A Rare Viking Game For The Amiga: Hägar The Horrible By Kingsoft…
It’s not often that I buy used Amiga games anymore. Heck, I almost never have, to be honest. But every now and then, when I stumble across something really rare, I somehow end up buying a huge bundle of games just to get my hands on that one title I’ve been looking for.
That wasn’t the case this time, though.
Hägar the Horrible was actually being sold all by itself by some guy on Facebook, and this is a game I’ve been searching for since I was a teenager. Seriously, I’ve never seen a copy in a shop. Not once.
Not even in London, where Kingsoft games tended to pop up fairly regularly around launch. I always made sure to keep an eye out for Kingsoft titles whenever I was overseas visiting family or friends, and quite a few of them ended up coming home with me over the years.
But Hägar?
Nope. Never saw it.
Until now…
Dirt Cheap Or Fair Priced…
Naturally, I just had to buy it.
I was honestly expecting to pay something like £50+ for it, but nope — I got it for just £15, which felt like an absolute steal considering how long I’d been looking for the bloody thing.
And, well… I couldn’t just buy that one game, could I?
So I ended up grabbing a few other titles from the same guy while I was at it. Nothing particularly spectacular, but they were games I know other collectors are looking for, so I figured I might as well pick them up and have something nice to send their way from time to time.
But anyway, back to Hägar the Horrible.
The question is the same one that always pops into my head whenever I finally get hold of one of these seemingly hard-to-find Amiga games:
Is it rare because it’s a complete stinker?
Is it actually any good?
Or…
Is it even rare at all?
Well, there’s only one way to find out…
To Be Rare, Or Not To Be Rare…
Well, to me at least, Hägar the Horrible is rare.
Yes, I know the collector sites and various databases out there don’t necessarily list it as a particularly rare game, but I’ve been collecting Amiga games since the ’80s and I honestly can’t remember seeing it anywhere.
I never saw it in shops, I never noticed it in pictures of other people’s collections, and I certainly never stumbled across a copy myself. So that raises another rather interesting question:
Have people been hiding the bloody thing because it stinks?
I’ve played the pirated version many times over the years, and I have to admit that Hägar certainly has its fair share of flaws. It’s definitely not one of those games you rush home from work to play, but I also think you have to put it into perspective.
This was, after all, a game from the rather awful Kingsoft, and perhaps more interestingly, it was one of their relatively few full-price releases.
And you know what? I actually think Hägar fills that particular gap rather nicely when compared with other games released around the same time — or at least games playing in roughly the same league.
Robozone and Baby Jo were released around the same period, for instance, and people still talk about those games. Yet, for whatever reason, Hägar the Horrible seems to have almost completely disappeared from the conversation.
And that’s a little strange.
Here we have a game based on a pretty decent and recognisable IP, running at a lovely 50 frames per second, yet hardly anyone seems to remember it. Meanwhile, something like Baby Jo felt as if it was struggling along at about 10 frames per second at times…
So why did people remember those games, but seemingly forget all about Hägar?
Smooth Sailing…
Hägar the Horrible actually looks pretty decent, and more importantly, it plays really smoothly. Sure, it screams budget title in places, but at the same time… it kind of doesn’t.
It feels very much like so many other European platformers from the era, only it’s easier to get into, less gritty-looking and generally much cleaner and simpler in its presentation. And I guess that last part is exactly why I’ve always enjoyed Hägar more than many others seem to.
There’s just something about how simple and clean it feels to play. No unnecessary clutter or overly complicated mechanics — you just pick it up and get on with it.
Sadly, the sound department is a completely different story.
There’s no music whatsoever during the actual game, and the sound effects are so basic that I often found myself turning the volume down. This is most definitely one of those games that would have benefited enormously from having proper music and sound effects playing at the same time.
You know… that wonderful concept that so many Amiga games seemingly avoided because developers desperately wanted their games to work on a basic 512KB machine instead of taking advantage of all those upgraded Amigas out there…
What a difference a decent soundtrack could have made here.
