Valheim review (review copy provided)

0:00 Hey everybody, this is Mike with the OneStop Co-op Shop. And today I'm reviewing Valheim. And disclaimer that I got a review copy of this one. In Valheim, one to four players control heroes that are exploring around different maps based on the scenario you're playing, gathering resources, to craft furniture and weapons and armor to battle varied enemies and dicebased combat, and most scenarios culminate in a big boss battle. So, let's discuss five key things to know about Valheim. So, starting with my number five point, the least important to know, but still important or I wouldn't mention it, are the characters and their abilities. And this is a mix for my taste. So, at the beginning of the game, each player draws pairs of different ability types and then picks one to keep on their board. And these give them little mini quests to complete. And if they do so, they get an ongoing bonus or something they can pay for. And on the positive side, there's a lot of variety in these abilities, and the little quests give you something to go for that's different from game to game. But on the negative side, there is no identity or inherent difference in the heroes in the game.

0:55 these abilities are the only thing that differentiates them. And also, I've had a lot of games where we just never use some of the abilities, either because their bonus is too niche or their quests are too difficult to complete. So, the heroes have ended up feeling not that special in most of our games. Next, at number four, are the bosses and events that change up each scenario's endame. And this is also a mix for my taste. Some scenarios have you going against a mini boss and change things up, but most of the time you have a final boss to fight. And until you get to the final battle, the only main differentiator between the bosses are event cards that players will draw after each round. And these are pretty fun. They give the game an eb and flow cuz some of them are positive, but others will have a raid start where they're going to attack your house and you have to run back and defend it or they'll have ongoing effects for a few turns. So, it's really smooth mechanic to keep player turns moving and just have something interesting happen after each turn. But on the negative side, while each of the bosses has a completely different event deck, a lot of the effects are very similar or minor enough that it won't feel that different. So playing one boss versus another isn't as exciting and varied as I would like. Next to number three, another mix, this game has a bunch of them, is the combat system. On the positive side, it's very quick. So you'll roll some dice based on your weapons and or your defensive items you've crafted. You'll roll different numbers of black dice based on the enemies and you just roll them all at once and uh enemy attacks, your blocking, your attacks deal damage to each other and you just keep on rolling until somebody wins. There isn't much strategy in it. The number of abilities you can use that actually change up the

2:26 results are pretty few and far between, but it tends to get out of the way quickly and it can be exciting when you roll really well when you're trying to survive a really tough combat. The combat also comes into the ending against the boss because each boss has a little combat board and slightly special mechanics. But kind of like with the bosses themselves, these aren't that varied. The boards give you minor reasons to not move into some spaces and to move into others. You can get a bonus for attacking from behind a boss. Really though, it's pretty dull because you often don't need to move at all and you just end up rolling the dice anyway like you would normally. So, uh, the boss combats tend to be fairly anticlimactic, at least for us, uh, at the end of each play session. My number two point, though, is a full-on pro, my favorite thing about the game, and that's the exploration and resource gathering. So, on your turn, you have three actions, and you can move up to two spaces for an action. And as you move on to these tiles, you'll uncover them. Some will have enemies to fight. Some of them will have resources you can gather. And later scenarios can make this even more exciting by dividing the land up into islands. you have to use boats to move between them or including tougher terrain so you have the chance to get even better resources for better crafting, but you also have to risk fighting even nastier enemies and trying to figure out how to use your limited actions to move around to gather the resources to avoid or fight enemies and then often to get back to the house to get free healing from furniture and such is a really cool part of the game and with the scenarios gives the game its greatest variety and most exciting aspects. And finally, my number one point, the most important thing to know about the game is the crafting system.

3:55 And this is unfortunately another mix. So the thing that really ends up making your characters feel more powerful and feel different from one another is crafting items. You can craft armor. You can craft tools and weapons to fight greater and greater enemies. And the scenarios and the terrain types change up what you can craft greatly because once you get to tougher terrain, you can get better types of metal and craft cooler items. And you can also craft furniture for your house that'll give you access to new builds and consumables and also let you get free boost when you end your turn there. So, there's just a lot of cool stuff here. This is definitely my 13-year-old's favorite part of the game. He just likes kind of trying out new stuff and building new things. But on the negative side, across my many plays, this just feels more and more sy. Some of the furniture feels like an auto include, something you have to build every time whenever you can.

4:43 And then while there are a ton of defensive and offensive items, the combat system is so simple that all it comes down to is getting one or two blue dice. That's the most you can ever have. And one or two red dice from the weapons. Yes, some of the green ones will give you bonuses for certain kind of crafting. But by the endame, we find that no matter what the scenario is, no matter what our characters are doing, we've basically crafted kind of the same stuff and we're rolling basically the same dice. the system is not robust enough to allow there to be more exciting and more interesting items. So, it gets a little bit sy and dull as you play more and more. So, overall, you might want to check out Valheim if you like quick playing adventure games, if you like simple crafting systems. On the other hand, if you're looking for a deep crafting system, a deep combat system, deeply varied characters, deeply varied bosses and scenarios, none of that is here. This is definitely a beer and pretzels quick game, which can be a ton of fun. and my 13-year-old keeps on wanting to play it, even though it's not really my favorite. And if you want to see the game in action, my preview play is pretty representative of the final version of the game, so you can go watch that. Thanks for watching everybody.

5:45 Good gaming and I'll see you at the next