Story
Beasties from the underworld have invaded and it seems that all is lost.
Our Hero lies dying as the rest of the troops are slaughtered.
Freya comes and chooses him to receive her power.
To lead the people of midgard to fight hel's army.
She gives Skarin an amulet.
And magically kills all the baddies and frees the land making it green again, why can't she do that to everywhere and make this a short game??
The isle of Nilfberg needs sorting out and under Freya's voice over guidance we are told strategically what needs done and given free hand to do it.
When we comlplete the assualt on Darkwater and defeat Drakan, Hel turns up and stops us killing him. Freya and Hel have a hissy fit at each other about vengence and justice. While skarin looks on vacantly. Seems we are pawns in the hands of the gods, there to play out their petty feud.
Once we have liberated Nilfberg it's off to the next island.
We are told that once Drakan held our role as Freya's champion. It seems he fell in love with her and she spurned him. After a while alone Drakan fell in with Hel who promised him the world. He ended up her champion and became more beast than man.
We are told of a weapon that can undo the will of a god, wonder what we will be using that for, killing Drakan or??
During the taking of the island Drakan is killed and freya sends us on to the next.
Now we are told in an info dump that hel conspired against odin and was banished to the underworld. though it is thought that Freya had a hand in her downfall.
Hel's beauty is only an illusion, she had been corrupted by her stay in the underworld.
She seeks to break chains of ???? and bring about ragnarok, or the apocaplypse.
During the third island campaign Shaman asta tells me that the people i thought of as my parents are not, they simply adopted skarin when he was found in the woods. She urges skarin to take some herbs and do a vision quest in a shaman hut to find the truth.
Seems that skarin is the child of the god fenrir???
At the end of the campaign we kill hel, she says that freya will never free humans.
And she is right, Freya doesn't. SO skarin breaks the chains of fenrir and brings about ragnarok which destroys the gods power and leaves humans alone on earth. Well I presume anyway.
The story is nonsensical Why not just go and break these chains anyway at the start.
Seems we have been used by freaya as a pawn in the game with hel which didn't mean much anyway as after we kill hel's mortal form she still talks to us anyway.
The last part of the story which seemed like the best anyway is told in stills art with a voice over??
Gameplay
We are dumped into the free roaming island.
You speak to certain characters to be given missions.
First one seems to be to speak to chief Haral.
Told about ley lines and stones, which facilitate fast travel around the island.
Looks like we can upgrade our sword with combat runes.
Some pots containing gold are strewen around the island. Also sacks, the spoils of war we are told.
We can jump and do a short and long slash move to start with.
Found the shop, we can buy weapon runes.
Talk to the chief and he give you a new main mission and tells you about side missions that need done, such as freeing caged warriors and finding your fathers battle horn.
Found some mead on the beach.
Found some men tied to stakes to drown on beach and freed them, six more vikings join my army.
Take the mead to the food hall and get given 460 gold for it, didn't know the guy needed it, seems i did a side mission backwards.
After running around and exploring the village i have enough gold to buy one of each of the runes. There are fire ice and lightning, seems I can use them in combat, not explained how so far, something to do with acquired rage.
So onto first mission. On first island.
out of the Freya saved village area the land turns dark and stormy.
Baddies roam about feeding and looting the bodies of the dead.
Found a little secret cave with some baddies and some loot.
Onto first mission, have to liberate the ruins from bad guy control. Too many to fight on your own, so you have to liberate the vikings held captive in the ruins, tap b to release them from their cage. Then the fight is much easier.
The now colourful ruins can be jumped around on tomb raider style. You can clamber along hanging ledges and on green ivy on the walls as well as jump and walk around the ruin. Lots of gold and found a dragon summoning stone which I can't use yet.
Death seems to have little consequence other than returning you to a ley stone point nearby.
Found the new move learning area, you have to buy them with gold too, first move is free, jumping and hitting on the downwards. A ghostly warrior trains you inside a stone circle.
next mission is to liberate a farm so we can feed our army, it goes well, though stealth seems to be quite difficult to manage and I had killed most of the baddies myself before I managed to get the men freed.
