After The Legend and Armored Princess, the third story is presented with Warriors of the North. While the game takes place in the world of Endoria and many islands around it, it focuses on a Viking protagonist, Olaf, son of a Viking king, whose lands lately came to be plagued by the undead scourge. That is only the tip of the iceberg, as this sudden appearance of the undead troops on Viking islands is but a vanguard of things to come. As you fight your way through the undead ranks, you will discover that other lands suffer much the same fate and many friendly troops have already fallen and lands devastated. You may be a Viking prince with a low IQ and a lot of witty answers in your repertoire, but that alone will not win this war.
Luckily, gods have been kind on you and granted you the ability to see and use the power of Valkyries at your side. Their stunning look is not what is deadly, for each of the five Valkyries will bestow upon you a special skill you can use in battle, as well as a special ability that can be requested outside of battle, but needs time to recharge. While talking to Valkyries will let you use their abilities outside of battles, which will strengthen your army, their special attack skills are used as in previous games, which require your rage points to be spent. You gather your rage points as before, by fighting enemies, and the better combos you use and more enemies you destroy, the faster the rage bar fills. Remain idle and avoid combat for a while, and you will see your rage bar completely deplete over time. As is the case in previous titles, during big boss battles you will not be able to use your special powers, neither your own special attacks, nor those bestowed upon you by Valkyries.
Character classes for selection are no longer warrior, paladin, and mage; instead a Viking, a skald, and a soothsayer. The skills and upgrade system remain the same, however, based on your class you will receive different amounts of red, green and blue orbs that are used to upgrade your skills. You can upgrade skills from any class, but you may find yourself in lack of necessary orbs to unlock those skills. Aside from leveling up, upgrade orbs can also be found on the maps, earned by completing quests or found in treasure chests, both during and outside of battle.
Exploration gameplay, battle gameplay, character upgrades, acquiring armies… It all takes roots from the prequels so anyone familiar with either of the previous two stories will be able to take on Olaf without having to worry about the learning curve. The new race presented in this game is, obviously, the Vikings. Game also features new creatures, new lands to explore, new magic and new hero companions (the Valkyries) and new BGM tracks. Some lands and characters from the prequels also appear every now and then, but those are few and far in between. The game itself is very large in scale and the sheer number of quests makes it quite as long as The Legend and Armored Princess combined.
Elvish lands, Endorian knights, dwarven mines, pirate orcs, deadly dragons… Several known races and then some are all featured in this game, and they are not presented in a same way in the same lands, so twists and turns await you in the story campaign, making it a different experience than the previous games. There’s a fair amount of additional content unique to this episode and most of the battles are entirely new.
The main way of transport is either by boat or riding a horse, with the exception being in caves and caverns where you can traverse only on foot. While on a horse, you will also be able to fly and thus move through the map much faster, but that ability will first have to be given to you by one of the Valkyries. Your character still has the same number of weapon and armor slots to improve their overall skill, and some special weapons and items need to be maintained and pacified whenever they go bad, rendering them unusable. You still can use only five different unit types in a battle, and have to unlock extra slots for reinforcements or new units you wish to carry along in order to replace your lost soldiers or change your troops based on the enemy you’re facing.
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