I really wanted to like this game and I did for quite a while but in the end, it's just not doing it for me.

After steamrolling through the entire game with 1H and shield, the last "level" or "raid" is nearly unbeatable -- mobs that hit for 1k *THROUGH* over 1200 armor, 30%block, etc? What the hell happens to the other four paths that don't get a shield? One-shot?

Speaking of which, having five distinct weapon choices is great ... except that by the "end" I hadn't even gotten enough "gift points" from leveling to max out my main weapon abilities. I shudder to think how bad things would be if you diversified (since you can quick-swap between two weapons.) Totally a design trap.

The UI is iffy at times. Others have reported issues (dialogs sticking, entire UI going non-responsive, etc.) but my biggest complaint is post-2.0 patch, the "targetting" is awful. It's click-move and click-attack which isn't anything new but once you get five giants / golems running around, their hit-boxes are so large there's no easy way to click OFF one of them to get clear. Because in this game, facing matters -- so once you're surrounded, it's incredibly difficult to get away unless you have a useful gift off CD.

And ... yeah I could go on but why. It's got a ton of good things but nothing great or amazing. It's pretty but it's also clunky. It's totally middle of the road for me.

But given that this latest patch unbalanced everything -- that's 49% good and 51% bad. /shrug

A good diablo-like, but well, a diablo-like. Upgrade your stuff, kill, upgrade your stuff more. It's undeniably fun for quite a while (and plays pretty damn well with pad), despite the main character having the personality of a stone and the same charisma, but then after several hours you start to ask yourself "why am I doing this?". The loot is not supremely satisfactory, the enemies start to become similar version of the same ones you met but with different colors, so the same-y-ness feeling grows. I could never finish, but i enjoyed the time i spent on it, so despite it being no masterpiece, it gets a solid 70/100 for the 12-13h or fun i got.

TL:DR:

Unconventional at times, fun in the beginning. Turns out shallow, short and not thought through.

5/10


CONS:

Story feels typical at the final stages even prolonged. Leaves bad taste. No end-game content whatsoever. Don't tell me about new game plus, because it is ridiculous.

Crafting and loot is just appaling. There are few artifacts in the game that you will eventually get when you finish story. No randomity in here. And of course no trade system in co-op.

And bugs. Bugs everywhere. Unable to exit inventory. Some NPC got 'no confirmation' sell option, some don't. Issue with connecting for online play. Characters get stuck in textures. Some debuffs get stuck and slowly kill characters.

PROS:

Levelling system is a breath of fresh air. It's intertwined with weapon of choice.

Cool way of gathering experience, by collecting blood 'bubbles' after fights.

Challenges on every map.

Items bought at NPC might be actually useful at times.

Score: 5/10

I've been playing this game on and off for quite a while now so I thought why not write a review:

Visuals:
+ beautiful handcrafted maps with multiple points of interest
+ multiple environments from northern forests, to sandy beaches, lava castles and medieval villages
+ enemies often have different skins depending on their environment
+ great lighting and shaders
+ particle effects aren't as over the top as in most other H&S games (I'm looking at you Diablo III)
- The camera is a little too close to the character
- Some areas, especially in the lategame, look considerably worse than others
- Sometimes the scaling is off, making some buildings/objects look too small in comparison to your character
- The UI (especially the XP bar) can be unnecessary hard to read a t times
- very limited amount of player outfits, no transmogrification option

Sound:
+ Absolutely fantastic mix of Viking themed Folkmusic and Rock
+ Extensive ambient sound library
- Incredibly cheesy dialogue with fluctuating quality in terms of voiceacting

Leveldesign:
+ Seamless transition between open areas, dungeons and villages
+ many destructible objects that can drop building and crafting materials
+ fair placement of healing wells and checkpoints
+ challenging bossfights at the end of every level
+ interesting exposure mechanic that adds a strategic component to traversing through the levels
+ hidden items and areas
- no randomization in terms of enemy placement/terrain making every walkthrough basically the same
- inconsistent difficulty (the first level is one of the hardest)
- bonus objectives are pretty unimaginative and often unnecessarily hard to find
- puzzles are too easy and unimaginative

