When I first saw this game, I thought it would be a lot of fun: massive battles, chopping up minions, being a big damn nordic hero. I wasn't entirely wrong, but I wasn't right either. Viking: Battle for Asgard is a 3rd person hack and slash action adventure game. You play as Skarin, a Viking warrior blessed by Freya, tasked with saving Midgard (yet it's called battle for Asgard..). It takes place on 3 different islands of various sizes. It contains zero notable RPG elements, no loot, no stats, and no detailed information at all. You buy skills (moves) before really knowing much about it, you buy upgrades but don't really know how it differs from the previous one, besides it's better. It is straight forward and fairly linear. Occasionally you have multiple tasks that can be completed in any order, but they all must be completed before progressing to the next area so there really is no choice involved.

There are also some strange stealth sections that just feel thrown in. Maybe they were trying to break up the hack and slash monotony, which is successful, but because it varies so much from the rest of the gameplay, you really never feel equipped correctly to do them. Those sections feel very out of place, especially when they also have a collecting bit thrown in to them (for a few achievements only) but are never explained whatsoever as to why you would be collecting the things in the first place unless you read the achievements ahead of time. You may stumble across one of the skulls, but would never know what the heck you had collected unless you read the achievements. Just seems poorly implemented.

Aside from those skulls, there really aren't any secrets to be found. I like to thoroughly explore areas looking for hidden objects or areas, but there are none to be found. You may occassionally come across a random sack of gold or chest (which only contain gold or a quest item), but that's about it. Because of this, there doesn't feel like much of a reason to explore (even when you're on a rather linear path).

Visuals: Because this is a console port from Xbox 360/PS3, its graphics are similar to that generation of game. As with a lot of ports, the game is very poorly optimized for PC. It lags pretty noticibly in large battles, it has no Field of View slider, very few graphics options, and the FPS is locked at 30. There is a guide on Steam that will help get the game looking better, but it still cannot unlock the FPS but will change the FOV. Before changing it, there were times when moving the camera made my eyes hurt but even then, turning the camera seemed to blur the screen in a nauseating manner.

All that said, I enjoyed the visuals. There were times when things looked really impressive, scenery looked gorgeous, and combat felt visceral. I think the Creative Assembly did a great job crafting a believable world. It felt consistant and nothing really felt out of place. Small details like fences looked like they really tried to make it fit and appear to belong there. Area layouts made sense.

One of the worst things to me were the animations. Some were just straight strange (dragon summoning looks like your character just collapses and goes ragdoll) and others were just lazy. Every time you fight a Giant, the 3 different Quick Time Events are animated exactly the same, every single time. The first time you see it, you think, wow, that's pretty cool; But after seeing the same thing 9 times, it gets boring and you're just waiting for it to end. Even the dismemberment kills start to get boring after a while as there only appears to be 5 or so different variations.

I think had they actually put in effort on optimization and unlocking the FPS; This game would have been recieved much better on PC.

Controls: I played it with a wireless Xbox 360 controller and it felt pretty good. I did not try it with keyboard/mouse at all so I cannot say how those were, but right when you load up the game, it specifically says it was designed for a controller. The controls are rather simple to understand and build slowly in complexity. The combat does get rather repetative as you end up using the same few moves as you progress. As mentioned above, the game has Quick Time Events when fighting tough enemies. They're not particulary hard the first time you do them, and then shift into mind numbingly easy as you progress because the pattern does not change. There's only one kill animation for giants, so there's only one pattern to use every time you kill one. It's repetative and lacks any excitement.

As mentioned above the camera was a problem. It seemed to have a habit of working against you any chance it got, allowing for a sword to your backside. Targeting was also rather strange and likes to work against you. Targeting in Viking seems to rely on auto locking on the target nearest to you, that's fine except when you're getting attacked from multiple sides and are trying to attack a specific enemy before they stike you, only to lunge at a different enemy and get hit multiple times in the back. What makes it worse is that even though you are swinging a sword and axe, you can only seem to hit one target at a time (unless using a special attack). Sure, your swing may go through multiple enemies (especially when they're clipping inside one another) but the same will only register a hit on one, which one can be hard to determine ahead of time.

