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Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga
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Graphics & Sound:
Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga makes an interesting jump from its PlayStation Portable roots to the Wii, and although there may not be so much crossover between the two audiences, the graphics are familiar to any PSP gamer. This means that Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga is automatically ahead of the curve for Wii, where graphical sophistication isn't exactly a common item on any one's checklist. This game suffers mostly from a lack of activity and depth in its presentation. Exploring the world around towns gets downright dull, apart from the occasional enemy. We understand there's a desolate theme going in some of the world map, but the towns are far from bustling. We understand that holding Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga against the bar of something like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is unfair, so let's just look at a traditional 2D RPG. Towns are bustling, with lots of NPC action and interaction. By the time you leave the first town in Eldar Saga, you will have talked with the same four people about ten times each, and never seen one word of new dialogue... The cast of characters is designed well enough, but without compelling voice acting, we're left feeling a bit unfulfilled.
The "done rights" by our count start with a heavy focus on customization of the player's character, from clothing to weapons to race to body type. If ogling your character and playing a form of RPG dress-up sounds fun, you'll have a blast in Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga and kill many hours. The fact that this isn't a 2D RPG means the developers put lots of time into designing all the various game elements and making sure they look good when subjected to a user-controlled camera. We felt it would have been fine if the camera locked, given the relatively sensitive controls and tendency for things to get wonky unintentionally. The sound effects include some character sounds during battle, and good mood music. The first few repetitions of the in-game music are fine, but it's a love/hate relationship after the first few hours; you'll either be nudging the volume dial down or whistling along joyfully. The most impressive aspect of Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga is the scale and scope of its game world, and its more mature presentation. Few things here are objectionable to parents, but the look-and-feel of Eldar Saga marks it as something other than kiddie-fare.
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Gameplay:
Your way into the world of Eldar Saga is equally dense and ambitious, and we mean that in the best way possible. This may not be the first full-blooded RPG on Wii, but it's the first we can recall in a very, very long time. When we say "full-blooded" we're talking about a nod to something from a D&D vein that strives to recreate the fun of building a character and adventuring through a huge open world with a party of friends. Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga even captures the party mechanics of this through online play, which we've definitely not seen enough of in previous or similar titles. The story is a throw-away, inscrutable and easy to lose track of, but with sufficient time invested in it that Marvelous and XSEED chose to split things up into two distinct chapters. Much of this divide is artificial from a gameplay or plot standpoint, but core RPG gamers will enjoy the attempt to expand the mythology created in previous Valhalla Knights games. The fans of these games will be thrilled, and the rest of us will just have to be content with hacking and slashing.
The single-player option is straightforward enough, and you'll start off by selecting a "chapter" to play and rolling your character. There are possibly too many qualities embodied in each character, but only if you aren't a serious RPG gamer or tabletop adventure game fan. Having the option to select different jobs and races comes a bit later, but builds in a new dimension for customizing your character and adds to replay value. The multiplayer option is awesome, and allows a second player to join you for co-op play throughout the world, taking on specific quests. We were very much reminded of Monster Hunter by the way Eldar Saga handles its multiplayer, and this is a great thing for Wii gamers. The constraint of needing to find a friend with a copy of the game isn't that serious, considering the various player matching sites springing up now online. You'll enjoy playing with a live partner, but there's an option to also draft a mercenary controlled by the CPU and your real-time commands. A little dose of squad combat in our RPG is never a bad thing, but there were bigger issues with controls. The major gameplay issue is lack of direction and variety. Quests are a slog for the most part, unless you are willing to invest some serious time in the game. Even if you are, you may find yourself gathering mushrooms ten hours in and wonder why you spent as much time as you did... |
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Difficulty:
The difficulty curve for Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga is not so much steep as it is inconsistent. Building the character isn't all that intuitive for people that may be approaching this as their first RPG experience on Wii. The stats and their acronyms remain largely "mystery meat" unless you really dig into the manual, and you'll forget everything anyway a few hours into play. At the point where you can first upgrade stats, the alphabet soup of mysterious attributes becomes frustrating. Other weird design choices include a poor system for comparing equipment you plan to purchase to equipment you are actually wearing. Beyond these cosmetic issues, you'll find that the first few hours of the game position you in almost god-like stature compared to most enemies. Swatting down bunny rabbits and mushrooms will do that to a person.... The next areas you explore push you into intense battles and can be the death of you unless you're careful. The other problem you'll run into early on is the lack of funds, compared to the available items. Why the game feels compelled to tease us by showing off those goods we can't afford, we'll never know. What we do know is that customization and reading the screen becomes harder than it needs to at times, due to poor planning or clutter on the interface. Running out of money is one thing, but losing your life is another. Options to save frequently prevent themselves, so you'll have the freedom to replay any sections where you played poorly. If anything, we'd say that Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga could afford to notch up its difficulty overall and include more variety of monsters along the way.
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Game Mechanics:
The fact that this plays like a throwback dungeon-crawl means you'll want to get the Classic Controller out, for the full experience. Some things, like the game's sole gesture that takes advantage of motion controls, we were happy to trade for not having to have two hands full. Classic in this case applies to a classic RPG feeling, exactly what the developers were apparently striving to achieve. Think Diablo meets your pick of any console RPG, and you'll see the right mental picture forming. This means you'll be stabbing at buttons to battle and unleash magic or use items. Eldar Saga tried to be very smart about keys that switch inventory lists from your bag to your belt, allow you to give commands to your mercenary, and control the game's camera. The problem is that all this is done across a relatively small range of buttons, so some serve double duty. This is always confusing, having a button do one thing on its own and another when the shoulder button is depressed. We loved the ability to customize your mercenary's A.I. setting, making him more or less aggressive, for instance. The problem in implementing this was that the mercenaries are best when left on autopilot, although they do get lost from time to time. Generally, the game is smart about adjusting to your condition and placement, especially in battle. We only had problems doing quick corrections, because of weird placement of a few buttons. Since this isn't a game with lots of action that requires twitchy reflexes, operating at a slower pace is okay with us.
The biggest downside to this game is that it promises a few things it can't deliver. Epic adventure is a bit of a stretch when the story just isn't that compelling and the travel through the game's world turns out to be fairly mundane. Sure, there's a lot to explore, but where's the fun in traversing barren landscapes and fighting against bats, birds, or fungi? Our advice is to see Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga through its first 3-5 hours before deciding its not for you. Later levels include harder enemies and more interesting quests. The really exciting thing is when you have a friend in the game and can play co-op missions, somewhat like the way hunting worked in Monster Hunter. Wii gamers have suffered for lack of quality online gaming, that isn't powered by Mario, so Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga presents an ambitious and important milestone. We wish it were better implemented and had cleaned up some of the control issues that remain, but you can kill many hours just building your character in the first episode, much less completing the game. Having the option to change races or jobs means that a committed player will find plenty of love to be shared. Unfortunately, it will take a committed RPG gamer or curious novice to get through some of the generally clunky interface and bland overall presentation. Try it as a rental and see what camp you fall into. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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