The Viking: Battle for Asgard game, which will be reviewed in this article, won the hearts of fans of the slasher genre in not so distant 2008. As well as admirers of Scandinavian mythology, the Vikings and the northern gods.
Plot
Actions unfold in a fictional universe. The plot is simple: hordes of undead, raised by the goddess Hel, invaded Mithgard (the world of people, according to Scandinavian mythology) and sow pestilence and destruction.
In the midst of the battle, the most brave warrior named Skarin is the goddess Freyja and assigns to the mighty hero the mission of the savior of mankind. And of the gods, of course. Freya is represented by the goddess of war, who carries the idea of stopping the Queen of the Dead and sending her back to Helheim.
Initially, Skarin was not aware of the true causes of the unrest, because he simply follows the path of a berserker and seeks to cleanse his native lands from strangers. In this difficult matter, the Allies help the protagonist. These can be either the Vikings who happened to meet, or prisoners of enemy camps.
A series of single battles and epic sieges of cities ultimately leads the player to the den of the dark goddess, after defeating whom, Skarin demands Freya to earn a well-deserved place in Valhall.
But it receives a refusal, after which it frees the world wolf Fenrir, and Ragnarok begins. A voice-over says that a century-old winter has come, the gods were defeated, but their spirit is still present in the world of people.
How to get to Asgard?
The game Viking: Battle for Asgard, many are greeted by a beautiful schedule, an interesting introductory video and escorted for the absolute template straightforwardness and lack of an interesting plot. Moreover, the desire to finish playing arises approximately in the middle, where there are no exciting battles, screensavers, at least somehow clarifying the meaning of everything that happens around. You can forget about the ornate dialogues, romantic lines - they are not here.
The partners mentioned above, which are found on the expanses of the three islands on which Skarin travels, periodically help to get out of a difficult fight and not fall into battle. However, the brothers in mind do not always help. Basically, all battles take place in a one-on-one mode. Team management in the game is completely absent, therefore, after formal assistance to the player, the satellites disappear (probably drink honey in the nearest tavern).
Positive sides
Not a single video review of Viking: Battle for Asgard is complete without mentioning that there are interesting moments in the game, for which the project earned a rating of 71% according to Game Rankings.
Beautiful graphics and soundtrack - of course. But, in addition, Viking: Battle for Asgard reviews mark a battle system based on Quick Time Events technology - dynamic moments during the fight, when a certain key lights up, which you need to press to perform a dizzying combo, capture or block strike. The listed elements of the battle bring a grain of the RPG genre to this project.
V iking: Battle for Asgard walkthroughs mark an interesting idea for developers - enemies killed with combos give access to dragon runes. As a result, these mysterious creatures are called to help Skarin.
Gaming Edition Reviews
In March 2008, print titles were full of headlines like Productive Season or Neskuchnye Vremya. The section "What to play" is in the publication "Gambling". A review of Viking: Battle for Asgard ranks several paragraphs in this section along with projects such as Assassin's Creed, Devil May Cry 4 and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.
Representatives of the publication noted the novelty with positive reviews, describing the game as very simple, but very interesting. Anton Logvinov, whose firm is engaged in Videomania, a multi-platform video extension to Igromania magazine, indicated that the game seemed to carry into the atmosphere of the distant nineties. The player simply comes to the quest giver, he says a few words and issues a task. No lyrics, ornate debilitating dialogues, just cool action. In the best traditions of hack and slash.
How is the walkthrough?
Game reviews Viking: Battle for Asgard do not emit any memorable puzzles in the game. Those are simply absent. As mentioned above, everything is as straightforward as possible. He came, he saw, he won.
The hero passes not levels, but "islands". Visually, the territories between "friends" and "strangers" are divided into dark and bright sides. When Skarin crosses the border, leaving for the lands of enemies, darkness reigns everywhere, it rains and the wind howls. And also enemies constantly attack.
Freeing captives and defeating bosses, the protagonist sheds light on dark areas. In a literal sense. On the bright side, peace and quiet is always a sunny day, flowers, greens and a small fish splashing in the water. But here there are quests.
Critic reviews
Like it or not, there are more negative reviews of Viking: Battle for Asgard than positive reviews. First of all, because of the plot, or rather, the lack of a clearly worked out storyline. Players who are accustomed to ornate plot twists do not like the usual “slasher” in many RPGs such as Mass Effect. This is what destroys any desire to play after about the middle. Two or three videos for the entire game do not add any zest to the project. This cupcake remains callous.
In second place in the frequency of mentioning the mid-minuses is the so-called imitation mania. It is worth noting that the idea of releasing such a project arose after the success of God of War, which tells about the bloody adventures of Kratos. Creative Assembly Studio releases the Spartan: Total Warrior project, which ends in failure and takes revenge with the release of Viking: Battle for Asgard. But it turns out another clone, only in the "Scandinavian" wrapper.
And also the project has earned negative reviews due to poor design of the game world. In fact, the locations are not of any interest. There are enemies in them, but they are monotonous. The game world is empty, it practically does not interact with the character.
General opinion
Despite the failure of the project as such, any review of Viking: Battle for Asgard leaves a desire to play anyway. You should understand what attracts the attention of the story of Skarin.
In the game itself there are little things that make you push into the background all the "schematic" of the project and the lack of plot. For example, the protagonist frees the captive brothers, who can eventually be rallied into a large-scale army and call for a siege of the fortress. Gamers who are interested in the process, and not the result, liked this smart move by the developers.
The final battle, of course, requires a large number of Vikings. And if dragons are called up, the battle turns into a real fantastic saga.
Conclusion
In the end, it should be said that the developers swung on a very interesting topic in games - the mythology of the Scandinavians. Back in 2008, the general public did not know about Ragnar Lodbrock, whom he fell in love with thanks to the Canadian-Irish historical drama The Vikings. Even if you completely copy the image of the hero Travis Fimmel from the series and do not change anything in the game, the rating will increase significantly.
In addition, it would be better to study the materiel before developing the game. The first thing that catches your eye when you review the Viking: Battle of Asgard game from the height of 2017 is the image of the goddess Freyja, who can not be compared with the image from the myth. Freya from the game is more like Empress Celine from Dragon Age: Inquisition, who is a socialite than a maiden of a sword and shield.
The image of Hel and her kingdom in the game is more reminiscent of a classic biblical hell than Helheim from mythology - the realm of ice and fog. In addition, the army of the dead emerges from there only on the day of Ragnarok on the ship Naglfar, which is made from the nails of the dead.
The hero at the end frees Fenrir, and Ragnarok begins, and the centuries-old winter descends on Mithard. According to myths, Fimbulwinter leads not only to the death of crops, but also to a war between human genera for the sake of survival, which in no way coincides with the “voiceover narrator”, which speaks of warming and that people successfully survived the winter.
The liberation of the Fenrir wolf alone does not entail the Last Battle - Odin himself fights with the wolf on it. And in the end, both die. The serpent Yormungand, the enemy of Thor, should also appear on the battle. And also the army of the fire sons of Muspell, led by Surt. In addition, if the goddess Hel is defeated, who will lead the dead to a battle with the gods?
In the end, Freya does not take the soldiers to Valhalla - not her competence. The goddess calls souls to her chamber Volkwang. If the developers had better thought over this moment and designed the meeting between Skarin and Odin, perhaps the decision about an eternal feast in the hall of the Asgard warriors was made in the direction of the protagonist.
And so, it turns out that the young lady refused, because this is not her professional sphere, and Skarin did not particularly ask for Volkwang.