Nidhogg 2 Review

One of the best “up front” Legendary LAN games returns in Nidhogg 2.  Given how the original Nidhogg was an instant hit at Legendary LAN, I decided to pick up a copy to give the sequel to this unique series a play through.

Upon launching the game, I immediately noticed the graphical and GUI changes.  The GUI is still very snappy and simple to navigate.  Before heading into single player, I went to local play and found it to be quick and easy to create and customize a local 1v1 match.  An interesting addition is the ability to modify how your character looks, a feature lacking from the original although not exactly missed due to fighting with stick figures anyways.  The overall appearance of the characters in Nidhogg 2 are very different from the original and do take some getting used to (initially I didn’t how they looked at all).

So, I backed out and loaded up Arcade mode for single player.  I found the added variety and number of maps to be a welcome change compared to the original.  The game play is identical to the first game, but as mentioned I needed a bit of time to get used to the new cartoony and clunky character models.  I actually enjoyed the simple character models of the original.  However, after giving it a chance and playing through each map they started to grow on me.  I liked that I could quickly tell which character was mine due to each character being a clearly different color (I thought the yellow and orange were too similar in the original).  This will also make it easier for spectators to follow the action closer when it heats up.  They also serve up some laughs with how goofy they look and how they react to being hit.

While the game play is definitely the same, a major difference are the addition of several new weapons including a dagger and cross bow.  It seems that depending on which map you play, that will dictate which weapon you spawn with.  Several maps I played the weapons were different depending on which screen I was on as well, which adds a new element of strategy.  I also found the music in Nidhogg 2 to be much better than the original, and it adds to the game play nicely.

I can safely say that Nidhogg 2 is a worthy sequel to the original and hope to see it make a return for the upcoming 10 year anniversary of Legendary LAN.

-Jim “gri3v” L