The millar at the farm gives us a mission to recover a load of goods that has been ambushed.
The location for this mission appears on our map.
The lost cargo isn't far away and three baddies have it, no problem to despatch. Take the cargo back to the farm. Doh, silly me i have to take it back to the start village.
When I do the shopkeeper give me another side mission.
He also opens up the shop for weapons. I can buy health,axes and maps to treasure.
The shopkeeper tells me that a bady guy has my fathers horn, which it seems is needed.
Seems we have to get a warrior called cadby to help us in the big assault. So we have to do a side mission for him, it seems a warrior may be a traitor, we have to go find him.
We find him and he has done a deal with Hel, he is soon killed.
We are given another side mission by cadby to find a cargo of mead.
On to the legion champion as I can't see a marker for the mead. Maybe it's an ongoing quest just to find the mead littered around.
The champion is a boss type baddy that needs a bit of killing. Get it's health down and then some quicktime event button pressing is needed, when will developers realise that hammering buttons isn't fun.
Anyway now i have the horn, and it seems that the conditons needed to attack the large enemy stronghold are met.
Starting the attack sends the army in with me.
Wow this is fun, confusing, as i sometimes lose track of who i am, but the battle is huge and there are an awful lot of people on screen. True melee confusing and exhilarating. The area is free and i can mop up and explore.
Bought the treasure maps and now the gold and urns and chest show up on my radar.
The way to the next part of the first island is blocked by a bridge which is drawn up by the baddies on the other side, however there is a secret path to a rope bridge which i can get across, except the men are too superstitious to use it, so it's up to skarin alone.
Found a new badguy in the cave a legion assassin.
Now we have to assault the bridge house and lower the bridge.
Some little puzzles here working out how to get into the bridgehouse and open the gate, finding a place in the fence where there are no spikes to get in, finding a way down into the building from the roof. Climbing up the side of it using the ivy.
Now it's on to the quarry. Which again looks the part, nice design.
The quarry master will not pledge his troops until you get rid of a patrol of many baddies that is traipsing around nearby, This isn't a huge fight with some men to help.
He then pledges his aid.
We use a charge that the quarrymaster gives us to blow open the door to the monastery tunnels.
Another weird vision, which says asgard cares only for asgard.
The next target is the monastery, where we will be able to summon dragons to our cause if we can find the dragon amulet.
now that i have bought the stealth move things are much better in that regard, when you are close to an enemey and they have not see you you simply press x for a stealth kill which kills them silently without alerting nearby others.
Get into the monastery and have a fight against four or five shield guys and a bigger boss.
Quite hard, though you get some men to help, problem is they are tied up and you have to free them during the battle.
Once you kill the boss you are given a key, the key opens a door and you face a shaman. The shaman conjurs enemies until you kill him, you have to destroy four posts and then kill the shaman to bring down his shield. ONce you have killed him you get the dragon amulet.
2nd days play.
Have to power the dragon amulet and it seems the stone circle that does that is in the enemy camp at darkwater, you have to sneak your way in, there is only one secret entrance, where a rug is draped over the fence that lets you climb in. ONce inside you have to sneak past patrols and kill isolated babbies with stealth attacks to get to the stones. Made it almost all the way without being seen, but got seen near the stones, about seven baddies came at me and i thought i would die with weight of numbers like the few failed attempts i had made, though i killed them and no more came. Managed to charge the dragon stone and used piled crates on the inside of the fence to escape.
Now we have to use the amulet to summon a dragon.
Which is done at the stones, we are given a tutorial on how to target things with the dragon using asgards eye which is an overhead view.
The dragons need tributes to do our bidding though.
So now the only thing left to do is storm the main bad guy base at darkwater and hopefully that will be the first island liberated.
I have a feeling this won't be so easy.
We see a cut scene of our army and dragon going to war, marching up to the gates of darkwater. The eneme come out to meet us and we fight. Skarin's role here at first seems to be to kill the shaman, so ignoring the mess around us we head for and kill the shaman, dying twice in the process. Though we respawn in the area close by and head straight back to the shaman and kill him. Getting a dragon rune for our trouble.
