interesting. anyway, not really bad, but just bellow mediocre.

Very fun, very pretty, I love the handcrafted animations.

Artist creative dream game. Thunder Lotus magics

Very fun game if you're into games with a compact story, relatively simple game play mechanics, and boss battles with a fairly flat learning curve. You'll crawl through 12 dungeons, gather special powers and find collectibles, or not, those are optional! Gather up the runes at the end of each little dungeon and fight some bosses to then fight the final boss. Nothing really fancy here but if you liked games like Bastion you might like this, plus it's quick, as you can clear it under five hours if you're not over 40 like me.

Pros: Interesting scenery. Art feel like you're in a cartoon. Boss fights are fun(somewhat). Cons: Too simple. World lacks things to do. No enemies, just bosses. Bosses are a simple(have 2 or 3 attacks). Powers don't seem relevant. The game looks nice but environments lack enemies to fight but each world has some kind of environmental hazard that is simple but bothersome. The world feels empty. The hub is called The Void, but every world seems like a void with few points of interests in each. This game feels like a mobile game because it is so simple. I don't care how game a good looks. If the game mechanics aren't fun. It ain't for me.

Brutal,no dire mas,