All said, I still recommend the game but not at full price. If it's under $5 and you like action adventure, hack and slash, or vikings, it's worth it. It's fun enough, the achievements are quite achieveable, and has a run time of 15-20 hours. There are worse ways to spend a weekend. 6/10

Hopefully it's worth 0.00$ that I spent on it.

PS: Recommend the game, but 30 fps cap ruins the some of the game.

Nobody will read my review so I Will Eat 1 Tablespoon of ketchup For Every Like this gets.

Game is very, very repetitive, but its also (very) enjoyable if you are into hack and slashy games, with gore. The game is open world, in segments. The lack of sprinting ability, or even mounts can hurt a bit if you are going from point A to point B.

One of my pet peeves in most games are QTE's. This game has this aspect for finish kills, which is enjoyable to do. excessive use of QTE in this game will annoy the average player, giving that later in the game you are expected to use it, if you want to defeat a enemy completely.

The open large scale battle is a nice tough and a site to see, especially when you don't see that often in many games. You can tell this game took ques from the Total War series, which you'll have a very basic, really basic sample of RTS in the climatic large scale battle parts of the game. The decision making in this game has no major consequences, if any at all.

Graphics is very, very dated. At times you'll feel like you're looking at a Xbox (original Xbox) game in high-res. I could ramble on and on about this game, but ill cut it short.

I enjoyed the game, enjoyed the combat but the story still had me either confused or feeling in a ho-hum-i don't care kind of mood. Play it for the combat and be ready to nitpick its lack of features you can find in other games.

Note: A controller is a must if you want to fully enjoy the game

Is this a good game? No. It's...pretty mediocre. Sometimes it's just bad. But is it a fun game? You better believe it is.

Viking: Battle of Asgard is essentially a much, much lower quality version of God of War 2018. You fight demons, deal with petty Norse gods, hang out with the odd dragon, and brutalize your enemies with sweet combos, turning them into little more than boneless piles of gore. Sure, it's repetitive, but most hack n' slash games are, and this one even has a little bit (A LITTLE BIT) of strategy to it, during certain battles. If nothing else, it's worth it just to lead a massive army of vikings into battle against an equally massive army of hellspawn. The story is basic, the protagonist is lame, and there isn't much reason to pay much attention to any of the characters, because there's maybe a half dozen character models in this game, and half as many voice actors.

But it's fun! Clefting hellspawn in twain has never been so satisfying.

There's a LOT of slow-mo killshots. I enjoy that sort of thing, but I understand that not everyone does.

There's also a few stealth sections that just aren't good at all. Do yourself a favor and learn all the stealth attacks at the arena before you try any of those missions.

Performance-wise, it's not great. I don't have a gaming PC, but I can handle games like Civ V and Killing Floor 2 pretty well on my system. Even then, I have to run Viking with the lowest graphics possible so that it runs at a decent 30 FPS. Playing with a keyboard is like playing COD with a Wii controller. Just don't do it. Use a controller.

It's a bad port of a mediocre game. I enjoy it because I loved it as a kid, and even then I knew it was far from perfect. But if you're into relentless hack n' slashing and can't afford the new God of War, pick this up on sale.

It's been years since I have had the option to play this. It still holds up and is just a really fun game that takes bits from all genres and puts them into a hybrid rpg action adventure. My only one complaint is the controls are pretty wonky (due to no lock on), otherwise you cant really go wrong with Viking: Battle for Asgard. Give it a chance, you wont be dissapointed.

update:

After 100% the game, there are a couple things I'll add.
There is a glitch on the second island that makes the game seem unplayable. You will know it when it happens... No hard reset needed though. Just pause, even during the bug, window the game and come right back into it. Very strange bug, but its more an annoyance (not game breaking) than anything. This also happened two times on the third island, still not a big deal.
If you are trying to 100% the game(everything is doable in one run) there is really only four missable ones and thats Skullbagger 1,2,3 and not starting the game in hard mode. Youtube it before you wage your first war campaign.
Viking is still as awesome as I remember all those years ago. Happy hunting.

