{"id":18628,"date":"2018-04-27T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/jotun_valhalla_edition"},"modified":"2018-04-27T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T12:00:00","slug":"review-jotun-valhalla-edition-switch-eshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/04\/27\/review-jotun-valhalla-edition-switch-eshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Jotun: Valhalla Edition (Switch eShop)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/jotun_valhalla_edition\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/jotun_valhalla_edition\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id=\"\">\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 1 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89202\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89202\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 1 of 5\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Despite being a little over a year old, Nintendo Switch already has more than its fair share of top-down action adventure games. The presence of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/cat_quest\"><strong>Cat Quest<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/kamiko\"><strong>Kamiko<\/strong><\/a>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/ittle_dew_2plus\">Ittle Dew 2+<\/a><\/strong> and numerous others like it means genre fans are already spoiled for choice when it comes to the old hack-and-slash routine.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/jotun_valhalla_edition\">Jotun: Valhalla Edition<\/a><\/strong> is the latest to join the ranks and it\u2019s a game that more die-hard Nintendo types may already be familiar with, since it previously launched on the Wii U eShop a year and a half ago. Since the Wii U was on the way out by then it\u2019s probably fair to say most failed to notice it, so let\u2019s treat this Switch port like we\u2019re seeing it for the first time.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 2 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89203\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89203\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 2 of 5\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The game puts you in the hefty shoes of Thora, a Viking woman who\u2019s not been having the best time of things lately. She\u2019s recently died, you see, and naturally she\u2019s a tad peeved at the inconvenience. What\u2019s worse, because it was considered an inglorious death \u2013 a storm sunk her boat and she drowned \u2013 she doesn\u2019t yet get the chance to enter Valhalla, the heaven for heroes who die in combat.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s hope for Thora yet, though. Waking up in a Norse version of purgatory called Ginnungagap (the Void), she discovers that if she can make her way through each of its realms and defeat the Jotun \u2013 enormous giants \u2013 located in each of them, she\u2019ll impress the gods enough to gain access to Valhalla anyway. It\u2019s basically the video game equivalent of when the One Direction boys failed their solo X-Factor auditions before Simon Cowell gave them another chance by putting them in a band.<\/p>\n<p>The aim, then, is to travel from Ginnungagap (which acts as a hub world) to five different regions, each containing a couple of stages. After finding and activating the rune located in each of these stages, you\u2019ll then get to fight off against that region\u2019s huge Jotun in a boss fight. Beat them all and it\u2019s a trip to Valhalla for you.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 3 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89200\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89200\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 3 of 5\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>This structure results in a slightly disjointed experience, though not necessarily a bad one. Each region\u2019s two stages tend to be fairly sparse, and with a couple of exceptions enemy encounters are by and large a rarity. Much of these stages are instead spend exploring the environment in a hunt for the rune you need to unlock the boss fight. This is made easier with a map on the pause screen, though it isn\u2019t entirely spelled out for you: your location isn\u2019t shown so you\u2019ll need to use the environment to figure out where you actually are on the map.<\/p>\n<p>After wandering through these relatively empty environments, the Jotun battles offer a huge change of pace as a result, offering lengthy boss fights with screen-filling opponents. This stark contrast in action also brings with it a hefty difficulty spike, meaning playing the game can feel like a bit of a rollercoaster at times with easy exploration levels followed by difficult boss fights. The second boss is a particularly good example of this: by the time you reach Fe you\u2019ve just finishing strolling your way through a couple of straightforward cave levels, and now all of a sudden you\u2019re fighting a stone goddess 50 times your size, who can summon literally hundreds of dwarven servants to attack you. You will get your ass kicked numerous times here, and given that you\u2019ve just spent an hour in relatively peaceful surroundings it can be a little frustrating (especially with the slightly-too-long load times between deaths).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 4 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89204\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89204\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 4 of 5\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>This way of offering two distinct playing styles also leads to another contrast, in terms of how the game looks. It\u2019s always a visually stunning game whether you\u2019re playing the stages or the boss fights, but in different ways. When you\u2019re exploring the vast, generally empty stages the game has a tendency to occasionally zoom out, continuing to do so until your character is a tiny speck on the screen. This gives a true sense of scale, further puts across the feeling of being in limbo, and is a great way of showing off the beautiful hand-drawn environments.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, when you\u2019re fighting a boss the camera pulls in tighter to make sure you\u2019re fully immersed in the action: when it\u2019s closer in like this you can better appreciate the phenomenal character designs and animation. The bosses in particular are gorgeously animated, each frame hand-drawn as if you were watching a Don Bluth creation (such as\u00a0<strong>Dragon\u2019s Lair<\/strong>\u00a0or <strong>The Land Before Time<\/strong>). When you first encounter them you\u2019re treated to a fantastic animation of them discovering your presence and \u2018awakening\u2019 to start the battle, and when you finally manage to beat them \u2013 which is no mean feat, as previously explained \u2013 they die in a brilliantly satisfying, drawn-out way (literally).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 5 of 5\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89205\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/89205\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Jotun: Valhalla Edition Review - Screenshot 5 of 5\"\/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Jotun is a fascinating take on the action-adventure genre. Written down it doesn\u2019t sound like it should work: its controls are basic, most of the main levels are practically free of enemies and the boss fights range from tricky to knuckle-gnawingly infuriating. And yet, when it combines all its parts and brings them together, the result is a journey that takes in stunning landscapes, puts you in intense battles and blesses you with some of the most beautifully and professionally-designed characters and animations you\u2019ll see in an indie game.<\/p>\n<p>As long as you\u2019re prepared for its erratic pacing and are happy to accept that there\u2019ll be moments where you\u2019re doing very little and moments where you\u2019re cursing the game upside-down, you\u2019re going to have a great time playing this visually stunning game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Graphically, it\u2019s a masterpiece, but Jotun\u2019s action is too imbalanced to allow the same to be said about the game as a whole. Exploring its environments will be a treat for some players and getting stuck into its difficult boss battles will be a treat for others: if your tastes are wide-ranging enough to appreciate both scenarios, this is a winner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite being a little over a year old, Nintendo Switch already has more than its fair share of top-down action adventure games. The presence of Cat Quest, Kamiko, Ittle Dew 2+ and numerous others like it means genre fans are already spoiled for choice when it comes to the old hack-and-slash routine. Jotun: Valhalla Edition [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}