Greifhelm – Review (PC)

Few games really nail the feel of swinging a three pound longsword as it clangs off of a burly suit of medieval armor. Each thrust, lunge, and parry has to be planned and executed as a single mistake can make the difference between death and glory. From developer Johnny Dale Lonack comes Griefhelm, a 2D sword-swinging game that seeks to give players a sense of what these battles really felt like. We had a chance to check out this high stakes, high reward, dark ages, action adventure ahead of its August 20th release.

Attacking and defending in Griefhelm revolves around stances. Using a high, medium, or low stance, you can both attack or parry. Your choice of stance all depends on what your enemy is doing. If a foe is facing you in a high stance, an attack from the same stance will be blocked. Either of the other two stances will land a blow. It sounds simple, but these decisions have to be made so quickly that reacting will take quite some time to master. Throw in the ability to jump attack and shove enemies and Griefhelm offers a very focused set of mechanics that are challenging to learn but rewarding when they all come together. Successfully blocking multiple attacks and following it up with a death blow was extremely satisfying.

However, in a game where it is so important to be able to see what the enemy is doing, it’s a little baffling why there are so many foreground elements that obstruct your view. This was a problem in most levels but no where is it worse than in The Woods stage. It seemed like our knight was constantly in retreat when playing in this stage just to find a place where we could see what was going on.

Players will spend the majority of their time in Griefhelm‘s Campaign mode. Using a limited set of three lives, your knight will set out on in overworld map moving from left to right in order to progress through the story. Once your last life is lost, progress is reset and it’s back to the beginning. You traverse from node to node, each containing an encounter set in one of the games three game modes. These different modes are used to add variety to the relatively one dimensional game play with mixed results.

Skirmish plays out as a best-of-five battle where you fight against a single opponent to get to three kills first. This mode is made for some of the more intense one on one encounters and it’s best of five set up can make for some harrowing come back victories.

Hoard sends three waves of enemies at you each with increasing difficulty. The insta-kill nature of Hoard and its relative ease made it the least memorable of all the encounters.

Tug of War has you and an enemy faction battle it out for territory. Battling enemies along the way, the goal here is to get to the opposing end before your opponent does. These back and forth conflicts can get quite lengthy as you trade blows with your enemy and in some cases dragged on a bit too long.

Branching paths allow players to pick and choose their encounters. Before entering, each node displays the difficulty of the battle along with rewards and enemy traits. This system of risk and reward is expertly instituted into gameplay and is what helps to differentiate one campaign run from another. As an example, taking an easier route of nodes means fewer rewards to use or weaker equipment as you progress through to tougher battles. Rewards include perks, new equipment, and bonuses. Perks are one-time consumables used before entering a battle. They range from damage and health buffs to allowing you to mount a horse in battle. Bonuses are instantly used once collected and include replenishing lost lives or increasing visibility to see nodes from a longer distance.

Equipment rewards have far and away the largest impact on game play. A new set of armor can make a profound difference on progress in a single run as it provide speed or health boosts. New weapons such as halberds, spears, or morning stars will significantly change the approach and allow for experimentation. In addition to the standard issue long sword, each new weapon has different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to attack speed, deflection ability, and range. Helms and Plumes can also be looted from encounters for added cosmetic touches.

Further adding variety are game modes outside of campaign. Each of the aforementioned encounter types can be played as standalone modes both solo and online coop. Online competitive play is also available for one-on-one duels. This is all in addition to being able to play the entire campaign cooperatively, either using local play or Steam Remote Play.

What Griefhelm offers is a focused yet rewarding experience. Varying rewards, difficulty, and branching paths help to break up the repetition from somewhat shallow game play. Mastering sword swinging and blocking mechanics takes time but feels great once it clicks. Griefhelm comes recommended for anyone looking to check out a simple but fulfilling game that is easy to jump in and out of.

Griefhelm launches on Steam on August 20th, 2020.

*Griefhelm was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company, but this in no way affected the reviewers opinion.