Developer: Games Farm, ARTillery
Publisher: Grindstone
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel – Preview
It seems that Survivors-like titles based on Norse mythology are quite hot now, as we recently reviewed Nordic Ashes and Viking Survivors. Nordic Ashes cemented itself as one of the top titles the genre has to offer, while Viking Survivors proved to be generic rubbish that failed to entertain. Now, a new contender steps into the ring with highly polished Diablo-like visuals and interesting-looking gameplay. Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is slated to release in the near future, but we have already taken a closer look at the demo gameplay.
Even though we are only basing ourselves on demo gameplay for this preview, Jotunnslayer is one of the prettiest Survivors-like titles out there. The character designs are great, the special effects for the attacks look amazing, and the only available map doesn’t look too bad. The latter does pale in comparison to the rest. The sound design isn’t too shabby either, as the soundtrack hits the right notes and the SFX pack a proper punch. In terms of story, there is currently no real narrative to be found. We are unsure if anything will be added in the future.
For the most part, Jotunnslayer is a fairly traditional Survivors-like experience. You’ll always start a run at level one, and killing enemies and picking up the experience points they drop allows you to level up. When leveling up, you’ll be presented with the abilities of different gods to choose from. You’ll be able to further enhance skills you already have, pick passive upgrades, or add new attacks to your ever-growing power level. It’s fairly standard stuff, but it feels quite polished already. You have a few skill rerolls per run, as well as the option to exclude a few skill choices when you keep leveling up. We assumed that each character would level its character-specific skills, but the randomness factor of also being able to select skills from other gods does add a bit of variety to the mix. At times we felt really overpowered, while during other runs we were dealt a poor hand, making the run more difficult. Even so, it was quite entertaining to try out different types of skills.
The general flow involves killing as many enemies as possible and surviving until you kill the final boss of the stage you are in. At set intervals, you’ll have to complete missions for rewards and to keep progressing. Once again, it’s nothing new, and some items did remind us a bit of Keeper’s Toll, another title in the same genre. Eventually the flow changes a bit, depending on what character you decide to pick, as well as other modifiers. Even so, things feel familiar, but polished.
There is currently not that much content available, but it’s clear that a lot more content is coming in the future. There will be more classes to choose from, more stages to play, and in general, a lot more options. What is already in the game, however, feels extremely polished. Controller support is already handled properly, which is also a plus.
Conclusion
Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is a Survivors-like title that shows much promise. We enjoyed the general gameplay loop and the Diablo-esque visuals a lot, and we can’t wait for the full game to come out. In an oversaturated genre that has more mediocre titles than we dare to count, Jotunnslayer may balance the scales again. At the time of writing, the demo is still available, so there’s no reason not to try it out.
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[…] not going to lie: we’re big fans of Survivors-like games. We have had the opportunity to try out quite a few ones over the last few years, and some […]