In the land of the Vikings a enemy ridden portal has opened and The Great old one is trying to take over the world. It is the job of the Valkyries and Vikings to stop this terrible foe.
Yes, the story of Die For Valhalla is a brief one but plays on Norse mythology. In which, Valhalla is where the vikings long to go to after death, a majestic enormous hall, ruled by Odin, you know Thor’sIn the land of the Vikings a enemy ridden portal has opened and The Great old one is trying to take over the world. It is the job of the Valkyries and Vikings to stop this terrible foe.
Yes, the story of Die For Valhalla is a brief one but plays on Norse mythology. In which, Valhalla is where the vikings long to go to after death, a majestic enormous hall, ruled by Odin, you know Thor’s dad; and the Valkyries or in Old Norse “choosers of the slain”, choose those who survive battle and those who do not.
Die for Valhalla is a 2d side scrolling beat em up rpg. Where you play as a valkyrie, who can possess different vikings to fight as, allowing them to take the damage instead of yourself. Working your way through the levels, destroying the different enemies that each world throws at you. While playing as each viking, at any point in time, you can choose to leave that viking’s body causing them to die and you return to your spirit state. From there you can either fight as the Valkyrie or inhabit another viking, but make your choice quickly because while vikings can die one after the other. The players life depends on that of the Valkyrie. From possession to possession, if she gets hit one too many times and dies your turn is over. Which if you choose hardcore mode instead of normal mode at the beginning, which is a roguelite experience, you’ll begin from square one, which all of that Valkyrie’s skills taken away.
While not dying as the Valkyrie is important, so is dying as the vikings. As the title may suggest, these vikings will die and die alot. Levels littered with tombstones are jumping off points to spawn a new warrior. If you are fighting with a sword and shield, but an archer or mage would work better against this particular enemy, leave that old body behind and upgrade to a ranged attack. As each different combat class is very different, each has advantages and disadvantages over certain foes.
While each character has the same combo pattern, each enemies attacks are different. Comboing with your berserker will leave your enemy stunned on the ground, while the archer will increase the number of arrows shot as you work your way throw the combo, ending with a magical high damage arrow at the end. You do begin with only three vikings to play as and unlocking new characters takes a extremely long time.
Moving in all directions with your left joystick, you can also jump, dodge, parry, and block. Adding a bit more mechanics than the average beat em’ up game does give you a good base to work off of in the combat department. Although the jump is not as responsive as you would like, giving me great difficulty when trying to remove myself from a deadly situation.
Beginning in a world map where you select each level that you are going to play through, is incredibly hard to intuitively navigate. Yes you can move easily from circle to circle, but it’s hard to know exactly where you are going or what you are working toward. With a bunch of different objectives in the right hand corner of the map, I have no real clue where go to solve a specific quest.
When in the thick of gameplay almost every level feels the same, yes some minor scenery changes note your progression throughout the world, but that’s about it. An exploding barrel in one level, is an exploding mushroom in another level, and yes please defend another shrine. After hours and hours of smashing skulls and removing gigantic monster heads, I felt like I was forcing myself to continue playing looking for excitement that never came.
In the midst of your fallen enemy, they will drop XP pickups and once you obtain a certain amount of them you can upgrade your Valkyrie. Upgrading consists of acquiring one new perk and assigning 7 runes to your stats.
The perks vary from simple upgrades that increase an individual stat by a large amount, to increasing the speed at which you can possess a viking, or a personal favorite each third attack in a combo causes a bit of elemental damage. These enhancements are attached to each Valkyrie and every viking played by her will have these skills. Along with a perk choice you get 7 runes to pick which simply upgrade your stats attack, defense, health, and spirit, which is stamina. The rune selection is chained together when selecting which is a fun little puzzle to get a hang of.
Die For Valhalla is a great setup for a game that simply fails to deliver. Which a solid combat system, fun artstyle, and tons of bearded warriors to play as the early gameplay feels incredibly promising. Unfortunately, after you get a hang of the controls it is grindy and repetitive with no real feeling of progression or reward. While I looked up the plot of the story, you wouldn’t know it from the gameplay and you never feel it in the funny but aimless cut scenes. Be sure to watch my video review at YouTube channel TheFlannelFox… Expand
Die for Valhalla!Your Score0 out of 10User Score
