Valiant Hearts: The Great War Reviews
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is on the short side, lasting roughly 6-hours. That being said; the experience is a powerful and emotional journey. It is one of Ubisoft's best releases and a must-play for gamers this summer.
Valiant Hearts isn't perfect, and not everyone will like its tone, its graphic novel style or its story, but it's a strange, beautiful and genuinely special game. Let's not get carried away; as a work of World War I art it's no Paths of Glory, Regeneration, Birdsong or All Quiet on the Western Front. It's not even a Blackadder goes Forth.
Four years after its original release, Valiant Hearts celebrates the centenary of the Armistice with this Switch release. With the same strong experience remaining unchanged, it still is a pleasure to (re)discover Emile or Kurt's destinies, tahniks to the beautiful UbiArt Framework. With only two bonuses taking the form of an animated comic book and a regular artbook, Valiant Hearts still deserves another look, whether or not you already experienced it.
Review in French | Read full review
If you are like me and missed out the first time around, Valiant Hearts: The Great War is an absolute must-play for puzzle-adventure games and history enthusiasts.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War brings an involving and touching experience about World War One to the Nintendo Switch under the guise of a point and click game with puzzles to solve. While this aspect is not the strongest tenet of the game, as its puzzles could use a greater level of challenge, the game delivers everything else in a near flawless way, thanks to its well-devised plot, exquisite cartoon and comic book inspired visuals and overall message, which will go straight to the core about that devastating conflict.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is an elegant mix of 2D adventuring, simple logic-based conundrums, and effective storytelling. Its puzzles are a little uninspired, while the game's QTE segments can grow rather tiresome. But Ubisoft Montpellier has told a poignant story with real spirit and invention, and that makes this an easy one to recommend.
Brilliant. Ubisoft Montpellier has created one of this year's most memorable games. A story of adventure and tragedy played out against the backdrop of World War I, Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a game everyone should play.
A few games have had the ability to offer a bittersweet tone and to provide a theme that shows the stark reality of war offset by moments of humanity. The visual display of the game is creatively done and the soundtrack is splendidly made, transporting you into the environment on the first note. The game is a gem, probably one of the best games of the year.
A refreshing slant at the handling of a tough subject, Valiant hearts is touching and poignant WWI game.
While the UbiArt Framework logo at the beginning of the game should be a clear sign that Valiant Hearts is visually beautiful, its breathtaking, unforgettable narrative comes somewhat as a surprise. While its occasionally dull gameplay and noticeably low level of challenge prevent it from being a masterpiece, Valiant Hearts is one of best games a Ubisoft studio has created in recent history.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a graphically superb puzzler, tackling historical events that are not perhaps known to everyone and doing it in a lighthearted, yet respectful manner. Gameplay wise it's not going to challenge but the story, the characters and the emotional response that the combined product will evoke in players is easily enough to justify the asking price.
Ubisoft Montpellier made a decision to not make the player feel powerful, to instead make them afraid of the war.
So in the end, Valiant Hearts is something of a flawed masterpiece. But it's a masterpiece nonetheless. This is a game that definitely won't be for everyone, but it's something that the videogame industry has been in dire of need of. Being a steel-balled, Nazi-killing war hero is all well and good, but Valiant Hearts reminds us that there's more than one way to tell a war story.
There's not many video games that treat war with the respect its participants deserve. Metal Gear is too preachy and ham-fisted while Call of Duty & Medal of Honour are bombastic dude-fests disinterested in reality. Valiant Hearts, by using the war as a backdrop and avoiding too much direct conflict, pays tribute to the 16 million that perished in The Great War 100 years ago and does it with humour, pathos and melancholy.
There has been a large contingency of people asking for a war game in which you don't pick up and fire a gun, so it's great that, when it actually happened, we were given a game with this much charm and emotion packed into it.
Compelling and evocative, it's a story that simply has to be experienced
Valiant Hearts: The Great War isn't about being the hero, though there is some of that. It's not about beating the "bad guys," as you'll experience the war from both sides. Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a beautiful depiction of the horrific effects of war.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War on Switch adds nothing new, but it is - like four years ago - the same wonderful game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Valiant Hearts is a rarity: a game from a massive AAA publisher that plays out a personal and intimate story in a largely untapped historical setting. More of that, Ubisoft.
Valiant Hearts gets most of it right. In the end, it's just an incredible relief—if a decidedly un-American sentiment—to play a memorable war game that isn't some Rambo-inspired revenge fantasy. Well, that's not exactly right. It's a memorable game that just happens to be set during a war. And that makes all the difference.