A sequel to Volgarr the Viking from eleven years ago was not on my bingo card for 2024. This game does not mess around, playing as Volgar the Viking made me Scott the Vulgar. Volgarr the Viking II is everything about the first game’s difficulty is very much in-tact. That said, Volgarr the Viking II is a return to form, and everything you’d want from a sequel, to include optional accessibility options so that you can actually beat this one.
Volgarr the Viking is a character of legend. The story begins with retelling the events of the first game, and saying that the reason Volgarr is back this time is due to divine intervention, as Odin has resurrected him to the plane of midgard. As he’s having a drink at an inn, an all-out attack begins and Volgarr springs into action. You’ll explore five different lands and fight five different bosses to quell the threat. While there’s not a lot of exposition, narrative threads, or emotional ties, there’s more than enough bloodshed to drive you towards the game’s credits, if you can finish it.
Staying true to the original, Volgarr the Viking II is hard as balls. Impatience is not rewarded, and you’ll die in just a single hit from an enemy, no matter how and who it is. Killing enemies takes anywhere from one to many hits. At times, it’ll require memorization and prediction. There will be some alteration to enemy placement, but knowing how each enemy behaves is essential to your success. Now you shouldn’t, and don’t need to kill every enemy, but they drop treasures so you feel compelled to. It won’t be easy, but you are given all the tools to complete the game, but you have to learn and master them to their maximum effectiveness.
Volgarr the Viking has several moves in his repertoire, such as a double-jump and roll. He can throw spears as a weapon and traversal device as it is the only way to progress in some areas. You can throw multiple, and use those to ascend tall areas. A couple of nitpicks caused me to die more than I would have liked were the fact that you can’t jump down from stairs and platforms. What this means is, you’ll have to walk your happy Viking ass down the stairs if you want off of them, because you spotted some treasure chest you missed. Additionally and more damning, is that when you’re holding down and the jump button, the combination of buttons that would drop you down from the current platformer to the next initiates a roll instead. What this means is that you’ll often roll off that platform off a cliff or into a pit, resulting in instant death. It’s an odd choice to be sure, but one that took me a while to get used to. Other traversal methods include having to jump gaps onto a swinging rope. Thankfully ropes are thankfully not momentum-based, so you can almost always make it with a simple double-jump and don’t have to think too hard about it. This is a platformer that demands precision, but it is forgiving in other areas.
During the course of a level, you’ll pick-up equipment, specifically boots, a belt, a helm, and a sword. Each item alone and together make Volgarr the Viking more powerful. It’s not a cheat, per se, but it lets you feel like the Viking badass you were meant to be. If you happen to die, your power fantasy is reset until you can reacquire these items in the level again.
I’ve spoken about how hard this game is and how you’ll die. There is no difficulty selection, but there are items found in-game that can increase or decrease the difficulty based on your choices. There are new runestones that serve as checkpoints. In the very likely event that you die, you will be reset to this instead of the very beginning of the level. Now you will have a limited number of lives, and once those expire, it will be game over. You can continue, but now it will be at the start of that level. Let’s say you’re too good for a crutch such as a checkpoint, well you can destroy the runestone for increased treasures and ultimately make the game harder for you. Death does incur a penalty, but this isn’t felt until Volgarr the Viking dies enough times. At some point, he will become Zombie Volgarr, indicated by his green skin and bone white HUD. There are a total of six endings to the game, and becoming Zombie Volgarr ensures you’ll get the worst one – which I did, and I got. You can remove the zombie curse by deleting your save, but it would be good to use this to finish the game since you can’t die (except in pits). This way, you can see the worst ending and then work to do better in future playthroughs.
If you needed further assistance, a practice mode is unlocked after the first boss fight, and more with each successive boss fight victory. This is also a good place for speedrunners to see the HUD to experiment with strategies, as to not affect endings. Separately, there’s a modifier item in the options that can turn on the speedrunner HUD and do things like disable the button combination of “down and jump” that initiates that death-inducing roll. I’m so glad this setting in the game, I only wish I found it sooner.
The game doesn’t support ultrawide monitors, just standard 16:9 aspect ratios. I was able to achieve maximum frames per second at all times, without any incident. There are no real graphics options to speak of except for display modes, resolution, and language. The one thing you can fiddle with is selecting a scaling filter of “point” and “sharp bilinear”. I saw no discernible difference between them, so I left it on the default of point. The first Volgarr the Viking is still incredibly playable today, but I feel there’s a bit more fidelity and graphical depth here.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
Volgarr the Viking II is sometimes unfair, but it’s a throwback to the 8 and 16-bit platformers it is so clearly inspired by. It’s a game that requires precision, patience, and practice. It’s a straightforward game that has multiple endings to encourage replayability, but is a game that’s more about the journey than the destination. Volgarr the Viking II is a hardcore and uncompromising sequel that delivers.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
