![]() ![]() Then I’d walk through that final door, that gate to the culmination of your studies – the hardest obstacle you’ve met with yet. I really enjoyed figuring out levels, mastering controls and feeling damn near omnipotent in the face of arbitrary adversity. When I was young, there was something about boss fights in video games that raised my anxiety to what could perhaps be called an unhealthy level. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It will have nothing to do with the PC port of The Escapists on the Epic Games store next week, but it is the biggest disappointment of a genuinely great game. Next week, I think I’ll be talking about the worst port job I’ve seen when it comes to controls, as it feels as wrong as licking a dog’s teeth to clean them. The Jotun: Valhalla Edition is free all this week on the Epic Games store and will be until December 12th. I think it has an audience and that audience is someone trying to teach the idea of Souls -like to someone who wouldn’t get it. If you aren’t looking for something that is doing the Cuphead, Dark Devotion, The Surge-style thing of THAT game but different, I don’t know if you’d like Jotun. ![]() Dark Souls is my comfy place, so when something isn’t enhancing my experience that doesn’t mean it is bad, it is just very different. What I’m trying to say, while suggesting you really do pick up Jotun, is how it does something I love. Oddly, some praise I’ll give to Death Stranding. Normal attacks feel like writing a letter by hand, heavy attacks are hand-delivering all your Christmas cards, and walking isn’t fun at all. Much like Hover, Jotun ‘s movement feels off. I made mention of this in the Twitch Prime piece the other day, movement makes or breaks some things for me. Though that slower pace makes moving at all feel wrong. The much slower pace makes it more accessible for more players, and the bright and happy aesthetic around the grim Norse gods is fun. Once again, not meant with bitter hatred, though I could see why it might seem like it is. The reason I stopped playing is how slow it feels. Yet, that’s not the reason a while back I didn’t even bother getting that far. The first boss being particularly yellow-stained as I stood under him and still got hit by his Guisarme (poled weapon). Much like the eponymous FromSoft series, the hitboxes are taking no short amount of liquid sewage on gigantic scales. It is Souls -lite that would do well to teach a younger child both how to invent new swears and control. For better, it doesn’t faff around with inventories, blood echoes, or a mass amount of weapons I want to sell to anyone willing to buy them. So when I think Jotun is what a Dark Souls would be for children I don’t mean that in “ Eww! it is for babies, go back to playing Jax and Daxter, scrubs !” I’m simply suggesting it is simpler for better and worse. ![]() The point I’m trying to get across is how I don’t know what it is like for a new player to play a Souls -like game when I’ve played the last five and their ugly cousins. I’d rather be spanked by Gwyn than by Donald and Goofy in Kingdom Hearts. Some, our editor-in-chief Alexx for example, don’t and that’s ok. I like the idea of throwing myself at the wall, time and time again, with only bits of either it or I falling off each time until one of us breaks. Now, if you’ve listened to me talk for the last several months, you’ll know I bow at the hilt of the Souls / Borne / Sekiro series waiting to be spanked. That’s what I want to highlight with Jotun, it is that idea of Dark Souls but with another twist. Ok, that joke is fairly important because both games take Norse mythology, and both have a Dark Souls take and make it accessible. Jotun is a game about the other gods, the ones Kratos last had a big argument with after that whole business with traveling through the nine realms and killing everything. Jotun: Valhalla Edition, a game about the messianic age where everyone sits about loving life, there’s no apocalypse, and you don’t have to kill anything. Well, well enough to use well three times to confuse your brain a little and just move on. Then again, last week’s article was put together hastily following the Thanksgiving blob that engulfs America and threw a wrench in our plans at the time. One minute I was there writing about Codemasters and BABYMETAL, the next minute it was Thursday morning and I was playing a bit of this week’s game before it was free on the Epic Games Store. Well, this week crept up on me out of nowhere. ![]()
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