Nordic Ashes: Survivors of Ragnarok

by Aethyna Apr 14, 2024 | 1 Votes | 38 Played | 0 Reviews

9 rate

Genres:

Action

Graphics:

Labels:

Roguelike/roguelite , Bullet Hell , Mythology

Platforms:

Publishers:

Noxfall Studios Nordic Ashes: Survivors of Ragnarok is a Norse-themed Vampire Survivors-style action roguelike game where you’ll need to survive hordes of enemies swarming you while growing your character’s power across the many locations in the game. Develop your character throughout the many runs you do and defeat all the bosses across the Nordic world! Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion Giveaway

Summary

Nordic Ashes: Survivors of Ragnarok is a Norse-themed Vampire Survivors-style action roguelike game where you’ll need to survive hordes of enemies swarming you while growing your character’s power across the many locations in the game. At the end of the day, there’s a boss that you’ll need to defeat in every location for you to unlock the next. There is an insane amount of unlockable content here, ranging from unique characters to new locations, to even new game modes and difficulty, easily offering upwards of tens of hours of playtime at an affordable cost.

Gameplay

If you are a fan of Vampire Survivors or other similar games within the genre, you’ll be right at home here! Even if you’re not, the game is insanely easy to pick up and play.

Prior to diving in a game, you’ll need to set up your run by choosing a survivor to play as, a realm to head to, and the game mode you’d like to play. The game has nine unique survivors to choose from, though you’ll only have access to the warrior at the start. You can unlock new survivors simply by fulfilling the requirements, all of which are clearly stated in the game.

Similarly, the realms you can head to, aside from the starter realm of Midgard, are gradually unlocked as you clear the previous realm. There are nine different realms in this game, with each containing enemies, creatures, elites, mini-bosses, and bosses that are unique to each location. There are also several game modes that you can choose from in addition to the default Adventure mode, including a Horde mode that’s basically the game’s endless mode. These extra game modes need to be unlocked just like your survivors and the realms you can play in.

Nordic Ashes only offers three difficulty levels, with Normal being the easiest of the lot. Needless to say, you’ll need to clear each realm on a prior difficulty before you can unlock the tougher version. Once you’re done with the settings, it’s time to dive into the game proper!

Attacks in this game is fully automated and require no input from you, but you can choose to manually aim your attacks using your left mouse button. This is a particularly important and helpful feature especially when you first start out and enemies are sparse, or when tackling bosses where you’ll need to concentrate, as much as possible anyway, your fire power.

Every enemy you slay will drop an experience orb that you’ll need to pick up to gain experience points. They are usually yellow, but there are higher quality orbs, like the pink and blue ones usually dropped by Elites that get spawned pretty frequently during a Wave, or Mini-bosses which only spawn at the end of a wave (up until Wave 3; you’ll meet the final boss at the end of Wave 4), that will grant more experience points per pickup. Your experience bar is also displayed at the bottom of the screen. Whenever it’s filled up, you’ll level up.

Leveling up rewards you with skill points that you can then invest in your survivor’s skill tree. The skill tree you get is unique to each survivor, and depending on your playstyle, you may want to focus on certain skills and maxing them out. Here, you can also unlock the survivor’s ultimate ability and new relics. Note that relics are items that will grant passive positive effects throughout your run. These relics can be further ascended if you have an available ascension crystal, which you should get if you remember to collect it, after defeating a Mini-boss. The path of ascension, which can be many (all of which needs to be unlocked as well), will change up how a certain relic behaves.

There are plenty of points-of-interest (POIs) around the place as well, all of which are helpfully marked on your mini-map. Some of these POIs are event sites where you’re expected to complete a certain challenge, such as slaying a x number of enemies or surviving for x amount of time within the event’s vicinity, before you can get the reward, usually some powerful relic.

There are gold mines where you can gather the coins it has generated over time as well, free pickups, and relics that you can buy provided you have the necessary currency. Aside from trees that you can fell to get leaves, there are even loot-containing crates that you can break and chests dropped from fallen Elites (usually) that will reward you with one upgrade, chosen out of three choices.

