Jotun: Valhalla Edition review

The storyline 

After Thora, the playable character in the game, dies an inglorious death by drowning at sea, she must defeat five Jotun enemies to prove herself to the Gods and enter Valhalla. To face off against these Jotun, more commonly known in pop culture as giants, Thora must collect runes relating to each Jotun on two separate levels before entering a third to face the boss battle.

As the game progresses, the player discovers more about Thora’s life through her dialogue, recounting important events regarding her father and brother. We also find out more about the Norse Pagan Gods as the player explores and uncovers God shrines to get a wide array of powers based on the Gods they are awarded by.

Strengths of Jotun: Valhalla Edition

Aesthetically, it’s beautiful. The detailed art is all hand-drawn, the soundtrack is impeccable, and the use of Icelandic sets the atmosphere perfectly. The artwork becomes the perfect backdrop to many of the in-game environments that are either specific landmarks within the source material, or general realms, such as Jotunheim or Niflheim. We soar to the top of Yggdrasil’s branches with the hawk Vedrfölnir, slide down the giant tree’s roots past Nidhogg the Dragon, and hammer our way through Brokkr’s Forge and many others. The art truly is a highlight reel of some important locations and names within Norse Paganism’s mythology, whereby the depths of these settings cannot be understated.

For Norse Pagans or appreciators of our religion, it is a heartfelt delight to see everything displayed so mesmerisingly, along with all the care given to the discreet and finer details of the mythology scattered throughout the storyline. The soundtrack greatly complements the game, with slow melodies to bring memorable weight to these artistic juggernauts and then heavier war drum scores to prepare the stage for in-game combat.

Note: We have a more in-depth rundown of the representation of Norse Paganism in Jotun in another blog.

Weaknesses of Jotun: Valhalla Edition

The game’s drawback is dipping its toes into multiple genres, which muddies the identity a bit. This has also led to a few poor reviews on Steam and other sites that appear to stem from not knowing what the game was about beforehand. It’s an indie souls game (though I haven’t played souls games as I know they would frustrate me too much, so I am going off of the community labels). This needs to be mentioned because, like Silksong earlier this year, underestimating difficulty can lead to a bad taste in the player’s mouth when they were excited to play and struggled to advance the story. Personally, I don’t like difficult games and I managed quite well with Jotun. I even beat the first three Jotun without using God powers, which provide Thora with extra power hit damage, speed, heals them, etc. I wanted to achieve as many achievements as possible and I managed this feat pretty easily and it didn’t chow time as much as you’d think.

While the game may be beautiful to look at, you’ll spend a lot of time in admiration because general movement and combat animations are slow. The game being half exploration means it takes a while to get from A to B with minimal interaction between destinations. It’s gorgeous to look at on your first run but sometimes becomes a chore if you need to go back to pick up something you missed the first time you completed the level. Yet, the exploration is not actually the game’s focus. This leads to the identity being a bit misaligned. The exploration is good, but not amazing. Similarly, the combat is good, but also not amazing. Too many cooks led to the game not having perfected anything and there were a lot of small, visual and technical hiccups which I outline further in the difficulty section.

For me, it was the smaller issues that cumulatively frustrated me but not to the point where I stopped playing entirely. I felt there were no major issues that vastly outweigh the positives but for some, I know the frustration could add up to a point where the gorgeous atmosphere won’t matter when the game is left at 10% complete and never started again.