Nordic Nonessential

HIGH The boss battles look great.

LOW Traversal isn’t nearly as entertaining as the devs think it is.

In Jotun, you play Thora, a Viking warrior who died an inglorious death and must prove herself to the Gods to enter Valhalla. Explore vast regions of Norse.

WTF Why can’t I jump straight to the boss rush?

There are few things I enjoy less than giving a negative review to a small indie, but a not-good game is not-good game. No one gets a pass. As one might guess, this brings me to the subject of review, Jotun: Valhalla Edition, by Thunder Lotus Games.

In Jotun, the player takes the role of Thora, a female warrior chosen by the gods to kill a series of giants. I’m not familiar with Norse mythology so my grasp on the events here is a little shaky, but apparently these titans are being hunted down to impress the gods. As to what the ultimate goal of these trials is, I’m not sure.

While the developers found a wonderful voice actress to read the lines of their script (and I’m guessing it has some historical basis) I didn’t find it to be interesting or involving, so my focus fell to the gameplay. Unfortunately, it fares little better than the dry storytelling.

There are basically two parts to Jotun. The first (and most impressive) are the boss battles. Whenever Thora confronts one of the giants, it’s a spectacle. Each one is much, much larger than she is, and taking down something on that scale is neat.

That said, actually fighting them isn’t good. Thora’s attack speed is painfully slow, but it’s not the kind of slow that feels careful and deliberate, it’s just clunky. There’s also not much to the melee since she only has a weak hit, a strong hit (with an extremely long wind-up time) a dodge roll, and a handful of magic spells she picks up along the way.

Besides feeling shallow, the encounters also suffer from poor readability. The game’s hand-drawn art style makes it tough to tell where hitboxes are, and worse, the camera zooms waaaaaay out at times to accentuate the size difference between Thora and her enemy. I get that the intended effect is to feel awed, but it just makes things hard to see.

Namaste Divine Souls 🕉It's Friday morning and we thank God the bles. Divine souls namaste.

Apart from the boss battles, Jotun doesn’t have much to offer because the other half of the experience is traversal, and traversal as a mechanic is not generally interesting. That proves to be the case here.

The levels in Jotun are a little convoluted so getting to the end isn’t as simple as walking in a straight line — one has Thora sliding on tree roots, another has her pushing from island to island on a raft, and so on — but they’re essentially empty. She’s just hoofing it from point A to point B to collect a few things that open the path to the next boss.

Apart from being boring, these levels are annoying because the map doesn’t show the player’s position, and it’s easy to lose track of Thora’s current location. There’s also precious little combat, and what’s there is can be easily avoided. At one point I met some mean-looking giants throwing rocks and I braced for a scrap, but rather than being challenged, I simply walked around them and moved on – they looked foreboding, but they might as well have been cardboard standees.

Unfortunately, around the campaign’s halfway point I became too bored to continue and I wanted to jump over to the boss rush mode – according to the press release, it’s the new add enhancing the Valhalla Edition. Unfortunately, it’s not available from the start and (I assume?) is only accessed after beating the game. It’s a shame because I would’ve enjoyed going through all the bosses at least once, but getting through the core content was not desirable.

I like the concept of Jotun very much — a female Norse warrior, gigantic bosses, and a not-often-seen flavor of fantasy are all great elements, but there’s not enough to the experience and what is here isn’t very good. The team at Thunder Lotus is on the right track, but I hope their next effort focuses on adding more depth and intricacy to their work. Rating: 5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Thunder Lotus Games. It is currently available on PS4, XBO, WiiU. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 3 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Violence. The game has a fairly cartoonish look to it, and there’s no blood or gore although some of the bosses are somewhat imposing. I’d say it’s safe for little ones to look on.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no audi cues needed for play and the dialogue is subtitled. It’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Brad Gallaway

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Despite containing a number of intriguing stories and relationships, Norse mythology hasn’t gotten a lot of use in video games. For those with an appreciation for the thematic concepts it brings, Jotun: Valhalla Edition’s appeal is immediately apparent.

In contrast, Valhalla, Thor, Odin and the like are not unfamiliar names to the average person, but the details of the more obscure creatures in the game will likely be foreign.Jotun begins with a short intro sequence, detailing the death and potential redemption of the protagonist Thora. The player is then given control in a very direct and simple hub world with a clear goal in mind: Impress the gods by defeating Jotun in order to be permitted into Valhalla.The gorgeous art in Jotun is without a doubt the highlight of the entire game. It does an excellent job of drawing you into the world and is further complimented by very smooth animation.

This is an advertisement for hand-drawn art in video games that manages to look just as good in motion as it does as a static background. The entire package has excellent composition with a great use of color and variety that makes an otherwise stale environmental design intriguing. While the sound design itself is nothing to write home about, its prominence in the game is well-established. The music ebbs and flows at appropriate moments and really works to highlight a contrasted sense of tranquility with intense moments. From a general artistic standpoint, Jotun succeeds from start-to-finish.The controls are very simplistic, with Thora’s actions limited to light and heavy attacks, dodge rolling and god powers, which can be acquired throughout the game’s exploration sections. Everything here is mechanically sound, but it does little to make the core gameplay truly entertaining.

Your motivation for moving further is not to experience another great gameplay sequence, but to simply see more wonderfully constructed artwork in the background. This is a perfect example of tried-and-true gameplay design with no notable faults, yet absolutely no innovation. If your engagement in the visual brilliance of Jotun fades, so too will you motivation to continue playing it.Jotun consists of two primary sections that can be initiated via the hub world: exploration and boss fights. The exploration levels are prerequisites to the Jotun fights and do a good job of being varied in theme with a handful of alternate routes. Some may involve taking cover during a snowstorm, while others have a central creature which periodically attacks you as you progress throughout the level. Despite this variety, none of the exploration levels truly feel dangerous because the things that can kill you are always indirect – save for a single area.

While some of these segments still remain excellent, the typical exploration level feels more like a break from the action than it does an expansive world to discover.The boss fights with Jotun, however, are excellent. There is a fantastic sense of scale as the camera zooms out to give you a very real idea of just how miniscule Thora is compared to a Jotun. Every one of them is a goliath that has its own unique methods of attacking the player. Perhaps the most welcome element in the boss fights is that they mimic the exploration levels. This is Jotun’s most notable example of good game design, because the boss fights carry over elements from the prerequisite levels, ensuring that the player is not blindsided by new mechanics. While there aren’t a large number of Jotun to fight, none of them are forgettable.

After the defeat of each Jotun, you are returned to the hub world and are fed narrative exposition in the form of Thora’s backstory regarding her family, history and personal thoughts. It’s not a bad way to flesh out the character more, but the delivery of this effect has less impact than a playable section. As it is, you’re encouraged to just stand around reading subtitles that don’t really flow well with what’s on the screen. Only the introduction and ending provide proper cutscenes, so the in-game narrative segments feel rather disjointed by comparison.Upon completing the game, Valhalla mode unlocks and offers something of a boss rush mode with more difficult variants of the existing Jotun. Blade and sword 2019. The base game is fairly easy and relatively short, so this mode is a welcome way to get more out of the already memorable boss fights.

I always appreciate it when the most enjoyable part of a game is isolated so the player can experience it again without any fluff in the middle.Jotun: Valhalla Edition feels like the product of ambitious artists and sound designers who had a vision for their world and executed it nigh-flawlessly. Unfortunately, this simply serves to drive home just how mundane the gameplay is. In essence, Jotun as a video game feels more like a vehicle to deliver the artistic talents of its developers. Every element is passable, but the memorable moments all come from artistic achievements, not strong gameplay design.