Remember when games were tough? Return to the Golden Age of arcades with an all-NEW hardcore action experience that pulls no punches. Volgarr the Viking possesses all the hallmarks of the true classics - simple controls, high challenge, and meticulous design - combined with hand-made pixel
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The game's difficulty comes mainly from: A) old style jump controls (ie. you can't change trajectory once in the air, except with the double jump), B) somewhat newbie-hostile level design that results in plenty of trial-and-error gameplay, C) unforgiving health system where you lose gear when you take damage, and D) long distances between checkpoints.
And yet... this isn't as rage-inducing as I would've expected.
It kind of reminds me of Celeste, in the way that you first need to figure out a sequence of actions, and then execute it with little room for improvization or mistakes. Also in the way that you will die a lot. The difference is that Celeste has waaay more checkpoints, an interesting story, and actually enjoyable fluid movement.
While I've never beaten this and have uninstalled it several times, it has never made me go "I'm never playing this again".
And yet... this isn't as rage-inducing as I would've expected.
It kind of reminds me of Celeste, in the way that you first need to figure out a sequence of actions, and then execute it with little room for improvization or mistakes. Also in the way that you will die a lot. The difference is that Celeste has waaay more checkpoints, an interesting story, and actually enjoyable fluid movement.
While I've never beaten this and have uninstalled it several times, it has never made me go "I'm never playing this again".
Simple gameplay kept engaging throughout with satisfying difficulty & level design. I'm a big fan of the very deliberate design choice where most actions are commitments that need to be thought out beforehand & Volgarr does this extremely well. Plenty of cool little details to discover & the soundtrack kicks ass.