| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Valhalla Knights
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
The ESRB Says
Alcohol and Tobacco Reference: GamerDad noticed patrons talking about drinking and smoking at the tavern. Fantasy Violence: Hacksy-slashsy, hacksy-slashsy ... all day long. Mild Language: Although the main character usually said "...", other characters managed the occasional use of words like 'hell' and 'damn'. Mild Suggestive Themes: Minor flirtation in a few situations. Think of a cliche - hero with amnesia who finds their 'true destiny', formerly peaceful village now being over-run by a mysterious evil that only the hero can purge, and a master evil dude called 'The Dark Lord'! Valhalla Knights has them all as well as a 'ring of death' combat system that encloses you in a battle circle and pits you against your enemies in real-time combat. It is a poorly implemented system that is made worse by a lack of variety in combat options. This is one of those games that looks great on paper but is really bad in implementation: it is a party-based dungeon crawler with near-total freedom to craft your own adventurers, enemies you can see and choose to fight or avoid, and so on. The game is a dungeon-crawler with plenty of quests and side quests to keep you busy, with a multi-tier class system with plenty of skills to allow very flexible character customization. If all of that worked as advertised, attach a reasonable scenario and a robust battle system and you have the makings of an addictive game that would cost you dozens of hours of your life. But nothing is well done - you could forgive the bland graphics and sound if the story was decent; you could forgive the awful story if the combat was good; but the lousy combat system is the end of the line. This is a lousy game that fails to even muster niche appeal.  
Like most dungeon crawlers, Valhalla Knights is almost entirely about endless combat in dungeons. Any real impact from the game is directly related to combat - the other descriptors are incidental items that are more 'be aware this happens' than actual indicators of contact you will notice. The game is punishingly difficult and doesn't reward strategy or creative problem solving - it is all about figuring out the right way of doing things. The game is appropriately rated E-10+, as the content (flirting, mild language and references to smoking and drinking by adults in the tavern) are things that they would have seen already by that age. Issues with the game being lousy aside, the main reason I consider the combat content to be significant is that it is very difficult to advance through the game and there is nothing positive or 'character building' about the process that gets you there.
Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Valhalla Knights |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
