HomeReviewsSons of Valhalla
Image credit:Pixel Chest/Hooded Horse
Image credit:Pixel Chest/Hooded Horse
Like an aggressively competitive thane at a reindeer-piss guzzling contest, 2D tac-and-slash rogueliteSons Of Valhallanever lets up the pace for even a moment. Whether you’re charging across its pixel-art battlefields slashing and burning increasingly tough-to-crack strongholds, or making quick decisions to get the upper hand in its tug-of-war tactics, the only times Thorald is not doing cool violence, commanding others to do cool violence, or upgrading his camps so that he may act in cooler and more violent ways, is when he’s restoring stamina with a cool slug of mead or violently gnawing at health-boosting meat.
Viking Thorald Olavson is a man possessed. A rival Jarl burnt his village and nicked his wife Raya. In his quest to find her, he’s prepared to do anything - even visit England. As Thorald, you’ll butcher your way up a chain of command in your search for Raya across six stages, each of which sits somewhere between the side-scrolling tactics ofKingdom Two Crowns, the lanestrategyof aWarpips, and the slashy/blocky/shooty/dodgy of any 2D ARPG you care to name.
There’s even a sprinkling of roguelite. You’ll have to sacrifice an upgrade rune, collected from certain foes, each time you die. This sounds like a bit of an overwhelming mish-mash, but SOV nibbles with reserve at each of these concepts, hamster-cheeking only the bits relevant to its astoundingly potent momentum and “cult flash game you all bunked off sociology to play and when the teacher came to tell you off they forgot and just watched it for a bit” charm. (I mean this entirely in terms of moreishness and focus. You’d be as hard pressed as a burnt waffle to find an old flash game with pixel art this good.)
Image credit:Pixel Chest/Hooded Horse
Actually commanding your troops can sometimes be a hassle, mind. They’re fond of shield-walling in the wrong direction if there’s friendly troops playing catch-up behind them, and sometimes you have to run around spamming ‘follow me’ to cancel the ‘attack’ command and get them to ‘hold position’ while you’re building up your force. Generally though, this a nicely condensed four button menu that does what it’s supposed do, as do your troops.
Image credit:Pixel Chest/Hooded Horse
You know when I said the game doesn’t let up, up top? Much like the game did to me, I actually pulled a fast one on you. And, much like the game did to me, I’m going to stick a big chunk of ‘What? Why?’ right in the middle of your experience. This. Is. A. Textual. Interpretation. Of. A. Pacing. Roadblock. Torch their homes of poop and straw! Shoplift their wimminfolk! Pickle their prized cattle! Deface their effigies with weak and puny mustaches so all will doubt the virility of their pathetic gods! Tiptoe past them while they sleep and distract those awake with hurled pottery! Wait, hang on. Scratch that last one, because that is counterintuitive to the Viking Experience, surely the least stealthy experience there is.
I’m not sure about you, but rarely when I’m this eyeball-glued to a game possessed of such raucous momentum, do I think, “You know what I’d really like right now? An irritatingly long stealth section playing as a different character with entirely new things to learn that will never come up again”. I’m going to have a crack at giving this section its fair shake, but while hindsight-ful critic me can understand and even appreciate why this glum, gluey trundlefest was included, actually playing it was a dull ache with occasional sharp pains. Not stabbing pains, mind, because stabbing would be too much fun.
Yes, it occurs dead in the middle of the game, a timely interlude to break up the action. Yes, it lends the story a sense of scale. And yes, it somewhat prevents Raya from just being ‘Thorald’s Wife’, and lets her be a capable character in her own right for a while. It is not the presence of this section I bemoan, just its execution. Just give the woman an axe! Hell, give her a boltgun, I’ll get over it. Perhaps a scaled-down version of the main loop where Raya commands an army of befriended sewer rats to help take down prison guards? That would have transformed Sons Of Valhalla from ‘the great game with that confusingly bad stealth in the middle’ to ‘the great game with the rat tactics’. You could have called it ‘rat-tics’! I would have clapped if you’d done that!
Image credit:Pixel Chest/Hooded Horse
I was very close to sticking a Bestest Best on this one, but that awful stealth chunk, combined with how the game failed to put up a real fight just when it needed to most, held me back. Up until the halfway point, though, and for a good while after it, I was having a ball with Sons Of Valhalla. It keeps its ARPGactionwithin the relevant confines of its tactics, and keeps its tactics paced to match to its intense and immediate combat. It’s wonderfully scored and animated. It doesn’t overstay its welcome but then gives you an additional mode and thoughtfully tuned difficulty settings if you want to dive back in. And even with my complaints, I’m eager to do just that. Barkeep, more reindeer piss.