My playtime: 22.3h (based on Steam, 100% achievement)
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (~30 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Midgard is dying. Hel is attacking the island. Skarin, a Viking that died in battle, was resurrected by Goddess Freya to heed her word and stop Hel's reign. Strangely, Viking: Battle for Asgard tells a story about how our hero saves Midgard, not Asgard. You'll liberate Vikings soldiers from Legions, Hel's spawns, to gain enough number for your army to liberate the islands.

Pros:
- 2 difficulties
- Unique war segments
- You can liberate the area in any order that you want
- A lot of skills to utilize

Cons:
- No sprint despite the very vast map
- Sometimes it's hard to know where to go next
- Camera rotation on battle disrupt one vs many battles
- Unable to cancel rune skills

Yes.
It's a tough choice to recommend this game. The only reason I'm recommending this game is because the game can be very cheap on discount, making the cons to be acceptable if you don't have a budget to buy more expensive games. Buy it when it's heavily discounted if you like hack-and-slash games with stealth mechanics and dragons.

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The game uses 3D models with a lot of foggy effects in the cutscenes to make it look more realistic. It doesn’t always work as intended though, especially at the beginning of the game since some scenes look blurry instead. Some portions of the story are also depicted in simplistic 2D scenes which capture the emotions and actions better than the 3D models.

It's hard to figure out what the story is. The game keeps on telling you about taking Midgard back from Hel's reign and someone's background a few times before the big battle. Some names are mentioned out of nowhere that I had no recollection of where it came from, especially near the end of the game. It took me some time to understand the ending because of how unclear it is, which I wasn't sure whether I interpreted it correctly or not.

Exploration
You have to explore the vast island to clear Hel's spawns, summon a dragon, and free imprisoned Viking soldiers on three different islands. Exploration can be done in any order as new objectives will be clearly shown on the map whenever you enter a new area. An exception is to be made on the third island since there's an objective that requires you to go to a different area to finish it, which is never mentioned in the objective description.

Unliberated lands will be dark, limiting your field of vision while giving off the spooky vibe. The scenery will then change to a brighter one after you liberate them. Although the first two islands have a colorful landscape, the third island is located in a snowy area, making some areas to be hard to see. Exploration in some caves also often becomes "hitting every wall to make sure you are not missing anything" because of how dark they are.

It's hard to see how to progress in some areas. Vine climbing and edge walking become vital to continue at some point although the game never informs the possibility. The placement of these spots also tends to be unclear, leaving you confused on how to proceed.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2290906547

Combat
Instead of mindlessly hitting the enemy until they die, the game has more varied combat mechanics. You need to defend to avoid getting hit and shove your enemies whenever they are defending to continue dealing damage. Skills are available to learn in exchange for gold coins, which can be found everywhere on the island, to quickly finish the fight. The massive number of skills that you can learn might be overwhelming at first and although it's still fine to use the normal attack on the first island, you might find yourself using and remembering more skills as you progress the game.

Due to its hack-and-slash nature, the game encourages one vs many battles. However, the camera will shift towards the enemy that you attacked, making it hard to anticipate incoming attacks from other enemies. Kiting becomes a sound strategy whenever a lot of enemies are involved.

Large-sized monsters that deal more damage will be introduced at some point, giving you more challenge. Dodging isn't possible with these kinds of enemies so you must be ready to move out of their way whenever they are attacking. QTE is mandatory to kill these kinds of enemies and will be available after they are low on health. The killing scene feels so satisfying as you see a lot of gore involved, although it feels a bit repetitive at times.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2290906470

Stealth
Stealth is a must whenever you are infiltrating a place of interest. A certain skill is needed to ambush an enemy from behind and cull the enemies' number one by one. Crouching will be handled automatically whenever you hide behind any object if an enemy comes close. However, this mechanic becomes a mess since you will automatically jump over a fence whenever you move close to it. There was even an occasion where the game decided to jump over a fence with a cliff full of lava on the other side, killing me in the process.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2290906523

War
There is a war segment by the end of each island where you attack the enemy stronghold with the army that you have gathered. This becomes my favorite part of the game as you need to focus on killing certain bosses, which are either shamans or large-sized monsters, to progress the liberation several times. Dragons can also be summoned for a certain price to finish the objective quickly.

