Valheim 1.0 is an absolute paradox; I have never been more in love with, and yet this remarkably frustrated by, a videogame before.
Valheim is launching with one of the single greatest areas I've experienced in gaming. The Deep North is everything that a Viking adventure should be, and it's an experience that everybody should have. Unfortunately, getting here is a road that will take days and frustrate players to no end. I just hope you stick it out; it's worth it.
Valheim begins where most stories end. You're a Viking warrior who fell in battle, but your work is not done. You're whisked away by Huginn, one of Odin's ravens, to the new realm of Valheim. It's a forsaken land that's home to the biggest nasties Odin could find, severed from the world tree. Yet it's threatening to return and disrupt the balance of all other worlds. Odin has denied you access to Valhalla and instead tasked you with heading on into Valheim to defeat these great evils and save the universe. No pressure, then.
Valheim's story is presented through a series of what should be award-winning animations. These leave you eager to get going, until you realize you have absolutely zero equipment. Sure, you can punch a Greyling into the ground with some effort, but good luck doing that against the Forsaken, the world's bosses. So, you must instead contend with the game's biggest feature: crafting.
I quite enjoy how Valheim implements crafting. You discover recipes through exploration instead of levels. Any item, from a scrap of iron to a simple onion, can see your Viking thinking up pages of new items to craft. It really connects the crafting system to the game's emphasis on exploration. You want to delve into every dungeon and dark corner to see what ingredients you'll find.
Unfortunately, it does have some drawbacks. The world of Valheim is massive; you could explore for days and still not uncover a tenth of it. Yet, it's surprisingly empty. Except for trees, those are everywhere; Greenpeace would be proud.
Let's take the first boss, Eikthyr, as an example. To summon these Forsaken, you need to offer items at their altar. Eikthyr needs three deer trophies, rare drops from, you guessed it, deer. Good luck finding them, though; they're few and far between, and when you do stumble on one, odds are you'll accidentally spook it and see it run off faster than you can catch it.
It's a similar story when it comes to weapons and armor. Crafting or upgrading equipment often calls for a lot of resources, so you'll be blindly searching for those veins of ore in the Black Forest for hours, whilst being mobbed by annoying little goblins. And that's before we talk about building.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.pcgamesn.com/valheim/1-0-review
