Title: The Valiant
Developer: KITE Games
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Genre: RPG, Strategy
Price: $39.99
KITE Games' The Valiant is what it promises to be – no more, no less. Set during the tumultuous periods of the Medieval era, the game has you taking control of knights, swordsmen, and archers to defeat your opponents on the battlefield. Whether you're taking control of important objectives or running down your opponents using its rock-paper-scissors-esque combat mechanics, little by little, it's your wits and your actions that decide if you win the day.
In this regard, The Valiant relies heavily on its unit counter system to really shine. Some of its mechanics are a staple of real time strategy offerings. Spears are supposed to take on horsemen, horsemen take down unsupported archers, swordsmen tank the damage and take the hits, and whatever ranged units you have rain supporting fire on the battlefield. Where it changes things up is in unit abilities. While each melee unit can charge opponents and lock them into melee combat, each unit also has its own special skills to employ. Whether it's your knight's devastating charge knocking your foes down, or your spearmen throwing javelins to pin enemies in place, unit micro is more than just making sure you have the right engagements. You're constantly vying for position to use your abilities properly; else, you'll find yourself quickly overwhelmed by your many foes. Base building is completely absent, so you're mostly reliant on a handful of squads to really carry the day.
Thankfully, The Valiant also gives you access to heroes to really help bolster your line. Not only are they more powerful than your regular soldiers; they also have access to unique upgrades that change up how they play. Your tanky hero being able to trigger area-of-effect heals is a massive boon in slog fights, whereas taking a ranged hero into battle nets you a fragile but extremely useful damage dealer that's almost essential in later levels. During the campaign, these heroes also level up, giving you some minor replay value as you do get some variety in what skills they can have and what abilities to customize them with.
Campaign is really where the meat of The Valiant’s experience is. There's a decent amount of missions to play through, each with different objectives to accomplish and gimmicks to change up the pace. Some are far more standardized, requiring you to hold positions or survive ambushes. The more difficult ones actively test your micromanagement skills, with some interesting, if silly, attempts at boss fights that require you to juggle units around to avoid AoE attacks and telegraphed AoE strikes. It's silly to think about, but it's an interesting way to make bosses an actual threat beyond just kiting them to death.
Most bosses are this way, anyway. While The Valiant is enjoyable most of the way through, the game's final missions are more grindy than fun, with its late-game enemies shrugging off blows that cut through them the level prior. On top of that, the game concludes the entire experience with a particularly terrible final mission that undermines most of what it hitherto tried to do. It's frustrating in the worst ways possible, and ends what would otherwise have been a good campaign on a very sour note.
The campaign at least features a cohesive story to enjoy, following the tale of two crusader brothers and their experience with an ancient artifact. The Valiant makes sure you get invested in this storyline, setting the stage properly with a good narrative punctuating the start and end of each mission. The various characters that join you mesh well with the drama it has setup, and each character is fully voiced, allowing for a healthy mix of different personalities. The plot is cliched, yes, and some of its events border on being silly, but it does have its moments. When characters are let loose and the build-up of the story is allowed to reach its crescendo, you can see exactly what the developers set out to accomplish.
That's not to say The Valiant is perfect. While the game's graphics do look good, it does let you down in some areas that might feel immersion-breaking. On one hand, the variety of locations you fight in does indicate that the story is building up to something important. On the other, minor details like the lack of lip-synching or the over-the-top kill moves might draw you out of the setting. It's not a deal breaker at least, but it can be a little jarring if you expected The Valiant to feel more gritty and realistic.
In any case, the Valiant’s real flaws are more apparent in its skirmish and multiplayer components. While the campaign feels fleshed out, its other modes feel severely lacking by comparison. The missing base-building elements can be forgiven due to its game design, but there are no alternative factions to play with in multiplayer mode. As a result, you and your opponents really are just facing each other in a mirror match. You'll be fighting over the same resource buildings, maneuvering with the same units, and playing on the same maps over and over again. It really kills the replay value that this title might have had, and any lasting longevity this mode could've offered. While its campaign is able to make up for its shortcomings with its varied objectives and narrative focus, the skirmish mode just feels tacked on as a result.
The Valiant does try to make up for its shortcomings. For instance, it boasts of a Last Stand survival game mode if you just want to mess around. Pitting you and two of your friends' heroes against hordes of soldiers, the goal of the mode is to really just see how long you can last before you perish. It's a simple mode that's fun for short distractions, albeit no real substitute to a fleshed-out multiplayer experience.
Bottom line, barely anyone makes use of The Valiant’s multiplayer mode, and for good reason. When you do try to have matches, you have so poor a connection as to induce frustration. All the multiplayer games are fated to ended inconclusively, with lost connections shutting off matches within minutes of their start. It's a constant annoyance, and one that really hurts the overall experience, especially when it's advertised to have a strong focus on its multiplayer component.
THE GOOD
- Interesting single player design, with good voice acting and a decent story
- Solid mechanics, featuring a healthy mix of units to play with, and lots of abilities to unlock and equipment to use in single player
- Smooth, if repetitive, gameplay, with a focus on unit abilities and unit matchups
THE BAD
- No faction variety in multiplayer and skirmish modes, with bad multiplayer support
- Terrible final mission that sours the entire experience
- Big on spectacle, but light on mechanics and variety, ultimately leaving you wanting more
RATING: 6.5/10
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