Viking Heroes

Review

It’s the first time that the Viking brothers, Everand and Boromer, are sailing with their sisters, Helga and Brunnhilde. It is a beautiful day; the sea is calm, and they find themselves recounting their incredible adventures to each other. But that night, as they were deep asleep on the deck of their Drakkar (ship), a magical cloud surrounded their vessel and lifted it high in the sky to a fantasy world among the clouds. As they woke up on their own cloud, separate from each other, they must find a way to reunite and discover why they ended up in this fantasy world! Here is their adventure, in Viking Heroes.

Viking Heroes is a casual/time management game developed by Yustas Game Studio and published by Alawar Entertainment on the 16^th of April 2020 on the Steam platform.

The game consists of 54 levels for the main campaign, and an extra 16 levels will unlock after beating the game. Personally, it is the first game of the series that I have had the pleasure to play.  Alawar Entertainment actually has many of this type of game within their portfolio, so if you played one of the previous Viking Brothers or Viking Sister’s games, you’ll know what to expect.

After creating your profile and selecting your level of difficulty, from Easy to Hard (where Easy has no time limits while Normal and Hard do), you will be prompted by a small introduction and then you’ll be straight into the thick of it.

For each level, you will have 3 to 4 tasks to complete in order to win. What is fun in this game (apart from the story) is that each of your Vikings has specific abilities. Helga is a master of magic, and she can transform gems into foods and other resources and vice versa. Everand is the strongest brother of the two and can smash huge rocks, while Boromer and Brunnhilde are the fighters and will take care of Storm Spirits, Thunder Giants as well as the Pink Crystals which creates Storm Spirits.

At the start of each of the levels, you’ll have one Viking worker at your disposal. Your starting point will either be on your Drakkar or in the Viking camp. Each of the levels will be laid with paths, and on these paths, you’ll have resources to pick up or obstacles to clear so you can access and build a resource, such as a farm or a sawmill, to increase your resources. That is because each of your actions will cost you a certain number of resources to execute. Most of the levels will have one of the sibling’s house to build before you can use them and their skills. So, make sure you study the map before clicking on one of the resources or obstacles laid out on these paths; as soon as you action your worker, the countdown will start.

You’ll have a bit of help in the form of a gauge which will gradually fill in as you play. On that gauge, you’ll have one to three icons, which could be a shoe with feathers, resources, or a sand timer. Sometimes you have one and other times you might have three icons on this gauge. When the icon becomes gold, you can activate it;  if you click on the sand timer, it will stop the countdown for a while, and if you click on the shoe with feathers, your workers and heroes will run faster for a certain period of time.  The resources icon will add more food, wood or stones to your resources.

You’ll also have a couple of mini-games throughout your playthrough; one is a bit like a Mahjong game, and the other requires you to catch falling items in a vase. There are also 21 owls to find, hidden within some of the levels.

It will take you around 10 hours to finish the main story on the normal difficulty, and you’ll unlock another 16 levels after that, which I think is pretty good for this genre of game.

Good graphics and the soundtrack is ok. In terms of controls, you’ll be using your mouse all the way.  Personally, I really enjoy the game and its story.