We can now choose a target, hmmm out of the three possibles, two being shaman we only have enough dragon runes for the archers, oh well, here goes, nice dragon flies in and toasts them all quite spectacularly.
Having killed two other shaman we come to a cut scene, looks like a big boss, and he's ugly.
Though not that hard to kill. More quicktime, i hate quicktime.
Island 2
Take a wander up a cliffside and find some imprisoned vikings, kill the baddies and free them.
And again some more imprisioned vikings. Free them and they join my army.
Found a tower, nice design, climbing up the inside and outside. Shaman at the top.
Have to liberate a distillery, which we are told will give us firebombs.
A more side missions, the distillery boss wants his fathers recipes for flame pots, and the mercs need us to get rid of the huge patrol. We need the distillery soldiers for the patrol so we will have to do the jobs for both, distillery guy first though.
Get into the cellar with the handy key and find the recipe. Take it back to distillery.
Working out more of the controls i should have learned ages ago, able to hold right trigger and use the rage you collect from dead bodies to charge your weapons with fire ice or lightning. WHich help a lot. Also by pressing right button you can fire axes and flame pots.
No real tutorial for these. Though they are easy enough when you think about it.
Start the ambush with the mercs and the distillery boys. Have some fun with throwing axes and flame pots too.
Get a war chest for our trouble, whatever that is. Oh i see it's loot that the enemy had, we give it to the mercs and they pledge allegience.
Now on to liberate a quarry.
Have to free the quarry masters men from a cave guard by a bigger baddy.
Quarry dude gives us explosives, wonder what they will be for.
Find the dragon summmoning stone but haven't found the gem for this isle yet.
Kill the big bad in the cave and get his insignia, which some smart ass needed to prove we were all that and worth following.
Find the use for the charge and blow open a gate.
Get to plateau and find more warriors to free. Also find one half of the mugin gem.
Give the insignia to hrut and he joins with us.
Find the last men to save inside the cave system, which is a rabbit warren.
Looks like there are two huge stronghold on this island. We have to do a litte infiltration mission on the first.
found a fun glitch, inside the fortress i climbed up a long ladder, at the top a few baddies seen me, they came at me and instead of climbing down or waiting at the top and bottom of the ladder they pitched themselves off the cliff saving me the trouble of killing them.
This is less a stealth mission than full on single handed assault, unless i am missing the point, which might be likely, stealth was never my bag. Ok it must be stealth, every time you die the baddies reset. Finally manage to wind my way through the camp and blow up the barracks. Learned a lot about how to work the stealth mechanics. There are some areas where it's instant death to attract an alarm. in others more isolated areas an alarm will only attract a few people and is salvagable. Staying close to buildings seems to be a good tactics.
Now onto the second big assault on holdenfort, this takes place over many stages and makes the first island look like a picnic. It's the same strategy for the most part, destory the shaman's that are summoning replacements for each monster we kill. We can use dragons for every two shamans we kill and there are about eight to kill in total. We also have some larger monsters to fight as well. When all the shaman's are killed we can summon our own shaman into the stone circle and she will break the hel spell or whatever, she must be protected while she is working. When she does her magic the battle is won.
And that is half the island in our control, now for the other half.
We speak to the villagers we have liberated and are given more side missions.
First is freeing more soldiers.
And yet more soldiers freed.
Another soldier freeing mission.
Found the move dealer again and bought a few new more powerful melee attacks.
Liberate the lumbar mill. vikings are held in a cage lifted off the ground by a crane. We have to get the crane key from a big bad to free them.
3rd Days play
Freed yet another camp of warriors.
Climbed another tower clearing out all the bad guys shaman at the top.
Managed to liberate the farm, was hard, many shield warriors. Found charges which made a distraction and spread out the shield guys making it possible to complete mission. Starting to get harder and need good tactics and not just luck now.
Farmer wants us to take a letter to holdenfort to ask them to spare some archers to defend the farm.
Mill dude wants us to get his grindstones back. Which we do, they are a short way along the beach guarded by some monsters.
Back to the archer dude at holdenfort, who says he will send some archers, we have to go back and tell the farmer though??
