Recent reviews by Celestial Frog

Wasn't able to find any of the ninja cats, had to use a guide from some Japanese guy

Too weird and abstract for my liking. That would have been fine if the game was good, but it is not. The combat is janky, controls are janky, the graphics is janky and the story is all over the place. NOPE

The game is fun sometimes, though I haven't completed it yet being about half way through. But man these ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ half-аssed QTEs that make you watch over and repeat colorful button presses instead of enjoying some (relatively) cool cutscene - and that is not to mention it being overlayed right in the middle of your screen during said cutscene. What's even more ridiculous is that sometimes the inputs fail to register! I can't stress enough how annoying these QTEs are, they pretty much ruin the game for me.

TLDR - you won't miss out on anything at all if you skip this game altogether. Save your time, play some better game.

Despite what you might've read in other reviews and community discussions, 30 FPS lock is nowhere near the biggest problem this game has. The game has pretty much nothing in terms of a story, with the ending that feels like the one out of some other, completely different game. While the game itself desperately tries to copy contemporary God of War games, throwing in absolutely unnecessary QTEs, our silent protagonist, whose only job is to do what NPCs tell him to, has absolutely nothing that could pass as a personality. Even during the introduction cutscene his only job is to be slain, watch the battle and to be granted some power privilege out of the blue, because why not.

In terms of gameplay, for the whole duration of the game you'll be doing one of these 3 things:
1. Fighting absolutely generic enemies + some QTE'd minibosses
2. Running away from the battle because there are to many enemies and if you're surrounded - you are dead; thankfully there's a health regeneration kicking in when no enemies are nearby, because otherwise the game would be insufferable
3. Stealthing towards a big cage to release your fellow vikings and liberate the region (and not have to battle the enemies for that)

At the so-called Battle Arenas you can learn new moves, some of which are pretty neat as they allow you to quickly dismember your opponents (although the combat is janky at best), but none of them are useful in the end, during the last boss battle. This is one of those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boss battles that forces you to do something you were not doing during the course of the game, even though it borrows some of the mechanics from the common enemies. While the rest of the package is simply average, I wasn't going to give this game a thumb down until I got to this disappointing end.

Technically, despite 30 FPS lock and very narrow FOV (this you can fix with mod, and I have no idea how I'd have beaten the game without this FOV mod), it's a competent product: I've played it to completion on my Steam Deck, 1152x720 with FSR + high settings but medium effects, with Deck estimating about 4 to 4.5 hours, and haven't had any issues with it. Still, there are lots of much better games that you can play on the go with your Deck, so even that does not save Viking: Battle for Asgard from being a disappointing package overall

Having finished my initial playthrough of SOMA back in 2019, I recently went back to it and finished the game for the second time. And it is still one of the best games I have ever played, particularly because of its story, which ponders the question of what it really is to be a human, nature of consciousness and memory, humans' perception of themselves.

Graphics-wise, it still holds up reasonably well, even in 2023: underwater segments look as beautiful as ever, station insides are still dark and scary, with carefully placed lighting creating thick visual atmosphere, and sound effects only enhancing the immersion. Yeah, in a way, this game is an immersive sim: you can pick, rotate in your hands and throw almost any debris and junk you find lying around, such as chairs, coffee mugs, document folders, literally anything. In order to open the door, you need to literally pull it with your mouse or the controller stick; same goes for the numerous levers and some wires sometimes. The only thing I've found to not having aged particularly well is the character models but it is not a huge issue for the reasons that fall into the spoilers category. Just play the game find it for yourself. Really wish the game supported VR or had a VR version - it would be a perfect VR experience given its affinity to provide the player with the options of interacting with the surroundings.

Now, the game isn't perfect from the performance standpoint. For my second playthrough I chose to play it on my Steam Deck and it's almost perfect way to play it: it runs reasonably well on the highest graphics settings with native resolution, TDP limit set to 10 watts, estimating about 3-3.5 hours of gameplay on the medium screen brightness. "Reasonably well" here means that game does not hold perfect 60 FPS and often stutters. On the Deck, I've found that the game is much more stable with the refresh rate and FPS limit set to 50, save for the few moments of instability when the new area is loaded, for example, and some other instances. But I remember having the same issues on my perfectly capable older desktop with GTX 1060 and i7-3770K, so I'd still recommend playing it on Steam Deck if you have one.

All and all, the experience that's worth experiencing, despite any problem it has

Runs great on Steam Deck at 1920x1200 resolution with some very minor stuttering, which being few and far between, does not detract from the experience at all. Playing at medium brightness with this resolution, Deck estimated about 4-4.5 hours of gameplay. Other than Deck, I reckon, you'd be able to play it on pretty much anything.

Besides the technical set pieces, that is one of the most artistically beautiful games I have ever played, with gorgeous vistas, soul-touching OST, wonderful, although sad story and some mind-bending controls where you have to control each brother separately. Having fully completed the game back in the 2016, second playthrough took me about 1.5 hours, so it is not a very long game, but it very much worth the asking price

Wow, what a game! Beautiful music and art, no impossible and annoying pixel-perfect platforming sections, nice exploring elements. But the story...story so wonderful and sad it almost made me cry, such an excellent and emotional journey that was.
Buy it if you don't have it, play it if you do. Pretty much the definition of "short and sweet"

I bet this game was coded by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ youkols and their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ostriches

Even nostalgia (if I would have played the original game back in the day) would not have saved this horrible buggy mess with poor performance, awful graphics, terrible animations, dreadful controls, non-existing story with plain characters and disappointing ending. Do not play unless:
1. You don't mind the horrible buggy mess with poor performance, awful graphics, terrible animations, dreadful controls, non-existing story with plain characters and disappointing ending.
2. You have a LOT of spare time. Like all-time-in-the-world-lot.
3. You have absolutely nothing else to do. Literally nothing.
4. You're 5-year old in early 2000s and have no taste in games - you play anything you get your hands on.
5. You haven't played a single game in your whole life and want to never play anything again.

Awful, awful.

Very positive??? Really?!