Warrior! Eat your mead and lets go.
To start, Viking: BFA is a colourful blend of gory combat and exploration where you are thrown into the world of the Vikings as a warrior known as Skarin. For centuries the Underworld has waged a war against the gods to gain all control of the mortal realm and with Hels evil touch they finally managed to break through destroying and purging eveything they come in contact with. Skarin tires to defend his hometown but is struck down by Hels special champion and then ressurected by Freya to rally all the survivors to take back what was lost. The story is strait forward and has little substance but is presented rather pleasantly. The music is just about non exsistant apart from your map menu and when you are waging large scale battles but when it does play it adds to atmosphere.
The combat in Viking: BFA is grusome and bloody never over doing it but sometimes leaving you craving for more. The combo system is simple while proving that simple can be effective. Skarins combos are mapped on the X and A button, A for fast quick blows and X for a heavy hit.
More moves can be pruchased through the battle Arena that can add specific hits to take out those hard to hit monsters as well those shielded foes. You can evade hits when tapping Y and blocking ( RT )which proves indispensible throughout the entire game.Although the combo system isn't quite like Devil May Cry or any other combo heavy game out there, you still end up doing heavy damage and enjoying every bit of it as monsters are cut down to mere pieces while feeling the impact of each blow .
The rendered world of Viking BFA is indeed open ended but that word is thrown around quite freely. You can chose where you go but there are still instances where you must take a set path to arrive at a certain distination and areas contained because of the layout of the geography. But regardless it is very fun to just walk around and check out every nook and cranny you can find. The graphics are very crisp and colourful early on and become baren as you progress through the different island themes.
The large scales battles are very fun and a treat after running around doing quests. The larger battles show a bit of slowdown which can be dissapointing and with so many people around you it can be hard to dissern your friends from foes but with enough focus and the help of elemental runes this is easily avoided.
This game is very fun if you enjoy the hack and slash genre but has a limp story line and non exsistant character developpement ( apart from hels champion) but by far one of the better titles to brace the next gen community. Difficulty is just right on normal and challenging on the harder difficulty. Rent it to get a feel or if you looking for some mindless monster mashing then get this now. With a great story, some voice dialogue, music to compliment this game could have been an awesome title but for now its lost potiential waiting to be exploited further. I loved it and was very satisfied with it as I enjoy just about every kind of hack and slash. Better than Conan IMHO but not quite enough to tople God of War.