Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is a Survivor-like with a gritty Diablo-like art style and a ton of progression systems that make it a joy to get stuck into over and over again. It came to PC and consoles a while back, but I’ve been playing it on Switch 2 for review and it runs beautifully on Nintendo’s handheld.
While Jotunnslayer is a little less visually sharp here, it runs smoothly, and nothing is lost in the pace of the combat, which is the primary concern. As a Survivor-like, most of the gameplay is taken care of for you. All you have to worry about is moving to avoid damage, activating your cooldown-restricted Ultimate move, and picking which skills and buffs to unlock as you earn mountains of glowing XP.
What sets this game apart from the others, for me, is the depth of progression. On the outside it’s quite similar to Hades, in that when you gain a level you’ll be presented with a number of options from which to select new skills or upgrades. There are a number of Norse gods aiding you, and as you reach certain milestones more and more will cycle into your pool of potential allies.
Each time you level up you’ll receive a choice of three skill lists, which can be any of the gods you’ve unlocked so far, or class-specific abilities only available to your character. For example, Thor offers massive lightning-based attacks, or allows you to summon energy-wreathed hammers, while Loki deals with trickery and illusion, buffing you and adding decoys and other abilities.
The more stage and challenge milestones you meet, the more characters and gods you’ll unlock, as well as skins for your weapons and chosen hero. The mix of different playstyles is welcome, too, with magic-based heroes, brawny barbarian types, and fleet-footed archers.
Stages are interesting enough but nothing special. By the nature of the genre they are fairly empty, dotted with randomly dropped treasures that bestow buffs for the duration of the run. Clearing a stage is a matter of completing feats before summoning the Jotunn, a huge boss that you must defeat to move on. These quests are also presented as a choice of three each time, with objectives such as closing hellish portals, surviving a cold snap, or destroying a set number of targets or killing a miniboss.
The randomised nature of every element gives Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel a delicious level of replayability that makes it incredibly moreish, and the option to choose difficulty and try various combinations of buffs and attacks makes each run feel distinct from the last. Obviously, this randomised nature can have pitfalls, too, if you draw equipment you don’t like to use, but there’s so much choice on offer that it’s unlikely to dampen your fun.
Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel is one of the better Survivor-like offerings available, and the fact it plays so well on the handheld means it’s a great game for killing half an hour on a commute or in brief windows of downtime. There’s nothing added in the Switch 2 version, so if you’ve already played it I wouldn’t recommend buying it again, but if you’ve missed it and you want an enjoyable little time-killer, it’s a solid choice.
