Volgarr the Viking II Doesn’t Hate Us as Much as Its Influences Did
When I was a kid a game called Ghosts ‘n Goblins came out.
Every kid fucking hated Ghosts ‘n Goblins.
It was the hardest, most pig-headed, proudest fuck you! game that existed in the ‘80s, and the worst thing about it is that it was really fun when it wasn’t breaking your back over its knees and pissing in your face. Seriously: fuck that game. Now I’m gonna go play it all night long.
In Ghosts ‘n Goblins you’re a bearded little dork in a suit of armor that completely disappears at the slightest mention of a bad guy. You have to sprint and chuck your way through unending mobs of assholes that pop up randomly and constantly respawn, all with only two hits between you and death. Your weapon can change often, depending on what drops you pick up, but replenishing that armor is rare and limited and deeply nonsensical. This game is so evil and hates you so much there are not one but two different bosses named Satan. And if you somehow make it all the way to the end, you have to then repeat the whole thing but harder to truly win.
Fuck Ghosts ‘n Goblins.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins was an early smash for Capcom, who generally can’t be fucked with, and it (or its sequels) was basically ported to every game-playing device of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. It was a huge arcade hit, it sold over a million units on the NES, and that doesn’t count all the different versions made for various computers and consoles. It might not quite have the name recognition of a Pac-Man or Mario, but very few games from the ‘80s have sold as well or made as huge of an impression on the medium as Ghosts ‘n Goblins. And to prove it, let’s talk about the game I’m here to actually review today: Volgarr the Viking II, which came out in early August, and isn’t just a tribute to Capcom’s game but a sequel to a tribute to Capcom’s game.
Volgarr the Viking II is a stupidly difficult hack-and-slash platformer where, depending on how many power-ups you’ve acquired, you can die within a couple of hits. Like Ghosts ‘n Goblins, you run to the right, stabbing your way through a parade procession of semi-randomly generated monsters that can kill you with a touch. You’ve got a sword and a spear you can throw, and you can pick up a handful of different power-ups, eventually becoming far more powerful than little ol’ Sir Arthur in that goblins game ever gets. It’s a little bit Conan the Barbarian, a little bit Legendary Axe, a whole lot of Ghosts ‘n Goblins, and totally, irrevocably the late ‘80s—or at least an early ‘90s 16-bit game heavily inspired by the ‘80s.
As an old guy with old guy interests, I was deeply enamored by Volgarr the Viking II’s charms the first several dozen times I played it. Memorizing the somewhat unpredictable enemy patterns is second nature to somebody whose formative gaming experiences came in the ‘80s, and a few welcome concessions to modern day mentalities—mid-level save points, multiple save files, relatively easy-to-find power-ups—made Volgarr II less challenging than more unforgiving Ghosts acolytes. It’s hard as hell but just respectful enough to not abuse my trust, which develops a significant amount of respect for a game. Salute, Volgarr.
Still, though, sometimes it takes that reluctance to abuse us a little too far. The biggest problem with Volgarr the Viking II is also the most courteous thing it does for today’s players. It limits how long its brutality lasts. If you use a continue a certain number of times, Volgarr suddenly becomes nigh-invulnerable. It automatically defaults to an easy mode after you die often enough, and it doesn’t even communicate that all that well. I had to do a google search to figure out why I was suddenly surviving hits that would’ve immediately ended me earlier, and when I realized it was because I had used too many continues, I deleted that save and started over from scratch—which is the only way to back out of the dumbo mode once the game slots you into it.
That kind of option can be a good thing for a game—when it’s an option. The fact that Volgarr just defaults to that, with no way to turn it off, and almost no indication that it’s even been triggered, is a legit bummer. Games should let the player decide if they want to take the easy way out—especially games whose whole deal is recreating the soul-crushingly difficult games of the 1980s.
This doesn’t fatally undermine Volgarr II, or anything. It just makes you—or, at least, me—tap out once Volgarr himself turns into an unbeatable green zombie. At that point I delete my save and start fresh, hopefully making it a little farther, continue after continue, before Volgarr becomes indestructible once more. I suppose that makes it a practice mode, in a sense, although once you know nothing will really hurt you it becomes hard to take enemies or their actions all that seriously. It’s all just a bunch of brush to hack through—mindless churn for the grinder’s wheel, in subgroup tools, to fathom hell. Let’s go vike, Volgarr.
Volgarr the Viking II was developed by Crazy Viking Studios and published by Digital Eclipse. Our review is based on the PlayStation 5 version. It’s also available for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.
Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, comedy, travel, theme parks, wrestling, music, and more. He’s also on Twitter @grmartin.