Valiant Hearts: The Great War Reviews
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.
Playing Valiant Hearts now feels like a crime, but being on the Switch is a boon for this wartime marvel.
These problems don't dilute Valiant Hearts' message, however. Rarely has war been examined with so much honesty and earnestness in a videogame. It only makes us yearn for more games that were less about guns and more about the people behind them.
As with any adventure game, you might feel like you need to backtrack a little too much, though the potential for getting stuck is severely limited by a generous hint system. Valiant Hearts could very well be the most poignant World War I game ever made, especially as it tells a tale from both sides of the conflict without getting bogged down in the unnecessarily stupid allegiances and battles that wasted thousands of precious lives.
Ubisoft Montpellier's take on the first World War is a surprisingly heartfelt adventure.
Valiant Hearts is an effective, playable history lesson
With beautiful art, a sentimental story, and gameplay that emphasizes helping people rather than killing them, Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a refreshingly different kind of war game.
"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.
Compelling and evocative, it's a story that simply has to be experienced
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.
I've never been much of a history buff, but maybe I would be if more games like Valiant Hearts: The Great War existed. Between the artistic backdrops and the soldierly tasks you commit, both right and wrong, Ubisoft Montpellier retells the events of World War I in amazing detail. Yet, the story is always about the people on the frontlines and what they endured, not the politics.
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.
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 is both touching and educational, a rich experience that lives between two worlds: comics and videogames.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Valiant Hearts is a gut-wrenching journey about the brutality of war that reminds us all just how important friendship is in this world.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a very good game. It has a very engaging story which will bring tears to your eyes while you play. This game has heart, so I can recommend it to anyone who wants to have a journey that won't be forgotten for a long time.
The five hours or so of gameplay that you'll get from a single playthrough are rewarding and memorable, with that fantastic storyline backing up some great puzzling action. Some may find themselves frustrated when bugs occur, but we think most will be forgiving of them once the end credits roll. As a package, we're sure that Valiant Hearts is something that you'll never forget. And you should indeed never forget.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a truly impressive experience that manages to focus on the realities of World War 1 without becoming a dull or upsetting experience. It adds just enough cheerful moments to stay upbeat and you're certainly going to care and fall in love with the main characters, especially the small dog.
I continue to be impressed with the ongoing creative efforts of Ubisoft Montpellier, and 'Valiant Hearts: The Great War' is yet another reason to be excited. They've taken what many consider to be the most tragic war in history and turned it into a game that has a story filled with heart and emotion. 'Valiant Hearts' is as close to an interactive history lesson as you can come, and were I a high school history teacher, I would find a way to work the game into my classroom lecture. Fans of history – tragic or otherwise – and wonderful storytelling will find plenty of reason to see 'Valiant Hearts: The Great War' through to the end.
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.