Items and Crafting:
+ Every Item drops with random stats, even if you buy them in town
+ Upgrading buildings results in a larger variety of crafteable items
+ Gear can be upgraded with runes
- The most powerful items are not randomized and always drop in the same locations, taking away every incentive to grind for gear
- Items mostly upgrade stats like speed, dmg, health, etc but they don't add any special effects or interesting gameplay mechanics
- Loot does come in tiers which means that every time you upgrade the smithy or armory you basically want to re-craft your entire gear since the "new stuff" is almost always better than what you have found before, once again taking away the joy of grinding for better gear

Classes, Skills and Attributes:
+ It's possible to pick two classes at once and switch in between these classes by switching weapons
+ Most skills are incredibly fun to use and get bonus effects when levelling them up
+ Spells synergize well with each other no matter which character you play
+ By using a trinket the player can acquire an additional special skill for their character
- Incredibly small number of skills
- The skilltree doesn't allow you to chose IF you want to level ability X but only WHEN you want to level ability X
- Switching between character classes doesn't offer any advantages which makes the whole dual class system useless
- attribute points don't influence the game in a meaningful way

Combat:
+ fast paced combat that requires you to skillfully dodge enemy attacks and evade enemy spells and projectiles. A good player is able to avoid almost all damage making succesful fights extremely rewarding
+ Enemies are highly agile, have different attack patterns and can often cast multiple unique spells and special attacks. However, pretty much every attack can be dodged or countered. This leads to incredibly interesting fights where the player has to keep track of everything that's going on around them and react accordingly
+ Hands down the best and most challenging boss fights I have ever seen in a game like this (isometric H&S that is). There are too many great boss fights in Vikings to list them all but already the very first boss you encounter is better than most bosses in other games of this genre
+ the rage mechanic lets you go into a berserk mode that increases you speed/dmg/xp, etc... depending on your character and skills. This is not only very fun to use but can sometimes be a real game-changer in sticky situations

Verdict:
Whether you'll like "Vikings" or not depends mostly on what you expect this game to be like. If you are looking for a game like Diablo that focuses on finding loot and perfecting your build over hundreds of hours of playtime then you'll be disappointing. The game only offers very limited options to customize your character so if you're interested in that then you better look elsewhere. However, if you are simply interested in challenging and fun fights in a beautifully crafted viking setting then I highly recommend you check out this game. Even though you probably won't play through this games more than 2 or 3 times a single playthrough takes about 20 hours so the game is certainly worth its money, especially if you buy it on sale.

My brother and I are constantly looking for ARPGs that are similar to Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath.
First we thought, with Vikings we found another title that lets us relive the old Playstation local coop hack 'n slash times.
Except for the nice graphics, Vikings dissappoints in the following points very badly:

- there is almost no loot motivation in this game. You can play through several levels, without having one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ new item in your inventory.
- once you killed the end boss of a level, the level immediately finished and brings you back to the village, even though there would be loot laying around waiting to be picked up. this is just reaaaally frustrating and destroys the whole idea of motivation through looting.
- game mechanics are just bad: no chance of dynamic fast hack 'n slash gaming. Controls are dull and slow, if you start an attack you have to wait until it finished in order to start a new attack.
- controlling the player through the level is just annoying, since you get stuck all the time everywhere. i'm just thinking about grim dawn, where you can point in a direction and the player automatically finds the right way, almost never getting stuck.
- everytime you load your local coop game, player two has lost all his wood, iron, gold and jotunjarn, only the experience and the inventory items remain. this bug is known for a long time, the developers just don't care anymore to fix it.
- there are a lot of bugs where things in the game just dont work.for example some collectable blood (collecting blood equals experience and leveling up in the game) floats high above players, impossible to reach.
- there are some levels, where you have to run from savearea to savearea in order to stay alive. at first (especially in the snow levels) this was a lot of fun and made sense, to warm yourself at a fire to not freeze to death. but this idea is used throughout the entire game, taking away a lot of fun dynamic local coop gaming.
- we stopped playing the game when there was a storyline bug, where we should have recieved a quest item in order to upgrade a ship, but we didn't recieve it. so we couldn't continue. this bug is known since march 2017, the developers never fixed it.
- the user interface, how to equip weapons or selling them is just... the worst we have ever seen. it is so sluggish and annoying and cumbersome, it takes away all the joy of equipping items.
- only one player at a time can open his inventory, the other player always has to wait. this goes for all the interactions in the game.
- only player one can interact and do quest actions, such as opening doors, travelling to other places etc.

