And after a few unjustified deaths, you’ ll start to wish the dodging and attacking worked properly. If any motion is mistimed you’ll find yourself paying for it with half, if not all, of your health bar. But as you approach the harder bosses, the brief pause becomes punishing. They weren’t particularly frustrating at first. As opposed to literally ev erything else in this game, the controls felt clunky and underdeveloped. Also, every movement is individually animated and features a brie f pause afterwards, which removes the possibility of combos, chains or repeated rolls.

S o, it’s more of a burst of quick movement and less of an evasion tactic. Thora can also roll however, the roll doesn’t feature any invincibility frames. And believe me, once the end credits have rolled, you’ll find yourself re ading about Ymir and other Vikings myths. But it’s up to you to research the details. I f you’re not initially familiar you’ll certainly be brought up to speed – at least enough to enjoy the story of the game. W hile the narration from Thor and Thora does explain some of the integral mythology, the game certainly doesn’t spoon feed the audience. The narration is in Icelandic – the currently spoken language mo st closely related to Old Norse – with English subtitles, a nd th ere’s no option to change this. The game makes no attempt to strea mline or ‘westernise’ any of it s elements. I was more impressed by J otun sticking religiously to it s roots. I was intrigued by the clever manipulation of Yggdrasil, Valhalla and other legends. Courtesy of my V iking-descended best friend, I’ve been well acquainted with a sizeable amount of these stories. These le vels also draw on Norse Mythology. Each is gorgeously ha nd-painted a nd each is totally unique. Each one is created around some unique mechanic : one level has you navigating slides of tree roots another has you skating across a frozen lake, pursued by a giant serpent. While you might not be here for tens of hours, it’s easy to sink some time into exploring Jotun’s vivid levels. Exploring the different worlds is almost as much fun as strategizing your way through the incredible boss fights. That said, the game is best played with some attention. You’d have no problems charging through the campaign in one afternoon. And like a bedtime story, Jotun is fairly short.

It pans out how you’d expect: like your favourite bedtime story. There are no twists or turns in Thora’s tale. On the plot front Jotun is straightforward. It’s easy to feel disconnected from simple stories, but t his strategy creates emotionality and sentimentality in the story. A clever storytelling decision, this creates a pseudo-friendship between Thora and the player. And as you make progress through her quest, Th ora will reveal the details of her personal narrative.

Jotun valhalla edition controls