Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok Review

A chaotic medieval VR adventure that combines massive battlefield encounters, physics-based melee combat, army management, and impressive freedom.

When you talk about medieval combat games in virtual reality, Blade and Sorcery is usually one of the first names that comes to mind. Its physics-driven fighting, weapon handling, and harsh engagements have made it a familiar experience to VR enthusiasts. But another game in the genre deserves much more attention: Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok.

Developed by BlackTale Games, the game draws on the grand medieval battles and army management of Mount & Blade, bringing those concepts into virtual reality so you can literally get in on the fighting yourself.

What makes Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok unique is that it doesn't limit its objectives to one-on-one sword fights.

Instead, it mixes numerous distinct gameplay features, such as leading soldiers, managing an army, capturing settlements, exploring dungeons, participating in tournaments, and waging huge battles. The result is an experience that takes you from managing resources on a campaign map to standing in the heart of a fight with dozens of warriors around you.

The franchise has also dabbled with new takes on VR combat. Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok 2 focuses on gunplay, while Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok 3 features martial arts and fighting in the vein of arcade beat-'em-ups. Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok 4, however, returns to the medieval battle that started the series. The developer continues to explore physical weapon handling, Viking-inspired battles, and increasingly intricate combat encounters.

It still has a long way to go, but it shows the original idea has potential. In the original Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok, you could build your reputation, beef up your army, and fight competing forces in a campaign mode. Rather than dropping you straight into the role of a mighty warrior with a huge arsenal of gear, the game starts you off with very little. You have a few resources, basic weapons, minimal armor, and a small number of soldiers to follow you.

The intro sets the scene for the hazardous world you are about to explore. You start as a very inexperienced figure in the middle of a violent event, and you have to escape before slowly making a name for yourself in the larger world. Once you get past the introduction, you’ll get access to the campaign map. Here, you can travel between towns, battle foes, recruit locals, and look for ways to improve your standing.

Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok isn't the best game for the story. Its appeal is mainly the flexibility to plot your own course. You choose where to travel, which adversaries to fight, how to strengthen your army, and when to increase your influence. That lack of a strongly structured storyline lets the experience breathe, but players seeking a truly cinematic plot may find the presentation relatively basic.

The campaign also includes a variety of activities that help to make the world feel more involved.

You can visit towns, enter tournaments, accept missions, trade, and slowly become a better warrior. These activities give you reasons to explore instead of just hopping from one battle to the next. Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok’s greatest strength is its combination of campaign management and first-person VR combat. Your journey centers on the campaign map, where you can move between areas, recruit soldiers, collect resources, and choose which encounters to engage in. However, when a conflict starts, the experience changes: you are no longer controlling everything from a distance. You step onto the battlefield and join the fight.

Early on, when you don’t have many resources, every encounter feels like a big deal. With rudimentary equipment and only a handful of soldiers to back you up, bandits and smaller hostile groups can become real dangers. Recruiting more villagers gives you more manpower, and gathering gold lets you buy better weapons, armor, and other equipment. As your army increases, you are slowly introduced to larger confrontations and tougher fights.

You can also build bespoke battles. You can choose from numerous maps, decide whether to attack or defend, set the number of soldiers, and choose the types of foes you want to face. Some scenarios feature huge armies; battles can reach 100 vs 100, or even bigger encounters depending on your computer's capabilities. You have a lot of control over how chaotic or difficult a meeting is, as you may tailor these settings.

Before starting a custom combat, you can choose your equipment, armor, helmet, and other available weapons. You can also bring a horse into combat, offering a fresh way to approach conflicts. You can also battle foes while mounted, using ranged weapons, before dismounting to fight in close combat.

The campaign is not the only way to play the game, either. Arena mode offers a more stripped-down experience where you can focus on defeating one or more enemies at a time. Custom battles are the best option for players who want to jump straight into large-scale combat, while dungeon mode offers a different kind of encounter. These surroundings are darker and more claustrophobic, and they involve moving through areas, fighting foes, and facing a final test.

The dungeon experience is a nice change of pace from the turmoil on the open battlefield.

You have to move through the terrain, find adversaries, and reach the end. Chests and other interactive elements also encourage exploration, but the mode doesn’t fully match the thrill of the bigger fights. Another important element is penetration. Rather than fighting an army on an open field, you and your soldiers might go to an enemy castle and try to kill the defenders.

Enemies may call for backup when they spot you, turning a stealthy approach into a chaotic fight. This changes the pace of combat and shows how the game offers more than simple battlefield fighting. Undoubtedly, the main appeal of Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok is combat, and its biggest selling point is the impression of really taking part in a medieval fight.

It’s not just tapping buttons to do predetermined assaults. Instead, your mobility shapes how you use your weapons, block attacks, and take down enemies. You can choose from several weapons, including swords, daggers, axes, spears, polearms, maces, flails, and arrows. If you're without a weapon, you can use your fists. Distinct equipment gives you distinct options in combat, and mixing and matching weapons can make specific encounters fun.

Combat is especially fun when multiple foes surround you. You can also deflect an incoming assault, hit your opponent's legs to throw them off balance, and finish them off with another weapon. Kick, grab, toss things, and use your surroundings. Combat is unpredictable.

Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok isn't necessarily the finest VR experience if you want precise one-on-one sword fighting. Blade and Sorcery has a more polished feel to some of its weapon physics, whereas the original game’s main strength is the scale and unpredictability of its battles. Some assaults yield surprising effects, and weapon interactions can feel uneven at times.

This is especially obvious with two-handed weapons. Sometimes it feels odd to relate the dominant hand to the supporting hand. Some movements are difficult to do effortlessly. Sometimes, rotating, redirecting, or rapidly moving a weapon might cause a perceptible lock-up or unwanted movement. In some cases, the spear feels more comfortable to use; in others, you need to make an additional adjustment to the other weapons.

 Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok 4 gameplay also shows these flaws are something the series still needs to work on.

Its new melee system features weapon blocking, parrying, kicking, and other physical interactions, but the early release had problems with controller tracking, arm placement, and two-handed weapon rotation. Some weapons, especially the flail, also acted erratically. These are understandable problems in an unfinished version, but they show how essential consistent physics and responsive controls are to this type of experience.

But despite these flaws, the large-scale fighting is spectacular. You get a sense of scale that smaller VR combat experiences don’t often manage to match, as you move through the battlefield and see dozens of NPCs fighting at once. During engagements, you can issue orders to your soldiers, coordinate attacks, and strive to keep your troops together. Sometimes your army looks like it has everything under control, then you look around, and most of your soldiers have fallen. Sometimes reinforcements arrive just in time when all seems lost, turning a losing battle into a thrilling win.

The enemy AI makes for some fun times too. Opponents can block your assaults, protect themselves, and react to your moves, though they aren't always consistent. But having enemies fight, defend, and interact with each other adds a lot to the experience.

Progression is another major feature of Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok, with your character slowly becoming more capable as you explore and fight. Winning fights, earning gold, recruiting warriors, and leveling up your abilities all help increase your status in the world.

Your character starts with quite weak stats, and some actions might highlight those weaknesses. For example, if you’re not good enough at archery or combat, it could be difficult to do well in a competition. Even if you think you are shooting well, your character's lack of experience can affect the outcome. It encourages you to take time to develop your skills, rather than expecting to master everything straight away.

Gold is also important because you buy many weapons and armor items. Some equipment needs a certain level of proficiency before you can utilize it properly. Thus, growth is more than simply getting more and more powerful goods. You also have to build the character who uses them.

Recruitment is also very significant. Big fights are hard to win with a limited number of soldiers, but winning battles lets you grow your forces. Over time, you can lead larger armies and fight foes that would have defeated you before.

This process leads to a satisfying gameplay cycle.

You fight, gather resources, upgrade equipment, recruit more soldiers, and return to the battlefield more capable. It gives the story a purpose and makes triumphs feel more meaningful than simply beating another set of NPCs.

Visually, Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok isn't necessarily the most beautiful VR game out there, but its presentation serves the experience it intends to deliver. The environments are recognizable medieval settings, such as villages, castles, battlefields, bridges, and dungeon interiors. Other maps also help keep confrontations from becoming monotonous.

The character models and equipment convey a medieval environment well, and the variety of weapons and armor provides plenty of visual variety. Being able to change your equipment before a fight also makes preparing for battles more fun. However, the graphics are not all sunshine. Some character models look a bit crude, and some motions or physics interactions can look strange at times.

The original game’s visual presentation also stands out more when compared to more refined VR experiences. The early build of Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok 4 was a step up in character modeling and battlefield presentation, though it was definitely unfinished. Some character details looked odd. The physics systems sometimes produced weird visuals. But it’s still fascinating to watch lots of NPCs battle in the same space, especially given the technical challenges of hosting big engagements in VR.

Performance also depends on your machine and how many characters you are dealing with. More soldiers means more dramatic encounters, but also more demands on your hardware. The visuals aren't always great, but the size of the conflicts helps to make up for some of these shortcomings.

Sound design is a powerful tool for setting the atmosphere of medieval battle.

The sounds of weapons clashing, soldiers fighting, and foes responding to attacks add to the immediacy of the interactions. In a big battle, everything happening around you makes it feel like a real war, not just a bunch of random fights.

Sound is frequently used to set up its opening events. You are, for instance, plunged into the world by a violent assault and must flee from peril. Music helps lift these situations, though the volume can be distracting at times. The soundtrack ultimately gels well with the gameplay, though it’s not necessarily the most memorable part of the experience. Its biggest contribution is in making battles feel lively and chaotic.

Tales Of Glory 4 : Ragnarok is one of those VR experiences that gets more interesting the longer you play. The mechanics of its individual elements may not always be as refined as its competitors. Still, the combination of large-scale battles, campaign progression, army management, and physical fighting gives it its own personality. Rather than focusing on the realism of sword fighting, it aims to capture the thrill of being part of a full medieval conflict.

The campaign is particularly significant since it offers you something to work for. Building an army from nothing, acquiring better equipment, upgrading your talents, and taking territory gives a rewarding sense of progression. Meanwhile, custom combat and arena encounters give you plenty of opportunities to experiment without committing to the storyline. Dungeon exploration and infiltration missions add even more variety. In other words, there are many ways to enjoy the game.