izigame.me

The Good:
- I'm just glad that the Valkyrie franchise isn't dead. And hopefully this isn't the end of it.
- I really like how they brought back the stories of the einherjar like the first game. In the second and third, the einherjar had basically no backstory or plot, and was one the things I found most interesting about the original game. The mechanic were you learn about them while you are searching for them is really cool. I'm just kind of sad how few there are in the game. But in the future, more of this.
- Overall, combat was mostly enjoyable, there are some issues, which I cover in the bad, but for the most party, it's generally good. A bit button mashy, as you aren't really using certain moves for certain scenarios, you just kind of throw out whatever seems to work. But between that and spells with summons, it's a decent package.

The Bad:
- The game wouldn't play nice with my PS4 controller, and wouldn't even recognize the button inputs using generic numbers. I had to pull out a busted 360 controller with a pretty heavy dead zone to even play the game. Like I know it's 2022 and it's only a small developer like Square Enix, but I don't think it's too much to ask to have support for PS4 controllers lik 95% of the rest of the games on steam.
- The constant and repetitive remarks during and after combat got old so quick. Not to mention they weren't even appropriate at times. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "A FEARSOME FOE" to a random group of trash mobs.
- The camera would go nuts if you end up fighting someone against a wall or in a corner, and it happens a lot.
-I hate that they use the combo meter from the past games, but filling it doesn't give you access to chain together super cool special moves. In fact the combo meter does basically nothing at all in this game but count. Nibelung Valesti just becomes a spell that costs far too much to cast at the end of the game. Also, you can't swap weapons unless you are basically holding perfectly still. In DMC, you can buffer the input, and the swap would happen between hits, but in this game, it just eats the input. It became very annoying trying to swap weapons mid-combat.
- Sometimes you have to be far too particular about how you interact with an object using L1. Like, you can be standing right next to a save point or chest, but you'll only use your grappling move until you move the camera to a point it's happy with. The prompt will even be on screen and you'll still just throw out your grapple move.
- The game had a lot of reused assets, like rooms that were just copy paste, and one part that really stuck out to me was when getting Cyper when everything was supposed to be frozen. All the objects weren't encased in ice and it really just kind of stuck with stuff like green plants in this frozen world. Or like, here's the same giant foutain for a 3rd time, broken exactly like the last two were.
- For some stupid ass reason, all stat up items like max health, soul, and arts are not applied when you recieve them. Instead they are added to your inventory and have to be used. I didn't realize this until the final fight of the game. I can not understand for the life of me why it is this way. Truly baffling.
- More time than I could count, attacks, even when locked on to enemies and right next to an enemy, will send you sailing past them as your flourish of attacks hit nothing.
- When it comes to exploiting weaknesses, the autosummon mechanic (which should be one of the coolest features in the game) gets in the way of itself. You generally want to summon the einherjar that the enemies are weak to, but also buffs your attacks with that same element. But autosummon temporarily removes that element with the autosummon's. So it's just constantly removing the buff that enemies are weak to. Not to mention you still have to pay soul bar for autosummons. I just eventually turned them all off.
- The way drops work, everything thing in the tree is progress gated. It's not like in other games this wants to be like, say Devil May Cry or God of War where you can just keep upgrading everything you want unil you are out of experience. In this, you are hard-stopped in your trees till you get to a level that drops the new type of materials. And insultingly, you will need thousands of each, but some can be found in chests in groups as low as 10, which isn't helpful in the least. I particularly remember a dead end room with four waves of enemies that gave a chest with 20 silver. -_-
-Also what they call a "puzzle" is insulting. Like there's a breakable wall that you need to break with one of your einherjar. That's it. It's the same as just opening up a new way in a metroidvania. But to further the insult, it gives you the tutorial every time you approach a new one. And even when one you've seen before, the person who can open it always says something out loud. And a lot of the time locked doors will have their key in a chest just a few feet away. Like, does this really pass as level design and puzzles these days?
- Other nitpicks are: Can't dash through breakables. Can't pause cutscenes. Enemies and bosses breaking the target lock constantly with movement quickly or teleporting. No ranged options and situations where you really could use them. Glitches like einherjar stuck in walls, enemies stuck beyond the blocked off fighting area. There's a stat slotting system for the weapons, but you only ever get a single slot the whole game when it really looks like you're going to get more as you level the weapons. You only get a second at max level.

The Ugly:
I see a lot of reviews saying not to compare this Valkyrie game with other Valkyrie game. Which, first of all sounds ridiculous, but second of all, I don't know if all these people even played all three of the previous games, but they are ALL quite different from one another. Hell, 3 was a tactical RPG. Even before I bought the game, I was watching a streamer almost seemingly angry that people were reviewing the game poorly and basically talking down to them for expecting a Valkyrie title from... a Valkyrie game. But even if it wasn't, there are still far too many issues to still find this game acceptable, specially with a $60 price tag. It is perfectly fair to compare this to others in the franchise because it IS part of the franchise. A franchise which I love. And I know it can be better than this, and I hope in the future it'll have that opportunity.