Jotun was released on PC a year ago, but finds itself part of Nintendo’s indie games, or Nindies, and I would consider this a big score for Wii U owners. I never played the original, but the Valhalla Edition seems to be by all accounts the same as the original game except that, upon beating the game, you unlock a boss rush mode with tougher-than-before versions of the bosses. These bosses are the Jotun, and they’re part of Norse mythology.
Indeed, Jotun is primarily a game about fighting bosses, but there’s much more to it than that. You play Thora, a female Viking warrior who dies on a ship during a storm. This was not a very glorious death, so, before she can enter Valhalla for eternity, she has to prove herself to the Gods. To do this, you find yourself in Giggungagap, a sort of mystical nexus for each of the game’s levels. If you thought Giggungagap was hard to pronounce, get ready for an expanded lesson in the Icelandic language; all voiceovers in the game are in their native tongue (with English subtitles). The mythology is intriguing, as is the story, and it unfolds beautifully and seamlessly within the play of the game. Thora’s introspections as you enter a new area or having returned to Giggungagap after clearing an area are compelling and perfectly timed for you to listen and read while preparing yourself for the next challenge.
From Giggungagap, you travel, on foot, over the course of thirty seconds or so, to the next major area. Within this area are two locations, and at these locations are runes that you must locate. Doing so unlocks the path to the boss battle, one of several Jotun that are all quite different yet share one key thing: they’re massive. The whole scale of the game is massive, and Thunder Lotus did a very nice job of routinely reminding the player how insignificant they are against the scope of not only the Jotun themselves, but also of the lands you traverse. The hand-drawn, frame-by-frame art looks unique and offers ample opportunity to showcase this sense of scale. Overlooking land from plateau, narrowly avoiding a gigantic ice fish creature as it surfaces, and dodge-rolling Jotun attacks are a few examples of this continuous and appreciable sense of scale that Thunder Lotus achieved.
In a few rare cases, this sense of scale backfires just a little bit in that it can be tough to locate Thora on the battlefield. It’s not a common issue, but the second boss (whose name escapes me) was a prime example of this and the framerate hiccups that sometimes occur when there are too many objects on screen. Once again I was wowed by the scale of having Thora, a huge boss, and what literally had to be 150+ dead or alive fallen enemies on screen at once. Finding Thora in this was sometimes tough, but it was the framerate inconsistencies that made a tough fight a little bit more challenging. Hardly a game-breaking issue, but still notable, these problems are unfortunate, but workable.
One thing I made a note of early on and found myself almost re-noting a few times again throughout the game was that Jotun is tough, but fair. Nearly all of the combat takes place during the boss fights, before you get to those the experience is largely one of exploration. Each sub-area is fairly large and offers its own environmental challenges and, more importantly, an interesting area for players to explore. Sometimes you’ll see something, like this mythical tree whose fruit gives Thora a sliver of extra space on her HP meter, and you will have to figure out how to get to it. Ever little bit of health helps, so whether it’s a health fountain good for one use or this tree, it’s worth getting to. There are also new powers that you are granted by discovering a shrine within these sub-areas that are essential for victory. These include powers like Decoy from Loki that makes enemies focus on a fake version of you; after getting their attention, the ‘fake’ explodes, causing considerable damage. You also get a health boost, a massive hammer (Thor’s no less), and other powers. These powers can only be used twice per area (and are replenished when returning to Giggungagap). Between the great artwork and music, and given the stout boss encounters, the exploration gameplay provides a perfect balance to the boss fights. The design is reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus in that regard, and that’s not a bad thing obviously.
Much like the diversity of the lands in Giggungagap, the Jotun themselves are quite diverse in everything from appearance to tactics. Moreover, each boss varies their attacks two or more times during the course of battle, typically as their life meter reaches the halfway and one-third mark. Given how large they are, and how much damage they can dish out in a single blow, Jotun compels you to keep your wits about you. Each boss requires strategy; brute force alone simply cannot work. Keeping track of cues like shadows and getting to know patterns is vital, and I really liked how strategy changes not only per boss, but during each boss encounter as well. Failing a boss fight is never fun, and the ‘you’ve failed the Gods message’ you get plastered on the screen is irksome while your trying to figure out what to do and when to do it, but again, Jotun is tough but fair. What this amounts to is a game that’s easier to keep coming back to than some others, and, one that gives you a nice triumphant feeling whenever you slay the massive Jotun.
In sum, Thunder Lotus has done a tremendous job with Jotun leaving very little in the ‘con’ column of the equation.