Overall, level details and graphics are the only things worth mentioning positive for that game. the rest ist just total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Action RPGs are like pizza. Bear with me here.

Most of the time, when you want pizza you want to order it from that really good place across town with the perfect dough. But sometimes you order from the average place nearby because of a special. Sometimes you get a mediocre chain restaurant party pizza at work. Sometimes you grab a slice from the place around the corner even though it's terrible. None of these pizzas are as good as pizza can be, but even when you're eating mediocre pizza... you still get to eat pizza. Right?

Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is like the frozen pizza you drag out because you forgot to make dinner. There are much better pizza options out there, but I still ate almost 14 hours of empty pizza calories. Did I enjoy it? Sure. Did it give me a stomach-ache? Yes. Do I feel good about it later? Not really.

What I'm trying to get at here through the hunger is that the core gameplay recipe first cooked up by Blizzard North in Diablo 1 is so good and so much fun that a worse game can borrow the mechanics, throw on a few toppings, then release their own variety and it will still be fun. Clicking on things and watching them explode into blood and swords and pants is fun and will always be fun. Vikings has that. Therefore, Vikings is fun QED QED QED.

Some of the introduced toppings are interesting. There's an increased focus on dodging incorporated by the inclusion of the console-only rolling stick from Diablo 3, where you need to be constantly somersaulting around for an opening. There's also mechanics like cold exposure and combo-counts, that reward reckless play in a genre that often feels too easy. This can also fall flat, though—if you treat exposure like a time limit to get to the next campfire it's thrilling, but if you treat it like a timer to reset by backtracking it's tedium. There's also something to be said about the loose story, which is mostly an excuse for your character to amusingly scream about how much she likes killing things, and the way all the scenery explodes in bursts of pleasing physics.

But there are also stumbles. For starters, definitely play with a controller—despite the genre history, mouse and keyboard is frustrating to control and dodge, and your character often won't move forwards because they're targeting some rock or hidden enemy—the controller won't fix everything, because skills still felt pretty unresponsive, but it helps. There's also a weirdly hamstrung skill system where both actives and passives in each tree are restricted to a single weapon category. I often had more skill points to spend than skills to buy, but there's zero point in branching out because nothing carries over to your primary weapon—it's a bizarre limitation that takes away a lot of the character customization crucial to action RPGs. And the story, which I never said was good, runs around in circles way too often. Maps see a bit of re-use, as do missions—the fourth time Vikings' she-Deckard told me to butcher through the giant armies to seek an alliance with their queen, who always says no and also swears revenge, I was kinda done.

So what I'm saying here is Vikings isn't a very good or exciting pizza. It might be better with friends, it might tide you over when you need it, but it's hard to recommend. You could order from a new, different pizza place, or stick to grinding out paragon levels in your old favourite pizza place. But with all that said, if you decide to pick up Vikings... it's still pizza, and you still get to eat it, and it still tastes good in the moment.

I have really tried to give this game the benefit of the doubt and play further before a review that might be unfair, but I simply cannot tolerate it anymore. This game is WAY overpriced for what you get, and is worth only $10 when NOT on sale in my opinion.

