Jotun
Description official descriptions
Jotun is a top-down action game with a focus on exploration and based on Old Norse Mythology. Thora is a brave viking woman who died ingloriously in a shipwreck. However, the Norse Gods have given her a chance at entering Valhalla if she is able to defeat the five Jotun who dwell in different worlds, all connected by the Ginnungagap.
The viking warrior has to make her way through different levels in order to collect runes which grant her access to the boss battles. By exploring the different levels, she is also able to collect blessing from different Norse Gods as well as glimpses into Old Norse mythology. The game uses hand drawn graphics.
The Valhalla Edition of the game is the name used for the later console version of the game. It adds Valhalla Mode, a boss-rush mode with harder versions of the jotun. For owners of the initial PC version the game mode was provided as an update and the game was renamed.
Spellings
- ăšăă„ăł ăŽăĄă«ăă©ç - Japanese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
87 People (29 developers, 58 thanks) · View all
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Voice-Over Recording Producer | |
Odin | |
Thora | |
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Japanese Localization |
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Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian Localization |
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 77% (based on 17 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 9 ratings with 1 reviews)
Much better as a work of art than as a game
The Good
What does work well in Jotun is the art, and Iâm not just referring to the style of the graphics. That is indeed excellent, and also does a good job of creating the sensation of scale and of how small Thora is compared to the challenges sheâs facing, but the music isnât bad either and the developers seem to have made pretty good use of the mythology, at least for the limitations of the game. The way the creation myth was used in the Ymirâs Blood area struck me as particularly notable, though I guess others may disagree, since this is very obvious while in other areas the mythology was perhaps more organically intertwined. How Thora presents a part of her story after each section also works out all right, despite probably not being something notable in itself. Iâd say that the spoken language proved to be somewhat more notable, on the other hand. It had at first struck me as a gimmick which was likely to prove annoying, but once I actually played for a while and heard it a few times, I realized it really fit and enhanced the setting and the desired atmosphere.
So what I can say about Jotun is that it can be seen as a pretty good work of art, at least considering its limitations. Judged more by its artistic value and less by its gameplay, it would do quite well. It may be a fair example of games as art, but I donât think playing it is required to properly appreciate its artistic value. There are games that make particularly good use of the medium in this manner and which need to be played in order to be understood, felt, appreciated at their real value, but in case of Jotun, watching it may be enough⊠Which I guess isnât a good thing in itself, but may be if you donât have the skills to finish it or just donât care to.
The Bad
However, it is a game and I did play it, and the first thing that bothered me was the camera. Iâd even go as far as to call it awful, at least if youâre trying to actually play the game and not just watch it. Probably another element that works quite well if judged on its artistic value, but thereâs no way to control it and the changes in zoom level and the way in which it follows Thora or the action can and will cause quite a number of issues. Sometimes itâs simply a matter of being too slow to reveal the larger area or follow when you move away from it, likely in an attempt to create a more powerful impact and pressure the player to stick around long enough for it to sink in, but other times it may actually cause some confusion or add to the difficulty of battles. And on that note, the fact that only Thoraâs shadow is visible when sheâs under or behind something else definitely doesnât help either, though I must admit that, without being able to change the cameraâs angle or rotation and without negatively affecting that sensation of scale, I donât know what other solution the developers could have found.
Since I mentioned battles, one important reason why they are difficult is Thoraâs particularly slow attack, which keeps leaving her exposed since it canât even be stopped except by dodging. Yes, enemies tend to also be slow, usually even slower, but clicking and then needing to wait for two seconds before the strike comes doesnât allow for any sort of flow, nor does it give you a feel of the battle, not even creating a sensation of weight. Yes, there is a quick attack, if you attack while dodging, making Thora end the roll offensively, but that attack is much weaker and also requires dodging straight towards the enemy, and thereâs the time needed to roll to be taken into account as well, plus of course needing to be very much aware of the position at the end of the roll.
On top of that, you canât save manually, the situation being automatically saved once you complete each area, so the areas that need to be explored, for the required runes, as well as the God Powers and additional health, need to be completed in one sitting, and if you die at one point, youâll need to start over. You do keep what you gain, but still need to go through the whole thing all over again, until you can get to the end in one sitting and without dying. In addition, if you quit youâll start back in Ginnungagap, needing to walk back to the area, and through that first part, before the actual âarenaâ, of those with the boss battles. Thereâs also the fact that, until you learn to make proper use of the fountains, restoring your health and powers only at the end, or when you find yourself unable to do so, it may be better to die early in a sectionâs second area, as in that case youâll start it again fully restored, while otherwise youâll only have what you had left when you completed the first area.
The area map isnât exactly easy to use either, since it doesnât indicate your position and is rough, possibly even including a few mistakes, so youâre expected to keep track of your position and figure out what those rough sketches actually represent. Itâs a smaller problem than the rest, but it can nevertheless be frustrating⊠As was the fact that I couldnât see the right part of the last constellation in the Northern Sky area, only sorting the matter out after starting over, since trying to complete it blindly eventually resulted in death, taking a screenshot of the image on the rock and using it to fill in the rest once I got back there. Perhaps it had to do with my resolution, 1280Ă1024, this possibly having something to do with some of the ways in which the camera annoyed me as well, but if a game supports a certain resolution, it should actually be playable in it. And since thereâs nowhere else to put this, and itâs not like the scroll wheel is used for zooming or anything, Iâd have liked to be able to use it to switch God Powers, but itâs not possible.
The Bottom Line
Started Jotun in the first hours of 2019, thinking itâll be a game I should be able to finish quickly enough, to get a good start of the year from this point of view, and that proved to be the case. That second Jotun, which is in fact the only one that attacks simply because youâre there, the other battles starting after you strike first, made me think I had been wrong, killing me dozens of times and making it seem as if I couldnât get past a certain point in the battle, but once I got past that it went quite smoothly. The handful of attempted âValhalla Modeâ battles against the two Jotun which had seemed easy only resulted in the same number of deaths without it even seeming that I had a chance against those more powerful versions and I didnât care to struggle any more with that, so Iâm just referring to the game itself, up to that point, which is actually pretty short, despite some issues that may make it artificially longer and also cause the player to reconsider a session if theyâre not certain theyâll have the time to at least finish an entire area.
Overall, Jotun really is better if seen as a work of art than as a game, with an excellent graphic style, fitting atmosphere and a fair amount of attention paid to the mythology itâs based on. Judged on its merits as a game, on the other hand, itâs quite frustrating, in good part due to various design decisions, and while the camera may perhaps be partially justified by the desire to enhance the artistic value, itâs harder to find justifications for the lack of manual saving, the rough map that doesnât even track your position, or Thoraâs slow attack that doesnât even create a feeling of weight⊠Except perhaps that the developers wanted to extend the gameâs length to some extent, since itâs quite short otherwise, but this is most definitely not a good way to do so. As a result, I can recommend watching the game, if the one recording explored everything and did so properly, but actually playing it, perhaps not so much. Still, couldnât possibly call it a bad game, so if you can deal with some frustration and a few tougher fights, you can play it too, even if just to list another game as finished in a relatively short amount of time.
Windows · by Cavalary (11445) · 2019
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Shirley McPhaul.
Stadia added by Rik Hideto. Nintendo Switch added by Kam1Kaz3NL77. PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox One added by Sciere.
Additional contributors: Sciere, Rik Hideto.
Game added February 7, 2016. Last modified December 2, 2023.