izigame.me

The game title has "Valkyrie" in it but that is only by name.
This is a sad review by a sad VP fanboy that got hit by a MASSIVE reality check and what gaming has come down to for people that enjoy old/long established franchises
Story wise it has 0 relation to VP1 & VP2 but there was no reason for them to hit me with a 343 smackdown and hoping I get stockholm syndrome.
This review might come off as malding and sometimes (maybe) repeat myself (maybe) but I don't care.
I admit, I played on Valkyrie difficulty and it took me a bit under 3 hours of actual gameplay to finish the first map only to get 0 points, because the game wasn't done feeling like wasted time.
Some might say "Why tho, ofc it gets hard" but just wait, I could have played on easy and still get pissed.
EDIT: also no coop, what a waste... shit performance/fps
You thought getting locked in a room by an invisible wall with almost no hp left is rough... haha lmao,
every chest & mob respawns and you have to touch the damn crystal again despite having saved with full hp,
cleared a really tough section and barely moved forward? You cant backtrack and save, gg ez, make sure you don't die or fight them all again and pick up every chest.
Upgrades gone and having to spend your stuff on that again to waste a little bit more of your time and so on is punishing? Oh no no no no, are you in for it.
The game punishes you at the map clear screen for taking damage, using items at all and THEN dying on top of it.
To some that sounds like fun, and some DS players might even think this is a nice off brand challenge... then you realize your screaming about " I FKIN DODGED AHHHHH"
becomes reality, its not just you malding, its real and you can't do shit unless you play veeeeery carefully with half assed action combat
Imagine giving tools to the player to advance and then punish them for using them (at every difficulty), glorious.
Its a discount Dark Souls but more punishing and more restricting than the actual Dark Souls. (in a bad way)
Tutorial is a mess that more often than not ignores your inputs and makes you feel hardstuck,
You press single slash or quadra and it just doesn't react but recognizes when you press the wrong button... ok game, good one.
Exploration is unrewarding, go break boxes instead unless you want all flowers, then you just look at the map that tells you where they are,
the first map only had 1 rewarding item and that is farily obvious to get if you even care enough anymore at that point.
Everything else is just common crystals or consumables and you get punished if you dare use them.
Explorations feels also limited in general, too many invisible walls and useless barricades.
The game hates Steam controller support and must be turned off on my end.
The game microstutters (fps/frametime), aka a technical mess and settings that don't work properly with poor graphics design to cover shortcomings and sometimes it lags really hard in combat (Jump attack enjoyers know)
Not to mention ground attacks that don't even connect visually can still hit you. (damn, even DS2 made it in)
The dragons, as a prime example for hitbox and enemy design, sometimes damage you before the attack animation properly starts and sometimes they are fixated on jumping backwards
until they can do whatever they were focused on trying to do unless you get them cornered or they don't do it at all, then its just praying your focus stays on and the dragon fails to hit you
while you chase that tail like a dog since destroying it heals you for almost all your hp. (instead of giving cool shit...)
So you have to get the tail or run around low hp if you have no magic left.
Also also, the dragon on the bridge is the hardest, because he can 1 tap or knock you off the bridge, other than that they are braindead and pose no challenge.
The enemy mob design is cheesy at best, don't throw action combat into my face just to play the waiting game in a corridor with flame thrower mobs.
Some mobs are a bit tougher but not bolder levels of tough so they are quick enough to shit all over you with attacks that power through yours like you aren't even attacking.
The game also INSISTS on you using magic wich is just a cheese mechanic for the player on a limited ressource that can be dodged randomly by enemies and sometimes take all 3 shots you have early on
if you don't have enough for magic, good luck being forced into a combo of light attacks that tickle your enemies ballsack until you get to attacks that actually hurt and don't get power stanced
into nothingness and you just eat shit, only for 1 of the 2 heavy hitters to get blocked and then get interrupted and lose focus again.
Sometimes your attacks change trajectory into the opposite direction and you just ask yourself if Satan is real and why its you he hates.
Attacking in general is so punishing that it counters its own speedy-ish combat design a lot, you get stuck in your animations for way too long and have to pray your combo goes through,
even if you cancel the attacks (if you can that is) you stand there like an ape and pray your button mashing is quick enough to finally get your character to move.
Getting stuck on enemies and other shit is also very easy, good luck with that.
Most attacks crack the standard parry (block) and leave you open for hits and other enemies often pile on and kill you.
Red attacks often get you despite dodging because reaching you in terms of distance doesn't always mean they attack and instead run into you a bit before doing so,
enemies out of camera are also inconsistent with their accuracy and wether they attack or not, forcing you to pace around them while 1-3 mobs chase like mad.
Dodging mid air is also not a thing so get fked on that part as well I guess. So much for fast paced combat, half assed at best.
The camera is an absolute mess and often loses focus target for NO reason whatsoever and using assists is a must.
Also the standalone camera movement comes across as blurry and feels sickening once you notice (you will).
Don't waste time using guard until you get parry etc and discount dodge instead and pray pressing discount dodge doesn't continue your combo instead (genius design, really),
the dodge has 0 iframes unless you unlock the "skill" to have iframes by treating dodge like parry (insane design, I can see the galaxy expand)
Upgrade design is just QoL bs half the time until you get actually useful stuff later on.
Tl;dr this game would be frustrating at every difficulty due to how clunky it is and you just end up asking yourself "Why do I een play this grabage, just refund", because its 0 fun
and banks on your sweet sweet VP nostalgia.
Many assets look out of place and the character the most, some stuff looks PS4 Pro, the character looks Nintendog Switch and the overall textures look like late PS3 era
and that just completely confuses my fkin eyes...
Soleil Ltd. has made some amazing games and this is their undisputed crown jewel, an amazing 3/10. Can recommend for masochists feels like they deserved this.