Valiant Hearts: The Great War Reviews
With Valiant Hearts: The Great War, Ubisoft Montpellier has created something magical. That is, a game which manages to convey the seriousness of war, while also being creative and imaginative. All of this is done in an incredibly respectful manner; so much so that the game acts as both a teacher and an entertainer throughout its colourful narrative.
The title is certainly not without its faults with fairly simple gameplay and puzzle-solving, and a sometimes over-reliance on historical facts and pop-up text to describe its WWI-inspired world. Yet, like the greatest feats and tales of the first World War, this tale, though difficult to witness at times, is nonetheless an important and great one for the ages.
"Valiant Hearts" is able to convey this very real story of war through its cartoon-designed characters. It's gut-wrenching as realistic stories of wartime loss often are. That story occasionally gets lost while shuffling between the four main characters, but the message remains. The perils of war are far more real than the glory of the battlefield that is often depicted in today's games.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a fantastic tale grounded deep in actual and awful history, history the game has no problem sharing with you as you play.
Valiant Hearts is a good game offering an emotionally satisfying experience. With about six hours of gameplay (depending on puzzling speed) it has solid value. As humans, we should all play this, even though it's not the best gaming has to offer.
Valiant Hearts isn't necessarily lacking in quality or polish, just that perhaps we're looking at one game that feels like it wants to be three.
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.
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.
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: 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.
Compelling and evocative, it's a story that simply has to be experienced
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.
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.
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.
Ubisoft Montpellier made a decision to not make the player feel powerful, to instead make them afraid of the war.
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.
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.
A refreshing slant at the handling of a tough subject, Valiant hearts is touching and poignant WWI game.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War will certainly not be the most challenging game you play this year, but it is utterly absorbing, charming and a real experience for fans of puzzle and adventure games. Worth investing in for the soundtrack alone, it's an experimental title that - whilst it feels as if it could be a valuable educational tool for a younger audience - is still a mesmerising game for adventure fans of any age.
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.