Ever since Volgar the Viking released in 2013, fans have been waiting more than a decade for a full sequel to the Rastan-inspired action-platformer, and now that time has finally come. Thanks to a partnership between developer Crazy Viking Studios and retro gaming experts Digital Eclipse, we can once again step into the shoes of Volgarr and embark on a more dangerous adventure than anything he’s faced before. The result is a game that frankly feels improved in every way possible, making Volgarr the Viking II not only the best 2D action-platformer on Switch, but one of the best of all time.
First, let’s start with the obvious: Volgarr II is brutal. Some tweaks have been made to make the game more approachable for beginners. We’ll go into that in more detail later, but you should know that this is not for the faint of heart. You will die in Volgarr II. And you will die a lot. As with the original, getting through each stage requires practice in learning the layout, predicting the location of every enemy, and observing their attack patterns and weak spots. When you first enter a new area, trying to push through as quickly as possible is simply not an option. There’s no doubt something awaiting that will bring your journey to a swift and bloody end.
Veterans of the original will have a slight advantage as the gameplay remains relatively unchanged. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Volgar walks fast and can double jump to reach high places or throw his spear at walls to use as a makeshift platform. A basic sword swing is enough to deal with most foes, but using this in combination with other moves is key to progressing through the more difficult segments of the game. There’s nothing quite like jumping to throw a spear at a draugr, somersaulting and curving your sword down to kill an enemy below, then tossing the spear again to kill a third unlucky fool, all before landing. It’s awesome.
Unfortunately, Volgar is not the most durable of the warriors, and in his base form, a single blow not blocked by his shield will tear his flesh from his bones, sending him back to the last checkpoint. However, just like the original, you can get useful upgrades by opening treasure chests scattered throughout the stage. There are more of them this time, and each one gives you extra hit points to stave off inevitable death. In order, they are boots, flaming sword, belt, and helmet. The flaming sword is particularly useful, effectively doubling your attack damage. Some of the bigger enemies, such as the one whose official name is “Chonky Chad,” require more than four hits before they die, so halving this makes the task much more manageable.
One of the biggest changes in Volgarr II is the new checkpoint and continue system. Yes, there are checkpoints now, which is a real blessing for those new to the game who need a helping hand. Veterans, on the other hand, can set themselves an extra challenge and destroy checkpoints Shovel Knight style to earn treasure and bonus lives. Plus, in the original, you could die as many times as you wanted without worrying about penalties (unless you were trying to tackle the Path of Valkyries levels). Now, however, Volgarr has a limited number of lives, and when they run out, you can choose to continue or return to the main menu. Choosing the former will send you back to the start of the level (or the midpoint, if you’ve reached it), but it also comes at a heavy price.
With each continue, a part of Volgar’s soul is taken away. It’s not immediately obvious at first, but you’ll notice that with each continue, Volgar becomes paler and paler. Soon his skin will be completely green and his hair will be purple. You’ve now entered “undead mode”, which is basically the game acknowledging that you’ve died a lot and that you need a little help. While playing in “undead mode”, you can progress through each level fairly safely, as you won’t take any damage unless you fall into a pit or a pool of slime. This is a really great way to find out what’s coming next without fearing death.
Now, the real problem with this is that there is no way to undo it. It’s there unless you delete your save and start over. This is where the multiple endings come in handy. Completing Volgarr II in “undead mode” will give you the worst ending. Which ending you get is entirely up to you. To get the best ending, you need to play the game very well and avoid dying as much as possible. Yikes.
To be honest, it took us a while to warm to the idea of ”undead mode”. When we realized that we couldn’t get it back, it felt like an insult to our skills. “Damn the game,” we thought, and quickly erased our save files and started over. The third time we entered “undead mode,” we realized that it might be best to accept help, improve ourselves, and learn the level properly. It’s a great idea, and to our knowledge, no other game has implemented it like this, but we expect to see many imitators in the coming years. Also, from the main menu, there is a “practice mode.” In this mode, once you have beaten each level at least once, you can replay it as many times as you like. So if you want to start from the beginning and progress little by little without dying, you can.
That’s the great thing about Volgarr II. The game is not designed to be beaten in one go. The experience is meant to be one of incremental improvement and finishing a level without dying. The game does not guide you, and success is quickly followed by failure. For some, this may sound like a total nightmare, but the immense satisfaction of finally finishing a level in one go is unmatched. This means that for those who enjoy a challenge and miss the days of working hard to earn rewards in games, you will feel like you’re in heaven (and once you’re good enough, you can switch on the speedrun timer to really test your mettle).
Graphically, the game has been vastly improved. If you’ve played the original, it will look familiar, but the environments and character designs have been significantly revamped. Levels range from the snowy Nordic mountain ranges to the depths of hell, and are rendered in beautiful, colorful pixel art. From the main menu, you can also tweak the visuals slightly using the scaling filters “Sharpen Bilinear” or “Point”. The former provides a subtle smoothing effect and looks great, but we opted for the latter, which is a much cleaner, sharper image. It looks amazing on a big screen.
The only issue we have visually, and it’s a small one, is the UI. As you can see in the screenshot, it shows how many lives Volgar has left, as well as any upgrades he’s acquired along his journey. It’s great to have the UI there, and we don’t want to remove it completely, but it’s a bit too big and too centered for our liking. Ideally, it would be a bit smaller, or moved to a corner. It’s not too intrusive, but we can’t help but think “hmm, that’s a bit too big” every time we see it. Maybe this can be adjusted with a patch.
But perhaps the most noticeable aesthetic improvement is in the music. Each orchestrated track is simply sublime and gives a greater sense of purpose to the journey of each level, as if you are heading towards Mordor to cast the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. This is epic stuff and frankly, the first game pales in comparison. We’ve been replaying all the main themes in our heads on repeat since we got our hands on the game and honestly, if Crazy Viking Studios ever decided to release an official soundtrack, it would be a great addition to our gym workouts.
Finally, we’ll mention that Volgarr II has fast load times. Given how frequently you die, return to a menu, and start a new game, it feels seamless, which is a real plus. We actually timed it to make sure we weren’t clouded by the fantastic gameplay; it took less than five seconds to quit a game and load a new one.
Conclusion
Volgarr the Viking II is simply one of the best 2D action-platformer games on the Switch or any other platform. It improves on the original in almost every way, introducing clever ways to ease new players into its unrelenting brutality, vastly improving the visuals, and adding a soundtrack that’s destined to be remembered as one of the best games of all time. Minor complaints about the UI aside, Volgarr the Viking II is an absolute must-play game if you can handle its high difficulty.
