Valiant Hearts: The Great War Reviews
I give Ubisoft Montpellier a lot of credit for taking a level-headed look at a period of history that usually gets overshadowed, but the gameplay didn't get nearly as much attention as the aesthetics. If the puzzles had been more unique or interesting they could've propped up the story instead of dragging it down to mediocrity. Instead Valiant Heart turns one of the greatest conflicts in human history into a dull, repetitive chore.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War doesn't do enough with its puzzle-solving gameplay or its story to make the trip worthwhile.
And so it's a good try, Ubisoft Montpellier, but ultimately in your failure to commit to your high concept, Valiant Hearts is ultimately the same as every other pretty good game: flashes of brilliance countered by nonsense tropes that are inserted just because these are the things you do in video games.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is an extremely linear, extremely easy, and extremely… okay adventure game that deals with the real, non-romanticised side of the first World War. Sadly while a product that's deeply engrossing, technically flawless, and simply beautiful to look at, its core, the story and characters, doesn't manage to ever become the riveting war drama that it is supposed to.
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.
Visually stunning but mechanically lacklustre, Valiant Hearts gets in the way of its own storytelling.
Adventure with an artistic section at a very high level, with an interesting narrative, but with an excessively low difficulty, which can be exhausting if what you are looking for is a playable challenge.
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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.
A surprisingly sensitive, if flawed, retelling of a harrowing time 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.
Valiant Hearts is a confused game, but also a brave one tackling difficult subject matter.
Valiant Hearts may get repetitive at times, and struggles to find its tone, but I'd be hard-pressed to name a game that better explores the complexities of war. In the end, we're reminded that lives are valuable regardless of their banner. It's rare to see a video game explore conflict with such nuance, and this one deserves commendation for that.
Valiant Hearts works from a novel concept, and is loaded with brilliant ideas—hell, it's great just to see a war from the perspective of a country other than America—but Ubisoft's lack of self-control ultimately makes it less impactful than it should have been. It's still a worthwhile experience, though it could have been so much better if Valiant Hearts left us wanting more.
While the puzzles and story aren't especially rewarding, the overall tone is still interesting and successful
The subject material is ghastly, but Valiant Hearts has the right mix of emotion and entertainment to make enduring the Great War worthwhile.
A heavy-handed but impressively sincere attempt to tackle a subject most other games would never dare, with the end resulting being both affecting and entertaining.
While Valiant Hearts struggles to make sense of itself as a game, in its odd, playful innocence and in its focus on four friends (and a dog) it at least offers a fleeting human perspective on a new kind of war that turned out to be far, far worse in its mechanised violence than anybody was quite expecting.
Valiant Hearts is a nice game. Nice being a word equally complimentary but damning in its pedestrianism. It's a game worth experiencing; a visual and audial treat; a heart-warming and heart-breaking yarn. But as a game… it falls ever so slightly short of its target.
An emotional, rewarding take on the Great War in a medium that often glosses over the horrors of battle. Beautiful, sad, triumphant.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War presents us the grim side of World War 1 which is now thankfully a thing of the past. It looks pleasant and this Nintendo Switch port seems to have fared better than Child of Light despite running on the same game engine, so if you are seeking a brief interactive story, this gets a solid recommendation.