Rune spells can buff you and your soldiers for a certain amount of time. However, the game never states the requirement of these spells and I couldn't seem to cast it most of the time. I ended up knowing that you need to fill rage meter with red orbs, which are dropped from enemies, to cast them. The meter will be depleted over time after you use the spell until it's empty without an option to cancel the skill. It's quite a shame since the buff is also useful to defeat the large-sized enemies.

Length and Difficulty
The game offers 2 difficulties: normal and hard. I played the game in hard mode and finished it at 22.3h. I didn't know the difference between both difficulties although I didn't have any problem beating the game in hard difficulty since you can always respawn whenever you die and retry whatever you were doing.

The game becomes too repetitive and boring by the time I reached the third island. The devs seem to recognize this problem by introducing fewer places of interest and increasing the difficulty of some enemies, making it less repetitive. The slow walking speed and the very vast map with no sprint option might also contribute to the boringness, especially with how hard it is to see the game at times due to the color pallete.

Problems
There aren't major bugs in the game although I found it odd that you must keep on tapping the F button to do an action.

Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

The game proves to be enjoyable despite how mediocre it is. The existence of dragons that can help you in the war and stealth elements are a good addition to the game although I'm not sure which audience the game appeals to due to its gore content. There are some repetitiveness in the game and people who get bored quickly won't last long playing this game. That being said, it's still a good time-waster for people with a tight budget.

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Looking at the quite bad ratings this game has received, one thing should be made clear: at its core, Viking: Battle for Asgard isn't a bad game.
I do understand the reason behind the mostly negative reviews however, the game had a lot of unused potential and does seem like a rushed product. It's a shame, because the graphics are nice, the islands (where the game takes place) are fairly big and the mythological Viking setting seems good enough.

So what's wrong with the game then? First of all the environment (as beautiful as it is) feels empty: no wildlife, no random events. The landscape with high cliffs, ghost ships near the shore and small groves looks exciting, but it quickly degrades into emptiness as we progress. Still the game is worth to take a look and even a playthrough.

The story seems interesting enough at the beginning: Freya, the Viking goddess of love and war (in this case it's the latter) seeks out and blesses a dying warrior, Skarin, to make him her champion and lead the Viking forces against the Legion, the undead army (they look like orcs from the Lord of the Rings) of the queen of the underworld, Hel, who threatens to destroy Asgard (and Midgard). There's a twist at the end, but it doesn't really add much to the game. The story is told via cutscenes consisting of red-orange-black-white colored still images.

Practically, the game is a mixture of third person hack and slash with slight adventure and even slighter strategy elements. You have to free captured Viking warriors and liberate settlements on 3 groups of islands (3 levels basically). After doing all the missions on each island, a large scale battle takes place where you must lead the Viking army against the forces of Hel. These battles look pretty impressive and amazing (there are hundreds of warriors on screen) but the poor controls (console port) take its toll: they can quicky turn into a chaotic mess, if you don't focus on the main targets. Here you have to kill shamans who summon the undead warriors and despite the urging of your fellow brethren, you have plenty of time to do so. You can utilize the help of dragons who can kill these shamans with a single breath of fire, but in order to do that, you'll need to kill shamans to recharge the dragon amulet... so you kill a shaman (or 2) in the conventional way, then you can kill the next one automatically. The shamans are invulnerable first, only after destroying their staves/totems can they be killed. At the end of the game you must face Hel herself, but surprisingly this battle is a piece of cake (what leads up to that point however isn't).

As I said before the missions are quite similar: find barrels of mead, liberate encampments. The scenery however makes the exploring interesting, you can get to abandoned mines, to the top of windmills, ghost towns and caves. Sometimes you'll have to be sneaky (you can kill oppontents with a single blow from behind) and there is an achievement for finding red skulls, which really doesn't add anything apart from earning the achievement itself.

