Sons of Valhalla is a small but entertaining project from a German indie studio, reminiscent of the Kingdom duology, but with its own nuances. Here we will live the story of the brave Thorald Olafson, to whom the All-Father himself granted immortality. So let’s drive the Valkyries away, Valhalla will wait.
- Developer: Pixel Chest
- Publisher: Hooded Horse
- Platforms: PC
- Release date: April 5, 2024
The Viking Thorald leaves a farewell letter to his brother and leaves by sea for England in order to catch up and bring to the sword the scoundrel Valgard, who burned his native village and kidnapped his beloved Reya. But his longships are caught in a severe storm and are wrecked.
Thorald awakens in Odin’s hall in Asgard. The merciful All-Father grants him a second life and gives him special runes that are designed to help the brave warrior on his path to vengeance. Now, until Thorald fulfills his destiny, Valhalla will remain unattainable for him – having died, Thorald will again find himself in the kingdom of the sires, but he will be able to set foot on the Bifrost and return to battle if he sacrifices one of the runes to the gods.
Like Kingdom, Sons of Valhalla features charming pixel art and a side-scrolling style that blends side-scroller and resource-gathering survival strategy genres, but Pixel Chest adds 2D slasher elements to the formula, forcing the player to become much more involved in the action as it unfolds on the field. abuse.
Unlike the protagonists of Kingdom, Torvald can roll, deliver quick cutting and powerful attacks with a blade, use throwing weapons and a shield, which he can use to protect himself and his charges, including from arrows, if he lifts it above his head.
Attacks and defenses quickly drain his stamina, which is regenerated mockingly slowly. For this reason, Torvald always has a small supply of food and honey with him, so that he can gain strength and lick his wounds right in battle. This resource is limited, but a Viking can always replenish its reserves for free in one of the camps.
The above runes are an element borrowed by the developers from rogue-like projects. There are five sections on Torvald’s wide belt, each of which contains six slots for enhancing the hero and his army of runes.
Runes can be found in chests, they drop from special enemies and sometimes from regular ones. Depending on the quality, these runes can strengthen certain units, give bonuses to everyone at once, or improve the quality of buildings. And the epic runes found on the altars of the gods will reward Torvald with new abilities.
The player starts on the left side of the location and must fight his way to the boss of the level, waiting for him on the right side, along the way disarming and capturing enemy outposts, appropriating farms, villages and other objects on the two-dimensional map.
At outposts and in his own camp, Thorvald can spend resources to improve the Mead Hall, build lumberjack and fishermen’s huts, and build barracks and shooting ranges to hire warriors and archers, respectively.
The larger the camp becomes, the more structures it will accommodate. And if at first there is enough space to install in all available structures and no longer worry about construction, then in the future one camp for all structures will no longer be enough and you will have to choose what is more important to you at this stage – a forge with powerful improvements for the hero or a shaman healer and Molotov ___tails.
The number of warriors available for hire is also very limited, but grows as your possessions expand. And here again you will have to think about how many archers to hire and how many swordsmen to leave room for siege weapons. Do you need a catapult for a long siege or is it better to take the enemy camp with a rush by building a ram.
By improving buildings, you open up new opportunities for upgrading your brothers in arms and Torvald himself, and also increase the efficiency of resource extraction. With some money, you can equip warriors with shields and archers with fire arrows. Newly recruited Vikings will be equipped with upgrades and will change appearance accordingly.
When commanding an army, Torvald can give quick orders to the soldiers. For example, follow him or go on the attack, hold a position or build a shield wall. It is noteworthy that you can command both all units at once, and their individual types. Units are divided into melee fighters, marksmen, siege weapons and mercenaries.
Using these simple but functional commands, the player is free to build tactics depending on the state of affairs on the battlefield. For example, fire at fortifications using a catapult, protecting the weapon with melee fighters, or take cover with shield bearers from a hail of arrows while your archers deal with the British rangers entrenched on the towers. Sometimes you can “tank” yourself to protect your squad from particularly dangerous opponents.
It is very difficult to storm even the most ordinary villages. The defenders, for example, may also have a catapult in their yard, the hit of a stone from which can kill your entire squad at once or finish off your hero, and for resurrection you will have to sacrifice one of the runes.
Carrying out raids, little by little destroying the enemy’s fences, and then returning to replenish your strength and army, is also not always a successful strategy – the enemy will also hire soldiers and slowly repair buildings in your absence. Your attacks should be measured, decisive, and as careful as possible. In any case, at a difficulty level higher than walking.
But, having captured a village, you open up access to trading resources and recruiting special, very durable units, among which there is an excellent field doctor, an arsonist with area damage, a hunter who shoots enemies with a bow as if from a machine gun, and others.
At the end of the level, the player will have to defeat the boss in a one-on-one battle, which will deal decent damage and change phases. This is where you realize why it was necessary to pump up consumables that restore health and stamina and purchase various projectiles.
To keep players interested, after defeating the boss, Sons of Valhalla offers to continue their journey around the island. In search of his beloved, Torvald will have to defeat four more bosses, revealing new types of units, buildings and improvements on the maps.
For my taste, Sons of Valhalla turned out to be even more exciting in some ways than Kingdom. There is moderate action, well-balanced difficulty, a nice set of upgrades and units, and the picture doesn’t disappoint. Just what you need for a couple of weekday evenings, when you don’t really want to delve into more complex projects.
However, the game is not without its shortcomings. The same sieges sometimes last painfully long, there is no interface that would allow you to quickly assess what type of units and in what quantity you have already hired, and non-critical bugs are also quite common.
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