The Case

Originally announced towards the end of last year and showcased during Ubisoft’s conference at E3 with a truly tear-jerking trailer, Valiant Hearts promised to focus on the personal stories of a selection of characters during the First World War. The main question is, does Valiant Hearts deliver on its promised emotional intensity or does its emotional punch miss the target completely?

The Trial

There are a few immediately obvious differences between the Valiant Hearts I played and the Valiant Hearts announced back in 2013. Namely, the initial announcement trailer mentioned a fifth character, ‘George, the British aviator who lied about knowing how to fly’ whom is not playable in the final game and not nearly as prominent as in the first trailer. The final game switches focus between the remaining four characters. There is farmer Emile who is conscripted to fight for the French forces and his close friend Freddie, an American who voluntarily fights for France. Then there is Anna, a Belgian veterinary student who does her utmost to treat injured troops whilst she searches for her father. Finally there’s Karl, who is a German living in France that gets deported and subsequently conscripted to the German forces. He’s also in love with Emile’s daughter, Maria, and while the first trailer implies that this romance is a huge part of the plot, in the final game it is a much smaller sub-plot. All of these characters are then tied together by Walt, the dog, who can get to areas you can’t and assist with puzzles.

These are interesting people caught up in the war for a number of reasons. In direct juxtaposition to these affecting characters is the cartoony villain of Baron Von Dorf who is much more one-note in comparison. His moustache-twirling, flat characterisation feels out of place and seems to exist at cross-purposes to the kind of story Valiant Hearts wants to tell. That said, the boss fights against Baron Von Dorf are over the top in every way and more enjoyable for it. Fighting the Baron in his zeppelin in a church, using a broken organ to play the tune of his demise, is definitely a high point.

Gameplay is largely comprised of side-scrolling puzzle solving. Many puzzles involve finding various setting-specific objects that can perform as a lever for various switches that, when flipped, remove an obstacle in your path. The same mechanics are reused often but the game at least tries to present these in different ways each time they appear. Puzzles are very simple and most of the time you’re even given hints if you spend over a minute trying to solve one. The solutions aren’t obtuse but they are still engaging to work through. Though sometimes, you’ll have the right solution but it frustratingly won’t work as it should; mechanically speaking, the game lacks a final layer of polish for some puzzles.

What is not lacking in polish is the art. This is another game on the UBIart Framework, like Child of Light and the cel shaded style looks gorgeous. I do however have a few minor complaints: during cutscenes, there are a few occasions where a zoomed in shot is used and the outlines of the art look pixelated as they were not designed to be seen that close up. The art direction has also chosen not to give any of the characters visible eyes. It sounds weird put like that but I didn’t start questioning this choice until after I’d played the game. One possible reason for this artistic choice is that the lack of eyes accentuates the character’s roles as everymen & women. But some gamers will likely be left feeling ‘Goodness, could no one afford a barber during World War I?’

Speaking of the game’s historical setting, the game has heaps of information on offer to those who want it. Cutscenes provide light information on which forces are where and where the characters are in relation to the action. But if it’s the nitty gritty of history that you love, the game has a wealth of information on offer in that regard as well. As you play, new fact cards are unlocked, either by just playing normally or by picking up special items that belonged to soldiers. To access these cards you have to open up the menu but it’s not compulsory to do so. There are non-intrusive on-screen prompts telling you when you’ve unlocked something new but beyond that, accessing this information is totally optional. It’s great that players have the option to access this information if they want but it’s odd that, more often than not, this rarely influence what you see during gameplay. For example, one card mentions the involvement of Indian soldiers fighting against Germany and in the next level you see Indian soldiers fighting alongside you. However, moments like these are few and far between even though it’s clear that the development team did their homework. If they’d gone to so much trouble, why didn’t they show their work way more often during actual gameplay, rather than hiding it away somewhere in the menu?

Another odd choice is the way death is handled in-game. Valiant Hearts takes place mainly on the battlefields of the First World War so the bloodied and broken bodies of your comrades lie all around you. But you’re one of the main characters so death during gameplay sequences is basically inconsequential; if you die there’s a fade to black and then you just get back right up again close to where you died. Even Walt the dog is impervious to damage. Characters can and do die later on but that is often confined to cut scenes only. This ludonarrative dissonance takes out a lot of the game’s intended emotional punch.

What doesn’t diminish the mood is the soundtrack; the music of this game is always on point. The soundtrack greatly uplifts some otherwise uninteresting gameplay segments and makes the player feel like what they’re doing has purpose. The car chase sequences, which could have so easily been tedious, are brought to the level of set piece thanks to careful musical implementation.

What is rarely well implemented however is Uplay, and most of the problems I had playing this game can be attributed to that. I shan’t go on at length as I’ll likely just be regurgitating what others have said and have said better. However, once whilst playing, my computer crashed and upon returning to the game, I was asked to either load up a game from my local disk or the cloud. Neither worked; my previous save games were gone and I had to start all over...

The Verdict

Valiant Hearts’ emotional core is marred by ludonarrative dissonance, inconsistent characterisation and not the highest level of polish mechanically. Whilst it lacks the emotional punch promised in its trailers, it still tells a number of affecting stories. And yes, you probably still will get teary towards the end. It will also not leave you wanting for the history-side of things nor will it bog you down with too much heavy information.

Case Review