The best way to sum up this game is mediocre. The story is truly pathetic, if you can call it a story at all, and the writing and dialogue are hands down the worst I have ever seen in a game that isn't TRYING to be BBB rated. The story is 100% linear in every way, there is no exploration of any kind (unless you consider opening up every nook on a small map exploring), and every mission is exactly the same. There isn't truly a world map, as you are always going on what they call "raids" into small maps that you port to. These maps are small, uninspired, terrible to repeat, and are not connected. You will have to find several of a few types of items to get resources to upgrade the armorsmith, weaponsmith, etc. in your town. Note, this cannot happen when you want since you must play through certain missions to get the required materials, and they force you to upgrade different buildings in a certain order. You have to try and kill multiple enemies/monsters simultaneously to get the most "blood" (which is gathered in order to make a sacrifice and level), and you will simply clear a map, open a certain number of treasure chests to ensure you get all of that map's resources, and then kill a final boss that may or may not be difficult. Regardless of how difficult you find it, you will be doing NOTHING but buttom smashing and roll dodging (which usually doesn't prevent damage or enable a more powerful attack). You will repeat this exact scenario until you can no longer survive and attack because you must upgrade a building and make new armor and weapons. It is a predictable rhythm that is unoriginal at best, and tedious at worst.

But it gets worse. The maps offer environmental effects called exposure. Some examples of this are cold and poison areas that are on a timer. If you stay in the area past the timer on your bar you begin to take that type of damage. To prevent the damage you have to either get into a safe area, or stand near a fire until the timer runs back down. Now you might be thinking this is innnovative or something, but let me assure you it is not. What is does is basically add an element of annoyance. It does not increase difficulty, it does not increase reward, it does not require thinking or strategy; all it does is annoy you and cause you to have to do extra running back and forth in the same areas.

The music has its moments where it is decent, but many times it is either annoying or sounds like it was created in a high school student's garage. It does little for the atmosphere or mood, unless they were going for uninspired and annoying. Add to the music the fact that your character is rather obnoxious, and never shuts up with statements like, "You couldn't even touch me!" or "I cannot be defeated!" ad infinitum.

The graphics aren't bad, but they aren't revolutionary or any better than any other modern game of this type.

I just cannot find anything good to say about this game. I suppose that if you have played all games of this type, live for them, and need something new then you could try this, but if you play $39 for it you have been ripped off so be warned. I do NOT recommend this game.

I can kind of understand all the negative review about this game. To be honest at first I was disappointed too. I come here looking for something to satiate my thirst for Diablo-style games. This game didn't help. I tried it for a little bit and then give up, thinking it's a waste of time.

After a while I suddenly just want to find something fun to play, I take this game on with a new outlook and you know what? This game turns out to be AWESOME. Don't think of it as a failed Diablo, think of it as a BRIILIANT beat 'em up with Diablo POV and deep RPG progression system. Different weapon each with their own skilltre and builds, random loot for new equipments, forge system that you can upgrade for even better equipments and rune, big size maps with secrets and challenges and a dynamic combat system that really makes you fight your way around instead of just clicking Diablo-style.

The game is even better playing with friends or spouse, it really feels like a good old beat 'em up, only prettier and wayyyyy better. At least million times better than that pathetic Sacred 3 which is a plain beat 'em up trying to disguise itself (unsuccessful) as an RPG with a cheap story. And on that note Vikings's story is not bad itself.

If you don't like this game at first, try it again with a new outlook. Maybe you will find yourself a great fun game to play, like me ^^

Hello,

First of all, i hope that many of you surpass the sudden urge to downvote my review from the start just to prove to the others that this game isn't worthy to be bought and played.Please instead bear with my review and try to see the aspects that i think are important and easily shunned off by many of the players.

The most important thing that you should consider when buying/playing this game is the fact that this is not a triple A game, it's not a game made by one of the most known gaming companies (Valve, Blizzard, EA , Ubisoft, etc.) but it's a game that tries to enter the ARPG "land" that is currently "conquered" by the well known games such as Diablo,Grim Dawn,Path Of Exile, Torchlight and many other. For this particular reason i applaud Kalypso Media Digital for having the boldness to do so.

