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Taking inspiration from the indie hit Kingdom Two Lands, Sons of Valhalla from developer Pixel Chest aims to deliver another medieval story, this time taking a page from Norse mythology. In this short pixel-art adventure, players conquer lands across England in a bid to save their loved one who has been abducted by corrupt forces.
Described as a combat and base-building game with a Viking Age setting, Sons of Valhalla aims to cater to fans of the Kingdom games - but will it appeal to non-fans or just newcomers to the tower defense, base-building, and strategy genres? Let's find out.
Sons of Valhalla tells a story of revenge and strategy
Stepping into the war-hardened soles of Thorald Olavson, a Viking warrior who must hunt down the Jarl that destroyed his village and kidnapped his wife Rayna. While he finds himself in Valhalla amidst the presence of the god Odin, he cannot yet pass away - for Thorald will stop at nothing to bring back his beloved.
As such, stepping down from the Bifrost with the All-Father's blessing, he must rebuild what was lost and march towards victory. Sons of Valhalla is a side-scroller with basic hack & slash elements. Players will construct bases and outposts, raise structures to sustain a militaristic village, and train soldiers to help their cause.
This is done by capturing enemies' encampments and making them friendly so more resources can be gathered.
To start, there are a few varied resources to keep track of:
- Wood: One of the two crafting resources used to establish structures, repairs, and more.
- Fish: Similar to wood, it also helps recruit new willing partners in battle.
- Hack Silver: These are the common currency in the game and are used to recruit new soldiers, invest in upgrades, and build structures.
- Gold Coin: This is key to upgrading Thorald's stats and consumables.
- Manpower: This reflects how many units players can have out on the field at any given time.
The Mead Hall will be the HQ of the base, where most major town upgrades are situated. However, players will find themselves establishing a bit of every structure as each serves an important purpose. While Wood and Fish are resources obtained periodically, building Lumber sites and Fishing Huts grants increased resource flow and stock size.
This is important as a big army needs more resources to sustain them. Hack Silver is obtained from chests, barrels, and fallen foes. Sons of Valhalla can be considered a simplistic RTS/tower-defense hybrid; players must set up defenses to keep their base safe while commanding units in real-time across the linear levels to continue waging an onslaught.
For the glory of mankind
As far as action goes, Thorald will go from the left to right of the level capturing bases - all of which are represented by a minimap at the screen's bottom. This is until he reaches the end with a boss fight that further sheds light on the story and progresses the narrative.
He will also obtain Runes across rarity tiers which have varied effects, like healing and enhancing ally movement speed, to granting brand new abilities, like a whirlwind spin attack.
This is managed by a belt using a slot system; while new slots can be organically obtained from chests, there are a limited number of slots; so players must find a good balance. Falling in battle will send the player back to Valhalla and they must sacrifice a Rune to proceed- unless players are playing in Easy mode, which not only removes this restriction but also boosts resource income.
The hero can perform a light and charged attack with his sword and also use his shield defensively to block incoming blows and projectiles. He has an HP bar and a stamina meter, the latter of which can be exhausted by blocking or dodging. Whether friendly or enemy, the base will have different buildings:
Combat buildings range from Barracks for training soldiers and an Archery structure for ranged units, to a shaman hut for healers and a Siege post for building battering rams and catapults. After all, enemy outposts will have defenses of their own in the form of gates, spiked structures, and towers that must first be broken down to progress.
Having a little of every unit type in the party is key to victory as each serves a purpose in the overall design. Units can be commanded to follow, hold position, attack, and - if there are shield-wielding units in the mix - form a shield configuration for defensive maneuvers. Consumables like fire arrows and javelins are also paramount in winning, especially against the varied boss fights.
One of the highlights of Sons of Valhalla is that it keep players on their toes. They must counter-attack with the appropriate unit type and prevent the foe from overwhelming Thorald's defenses and running them over - in a sort of mini-tug-of-war. Unit parameters like attack speed and even the player's stats like HP and stamina can be enhanced to keep up with the ever-rising difficulty.
Yes, Sons of Valhalla is a pretty challenging game, even on Normal. Enemy HP - and those of structures especially - can be very high, so players must balance both defenses and keep up with churning out more units to prevent a counter-assault. However, this is also where problems crop up.
A world of struggle
Despite its simplicity, everything in Sons of Valhalla works well enough; however, the game does not do anything to alleviate tedium. There are 5 levels in total, and each plays out more or less the same way with Thorald having to restart settlements from scratch in each new area.
The only exceptions are the go head-to-head against a unique boss - but besides that, players will largely build the same buildings and do the same thing they have been doing for every other previous level. This dilutes the strategy aspect despite the increasingly tough and distinct enemy variety.
Speaking of which, the bosses also feel like a chance to fight, with large health pools - and the basic combat loop does not help either. At least the story has some neat turns near the end to keep it all from falling apart. On that note, Sons of Valhalla also features a stealth section midway through the game.
This is a baffling addition for a game not designed for stealth as the result is a painfully mediocre one. Thankfully, the developer deployed a quick patch that doesn't just allow older players to skip the level altogether but segregates it into a separate mode that can be selected from the main menu.
Graphics, sound, and performance
The pixel-art visuals look good and Sons of Valhalla does not shy from being bloody and gory when it needs to be to reflect the harsh, mad reality of war. The game was reviewed on PC and the graphics settings are very barebones, with only options for Fullscreen, Resolution, and Vsync.
Despite its simplistic makeup, the game did seem to drop frames during hectic battles, so there's that. On the sound side of things, ambient and orchestral sounds accompany Thorald whether he is tending to his village or smacking foes bloody.
In conclusion
Sons of Valhalla is a mixed bag of a game. While the RTS and tower-defense hybrid is neat and the story is intriguing, the basic and repetitive gameplay loop means the journey loses steam long before it's over - and this is an already short game that can be wrapped up in about 6-8 hours. There is a good chance Kingdom fans may enjoy this but it will likely be a hard sell for others.
Sons of Valhalla
Reviewed on: PC
Platform(s): PC (via Steam, GOG and Epic Games Store)
Developer(s): Pixel Chest Games
Publisher(s): Hooded Horse
Release Date: April 5, 2024