The only music you’ll hear in Hägar the Horrible is the tune featured in the video below, and, well…
It’s not exactly groundbreaking stuff…
Long Game, Huge Map, Difficult…
The length of the game is actually pretty decent, and I’d guess it takes a few hours to beat without cheats if you know what you’re doing.
Me? Well… I spent years trying to beat the bloody thing.
Hägar can be surprisingly difficult and, at times, pretty damn annoying. Strangely enough, though, a lot of that frustration disappears once you find a joystick that is precise enough for the job. The controls demand accuracy in places, and using the wrong joystick can make the game feel considerably harder than it actually is.
There’s also a rather uncommon feature in Hägar that helps it stand out from your typical platformer of the era.
The game has a map screen where you can sail your ship from one location to another, allowing you to choose where you want to go rather than simply following one completely linear path.
There is a catch, of course…
You’ll have to unlock something first before you can actually travel to certain locations.
It’s a surprisingly neat little feature and certainly not something you saw in every Amiga platformer back then.
The Tavern Bring Beer, Tits And A…Dice…
At the tavern, you’ll meet a sexy woman who invites you to roll the dice for a chance to win various goodies — including beer! Because, well… what kind of Viking adventure would this be without beer?
It’s actually a nice little break from all the sword-swinging, enemy-bashing noise going on throughout the rest of the game.
There’s also a shop in every level, where you can buy various essentials, upgrades and additional weapons. These can be activated using their respective F6, F7, F8, etc. keys on the keyboard and can make your quest considerably easier.
And believe me, you’re going to want them.
Hägar’s trusty sword can be pretty damn useless at times, mainly because its reach is so ridiculously short. You often feel like you practically have to stand on top of an enemy before you can actually hit the bloody thing.
There are a few tricks to the combat, though.
You can crouch and tap the fire button to attack low, or hold the fire button to perform a heavier attack. Learning when and how to use these moves makes quite a difference and turns what initially feels like clumsy combat into something a little more manageable.
Yes, Hägar requires patience, and there’s definitely some skill involved, but I honestly think you’ll be fine if you’re willing to set aside some time, learn its little quirks and give the game a proper chance.
Just don’t expect to master that tiny bloody sword immediately…
There’s Actually An Ending…
Your main mission in the game is basically to find whatever stuff your wife Helga tells you to go looking for in each level. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well… not quite.
These items can be surprisingly well hidden, and it’s entirely possible to walk straight past one without even realising it. The problem is that you can then make it all the way to the end of the level only to discover that you’re missing something important.
And yes, that means going back and searching for it.
Really bloody annoying!
It’s one of those old-school design decisions that can turn an otherwise enjoyable level into a frustrating hunt for that one tiny thing you somehow managed to miss along the way.
Hägar the Horrible was a full-price release, so expectations were naturally a little higher compared to many of Kingsoft’s older titles, which were mostly released as budget games.
As mentioned earlier, it’s also a pretty damn long game for an old-school platformer, but perhaps more surprisingly, it feels remarkably solid in terms of overall quality.
I haven’t encountered any major bugs, glitches or technical issues, and the whole thing feels considerably more polished than you might expect from Kingsoft.
In other words, Hägar somehow managed to escape the infamous Kingsoft Quality Stamp™.
And that might be the biggest surprise of them all…
Doors Or Portals…
The enemy variety isn’t exactly one of Hägar’s strongest points either. You’ll encounter pretty much the same enemies and visual styles throughout the entire game, and after a while it can become rather tiresome.
That said, the levels themselves have a few surprises up their sleeves.
The game is absolutely riddled with shortcuts, hidden passages and strange doors that almost feel like portals, taking you from one place to another in ways that don’t always make much sense.
It might sound weird, but as the video above shows, this is basically classic European platform-game design from the era. Logic wasn’t always particularly high on the priority list — if something looked cool or made for an interesting obstacle, just throw the bloody thing in there!
That becomes even more obvious when you start noticing some of the completely random sprites wandering around the levels.
Some of them don’t fit the Viking theme at all.
One of my favourites has to be that bizarre Giana Sisters-style wandering pipe thingy. What the hell is that doing in Hägar the Horrible?