There are also times when you’ll get artifacts instead of relics. Artifacts are consumables in this game and you can carry only one around with you at all time. Some functions like bombs and will deal area-of-attack (AOE) damage to surrounding enemies, while others, like the Azure Charm is more utility based, granting you a precious Soul Heart that adds to your overall health.

That brings me to another interesting aspect of the game – the health bar. Unlike most games, there’s no health bar per se, but rather heart icons that serve as your health bar. There are two types of hearts here: the red hearts are your base health, which means that if you lose all of this, it’s game over; while the blue hearts function more like shields or armor. Most damage you take will be borne by these blue hearts, essentially protecting your red ones from harm, though some rare attacks (probably those penetrative in nature) can bypass your blue ones entirely.

You can get more relics and artifacts to help increase your chances of survival on your current run via a vendor hub that you’ll be spawned into after a mini-boss fight. Here, you can then spend any coins you’ve gathered to purchase helpful relics or artifacts. Note that coins aren’t brought over to the next run, so it’s probably a good idea to just spend them as you have them. Spending money at this hub will also level up a cute little kitty there. The items on offer will be refreshed when it levels up, and I reckon the chances of getting higher quality items will be increased too.

As a roguelike, the game has a meta-progression that’s part and parcel of the genre. In Nordic Ashes, the meta-progression involves the tree of Yggdrasil. You see, you’ll earn Yggdrasil leaves from getting certain achievements in this game, and you’ll get seeds from completing runs. You can then invest the leaves to directly purchase stat upgrades as well as new features to add to the game that’ll help bolster your character’s chances of survival by a fair bit. On normal mode, progression seems well-paced, and you get to unlock a sufficient number of upgrades before diving back in for another run.

For the seeds, you’ll need to first exchange them into leaves before you can use them. However, note that the exchange rate increases the more you perform an exchange, i.e. will require more seeds for just one leaf. With the upgrades, subsequent runs should be much easier to clear.

As fun as the game is, there’s one thing I’ve noticed about this game – it’s about how slow your survivor move, even after getting movement speed upgrades. This really makes every move you make feel more deliberate. This is, by no means, a deal-breaker for most players, but it might be for someone who’s looking for a much faster and more hectic experience. The game can also be a bit grindy especially if you are planning to unlock everything there is in the game, with some unlocks having very specific requirements that can be tricky to achieve.

Graphics/ Sound

Nordic Ashes features a cartoonish graphical style with bold outlines and bright colors. Aside from the many characters you can eventually unlock, the designs for the creatures from each realm are unique as well. In terms of sound, the game features a selection of Norse-themed music along with impactful sound effects that really set the atmosphere for the player.

Conclusion

Vampire Survivors-like games are a dime a dozen these days, but Nordic Ashes is offers players a unique enough experience to stand out from the rest. The Nordic theme, its art, intriguing gameplay, and an incredible amount of content to unlock all come together to easily provide players with tens of hours of playtime at a reasonable price tag as well. Progression feels satisfying here, despite being a bit on the grindy side, and that you do grow more powerful the more runs you do. If you’re looking for a fun Vampire Survivors-like, you might want to check out Nordic Ashes.

Giveaway

Thanks to Noxfall Studios, we have a copy of the game to giveaway. Simply send us an email asking to participate, and we'll have you added to the pool. We will send an email to the winner on April 20th, 2024*.

*In any case of a dispute, our decision is final.

New Game Added: Nordic Ashes: Survivors of Ragnarok

by Aethyna Apr 14, 2024

Nordic Ashes: Survivors of Ragnarok is a Norse-themed Vampire Survivors-style action roguelike game where you’ll need to survive hordes of enemies swarming you while growing your character’s power across the many locations in the game. Develop your character throughout the many runs you do and defeat all the bosses across the Nordic world!