![]() Even at her young age, Tove has a lot of emotional baggage she must deal with, and the game makes her confront all of it. Moments of success also stand out, with Tove occasionally uttering an excited bubble of jubilation when solving a problem correctly.Īs the narrative unfolds, it becomes evident that there’s much more at play than just a curious sojourn into a magical forest. She’s been thrust into this adventure, but the game never forgets she’s still just a young girl in a frightening situation who desperately misses her parents and fears for her brother’s safety. Finding and examining her mother’s old pearl necklace, for example, causes a fond giggle and mumbled “Mamma,” almost meant more for herself than for outsiders to hear, and nothing could be more natural. Tove especially is touching to listen to when she despairs over her lost brother, or in the plentiful moments when she recalls a family memory or life lesson she learned from her father. Only a handful of characters get this partial voice-over treatment – Tove and Lars among them – but the quality of the acting really shines through. It’s great how often the script sees Tove slip back into her native tongue, but always in a way that makes it a simple matter to infer meaning from context. The dialog and voice acting more than pull their weight in that department, even though each line of subtitled dialog is only accompanied by a single spoken word, or even just an exasperated sigh or mischievous giggle. Apart from the hidden Jötnar, there are many others you’ll encounter in your search for them, including the boulder-like Trollhilde, who lives under a bridge and will beseech Tove to help pull a dagger from her back a host of pint-sized Tomtes, tiny gnome-like men who prefer not to be seen but can lend a helpful, magical hand under the right circumstances the utterly terrifying Nokken, whose tortured visage is nightmare fuel as its long tentacles pull unwary travelers to a watery death within its pond and Jólakötturinn, the large, vicious Yule Cat whom mothers warn their children about in hushed voices, for he hunts and eats those who have not received any new clothes to wear for Christmas.īut it’s not just the roster of fairy tale figures that lends Röki an air of authentic atmosphere. The cast of fabled characters is impressive. Exploring the woods (the game does introduce yet another location for its final chapter) felt heavily reminiscent of Sierra’s original King’s Quest to me – a realm filled with wondrous creatures ripped straight from the pages of fantasy storybooks, only this time featuring the mythical denizens of Scandinavian folklore, largely unknown to me, and draping everything under a thick, comfy layer of white, powdery snow. This setting really plays to the strength of a child’s propensity for readily embracing a magical fairy tale reality. Now Tove must pursue them into the forest and through a portal to a magical world where she’ll need to track down the three remaining Guardians and convince them to help her find her brother. But as Tove will soon find out to her horror, legends and fairy tales are more real than she thinks as young Lars is abducted by a monstrous giant creature straight out of his favorite bedtime story. Thus, the stage is set for Polygon Treehouse’s charming adventure Röki, when young Tove Jakobsen reads this selfsame tale one night to her little brother Lars in the cabin they share with their withdrawn father Henrik. To this day, Rörka still searches for a way for her son to return, and continues to send ravens to the world of man to act as her eyes and ears. Raven’s three fellow Guardians combined their powers and sealed her and her son away, never to return to the forest again. She took the form of a human woman, Rörka, and gave birth to a creature who was half human, half Jötnar, wild and unnatural. As the ages passed, Raven fell in love with a human man. There was Jötunbjörn the Bear, who represented fall Jötunhjort the Stag, who embodied summer Jötunúlfur the Wolf, who stood for spring and Jötunravn the Raven, spirit of winter. Once upon a time there were four Jötnar, Guardians of the four seasons of the year, who protected the ancient Scandinavian forests.
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