Some of the other reviewers refer to this game as a "Diablo" copy or as a *Insert similar game from the same genre here* copy. I do not think that is right. This game is indeed inspired by the Diablo series but not only.In my observations of this game, i believe that it's also inspired by but not limited to the Dark Soul series (the dodging system, the bossfigts,the punishment for wrong decisions,the blood system could be viewed as a equivalent of the Souls and a surrogate to the EXP system, etc.) and that alone makes this game quite special.

The developement part, as any other game, has indeed problems. Many of you expect the games that launch to be launched perfectly but seem to have a sudden lack of memory about other games, including Diablo, that launched with many flaws (including the infamous error 37).The fact that it has problems at launch shouldn't be a reason to discredit the developers/game. The main problems that i've personally encountered are UI issues such as overlaps (only when the resolution was somehow trying to be 21:9) Skill Electrive Mode (not present) Custom Graphic settings (not present but we can compare them to the early builds of the game where you only had Gamma as a setting) UI Scale settings (not present). On a personal note, i am sure that the game will receive updates in the future that will address this issues (Again, this is what i've noticed in my 6h gameplay so far)

One thing i am indeed "angry" about is the fact that since it launched, the game has received at least 3 updates (from what i recall) but a "Patch note" or any kind of info about what any of those update did was never posted. For this i ask the developers to keep the players informed about any change that is made on the LIVE version of the game as it helps the players understand what it's happening but also inform the people that are having troubles that their problem is fixed (in case of bugfixes of course)

To break it down in to the ol' PROS and CONS list here are what i consider the most important aspects of the game:

PROs :
-Gameplay (in my opinion unique)
-Exposure system
-City Management (upgrades,unlocks,etc.)
-Difficulty (quite challenging when playing at the highest difficulty but also very pleasent at the lower ones)
-Boss Fights
-Vikings and norse mythology
-Although made with primary ideea for consoles i think the K&M adaptation is quite good, you can see that best when switching to the controller and back the the K&M while in-game
-LAN mode for multiplayer ( many of the new games do not have this, but there are many cases where LAN can be very usefull)


CONs :
-Settings
-UI issues (such as 4 clicks to sell items)
-Patchnotes
-Although small, the grind for resources i think could be reduced


I will not make a "TL'DR" section for this review as i think that it's very important for the reader to understand my point of view so that he will understand my intention better.

Thank you!

The graphics are great, the animations smooth, the audio is good as well. But there are several things that make this game simply unenjoyable. Some of them are core design decisions, so not likely to ever change.

1) The mechanic of constantly freezing to death, and having to run from one firepit to another firepit to prevent dying is TERRIBLE for a ranged or mage class. This essentially forces you to either backtrack a ton (which is boring, repetative, and frustrating) or run head long into big groups of enemies. For a melee class, fine, but for ranged or magic class, this is obviously a major problm. This constant death meter at the bottom of the health bar also discourages exploration, discourages testing different playstyles, only creates frustration and boredom.

2) You cannot change difficulty. EVER. Often gamers have no idea how hard a game will be, and like to start out on hard, and maybe turn it down, or start out on normal and crank it up after realizing it's too easy. Sorry. You cannot change the difficulty at any time, whatsoever. The only thing you can do is wipe your entire character and start all over from scratch. How this made it out of alpha and into beta and then into a fully released game is simply astounding.

3) This game seems to me, at least at first, to be very heavily leaned toward a melee character. I chose a ranged bow character, and this did not work out well. After two full levels, and two entire game areas, I still have essentially zero ranged powers. The only power I have is a melee kick. For a ranged char. What? The only thing I can currently do is kick, and shoot a single arrow. Why a ranged character even has a "kick" ability to begin with and nothing else is very confusing. This is why I think the game basically really really really wants you to play as a melee fighter.