Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 03/Mar 23:09

Norse: Oath of Blood – Review

Vikings and video games. Like nuts and gum, it’s a winning combination. Just take a look at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Or Viking Survivors. Or Trolls vs. Vikings. Or… well, you get the point. The latest addition to the ever-expanding list of Viking video games is Norse: Oath of Blood, which gives us a Norse take on turn-based battles in the vein of XCOM. Reportedly, the game took a decade to develop, with Terje Lundberg of indie Norwegian studio Arctic Hazard asked to write a script for a Viking game all the way back in 2016. With a ten year development cycle, the team behind Norse should’ve been able to optimize and polish their Viking game to perfection, right? Spoiler alert: They didn’t. Story A straightforward tale of revenge, Norse’s story follows Gunnar Gripsson, the son of Jarl Gripr. Early on in the story, Gripr is betrayed and killed by Steinarr Far-Spear, his former ally and trusted warrior. Gunnar is forced to flee, together with his twin sister Sigrid and their protector Arn, and finds sanctuary with his uncle. Rather than launching an immediate counterattack, Gunnar is urged to build up his strength first. He establishes a new settlement from scratch, recruits warriors and tradespeople, grows his economy, and ultimately assembles an army to avenge his late father and reclaim his birthright. The overarching story of Norse is a linear and predictable one, but it is elevated by high-quality dialogue and good pacing. Graphics In terms of pure presentation, Norse achieves what it sets out to do, with some caveats. While there is nothing that particularly stands out about the visuals, the game manages to feel grounded in realism, with lush, detailed environments and character designs that match the mental image that we have of Vikings. We won’t vouch for the historical accuracy of these designs, mind you, but at least they don’t have horned helmets! The devil is in the details, however, and in Norse’s case, those details are unfortunately large and unsightly. Norse’s visual presentation is undermined by visual glitches, like UI elements outright disappearing, janky character animations and lots of clipping. Not only that, but the game’s performance is rough as well. Frame rate drops and input delays are common, and even on lowered settings, performance is inconsistent at best. It’s not just visual issues that plague Norse, but we’ll get to the others when we talk about gameplay. Sound Let’s return to something that’s good about Norse first: voice acting. The game is fully voiced, and the cast does a fantastic job here. We already touched on how well the game was written, but it’s the delivery of dialogue that really seals the deal. Even minor character voices help with making the world feel more alive, but it’s the main duo of Gunnar and Sigrid whose performances elevate the writing and make the game’s cinematic cutscenes more engaging. Composer Dan Wakefield’s soundtrack has the air of a prestigious TV series, but its atmospheric impact is ruined by poor implementation. There are abrupt musical shifts and cuts, and seemingly unintentional moments of silence. We’re not entirely sure whether this was caused by bad mixing or if the game was glitching out on us, but the music deserves better than this. Gameplay Fair is fair: Norse’s gameplay is built on a solid foundation. Structured around linear, story-driven missions, the game combines turn-based tactical combat with light settlement management. Combat is the heart of the game: a series of grid-based battles, typically around 30 minutes long, demand the majority of Norse’s runtime. The game is built around an action point system for movement, attacks and abilities. Norse encourages you to synergize the actions of your individual warriors, enabling chain attacks. Of note is that executions can refill action points, and we often found ourselves strategizing around these, enabling combo-heavy turns. Don’t go in expecting over-the-top action though, as combat remains grounded in reality rather than leaning into Viking mythology. As a whole, fights feel functional but not innovative, and they often play out in the same way. Between missions, you return to your settlement. This budding Viking town forms the backbone of your army. Settlement management directly ties into how effective your warband is on the battlefield, as it is here that you craft weapons and armour and assign skill upgrades. There is some resource management involved with this, as the buildings you construct and upgrade give you access to better equipment. Eventually, you’re even able to trade with other nearby settlements. The management aspects break up the game’s otherwise continuous combat and keep the pacing steady. That said, settlement management often feels a bit too straightforward, lacking depth. So what about those gameplay issues then? If it wasn’t for the game’s plethora of small glitches, we’d consider Norse a serviceable Viking-themed take on the genre. Now, none of the issues we ran into were outright game-breaking, but they were prominent and common enough to affect our overall enjoyment of the game. Attacks that show a 100% hit rate missing, for example, or abilities going on cooldown without being executed. The in-game AI acts bizarrely at times, with allies sometimes turning hostile and attacking their own side. Sometimes characters would perform normal attacks instead of the selected ability. Combined with the relatively short length of roughly 15 hours, Norse feels like it’s still an Early Access title. Hopefully, these issues will be dealt with in the near future because, as it stands, the game isn’t worth its €33.99 price tag. Conclusion While both the audiovisual presentation and gameplay foundation show plenty of signs of promise, the entirety of Norse is undermined by glitches and a general lack of polish. It’s a shame, because the good elements in Norse are, in fact, really good. We won’t recommend picking this one up just yet, but hopefully, a performance patch or two can redeem Norse and make the game worthy of Valhalla after all. The game is supposedly coming to Xbox and PlayStation in the near future, so we know that it hasn’t been abandoned just yet.