Little known fact, in college I took fencing and stage combat,using a rapier and making it look fancy was the order of things in our club. Nidhogg captures the true essence of such swordplay, following the rules of form but always making sure you looked kind of awesome doing it, the stance switching, the lunges and thrusts, the wall jumping, the ripping each other’s heads off. It’s all there.
Playing Nidhogg I really did ask myself if developer Messhof made their 2D side scroller after watching the Princess Bride or Pirates of the Caribbean and asking themselves what these movies might look like while tripping on acid. The goal is similar enough to a fencing match, you need to get a point off your opponent, or rather kill them via gruesome 8 bit means in order to get the right of way. You need to reach the other end of the stage, where a cheering crowd awaits you along with a giant man eating worm, the sign of your success, the sign that you’re a winner. It’s a bit of a tug-of-war match, as your opponent will be trying for the same, killing you to get the go ahead to advance to a goal opposite yours.
On the surface the gameplay is simple, you’re either using the arrow keys or WASD to move left or right, crouch, and to change the position of your sword between middle, high and low stances. You’ll use one key to lunge, and one key to jump. You can dive kick, leg sweep, wall jump and fight unarmed. You can also toss your sword, and while that may sound like a rookie mistake in a game about swordplay there’s a surprising amount of tactical advantage in doing so. In fact that’s a good way to describe the surface level simplicity of this game, it’s a series of mind games and quick reflexes, it’s that measure of quick thinking you apply to all fighting games, only you’re probably feeling the pressure more than usual because there’s only so many ways to fake out your opponent and try to gain the upperhand. It’s possible to move in and disarm your foe at close range, but they’ll try and do the same, you could thrust high while their stance is low risking a shot to your torso, you could try making a run for it if you want to chance your rival throwing their sword at your back. Being hit with a blade is an instant one hit kill, you’ll respawn infinitely, but your opponent will have also gained ground towards their goal, you don’t want that.
I found gameplay often switching from frenetic, killing one another as fast as possible and racing to the finish line, to suddenly requiring a vast amount of patience. Poking your enemy, using fake outs, trying to goad the other into a mistake while not falling into a trap yourself. Though it’s a stage based brawler with no such things as combos or cancels, the mental game, the intensity, the tide of combat changing at a hairs drop, probably captures the core essence of fighting games.
This is easily the goriest battle I had, check out the blood soaked floor.
The game uses a simple 8 bit color palette, with a lot of flashing color effects that won’t be friendly to any epileptic. The combatants are all the same stick figure, color swapped, but with smooth and effective animations. The death of a character, accompanied by a curdling scream, will rain down torrents of yellow, blue, green or orange blood. The levels are also neat looking, watching worms tunnel through dirt in the mines, tall grass weaving and swaying around the fighters in the wilds, and a giant swinging chandelier in the castle level. The terrific soundtrack by Daedelus adds to the trippiness of it all, making for a fluid and unique title.
As pleasant as the game is, as intense as it can get, there’s only so much mileage to be had from it. Really the staying power of this title will be determined by its community. It’s a game built for multiplayer, and my first jaunt through I took down a pretty hefty roster of AI opponents in roughly 15 minutes. I guess I could try and beat my own time in the singleplayer game, but it will be a task that gets old fast. Not to mention there’s only so much a computer can do to try and psyche a flesh and blood player out, the real fun and the real challenge is going to have to come from another living individual. There are only four levels, and even though some introduce neat tricks such as the Cloud level’s disappearing platforms, the Wilds hiding your fighters inside tall grass like something outside of a martial arts movie, and the castle being so large it creates a special kind of grudge match to reach the goal, cycling through the same four levels repeatedly quickly gets tired. It’s something to consider with a price tag at 15 dollars, and while it’s a game that’s definitely worth playing, actual replay value is another thing.
At the end of the day Meshoff is giving us something unique here. Mechanics that are grounded in something real, that being fencing and paying lip service to swashbuckling films of yore. But at the same time it’s going way out there with psychedelic visuals and the bizarre presence of that giant victory heralding worm, the titular “Nidhogg” that gnaws at the roots of the world tree. It’s also a game with a fantastic grasp on game design. It’s a a very strong piece, there just needs to be more to it, and ideally a community that can support it long after the singleplayer campaign becomes old and stale.
This game was reviewed using retail code provided to us by the publisher.
