Fimbul

"While Fimbul is only a game I'd recommend on a deep sale and struggles to find its identity with the combat mechanics, it still shows a bit of heart with unique comic storytelling and a decent story."
Fimbul is an interesting idea. I imagined it sounded even better on paper. Take a story and wrap it around comic storytelling where you play out most of the adventure and combat scenes in 3d. Where this game starts to completely fall apart however is in its core mechanics. I imagine this game won't be for many, and if the achievements are a telling story, then most people only played a bit of the first encounter and stopped. However, if you look at the trailer, the art style and the comic pages and it looks interesting to you and in addition you can accept that it is a short, probably 2 1/2 hr play through for you with only decent at best movement and fighting mechanics, this game might be for you at a low enough price drop/sale. I got it on sale at .99 cents USD and it was worth my time.
Pros
The artwork and storytelling on the comic pages is very well done. The artist here did an amazing job.
There is some good music within the game.
I like the simplistic style the developers chose to go with for the models and animations.
Personally speaking, I like the enviornment and some of the stories that are being told here about what is going on in the background.
I think it has a pretty decent story that made me want to find out as many details as I could all the way up until the end.
I enjoy the characters and setting.
There are moments where you will choose options during the story. Based on the achievements, it appears that some of those, if not all made a difference in my story/ending.
Shields and helms can be picked up and equipped quickly and can also break.
Cons
The fighting mechanics are passable at best. They don't feel terrible but someone definitely wasn't listening to feedback about these as anyone who plays the game could give feedback that I'm sure would make the combat more enjoyable.
Blocking works great, but you need to face the enemy. So.... there are no perfect blocks, and also if there are multiple enemies it is better to dodge or run away than attempt to block. This is what you'll do most of the game, unfortunately leaving blocking only for desperation. If the block system had been more thought out this fighting system would be way more interesting, especially considering shields can break and new ones can be picked up.
There are 4 specials you can use by building up a combo meter but most of the time you'll always feel that one of them is best in your given situation making the combat feel limited in variety or attempting to try to make it look fancy.
The camera angle is fixed so at times trees will block your vision. Luckily, most of the time this won't affect you aside from annoyance and it never got in the way of any of my fights.
While having choices during certain sections of the story is a nice touch, I don't know if you can tell enough distinction in the choices you made in order to warrant a second playthrough.
All dialogue is not spoken, so outside of some limited ambiance, sounds for combat and music, the game is overall a fairly quiet experience.
There are only a handful of different enemies.
The game is only about 2 1/2 hours long. However, at least it didn't outstay its welcome with both new things to show you and a story that stretched on too long.
Bugs
The only bug I experienced was not being able to get my Xbox One controller to work, despite it listing full controller support. I just went into Steam Controller settings and changed the default to mouse and keyboard and manually assigned my buttons so I could play with a controller. Even still, it was a disappointment that native controller support that was listed on the Steam Store page was non-functional for myself. Aside from the controller issue I ran into no other bugs or glitches within the game.
Conclusion
Do you like what you see in the trailer? Are you okay with only decent combat? Can you deal with a fixed camera? Are you okay with a shorter game? Are you a fan of this mythology? Do you like the art style? If so... I'd say at a very deep sale price you'll probably enjoy this game well enough. I'd DEFINTELY recommend against it at full price. I really appreciate what the developer, Zaxis was trying to do here and I wish them nothing but success with their future titles.
If you enjoyed this review and would like to see more detailed reviews by me please consider joining my curator page Gamer Sessions.

Steam User 2

Reviewed last year

"While Fimbul is only a game I'd recommend on a deep sale and struggles to find its identity with the combat mechanics, it still shows a bit of heart with unique comic storytelling and a decent story."
Fimbul is an interesting idea. I imagined it sounded even better on paper. Take a story and wrap it around comic storytelling where you play out most of the adventure and combat scenes in 3d. Where this game starts to completely fall apart however is in its core mechanics. I imagine this game won't be for many, and if the achievements are a telling story, then most people only played a bit of the first encounter and stopped. However, if you look at the trailer, the art style and the comic pages and it looks interesting to you and in addition you can accept that it is a short, probably 2 1/2 hr play through for you with only decent at best movement and fighting mechanics, this game might be for you at a low enough price drop/sale. I got it on sale at .99 cents USD and it was worth my time.
Pros
The artwork and storytelling on the comic pages is very well done. The artist here did an amazing job.
There is some good music within the game.
I like the simplistic style the developers chose to go with for the models and animations.
Personally speaking, I like the enviornment and some of the stories that are being told here about what is going on in the background.
I think it has a pretty decent story that made me want to find out as many details as I could all the way up until the end.
I enjoy the characters and setting.
There are moments where you will choose options during the story. Based on the achievements, it appears that some of those, if not all made a difference in my story/ending.
Shields and helms can be picked up and equipped quickly and can also break.
Cons
The fighting mechanics are passable at best. They don't feel terrible but someone definitely wasn't listening to feedback about these as anyone who plays the game could give feedback that I'm sure would make the combat more enjoyable.
Blocking works great, but you need to face the enemy. So.... there are no perfect blocks, and also if there are multiple enemies it is better to dodge or run away than attempt to block. This is what you'll do most of the game, unfortunately leaving blocking only for desperation. If the block system had been more thought out this fighting system would be way more interesting, especially considering shields can break and new ones can be picked up.
There are 4 specials you can use by building up a combo meter but most of the time you'll always feel that one of them is best in your given situation making the combat feel limited in variety or attempting to try to make it look fancy.
The camera angle is fixed so at times trees will block your vision. Luckily, most of the time this won't affect you aside from annoyance and it never got in the way of any of my fights.
While having choices during certain sections of the story is a nice touch, I don't know if you can tell enough distinction in the choices you made in order to warrant a second playthrough.
All dialogue is not spoken, so outside of some limited ambiance, sounds for combat and music, the game is overall a fairly quiet experience.
There are only a handful of different enemies.
The game is only about 2 1/2 hours long. However, at least it didn't outstay its welcome with both new things to show you and a story that stretched on too long.
Bugs
The only bug I experienced was not being able to get my Xbox One controller to work, despite it listing full controller support. I just went into Steam Controller settings and changed the default to mouse and keyboard and manually assigned my buttons so I could play with a controller. Even still, it was a disappointment that native controller support that was listed on the Steam Store page was non-functional for myself. Aside from the controller issue I ran into no other bugs or glitches within the game.
Conclusion
Do you like what you see in the trailer? Are you okay with only decent combat? Can you deal with a fixed camera? Are you okay with a shorter game? Are you a fan of this mythology? Do you like the art style? If so... I'd say at a very deep sale price you'll probably enjoy this game well enough. I'd DEFINTELY recommend against it at full price. I really appreciate what the developer, Zaxis was trying to do here and I wish them nothing but success with their future titles.
If you enjoyed this review and would like to see more detailed reviews by me please consider joining my curator page Gamer Sessions.

Fimbul

Game Discussion

Anonymous

Steam User 2