We speak to shamen asta who tells us of another band of guerrilla fighters in the caves, looks like more rabbit warren crawling. SHe opens a previously inaccesible door to allow us into this mission.
We trek through the rather gloomy longboat graveyard, have to wonder why such huge boats are inland at the top of mountains when they are disused, wouldn't it be easier to sink them.
Anyway at one point the ground gives way under us and we are trapped in a pit by the guerillas. They task us with finding the mugin gem for them to follow us. Just another cut scene really but it adds to the texture.
The caves lead us through the warren and down to meet drakan who taunts us by telling us he has the mugin gem. Without dragon support our assualt will be hopeless. We have to retreive the dragon gem from caldberg. Looks like more stealth missions.
Back to the farm to receive thanks for getting him archers, he pledges troops for the big fight.
Back at the crypt the doors that were locked are now guarded, something new, i attack the guards and get the crypt key. Seems i needed to do some unspecified tasks before coming here. Anyway in a nicely designed area i get my sword upgraded, can it kill Draken now?
The sneak through the castle is fun, it is easy if you go the right way, seems there is a set path, sure you can go any way you want, but it will be a hell of a slog. The correct path has nicely timed patrols and nice hiding spots, and plenty of places to sneak up on lone guards. Anyway get the gem. WHy bother going back out through the catle i simply jump of a kill and spawn back at the fort with the gem.
The dragon is summoned and will help. That is the final criteria for the big attack.
Wow a new baddy a giant, looks like a grotesque huge baby.
Hack at the giant for a bit until a b appears on him, then it's loads of quicktime presses until he dies. Get and achievement and a dragon rune which we use to take out the shaman.
The siege engine comes in and knocks down the doors. Another two shamen to take down.
And another two. Some of them are on raised platforms, which makes it easier in the melee, but getting onto the platform and staying on it can be tricky.
And another two oh and giant.
Now we must bring ashta to the portal to get her to take it.
Oh oh Drakan turns up guarding the portal we must kill him to proceed.
Killing drakan finished the level as freya turns up and closes the portal to hell.
Third island Isaholm
First target i choose is liberating a farm. Much harder than previous isles. There are shamen and big bads plus loads of soliders. Eventually manage it, but have to rely much more on the fellow soliders that you release from the cage, in previous maps i was killing all the bad guys myself and letting them out, in this level you really need them.
Now onto a quarry. Have to find a key to get in to save the warriors this time. A champion has it. Kill him and then back to save the men which liberates the quarry after a quick mop up if the remaining baddies.
The warriors at the quarry are sick due to legion rations. They want honey from a beekeeper nearby.
Surprisingly enough the beekeeper gives her honey freely. Back to the quarry.
Where we are given a pledge of troops and some explosives.
At the farm the farmer has been hearing strange noises, he wants us to go investigate before he can consider freeing his warriors to come help in the battle.
Find a camp on the way and free more warriors.
Seems the noises in the woods are a couple that have found a quiet spot for some romance. They must be fairly noisy for the farmer to hear all that distance away, never mind they give us a brooch to give to the farmer to shut him up.
We give it to him, he tells us about some vikings trapped in a cave and pledges us troops for the fight.
4th days play.
We liberate the distillery, which is fairly easy seeing as most of the enemies are patrolling the edges and we can stealth our way around the buildings picking them off one by one.
The distillery boss wants us to ambush the huge legion patrol that is nearby. He wants us to blow a bridge which will prevent their retreat and reinforcement.
We ambush the legion which is much easier than expected despite their numbers.
Now we must sneak through the stronghold Thornvik, which is pretty wrecked looking with lava everywhere and huge fissures.
Killing the traitor viking who has the key means we can go and rescue the viking from the cave prison.
Took a bit of time finding my way into the prison in the caves, but eventually I do and we have to fight our way in, pull a lever and release the vikings. Who then troop out to the leystone and leave.
We have the criteria for attacking Thornvik, so off we go.
Three shaman to start off with.
And a giant.
Kill the giant, use dragon runes to take out one shaman.
kill another, and now have enough dragon runes for the third.
