Weekends are for relaxation but Volgarr decided that wasn't good enough!! Will I survive the final stretch of the game or will my controller give out before my will??
Good afternoon backloggers! After a long weekend of relaxation it’s finally time to put the nose to the grindstone, tighten that belt and put your blood, sweat and tears into our work for the next 5 days! Who needs time off anyways! Work is life and life is work amiright?! Wow… I’ve been playing way to much Viking games lately and their work ethic is rubbing off on me or something! I need to fix that work to slacking off ratio stat!
So, if you haven’t been able to tell, this past weekend I’ve been doing my due diligence and I’ve been sinking a whole bunch of time into Volgarr the Viking! Well, actually, it’s pretty much work trying to get through this game, so maybe I really haven’t been relaxing all weekend! Honestly, there’s plenty to like about Volgarr, with it being a call back to many old school 16-bit action platformers like Altered Beast or the action portions of Actraiser, but really that’s only if you have nostalgia for those games. But to me, as someone who doesn’t really have much nostalgia for them, I'm met with a frustrating and occasionally rewarding game filled with just enough jank that I’ll never want to touch it again once I’m finished.
I say it’s occasionally rewarding because once you do finally beat a stage you feel elated and great about yourself, but that’s only because you don’t have to play that dang stage again. You know, that one you’ve been banging your head against for the last 45 minutes! Now, don’t get me wrong, I do understand where the appeal is in this game. I know it’s all about learning the stages and figuring out when to attack versus when to dodge. Typically that involves skill with a sprinkling of memorization in games that do it great. But in Volgarr it just feels like all your doing is hoping memory serves and that luck is on your side. Skill just doesn’t seem as much of a factor. And because of that, it ends up feeling like homework or taking an exam. You cram the night before trying to memorize everything you can before the test and then you pray that you can execute come the time your pencil hits the paper! Or the flaming sword hits the a-hole snake man, in this case.
I can’t just be all negative about Volgarr though because otherwise I definitely wouldn’t still be playing it! I’m just about to start my gauntlet of trials through what I’m hoping is the last stage and for whatever reason I keep coming back wanting more. Who knows? Maybe I’m a masochist that likes the challenge and the fact that I have to work to finish the game. Or maybe it’s the small details like the fluid animations, or the ability to upgrade your armor when you find treasure chests. Maybe it’s the hidden rooms that hold the almighty Mjolnir that give me an extra hit and launches a devastating blast when I do! Or maybe it’s just the fact that the game is relatively short and I won’t have to suffer much longer.
Regardless of the reasons for me coming back to my captor, I’m of two minds for Volgarr. For one I’d say stay clear if you value your mental stability and your controllers! On the other hand, I’d say it’s worth a try if you can get it for cheap, have nostalgia for not being able to control your jump and your looking for a reason to break your left thumbstick out of frustration!
Deep breaths Patrick… Volgar will be over soon. Phew!
Cursing at 2D Vikings wasn’t all I did over the weekend though! The wife and I decided to play an extended session of Riddled Corpses together and there was an impromptu expansion of the backlog! Which I’ll get to in a little bit.
I gotta say, if Riddled Corpses EX was fun single player, the addition of a second player to help you mow down hordes of pixelated zombies makes this game exponentially more fun! Now, it’s easier to experiment with the other characters that you can unlock since the second player can use all of the higher level characters to help you survive longer! That and if you game over by losing all of your lives, you’re able to “borrow” your partners lives to keep going! That is of course as long as you mutually agree to the use of such a feature!
It’s seriously a blast gunning through each stage and trying to work together so you can survive the onslaught! Especially in the later stages where the monsters and zombies start to become much more aggressive and overwhelming. We still haven’t beaten the game yet since Stage 5 is a veritable ocean of enemies and bullets, but with enough perseverance we’ll get through it! Definitely looking forward to playing more!
And then there’s the “expansion” to the backlog. My loving wife was trying to think of a good game we could all play together with our son once we finished playing Hello Neighbor (which we still need to get back to) and she instantly thought of the time we all spent playing games like Paper Mario or Mario Odyssey. Which in all honesty were a blast to play. I love seeing my son’s eyes light up when Mario makes those big impossible jumps or when you encounter Bowser for the first time! So, what better game to pick up than another Mario game right? Well, that’s exactly what she did, and since the both of us are big fans of games like XCOM, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle seemed like a perfect fit. And I have to agree!!
I’m excited to dive into its super colorful and wacky world! And from the looks of it, it should be simple enough for my son to try and pick up as well. With our help of course. The fact that there is a two player co-op mode should make playing it together even better! So definitely look forward to us talking about that in the near future!!
Well my friends that’ll do it for this Monday!! Lots of trials and tribulations to go through for Volgarr, but I’m hoping to have it completed soon! Then I can move on to something that doesn’t make my head want to explode. Something like Mario + Rabbids! That and I think it’s finally time for me to get off my lazy buns and record the latest podcast some hopefully you’ll see that drop in the near future!!
Until tomorrow, have a great rest of your day!!
Currently Playing
Volgarr the Viking (Xbox One) - Me
Riddled Corpses EX (Switch)
Hello Neighbor (Xbox One) - Me and The Son
Stardew Valley (Switch) - The Wife
Total Backlogged Games: 737 ...It’s-a-me Mario!
Total Completed Games: 9 ...You Wascally Wabbid!
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