Viking: Battle for Asgard

Ragnarok

So far it’s all been fairly predictable and simple for Viking: Battle for Asgard – but therein lies the two main problems.

The first and most obvious problem is that the game doesn’t really have an awful lot up its sleeve in the way of innovation and that it’ll therefore err on the side of repetition in the eyes of many players.

You can cut it anyway you want – and there certainly is a lot to like about Viking: Battle for Asgard and the way the combat handles a lot slower and more timing-based than something like Conan – but the fact is that once you’ve got the basics there really isn’t a lot more to learn. It’s always just a case of hitting most enemies once or twice, then hitting the X key to do a gory finisher when they are stunned.

The developers seem to know this though, so later in the game some larger enemies are introduced and the gameplay is ‘reinvigorated’ by adding in some quicktime sequences to bring these baddies to their knees. Unfortunately, the few instances we found of these mini-boss battles were so unenjoyable that we found it easier to just edge the bosses back off of cliffs instead of facing them outright.



These little quicktime sequences are further complemented by button-mashing minigames which feel horribly and hopelessly out of place within the game and managed to do nothing but irritate us awfully. In order to do anything of any use game you’ll need to hammer the B button faster than a woodpecker with a coke habit.

Sometimes this idea works well – when you sneak into enemy camps for example and need to hammer B to free fellow Vikings, the system stops you from freeing them all too quickly and breezing through the battle. That’s a rarity though and the vast majority of the time even simple tasks like opening chests become chores.

It’s also kind of self-defeating on occasion. Because the game is free-roaming for the most part Skarin can make use of Viking leystones to warp to locations he has already discovered without having to spend ten minutes traipsing across already liberated forests. Yet, to use the leystones you’ll have to hammer the button like a tap-dancing centipede.

It’s like the developer is presenting you an impossible choice – do you want to spend ages walking through boring woodland, or do the button-bashing thing for the umpteenth time? We’d rather have neither, thanks.


More crippling than any repetition or dull minigames though is the complete lack of any tutorials or guidance for the player. Difficulty comes in two flavours – Normal and Hard and neither option offers you a training section. It took me two scans of the manual and some button fiddling to figure out how to use the map system. I wasn’t entirely sure what the Rage Crystals were called until I started writing the review and the game doesn’t give you any hint of where you can find the store or the blacksmith in the starting town, which can limit progress unless you’re a natural explorer.

Put it this way – after I liberated two or three groups of men, I felt I was ready to make a push on the big encampment in the starting area, progressing further inland to the game proper. So, I attacked the base and was quickly defeated – eight times in a row.

Finally, at the end of my tether, I bought up the game map and looked to see if there were other areas I could practice in to improve my skills. Only then did I see the option to have my entire assembled army attack the outpost. At no point did the game offer any suggestion or hint to let me know this was even an option.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not looking for a hand-holding tutorial or some Zelda-like fairy to walk me through it like some patronising aunt. What would have been helpful though would have been if the goddess Freya said something like “You are ready to attack! Go to your map and unleash your armies!” The fact that this doesn’t happen at all really ruins the accessibility and immediate fun-factor of the game – though it’s also possible we’re just a little dense.