Who knows…
But somehow, in a strange early-’90s Euro-platformer kind of way, it almost feels completely normal.
Whats In The Box…
The Hägar the Horrible box is actually very good-looking, and the quality of the box itself is pretty impressive too. There’s only the basic stuff inside — three floppy disks, the manual, a registration card, and that’s about it — but as a collector, I’m still really happy with the overall package.
And you know what? It’s pretty damn nice to finally have a Kingsoft game that isn’t stuffed inside a bloody jewel case!
You know the ones I mean…
Kingsoft seemed to have a thing for all sorts of weird and wonderful packaging over the years: small cassette-style cases, single-floppy jewel cases, double-floppy cases and whatever else they could squeeze an Amiga game into.
So having Hägar sitting there in a proper, good-looking box somehow makes the game feel that little bit more special.
It actually looks like a proper full-price Amiga release for once — and for a collector like me, that certainly counts for something.
Sealed, As New, Bargin Bin…
There are two more things about the box that are definitely worth mentioning.
First of all, it was still sealed when I got it — never used! That was a very nice bonus and certainly not something I expected when buying a game this rare.
Secondly, take a look at that price sticker on the box: £2.99!
Yep, at some point Hägar the Horrible clearly ended up in the bargain bins. It’s pretty crazy to see that price today, especially considering how difficult it has been for me to find a copy after all these years. Whatever the collector sites might say about its rarity, this bloody thing has certainly been rare to me.
I’ll never quite understand how or why Kingsoft managed to survive as a publisher for as long as they did, because some of their games were pretty damn rough.
To their credit, though, they did seem to improve as the years went by, even if some of those later and supposedly more ambitious releases also ended up being massive disappointments.
Hägar, thankfully, wasn’t one of the worst ones.
Instructions, WHO reads ‘Em…
Oh, how I wish I’d had this manual back in the day…
It actually tells you which keyboard buttons to use for all the different weapons, along with a bunch of other useful information that would have made my life considerably easier all those years ago.
The manual itself is tiny, but at least it’s there — and, surprisingly, it actually reveals quite a few things that aren’t properly explained in the game itself.
There are tips on how to beat the game, what you need to look for, how certain things work, and various other little hints that would have saved me a fair amount of frustration.
So after all those years of playing the pirated version and figuring everything out the hard way, it turns out the bloody instructions were sitting in the manual all along.
Who would have thunk that…
Sometimes it actually pays to own the original game, eh?
The Good Old Code Shit…
On the flip side though…
Playing cracked games will probably always be a smoother experience though — THANK GOD FOR WHDLOAD! — because having to pull out the manual every time the game asks you for a code gets really annoying, really quickly.
Talk about punishing the people who actually bought the bloody game!
Of course, there was a reason for all this. Piracy was absolutely rampant back then, especially on machines like the Amiga, so publishers had to come up with ways of protecting their games. Manual look-ups, code wheels, coloured sheets, strange symbols… we certainly saw plenty of creative solutions over the years.
Annoying? Absolutely.
Understandable? Yeah, I guess so.
And looking back now, the effects of that era are rather interesting. Some games sold in such small numbers that finding an original copy today can be incredibly difficult — which brings us right back to Hägar the Horrible and why I’m so happy to finally have a complete, original copy sitting in my collection.
Even if I’ll probably still play the WHDLoad version when I actually want to play the bloody thing…
Summary…
Hägar the Horrible isn’t a forgotten Amiga masterpiece, nor is it the complete disaster its obscurity might lead you to expect. It’s simply a decent old-school platformer with plenty of flaws, a few surprisingly good ideas and a strange charm that has somehow stuck with me for decades.
Looking at the review scores from back in the day, it seems quite a few reviewers felt roughly the same way: an OK game, nothing more, nothing less.
Or wait…
WHAT THE HELL?
CU Amiga gave Hägar a whopping 85%?!
Okay, maybe someone over there really liked Vikings…
Quite a few other magazines landed somewhere around the 60–75% range, though, and that feels much closer to where I’d place it myself.
And after searching for the original since I was a teenager, I can finally say:
Hägar has come home.