Was looking forward to this game but it's got no depth. Each stage is copy past with a new unit but you don't really care what it does since most of the time spamming units just does the work. it's tedious and repetitive. Really a shame.
Unfortunately the blandness and execution of the story does not help...

You can skip this one. It's so short I finished it in a few hours.

Finished it in 10 hours (with the new game + content), this game is a clone of Kingdom: Two Crowns with one major change in the gameplay: you can fight and you have to assault bases.

What it does well:
- Pixel Art is great
- Boss fights are interesting, although a bit too easy
- Shooting arrows and headshooting enemies is satisfying
- The runes are a nice mechanic

What it does not do well:
- Be a clone of Kingdom

See, the Kingdom concept is unique and its interest lies in the fact that you are always preparing to defend. Only towards the end game, you must start counter-attacking. In Sons of Valhalla, being the offender is more important than defending. In fact, you can probably play the whole game without being attacked once if you play aggressively. The other thing that I found wasnt done better than Kingdom was the building aspect; in Kingdom the fact that you can't build where you want is a fun part of the game, and forces you to expand sometimes in places faraway from your townhall, which often leads to some issues. In SoV, you always get the same layout for a base, which makes it a bit boring.

I recommend it because I think it's a fun experience, but as you may have noticed, I find Kingdom much better. if you can afford it, buy both, and play SoV first.

Very rarely do I find myself refunding a game, this is one of those times.

In its current state I cannot recommend this game. The controls are clunky and restricted, built with a controller in mind instead of a whole keyboard and with no options to make them feel any better. The balance is way off from anything that feels good to play, I found myself more than once wondering what the game even wanted from me in order to succeed.

Then you have the bugs, several times I found myself wondering why my men weren't attacking or following me, only to find that they were actually dead but visually still standing. But sometimes they were alive, and just not interested in any of my orders, standing still in a field getting murdered by enemies in melee range of them.

In its current state this is the most early access feeling game I have ever bought at a full release.

Played the game on launch. I'm a big fan of the kingdom series.
The pixel graphics look great, blood and fire in particular. The music is ok, although I have a feeling I would get tired of it after 10+ hours. The story is very simple and sadly completely unexciting.
First couple of hours of this game seems amazing - you have a bit more control over your troops than in Kingdom series, the idea of conquering villages on the map seems fun… till the point when you discover that on every map you have to do the same thing. Each village is the same, builds up the same, every camp has the same mercenaries. You conquer each part of the map in the same way that got boring after 4 hours. I got to map 3 just to see if there will be anything different and sadly I was very disappointed. Later in a game you get to experiment with different units but that's pretty much it. If you played this game for a couple of hours - you saw everything it has to offer.
Sadly, I was expecting more for 17$ game.

Huge Kingdom fan, and I thought "What could be more fun than Kingdom but with vikings?". This didn't turn out to be as fun as I had anticipated tho. Some reviews say the combat is pretty clunky and there's no real opportunity to work on your build and strategy, but you can kinda get used to it (in a way). What made me quit was the transition to the second stage.
Basically, when you get to the second stage (and i'm assuming this applies to every other stage), you have to start over. Like, I know you sorta have to do that in Kingdom as well. In this game, however, you don't keep any upgrades, nor do you keep your soldiers. It's basically like the start of the game all over again, except the enemies are waaaay more tough. Oh, yeah you keep your runes but that doesn't really cut it. I got absolutely obliterated a few minutes after getting into the second stage. Some might say this is a skill issue (no doubt), but I don't think it's a really fun way to play.

As someone who has been hoping for people to start iterating on the Kingdom core concept for years, Sons of Valhalla is really delivering. The combat is much expanded upon here and there is an actual campaign with a story to play through. I'm really loving it so far. Will post more when I get further in!

Had this game on my wishlist for a good amount of time.
Bought it instantly on release and was hyped.
Damn, i was in for a big disappointment.

Lets say - the first 1 hour was nice. But you already sensed what would happen next... complete repetitive gameplay.
- "Basebuilding" and resource management are a joke. Its done in 2 clicks basically.
- Each mission feels and plays exactly like the mission before, only the bosses and the "theme" of the map changes.
- units are very underwhelming, you can basically solo-fight the whole game with your hero.
- game lacks complexity
- story is very simple and underhwelming.
- game is VERY short. as you can see, i played the game 7 hours and I already finished campain.
Honestly, i got bored after the second mission but hoped it would improve, so i played till the end, without much joy.

Everything the game starts in good faith gets ruined, because its not thought-out till the end

It feels like someone came up with a great game idea and nobody bothered to finish it or bring it to the next level.
very sad.
Which leads me to the classic cope-sentence:
"this game had potential"

I played the entire game in ten hours. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't spend money on it. I hoped it would be a more complex version of the Kingdom series of games, since I love strategy builders. But Sons of Valhalla is more of a 2D action arcade game. The building, command, and strategy aspects of the game are repetitious, and you can beat each level with the same strategy of catapults protected by you and a shield wall. On top of that, the campaign ending is a cliff hanger, setting up a sequel, which I found unsatisfying. Seeing the end of the story is probably the only reason I finished the end of the game.

Buy it if you like 2D action arcade games. Otherwise, skip it.

First hour was fun but then you realize it's super shallow and repetitive. There isn't much in here. If you have low expectation and want to try something new for a few minutes go for it otherwise stay away.

not in the current state of the game.
its absolutely repetetive, doing the same stuff over and over again on a couple of islands.
and lots of waiting for material to upgrade your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ troops because you lose them on every island.