Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn Review (PC) – Trollsgard’s Might

Cast your mind’s eye back to 2009 and you may stumble across a fond memory of Plants vs Zombies. Alongside my watching of Steven Gerrard’s Liverpool, studying for my GCSEs and “just seeing if long hair suits me” phase, I too had a crack at murdering plenty of zombies as the photosynthesising flora. In 2014, Trolls vs Vikings aped the concept of the grid based, tower defence, wave survival gem and released it’s own brand. Eleven years later, here we are with an Asgardian supped up version: Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn.

Loki’s interfering has led to the trolls and vikings charging each other’s lines once more, so is this content complete package worth returning to?

Vi-king of The Hill

Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn is presented as the total package, featuring 34 campaign missions and 35 additional challenge levels. There are three difficulties to overcome, the last of which is rather arduous indeed. Given the original version of the game started out on mobile, I’m sure there’ll be a collective cheer to know that all of the micro-transaction awfulness that comes from that platform has been entirely removed. Huzzah.

As such, Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn still has the design of a mobile title, but with less of the toxically infused guff. Levels are short-and-sweet, you acquire gems for finishing missions on each difficulty, you then invest those gems to unlock new troll varieties and get upgrades. There’s a lot to do here, and if you were a fan of the Plants vs Zombies type of strategy tower defence, you’ll have plenty to sink your mighty troll hands into here.

It took me about five hours to complete the campaign on normal, play a few levels on Hard and Brutal, as well as a handful of the optional side missions. However, if you want to do absolutely everything, you’ll be looking at a minimum of 15 hours, I’d expect. So, the quantity is accounted for, but what about the quality of that time? Well, for the most part, Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn is a fun, if relatively basic tower defence title. Nothing is glaringly wrong, but it doesn’t inspire a whole lot of creativity.

Trolling Thor

Very quickly, I unlocked a couple of troll units which gave me a strategy that carried me from mission 10 all the way to the end. Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn lacks some of the more creative enemy variety that other tower defences rely on to keep things fresh. Namely, there are stronger and harder to kill Asgardians, but none are faster. There aren’t any that use clever modifiers either, the most they do is move across different tile pathways.

For the majority of levels, the hardest part will be initial start up, as you juggle investing in miners to grow your currency fund, with having enough defence. However, once you’re over that hurdle, it’s pretty much plain sailing to the end, with a trail of Viking bodies in your wake. I do like the options of trolls available to you, but sadly I never felt a whole lot of need to experiment.

Truth be told, the gameplay formula did start to become a little stale for me even by the end of just the campaign. There are three boss levels which introduce a new challenge to manage and adapt to, which are great, but the rest remain far too similar to keep the interest peaked. There’s always a satisfaction in layering the whole board in your minions, hitting the faster speed and watching the carnage ensue, but that’s as far as Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn gets with its entertainment.

Reborn Mostly The Same

There are a handful of powers you can use to turn the tides of a battle, which are useful for tricky moments or finishing off a level quicker, which is nice. Plus in the Valhalla mode, you gain an extra power build up you can spend on an earth-shattering special. Speaking of, the Valhalla mode pits you against endless hordes of Vikings until you fall, providing an extra element of longevity.

The upgrade trees are relatively expensive and you will spend a lot of time with very few of them unless you’re playing on hard or brutal from the off, which isn’t terribly well advised. Again, there’s plenty here in terms of quantity and the improvements to starting currency, troll/spell slots and unit types is decent, but it takes too long to unlock the most fun stuff, which is a sad hangover from the mobile design, I suspect.

On the plus side, the visual improvements to the game are nice. I played Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn on Steam Deck and the colourful spell effects and cartoony unit designs were a treat. There’s a high contrast, dense brightness to the game that works for the type of genre it fits in. The controls were surprisingly good too, with the touchpad for movement and right bumper issuing commands.

Old Is Gold

I had a decently good time with Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn, which is about as complimentary as I can be for a game designed for mobile 11 years ago. There’s a plethora of levels, vibrant presentation and a wealth of content that’s particularly fitting for a Steam Deck or handheld device. As far as tower defence strategy games go, there are worse out there and the improvements to both the design and visuals are welcome.

Having said that, it does grow a bit stale sooner than you might hope for or expect. The breadth of content gives way to the shallowness of its depth, and no amount of sprucing up the visuals can make up for that. The grind will likely deter a good few after half a dozen hours, while the minimal use of creative scenarios means there’s little need for experimentation or problem-solving.

That leaves Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn in the solid but unspectacular category. Good enough to be worth a punt, but not good enough to challenge the best in the business. A bit like if you got a Tesco value Thor instead of a Waitrose premium brand.

Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn is available March 7th on PC via Steam (review platform).

Developer: Megapop
Publisher: Megapop

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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