Valhalla Classics - PC Review
If you cast your mind back to 1994 you may remember yourself crooning along to ‘Love is all around’ by Wet Wet Wet, or dancing to ‘Saturday Night’ by Whigfield.
If you did either of the above, then, I’m sorry, but I do not want you to read my review, for those are unforgivable actions.
However, if like me you were rocking down when Oasis, Pulp and Blur were on the scene, then you my friend can continue reading.
More experienced gamers among you may remember the Commodore Amiga, a classic personal computer which revolutionised the gaming scene with its 16bit visuals and sound, (oh and it had a huge one megabyte of memory too).
1994 saw the release of Valhalla and the Lord of Infinity. This was the world’s first full speech adventure released on floppy disk.
The game centred around the Prince of Infinity, who’s father (King Garamond I) was murdered by his own brother. Now the Prince is all grown up it is time to avenge his father’s death, reclaim the throne and restore peace to the land of Valhalla.
A prequel and sequel were released in 1995 (Before the War) and 1996 (The Fortress of Eve) respectively, improving on the original with each release.
These classic games have now been recreated and released for the PC, with updated visuals and sound. Let’s take a look shall we?
Instead of directly re-releasing each game as a separate title, Vulcan Software has decided to go down the route of creating episodic releases (just like Valve have with Half Life 2).
This has a number of advantages over a full release. Firstly the cost; Episode 1 of 12 is absolutely free, with no limitations or pressure to buy the extra episodes. Episodes 2 - 12 are available at a very reasonable £3.99 each (with a discount if you buy more at the same time). Secondly, they are very small downloads, an average of just 7Mb each, with broadband speeds as they are today, you could be playing an episode within two minutes of pressing the download button!
There are twelve episodes in total split into the same 3 time periods mentioned earlier with 4 levels to each.
As the game is viewed from a bird’s eye perspective, Valhalla has a unique approach to controlling the character. By pointing the mouse in the direction you want to go you simply hold your left mouse button down and he will walk (or run if you hold the right mouse button) that way. The rest of the controls are done via the interface menu at the bottom of the screen, (which has big friendly buttons).
When facing an object you can attempt to look at it, pick it up or operate it in someway. Whilst holding an object, you have the choice to examine it further, drop it, insert it or consume it.
The variety of puzzles is surprising considering how few actions there are, it sounds quite limited, but this keeps it very straight forward and easy to play without having to learn hundreds of different combinations of actions, as we seem to have to in many games nowadays.
The puzzles are of the logical and lateral variety, some needing a great amount of thought and clue solving. A typical puzzle in Valhalla sees you find an item (certain clues should have informed you by now of where this particular item belongs) and when you place this item correctly you’re rewarded, usually with another item or two which then are linked with puzzles of their own. Sometimes (most frustratingly!) you find an item which appears to have no use whatsoever - it is always either a red herring or something which you may have to use a lot later on in the level. With room for 10 items in your backpack you can usually hold all the items you want, but sometimes Vulcan have been a bit sneaky here and force you to drop items you may need, so that you have room to pick others up. A few hours later you come across a location or person who wants that item you dropped, then you have to go back and find out where you left it!
Depending on how good you are, there is around 8 to 16 hours of puzzle solving in each huge episode. Prepare for some late nights (or early mornings) as you’ll not want to stop until you have finished each episode (well I didn’t anyway), although sometimes I must admit, coming back to it fresh the next day quite often helps a sore brain.
To further complicate things, you only have one save slot, which thankfully you can use an infinite amount of times per level. So a bit of thought has to be put into when you should save, and when you shouldn’t. If you are worried about crossing that deadly looking gap, you should save beforehand, but if you’ve just dropped an essential item down a hole, you should not save it afterwards as you’ll be stuck and have to start at the beginning of the level. I find it quite refreshing to be challenged in this way, rather than the easy auto save functions we usually have now.
The first four episodes see you controlling the Prince of Valhalla on his way to find and kill the Lord of Infinity. You travel through: The Crypt, The Sanctuary, The Chapel and The Tower.
The second four (controlling Mr Infinity) see you puzzle solving in: The Servants Hall, The Dungeons, The Gallery and The Royal Chambers. Your task is to escape from the Wizard, track down and murder your Brother the King, and then, as the new ruler, make Valhalla a ‘more interesting place to live in’.
The final four episodes get you running around: The Edge Of Eveswood, The Village of Evesland, The Fortress Courtyard and the Fortress Tower. This time, you’ll be controlling King Garamond II. Your quest is to find a wife; but Queen Eve has kidnapped all of the beautiful women from the Village, leaving only her ugly daughter Ezmeralda for you to marry. This is no good at all, so you must rescue the beauties and banish Queen Eve forever.
Each episode is bursting with an average of 350 spoken phrases, most from the controlled character (The Prince, The Lord, or The King), but there are also many other characters to meet and interact with; most want you to go and do their dirty work, but usually reward you for your kind efforts.
Lets get down to the nitty gritty.
Each level is huge and will take many hours to finish. The graphics are not outstanding, but functional. They really do, however, have a unique charm of their own, and it is good to see sprites used instead of polygons for a change!
The speech is great, very clear, amazingly funny and very well acted. Never before has a video game character spoken so directly to the gamer, he looks straight up towards you; sometimes you’ll be congratulated for figuring out a puzzle, but more often than not you’ll be made fun of (or insulted), but that’s what makes the game so loveable. The whole game is fully subtitled too, so if you are hard of hearing you need not miss out on the dialogue.
The sound effects and music are basic, but very atmospheric, and do the job well enough for me.
The fundamental puzzle solving is the same throughout the twelve episodes: find and item, take it somewhere, get new item in return and so on. However the actual puzzles and clues are quite varied, so if you enjoy a mental challenge, then this should not dissuade you from enjoying the game.
Vulcan has done a great job in squeezing as much as they can into a relatively small file size for each episode. Their plan to make the game accessible to those on still on a dial up connection is a commendable one.
With more episodes planned for the future, I am waiting in keen anticipation for new additions to this unique franchise.
The specifications needed for Valhalla are quite modest, which is superb for those of you who aren’t equipped with supercomputers but still like to dabble with games now and then. It will happily run on Windows 95 through to Vista with only a basic graphics card and DirectX needed.
I highly recommend the Valhalla series to anyone, and as the first episode is free you might as well give it a try. If you like it you can thank me later, if you don’t, well it hasn’t cost you anything has it?
The episodes can only be purchased from Vulcan’s website - follow the link below to download episode one for free. The other episodes are there to download too, but you will need to purchase your personal keycodes so that you are able to play them.
Valhalla Download Site
Ok, that’s been all praise so far hasn’t it? I’ve not said anything bad about Valhalla have I?
Well I do have a niggle with Valhalla on the PC. Not a big niggle, just a little one, but a niggle none the less. On the Amiga, the Valhalla games each had a neat intro animation, but none of them have been recreated for the PC release (bugger and blast I thought! I really enjoyed those).
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