Ragnarok (or Valhalla as some might know it) is a Rogue- like game with an early Ultima logic (for the uninitiated, Rogue is an ASCII-based open-ended dungeon crawl that was very popular since the early 1980s).
You are a simple mortal, whose quest is to aid the old Norse gods in their battle against the evil gods (Ragnarok in Norse mythology is the final battle that would decide the fate of worlds). You start in a Viking village, and can choose to be a Viking warrior, blacksmith, woodsmith, rogue, sage, or a conjurer. The game's strength is the virtually limitless replayability. All the items you are able to pick up, mix and use are almost unlimited.
But the designer didn't stop there. The best feature in Ragnarok is that every time you start a new game, the map is different (the newer game Diablo by Blizzard Entertainment is also built up like this). Gameplay mechanics is simple, and the graphics is very primitive, but there are so many different ways to play that you will never get tired of it. You can have various powers and a wide variety of equipment.
Overall, Ragnarok is truely one of the best, yet relatively unknown RPGs ever made. Best of all, the developers recently released the latest version as freeware.. unfortunately, the freeware version lacks sound effects which make the game much more atmospheric. You can therefore download Valhalla, the updated European release which includes music and sound effects, from the download link below :)
Review By HOTUD
English 
Comments and reviews
There are remake projects (mostly Java) on Github and Sourceforge.
Yes, but have you actually played Rogue? I played on an Atari using a cassette player as the storage for the game. It took a full 10 minutes to load and often took multiple attempts.
One of my favorite roguelikes of all time. Wish they would make a modern remake. Always started as a sage, leveled up, made a scroll of switch bodies, find a draugr, read the scroll, and BOOM profit.
TOUGHER THAN NAILS!!
From the manual:
"If you can find no strategy that is successful against a certain race of
creatures, you may wish to genocide them using a scroll of extinction."
. . . but don't do it too many times, or else the rangers will get you!
Oh this game, actually found and bought a boxed copy of this, still have the printed manual!
Firstly, seven years late but I agree with Hexatona about starting as a sage.
First roguelike I played, before I even knew they were called roguelikes. I came up with a strategy that led to a number of early game deaths but was very safe later so long as I did nothing stupid - and the sage special ability was key to it.
Now to try again probably twenty years since I last tried. Should be interesting.
@A Dark Soul try Magic Dosbox, best app you can get, just tried Daggerfall and it's smooth as heck
Does anyone know if there is an app where I can play this on my phone? I used to play ragnarok on my laptop all the time. I would love to take it with me and play when I have some down time.
Damn, I am playing this game SINCE 1993 and have still not finished it...
I wished, they would recreate it as a modern Windows version with DirectX, such good is the concept of the game.
Great game! Still love it.
Sounds awfully like UnReal World before UnReal World
One of the best, hands down.
I loved this game so much! I have never won - rarely got beyond the dungeons (oh the embarrassment!)
One of the best old-school Roguelikes I've played in my childhood... Terrible punishing difficulty, with lots of insta-deaths, but a great sense of accomplishment when you finally manage to overcome your enemies. I still remember how fun it was when I first discovered I could polymorph myself into a draug :)
I will try to decompile and compile again for java for cellphones :)
this was not only the first roguelike I loved to play, but it's the only one I've finished too! PROTIP: start as a sage.
This is a roguelike for people who can't get into roguelikes. It's fairly simple and all of your commands are icons instead of obscure letter commands and inbuilt help explains everything. Definitely recommended to try at least once.
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.