There's currency (gold) in the game, with which you can buy new battle combinations, magic (ice, fire, lightning, in that order if we look at their usefulness), health extensions (permanent upgrade), health potions, throwing axes (for taking out enemies from afar), fire bombs (against multiple enemies, but they are very weak) and treasure maps (useless, you're going to find most of them - if not all - anyway). The combos are the most important things to buy, without them, you have no chance to kill more than a single opponent in combat. These can be bought at stone circles from Viking ghosts, so I suggest to look for these from the very beginning of the game. Combos can be used after collecting rage points (you can acquire 5 maximum). The use of magic isn't as good as it sounds, basically you can imbue your axe with the appropriate element (ice is the best since it freezes then shatters the enemy instantly). You can slowly recharge your magic by killing enemies and collecting the red orbs they leave behind. Unfortunately death has no consequences at all (aside from the enemies respawning in the given area, which happens anyway if you leave and haven't cleared it out completely), so while health potions can be useful, their use isn't mandatory.

The controls are going to be the cause of many deaths, since Skarin can only fight one opponent at a time and seems to be 'locked' onto that single target, while most of the time the player must fight 3+ (sometimes a dozen or even more) enemies simultaneously. You can block and even dodge, but apparently these moves have been designed for duels, so by dodging you can accidentaly jump into the claws of another enemy... when facing 3 or more enemies the use of magic is heavily advised (fortunately you can use it even if it's not filled up completely).

While Skarin runs extra slowly, there are plenty of portal stones that can speed up your travels (it's still going to take plenty of time). The enemies come in 5-6 different versions, some of them using shields, bows or dual-axes, but you don't really need more in a Viking themed hack and slash game. There are also ogres (killing them requires to perform successfully in QTE - quick time events - pressing buttons with correct timing) and champions. Killing these enemies is pretty easy, but again, most of the time you'll have to fight others as well simultaneously.

Visually the game is beautiful (at least the landscape), the view distance is great and there are many castle ruins, cliffs and windmills from which you can admire the wonderful scenery. The music is fitting, but nothing spectacular and the sound effects feel weak and poor.

The game is definitely worth checking out, it's not even remotely as bad as the user reviews would suggest. Sure it's not a deliberately good game, there are too many things missing from it, but it doesn't do anything that bad either. If you are looking for a hack and slash game between two more serious titles go ahead and give it a try.

As most of you probably know, this game was part of a free bundle from SEGA, so I wrote this review as if it was a free game.

PROS
+ nice scenery, interesting locations
+ Viking setting

CONS
- lack of content
- bad, console based controls
- missions have no real rewards
- dying has basically no consequence

RATING
5/10

Lets get the bad things out of the way, the voice acting disgusts me, the controls can be pretty confusing, and I find myself having to look up what to do because the instruction is just so poor. It wasn't set up great, but there is a lack of Viking games in the gaming community. They do bring out the aspect of Vikings well in this game, its a hack n slash where you recruit hundreds of vikings to your army and every now and then get into huge battles where its like something out of the Lord of The Rings. You can use dragons to decimate the enemys, and chop the Legions filthy limbs off at your leisure. Overall, it's ok, it's worth a play through.

Its nice game but not for all. Huge open world and a lot of tasks to do. Epic battles with magic, special enemys and dragons under your command. You can upgrade your magic, buy some weapons or potions and penetrate islands to release vikings. Now disadventages. There were moments when game was slowling and it was like fighting in slow motion. I heard that many people had the same problem. Second thing, on all islands you make almost the same (for me it wasnt a big problem but i have to say it) make army, find dragon, release something. And at the end dragons animations and last boss (it was the biggest disappointment for me). Just think before buying it.

MaxGregor

Not a bad game. It feels like a watered down version of Dragon Age: Inquisition but with a weak story and less immersion. However, I found this game to be rather enjoyable once I got the hang of the combat ( Which isn't really explained too well) and spent a few hours slaughtering foes for fun. Another issue was the accessibility of the option menus which required you to reboot the game every time you wanted to tweak a performance setting so I spent the first 30 minutes trying to get the performance to balance with what my PC can run, as there is no auto setting.

While the gameplay is a bit blunt and combat eventually repetitive, it does remain a pretty consistent challenge which allows a feeling of accomplishment upon completing each segment. If on special, worth giving it a shot for sure.