Now sneaky, the big door opens behind us and a huge reinforcement pours through.
Two more shamen and two more giants. The two giants give us enough runes to let the dragons do the shaman's in for us.
Now inside the fort to summon our shaman at the portal.
Thornvik is ours. Usual tasks given, find mead for innkeeper. We are given travel papers so we can access the other side of the island. Go and see the shaman for details on how to find the dragon gems.
So the second half of the isle is now open and another set of tasks are opened up.
First task is the lumbar mill which is business as usual except it's guarded by a giant as well as the usual monster mob.
Lumbar master needs us to clear out the woods of legion so he can go about his business and build us a seige weapon.
A quick clean out of the legion camp in the woods gets us a pledge of men and a seige weapon.
Find the dragon summoning area.
Climb a mountain path that leads to the big doors. which i open by killing all the guards.
Another camp liberated on the other side of the big door.
Another large tower cleared out and vikings freed from it's basement.
Come to another large castle, visions of another long stealth mission but no this garrison is occupied by vikings and I find shaman asta here, she give me a key and tells me to go to the shaman hut After getting some herbs.
I find the herbs in a cave guarded by a giant, though you can run faster than him so don't have to stop and fight.
Go to the shaman cave and throw in the herbs, get a nonsensical vision.
Back to Asta who gives us another four missions to do.
5th days play.
Clear out another small camp, no challenge here, which is strange.
Next camp is guarded by a lot more warriors and a shaman.
Another camp liberated. This time one of the imprisoned warriors gives us a side mission to kill the traitor that betrayed them.
The traitor is lightly guarded and out in the open, an easy kill. Take his shield back to the warrior and he promises his warriors to your army.
Down into the huge pit of the giants forge, a nicely designed more platform game type section of the game. Getting through the door to the weapon upgrade cave is a little puzzle. Good section.
Freed another camp.
Down into the bowels of the dragon cave, Shamen and giants guarding the final dragon gem.
Summon the final of the three dragons.
Last camp liberated the final battle against hel in her last fortress is available.
Three shamen outside the walls.
Three giants inside them after dragons blow them down.
Dragons blow down another gateway and we are in. Shaman to be summoned at portal.
It can't be this easy. Getting to the portal and summoning and protecting the shaman are hard with no back up but possible. Freya sends you on alone into Hel's final lair to kill her.
A long climb up hel's tower with lots and lots of baddies in the way seems never ending.
Eventually you reach the top and have the showdown with Hel herself.
The boss battle here is complicated by having four shaman shield pillars which must be destroyed. There is also a wall of fire that seems to drop at random in between each one. About 7 enemies, mostly large class spawn and try to prevent you from destorying the pillars. It is a hard fought contest and you will need to suddenly get very good at combat, which up until now hasn't really been essential as retreating when things look bleak and waiting for health to rebuild has always been an option. This boss battle took me about four hours of solid play to overcome, i felt angry and frustrated at the sudden ramp up in the difficulty curve. However when i actually managed to complete it and kill hel then i felt elation. And that is it game over.
5 days with about 5 hours each day. 25 hours play time on hard. 925 achievement points.
make that 960 after a little achievement hunting.
In the later stages when there are lava pits you have to be much more careful as sometimes the combat animations can have you falling into lava pits outwith your control. Which is a tad annoying.
Graphics are nice. Draw distance seems short for a free roaming game but not a problem, everything looks slick, good frame rate. Design is good, believable village with people going about their business. WOrking training, building weapons.
The amount of people on screen is phenomenal. It slows down yes, but not terribly and it certainly looks as impressive as say Kameo and heavenly sword for sheer amount of enemies on screen.
Graphics are mostly natural scenes, nice and bright and sunny when occupied by good, dark and stormy when occupied by evil.
The third isle differs, some snow and lava, also some giants causeway type rock formations.
Enemies.
Normal soldiers.
Shield soldiers.
Horn soldiers,
Archer soldiers.
Asassin soldiers.
Big bad soldiers.
bone spike Armoured soldiers.
Shaman guards
Giants
Shamen
Bosses
Draken
Hel
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