Welcome to our review of Fimbul, a game out on Switch and it has some loading issues…
Immerse yourself in the blistering winter preceding Ragnarok — The Fimbul Winter!
Fimbul combines intense Viking battles with a deep story that unfolds through in-game comics to bring the frozen world of the Norse sagas to life. Immerse yourself in the blistering winter preceding Ragnarok — The Fimbul Winter!
Use the time-line-tree at any point to explore the decisions that changed your fate. Navigate your choices, go to any intersection, and follow a different path through your story. Fight the Vikings using a complex but easy-to-learn weapon-based combat system and gather fellow Vikings to help you defeat trolls the size of trees.
Use items from the distant past to grow and battle the mighty Jutons, a race of giant soldiers, and later the gods themselves.
Fimbul presents itself as a violent action game where slashing down your enemies is your main game mechanic. Hack em down with an ax, throw a spear at them or slice them up with a sword. Use your shield to protect from your opponent’s weapons and not your own weapons. The game gives away this very important hint and yes, it really works best that way.
Most of the time playing this 4 hour-long game, you will be running around taking enemies in a cruel fashion and that is mixed up with some harder big battles. That first giant you encounter, you will be in for a surprise. A not so pleasant one, but still a surprise, one you will not see coming. While he is easy to beat once you notice what to do, it still provided with quite the shock as the game was mostly very easy up till that point and aside from some harder hide and seek games, Fimbul rarely provided a real challenge.
Now, all the bad things… While the game does not play very smoothly, what is most annoying, the continuous loading screens. Nothing about this game is ever fluent. From one part of the cold mountains to the next, every single progression is cut short by a loading screen. Often just a sigh long, but this entire game just lacks the fluidity you’d come to expect in modern days. Yes, even docked this game refused to run smoothly.
And that can really destroy your momentum playing. Not even going to exaggerate here, but I absolutely hated every time I saw the loading screen. At first, I was just thinking this was a minor inconvenience but it quickly (pardon the pun) turned into pure irritation. I actually feel sorry for everyone that bought this game at full price.
In all honesty, I did buy this game too. So no free review code, but actual money was spent on this game. Due to owning a coupon, I spent 12 euro 50 cents on this game and even that feels like I got scammed in a way. The game, while fun when it works and doesn’t glitch, just feels incomplete.
In conclusion, Fimbul is a game that felt more like I was constantly waiting for a loading screen rather than enjoy the game. Those loading screens cost this game a 5.5 score and moved it down to 4.5….
