Norse: Oath of Blood Review – Come for the Combat, Stay for the Story

Norse: Oath of Blood Review

I’m not sure what I was expecting with Norse: Oath of Blood. For sure, a turn-based tactical RPG with a Viking theme is already a great place to start. I wasn’t expecting a streamlined economic and city builder sim and a well-told, entertaining story. Norse: Oath of Blood ticks a lot of boxes, and does so pretty successfully at that.

Out for Revenge

In Norse: Oath of Blood, you play Gunnar Gripsson, a young fighter poised to become the next Jarl of Borre. When your father and mother are seemingly killed by Steinarr Far-Spear in an unexpected power play, you flee with your twin sister, Sigrid, herself a spirited and capable archer. Taking temporary shelter with your uncle, you, Sigrid, protector Arn Shield-Breaker, and a few others set sail. The destination is an unsettled plot of land owned by your uncle, and the goal is to build an army capable of defeating Steinarr and exacting revenge.

While the character models and faces are pretty budget-friendly, the performance capture that powers them is expressive and entertaining. Actors are dependent on well-written dialogue and stories, of course. In this case, the game was written by novelist Giles Kristian. Kristian has authored several historical fantasy trilogies around Arthurian and Viking themes. He knows how to split the difference between dry history and entertainment and between serious drama and humor. Norse: Oath of Blood is a great example of what happens when a talented author lends his craft to a game. Both the mission intros and cut-scene dialogue are excellent.

On and Off the Grid

I wasn’t wrong, turn-based combat is the beating heart of Norse: Oath of Blood. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from the genre, like action points for movement and combat, but it does add a few features. For one thing, you select the starting position of your fighters and their turn order before every battle. Line of sight, elevation differences, and destructible environmental elements become important early on. In many battles, the enemy will pull in unexpected reinforcements.

A lot of missions will include several battles, but there are usually healing plants out in the world to bring your team back to full health before the next skirmish. During battles, some characters have bandages to use on themselves or others during their turns. Because this is historical fantasy, there are no mages, healing wizards or necromancers. Dragons won’t swoop down and take out your army. There are, however, ancient spirit stones that provide buffs to your warband.

Animations during combat are decent, if not especially detailed. Finishing attacks usually come with a hilariously violent little cut scene. Let’s just say that Norse: Oath of Blood loves to animate axes, polearms, swords, and arrows to the head.

Build Up

Aside from combat, Norse: Oath of Blood adds in real-time exploration, diplomacy, and city building to its mix. Gunnar’s main goal is to become a strong leader and build an army large and savage enough to take out Steinarr. But doing so requires building a thriving settlement. Which, of course, necessitates recruiting tradespeople, constructing shops, housing, specialized buildings, and eventually, relationships with other settlements.

Each turn in Norse: Oath of Blood consists of several activities, including brief story or character updates, the chance to upgrade members of your team with new skills and weapons, and missions or construction tasks. Generally, resource gathering and construction happen behind the scenes and take a certain number of turns to complete. Usually, each turn includes at least one new mission on the overworld map.

Missions usually consist of taking a group on a real-time trek across the countryside with various goals to complete. It’s also a chance to collect resources for the settlement. Most missions include combat, but not always against other humans. For example, one mission has Gunnar and Sigrid facing off against a herd of angry boars. Quite often, combat ends with Gunnar recruiting a new member for his growing town.

A Few Rough Edges

There really wasn’t much I didn’t enjoy about Norse: Oath of Blood, but there were a few technical hiccups that will hopefully be addressed in patches or updates. Scenery loaded in pretty slowly at the start of missions. Both in and out of combat, key or controller inputs could be momentarily unresponsive. The developers clearly state that the game does not — currently, anyway — officially support controllers, but I used an Xbox controller without many issues. Aside from movement through the world, there’s not much about Norse: Oath of Blood that benefits from controller vs mouse and keyboard, except for personal preference.

Norse: Oath of Blood delivered more than I expected, which is always a nice surprise. I really enjoyed the story and characters and the mix of history, melodrama, and humor. The combat was challenging and offered lots of tactical flexibility. Base building and activities between combat missions were nicely streamlined and kept the overall momentum going. Like a good movie or TV series, Norse: Oath of Blood balances historical elements with entertainment, then adds engaging combat and varied side content to round out the package.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***