Volgarr the Viking II leans heavily into some of the more brutal designs of the SEGA Genesis era, and that alone makes J.J. really enjoy this throwback
I didn’t grow up on Nintendo’s style games. I grew up on Genesis style games. So when there’s a Genesis style game, it really speaks to me differently.
The original Volgarr the Viking is a really good 360 Xbox Live Arcade era side-scrolling action adventure game where we’re a viking just fucking shit up, man. And it’s brutal. It’s more about trial and error and dying and failing, a lot, until we brute force our way through a hairy situation.
Volgarr the Viking II is, gameplay-wise, just a refined version of the original game. Developer Digital Eclipse isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel with this game in any way, shape or form, as if this sequel was made back for the 360. It’s still hard as hell, and it’s happy being that. It’s a side-scrolling SEGA Genesis-styled action game that tasks us with using a big ole spear to take out enemies. It’s a throwable weapon, but it also creates platforms, which is sick. So it lets us get to areas that we couldn’t experience without it. For example we can throw a spear into the shield of an enemy, and then can use that enemy to wire up and get stuff.
And this game is brutal, man. I am not good at this game. I have been playing it A LOT, and I feel like I haven’t made any much headway at all in it, even though I have, obviously. Which brings me to what is my biggest problem with this game, and it’s a problem that the devs have only kind of vaguely addressed but don’t know if they can change it because it’s kind of built into the systems. You know how in modern Mario games, where if we die too many times we’re given that invincibility box that lets us zip through levels? There’s a very similar concept happens here called “Undead Mode.” It’s not explained well, and there’s not much of a prompt, but essentially if we die too many times in this game it activates the mode, which turns us invincible (except for things like pitfalls). This is all well and dandy, except that we cannot turn it off and we cannot say no. Once it’s activated, once we’ve died too many times, it’s just on until we delete our save file or beat the game.
And being in that mode changes the ending. There are ways to kind of circumvent that, but it’s just like… Sure. For games like this we just want to get back in and do it. Visually it kind of gives us a hint about how close we are to it, because each time we’re resurrected from a continue, Volgarr looks shittier and shittier, turning more and more into a zombie. His skin starts turning ash, his body parts fall off.
So now we’re just the undead finishing our quest. It’s conceptually cool, but I think it just needed to be more flexible. I do not like Undead Mode. Now, I’m bad at the game so Undead Mode is like, okay, I get it. But I would rather just kind of power through it and have it take me longer than make me play through the game invincible. I want to be able to make the choice if I want to skip a level, or if I want to just cheese a level and get it done and over with. Taking that choice away from us does feel like a kind of lesson in that control.
Volgarr the Viking II is a really, really, really good game. It’s a solid 2D platforming brawler that feels like a modern version of a Sega Genesis game, which is just how the original felt. I just wish the dev team would have handled that invincibility aspect better. It is what it is, but it’s not a reason to not to play this game.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live! for August 7, 2024. Images and video courtesy Digital Eclipse.
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