Game #1144: Viking - Battle for Asgard

 An ax to grind.

 My quest to find Action games I might've ignored continues with Viking: Battle for Asgard. From the same developer that made Spartan: Total Warrior, Viking is a very different beast, even if it shares a few elements and ideas.

 The game is divided into three acts, and in each you are thrown into a different Island. Each Island has a set of objectives you can complete in any order, with a few exceptions, before you can tackle a siege of an enemy base. The game has a very simple formula: Find encampments to liberate your fellow Vikings from the evil Legion, awaken a Dragon to help you, a boring stealth-section in which you must retrieve something from the base you will siege later, etc. Everything translates into hacking and lashing a ton of baddies. At times it does feel a bit repetitive, but I'd say that I enjoyed the gameplay loop for the most part. It reminded me of indie titles in which you are just thrown into the game's world, 'Go, complete these tasks' and you just go about them. It's simple, it's formulaic, but it also feels cozy.

 Sieges, on the other hand, were rather bland. These always play out the same "Kill the 2 shamans", and then the siege goes onto the next step.... kill the next set of shamans. And so on until you are told to capture the enemy portal. You get unlimited respawns as long as your own shamans are alive, and while the scale of these battles is rather impressive, as there are hundreds upon hundreds of allies and enemies, the framerate tanks. Hard. Sieges should've been the ultimate reward for completing every objective, something to look forward to.... but I felt like they were some form of punishment instead, as they were so boring.

 Combat is a bit janky, but it's not awful. You have a weak and strong attack, landing hits builds your Rage stocks which can be used for special moves. Defeating enemies, or using a finisher before they keel over dead, rewards you with Rune energy, which you can use to imbue your sword with Fire, Ice or Thunder. Every element is basically the same, but Thunder and Ice were the most useful, the former kills most weak enemies in a single hit, the other one in two. The lock on is pathetic, as it's more of a strafe, and the dodging is pathetic. Here's lies the problem: Items are used by holding down R1 and pressing a face button, Rune magic is toggled on(And can't be turned off, so it must run out) by holding down R2 and pressing a face button, special moves are triggered by holding down L1 and pressing a face button... but dodging is done by pressing L2+Triangle. It's super confusing, because L2 is the lock on and it's worthless, but even worse, the dodge is the most pathetic back-step you've ever seen.

 Backstep aside, the combat is serviceable. It's not the most fun you'll ever have, but it gets the job done. I wasn't too keen on the QTEs to kill most bosses and mini-bosses, however. But what's worse, activating stuff, even just opening a locked door, requires mashing on the circle button, which was a bit annoying. I mean, why must I smash the button just to use a goddamn key?

 I enjoyed most of my time with Viking: Battle for Asgard, but make no mistake, the game is not a diamond in the rough or an obscure gem as it's missing quite a bit of depth and polish, but for as many shortcomings as it's got there was a certain charm to its design that made it enjoyable.

 6.0