Pixel Chest, the dev of Sons of Valhalla, has been kind enough to give the Indie Skunk access to the beta version of their game. It is now on Kickstarter.
Its Stinkiness has of course other things to do and brother Tagonius is “really busy” with Twitter, so yours truly has spent a “few” hours playing the game.
Spoiler alert: I was VERY hooked.
Warriors of the North—The story
While he was probably doing the same somewhere else, Thorald Olavson’s village is pillaged and burned to the ground by another viking, Valgard Varinsson. To add insult to injury Valgard also kidnaps Raija, Thorald’s love.
Thorald (our character) learns that Valgard is in England and sets sail. Only his ship is wrecked by a storm as he approaches the coast. Thorald and a few men make it to the shore, but they have lost all their supplies.
Therefore the vikings will have to pillage and plunder in order to rebuild their army and hunt Valgard down.
The Way of Vikings—The gameplay
We start the game with a couple of warriors and an empty settlement. So we need to decide which buildings to prioritize, in the tradition of RTS games. Each building provides us with a different kind of resource, which we will use to build and upgrade units and other buildings.
Yes, I just mansplained to you how this kind of game works. In my defense I will say that someone skunksplained it to me before.
The goal is, of course, to create an army in order to advance through the map (and the plot). The first map, the one included in the game’s beta, has two enemy settlements that we must conquer. Between each of these villages (including ours) there is a flag which, if we control, will help us to generate resources more quickly.
As for the units that we can choose for our army, there are two types of foot soldiers, two types of archers and three types of siege engines. The enemy will also try to pillage our villages. And their settlements have walls too, so it’s up to the player to study their defenses and plan accordingly.
We will control all this through Thorald Olavson, of course. This is one of the most satisfying parts of the game.
We can fight, alone or next to our men. Thorald has his own health and stamina bars, three types of attacks and he can dodge and block. This will be specially useful when we face the boss that awaits us at the end of the map. And when we die. I will not spoil why.
And we can give orders to our units, tell them to follow us, to hold a position, to retreat, to charge with us and even to make a shield wall.
There is also a nice RPG touch to the game. We can find runes that we can exchange for new skills and improvements, not only for Thorald but for our minions (I personally resent this, the Indie Skunk would never ever spent a skill point on us) and the economy of our settlements.
Rain before seven, fine by eleven—The atmosphere
Last but not least, the atmosphere of Sons of Valhalla is impressive.
Besides the beautiful pixel art, a 24h day & night cycle and dynamic weather (the fog is the favourite of this minion), together with the game’s soundtrack and sound design, make the gameplay very engaging and the world a pleasure to look at. The voice acting, in the parts of the game where it is implemented, is also on point.
To the victor go the spoils—Opinion rhymes with minion
Since we are sharing this review with you, beloved follower of the Indie Skunk, we obviously recommend this game.
The hours that this minion spent on Sons of Valhalla were extremely satisfying. I am not really into RTS games (my Master felt the need to explain to me how they work after all) but I enjoyed this one a lot.
The resources management part is easy to follow and allows you to adapt your choices to your game style (you don’t have to build and/or upgrade every single building and unit in order to succeed) and the combat parts are a lot of fun. The battles feel chaotic and brutal, as they should.
To finish this review, this minion would like to remind you that Sons of Valhalla is now live on Kickstarter. I put the Indie Skunk’s money where my mouth is (yep, we don’t get paid so I borrowed Its credit card) and will be supporting the devs.
I definitely want to play the best possible version of this game.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more skunksplaining and petty theft. Also for more reviews of the most amazing indie games.
Hail the Indie Skunk!