Valiant Hearts: The Great War Reviews
Instead of simply running you through various battles of World War I, Valiant Hearts: The Great War uses the story of a French family to build a better understanding of the broader historical importance. This personal story serves as the perfect framing device for the game's documentary-style presentation. While there are a few missteps and areas where it could have been stronger, it is a beautiful and well-executed game that offers a unique glimpse into one of the deadliest wars in human history.
Valiant Hearts is confident in its direction and thoughtful in its design. As a puzzle-focused, story-driven experience it isn't going to be for everyone, but those who relish the days of LucasArts' point-and-click adventures will certainly find a lot to enjoy here — doubly so if you are a history buff.
Playing Valiant Hearts now feels like a crime, but being on the Switch is a boon for this wartime marvel.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a poignant and powerful reminder of the significant human toll borne of the wars that we so often act out in our favourite video games. It doesn't exaggerate or embellish its subject matter, but rather tells a story rooted in historical accuracy and human emotion. And while the puzzler's gameplay isn't revolutionary by any means, its awe-inspiring visual design, clever soundtrack, and thoughtful plot will break your heart in the best possible way.
Overall, I couldn't have been more pleased with Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Beautiful art, moving music and a compelling story that has a heart wrenching and unexpected ending with plenty of subtext for you to chew on, it was an absolute treat to play. While the gameplay itself isn't complex, the puzzles were surprisingly fun even if not overly hard. It also wins extra points from me for slipping in historical facts and subtly teaching you a history lesson.
Despite taking shape as a rather unambitious adventure game, Valiant Hearts: The Great War nonetheless tells a beautiful story of loss and companionship with overwhelmingly evocative success.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War delivers a moving story that will surely leave an impression on you. The UbiART engine delivers another great artistic showpiece telling a story through animation, a powerful and harrowing musical score and documentary-like narration. Valiant Hearts doesn't depict what war may have been like, it makes you feel it.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a superbly titled game. It is a valiant effort at a sincere depiction of war by developers whose hearts were clearly in the right place, telling a gripping story that is still respectful of its source.
A touching and bold portrayal of World War One in wonderful animated style, Ubisoft Montpellier's Valiant Hearts shows that videogaming doesn't have to be an Anthem for Doomed Youth.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
A surprisingly sensitive, if flawed, retelling of a harrowing time in human history.
You may find the title music serene if not melancholic when you first load up Valiant Hearts. When you return weeks later to replay favorite sequences and find collectibles you missed, you may find the same music moving for the way it tugs at the heart strings. You will know, as you're returning to the game, the music is a reminder of the tragedy and the beauty that lies underneath the cartoonish art and puzzles of Valiant Hearts.
In the end, Valiant Hearts: The Great War was an enjoyable experience with a satisfying story. The game doesn't include the years when the United States joined World War I, but at the end of the game there's an opening to include that story for a possible sequel.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War doesn't do enough with its puzzle-solving gameplay or its story to make the trip worthwhile.
This game made me shed more tears than any game I have ever played before, and I find that I am not alone in that sentiment. I even think this game communicated parts of WWI so well that it could be used as an educational tool, though the characters' story is fiction. I want my friends and family who don't seek out history for fun or play video games to play Valiant Hearts. I want to show this game to my favorite history teacher in high school– who was also a soldier and a lover of fine art, to see what he thinks, though I feel that I already know the answer. I want to tell everyone how wonderful and important the complete experience of Valiant Hearts: The Great War is so that many more people can enjoy it. Oh wait, I think I just covered that last thing.