Row your boat, pillage the land, beat big bossesI have been itching for crafting survival since early this year, valheim was on my radar for a while, but i turned off because it feel like it was designed to be played with multiple player in dedicated server.
Turned out my assumption are correct. The game are what i considered a game that focus on realistic take on crafting survival genre, but a bit more emphasize on combat. In the beginning you will be playing in safe meadow biome, then you venture in more harsh biome. Going unprepared, you will be aspect to get killed alot. Luckily the game have you covered with ability to cook nice meal for buff, brew potion, make comfortable home and having vast amount of weapons & tools at your disposal. Each biome gave you tons of new stuff to use, it felt like unlocking new era of tech.
However the game biggest issue is everything is grindy, cumbersome & super slow. The game started slow, with ability to improve your skill the more action you have done. I have problem with its stamina issue, especially when you trying to resource gathering while surrounded by neverending enemy. You will be limited by your inventory slots & weight limit, making the game required a lot of backtracking. To make thing worse, everything is clunky from movement, your attack animation, your crafting, building & even dodging. There is portal to fast moving around, but you cant carry ore into it for "logistic gameplay"
I can only recommend vanilla version if you like to take it slow or have a friend to play with. The game is way too slow for my taste and it wasnt in relaxing way. The boss fight is interesting, but i really dislike lost skill progress and item drop on death, make it miserable if you die far away from base.
I used tons mods to make my gameplay faster and more convenient. The game probably will take you 100 hours unmodded, but i managed to keep low 40 hours so I can move to other games. The game is harder than dark souls, like for real.