I?m a simple man. I see vikings, I click download. This has been true for years, and it was true a couple months ago, when Vikings: an Archer?s Journey [$2.99] was in the recommended new games section of the App Store home page. I didn?t opt for a review right away because this game definitely needed some more time in the forge, but a few thousand whacks with the hammer of improvement later and we have a solid bow-and-arrow-centric runner on our hands worth giving a look.
I?m not going to spend much time dwelling on past builds of the game because that?s largely irrelevant, but I do want to paint a picture to demonstrate just how far this game has come in a few short months. The developer, PinPin Team, released a blatantly unfinished game to the App Store, with only two of the promised characters, limited missions, some placeholder art, inferior power-up art, and a game breaking bug that let you fall through and run under the level until Ragnarok come. Now we?re up to four characters, each more unique in their play style, with an accurate mission system, better art for power-ups, a better UI with more information, and purchasable upgrades for each power-up, plus second chance revive style items.
This is all on top of a gameplay loop that I immediately loved. But it?s this extra layer of polish and sense of progress that makes the game extra satisfying to play. The gameplay and aesthetic of the game immediately made me want to hold on and see what future updates would brin...