The Impact Factor

War Has Changed

Review

Valiant Hearts: The Great War, Ubisoft (PS4)

Abstract: Valiant Hearts: The Great War is a fantastic side-scrolling puzzle adventure game. The game explores love and loss during World War I in a story that follows four protagonists through the brutal first years of the conflict. The team at Ubisoft Montpellier shows a great respect and knowledge for WWI, which permeates every element of this beautiful game. Valiant Hearts’s simple gameplay left me with some mixed emotions and a little more could have been done to improve the story. That said, Valiant Hearts is still a powerful game in which I connected with the characters, learned a little about WWI, and left feeling totally satisfied. I recommend checking it out.

As with all my video game reviews, I would like to run you guys through the history leading up to my acquisition, and play through, of Ubisoft’s Valiant Hearts: The Great War. During the late spring and early summer of 2014 Ubisoft released a pair of downloadable titles, each created by a small team within the development studio. The first of these was Child of Light, a 2D sidescrolling role-playing game (RPG) with a beautiful children’s storybook aesthetic and plot. Child of Light paid homage to some of the best RPGs of the 90’s, with excellent turn-based combat, a likable cast of party characters, and some fantastic music. In many ways Child of Light pared down the often grind-heavy RPG experience, creating a delightful 15-hour fantasy romp. Child of Light just barely missed the cut for The Impact Factor’s Top 5 Games of the Year in 2014. Needless to say, I really liked it. The second of these two smaller games was Valiant Hearts. Unlike Child of Light, which came out during a slow point for new game releases, Valiant Hearts came out during the summer when I was busy with a lot of different games. Just like I wrote about in my review for Rayman Legends, as more games came out, Valiant Hearts unfortunately fell further and further down my backlog. My patience was rewarded once again, though, and this time it took the form of Valiant Hearts being released as a complimentary PlayStation Plus game. Score. Game in (digital) hand, I was so happy to finally take the time and jump in.

I was initially attracted to Child of Light because I am a big fan of the RPG genre. In much the same way, I was interested in picking up Valiant Hearts because a handful of games have recently reignited my infatuation with adventure games. I’m not sure you have noticed a trend by this point, but I cannot get enough of the genre. Telltale has been making extraordinary adventure games recently, from The Walking Dead to Tales from the Borderlands to The Wolf Among Us. I also excitedly picked up, played, and reviewed the remastered version of an old school adventure game, Grim Fandango. I really enjoy the ways in which adventure games allow for deep character exploration and stories in which the player is so intimately involved.  Valiant Hearts looked to do something new and fun with the genre, set within a compelling world.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War, created by Ubisoft Montpellier and released for PS4 in June 2014, is a side-scrolling adventure puzzle game. The game takes place during World War I, set in the highly contested boundary between France and Germany. You follow the story of four characters (and a dog, Walt) as they are thrust into the brutal conflict of the Great War. The game is split between these four perspectives: Karl, a German citizen deported from France at war’s onset separating him from his wife and son, Emile, father-in-law to Karl who is recruited into the French army, Freddie, an American fighting for France after the tragic loss of his wife at the start of the conflict, and Anna, a Belgian student who serves as a battlefield nurse. Each of these characters is likable and distinct, creating a compelling narrative that moves briskly throughout the roughly 8-hour experience. Their stories are all interconnected, creating a narrative that weaves several moving parts into one cohesive narrative. Central to the story are the themes of camaraderie, love, and the sacrifices so many endured during WWI. The events of Valiant Hearts were inspired by actual letters written during the war, which gives this great sense of authenticity to the story it presents. Valiant Hearts has some great set pieces and moving emotional moments, and I connected with the characters and the story in a way I never expected.

The cast of Valiant Hearts. Left to right: Emile, Anna, Freddy, (Walt) and Karl.

I want to take time to commend the team at Ubisoft Montpellier for creating a game set during WWI. We have had so many titles that focus on the events of World War II and perhaps even more set during “modern” warfare, but only a precious few set during the Great War. This is of course generally reflective of our society, as I can remember covering WWII in school in a much greater extent than WWI. Having taken the time on my own to learn about WWI, I really appreciated the motifs and historical moments represented in Valiant Hearts. One of the most significant takeaways for the entire world following WWI was that war had changed. Essentially every major European military conflict prior to WWI was fought using Napoleonic tactics. This style of warfare involved placing large regiments of infantry onto the battlefield who move in lines, rush towards the enemy, and fight in close quarter skirmishes. Horse-mounted cavalry units were used charge into groups of soldiers to break ranks, flank enemies, or secure a strategic position on the battlefield. With the advent of new and devastating tools of war, like mounted machine guns, bomb-dropping airplanes, and chemical agents, the early years of WWI were a massacre. Charging infantry were no match for machine gunners, who mowed down hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers in a single belt of ammunition. Each side had to adapt to the new style of warfare, by digging trenches, using barbed wire, grenades, and more. More so than any war before it, WWI was hell on earth. It was physically and psychologically devastating and resulted in the deaths of over 5 million people. And Valiant Hearts captures so much of this so well. Battles take place in the game in which you can see dozens of your companions gunned down, large piles of bodies littering the battlefield, and whole cities under a cloud of the poisonous chlorine gas. Valiant Hearts explores the tragedy of WWI in other ways, too. Similar to the American Civil War, WWI tore apart families with brother fighting brother or, as the case is in Valiant Hearts, father fighting son-in-law. For many of those along the boundary between France and Germany, or those living in Belgium, you might have to fight and kill your neighbor, your teacher, your baker.

The trench warfare in WWI was hell on earth. Valiant Hearts captures this so well.

Valiant Hearts is a game that wants you to know more about WWI. The genuine portrayal of the violence, tragedy, and devastation is just one of the ways in which the team at Ubisoft demonstrates this. Within each level the player can discover hidden trinkets that give insights into the people and world of the Great War. At the start of each level you can open up a menu that contain historical facts, which contain descriptions of the battle, location, and people in the scenario you are about to play. Historical photos accompany each of these facts, adding to further heft to their inclusion. The combination of the in-game items and facts give Valiant Hearts a certain educational nature, one that I really appreciated throughout my time with the game. While playing the game itself you are taken through a greatest hits of the events and battles of WWI. Your characters are involved in an assault on Fort Douaumont at Verdun, The Battle of Somme, and the suicidal Nivelle Offensive. It was great to get to experience these definitive moments from the perspective of the game’s protagonists, and fascinating to see any of these major events in video game form.

The historical facts were quick & informative reads. I loved their inclusion in the game.

Valiant Hearts, in spite of its depiction of horrific warfare, is a beautiful game. Powered by the UbiArt Framework, the entire game features animated hand-drawn characters and environments. The game has a terrific aesthetic, which successfully combines comic art and contemporary WWI iconography in a way that, even as I am writing this, sounds like it would not work. But it does, and it is gorgeous. Each character in the game has a comic book feel to them. This helps to soften some of truly terrible things that take place during the story and help to highlight their striking personalities. The look of the game manages to blend this comic book-like lightness so expertly with the darkness and heaviness of the source material. Environments are great to look at and explore, ranging from the bucolic French countryside, to body-strewn trenches, to POW camps and more. A powerful title theme and all around successful soundtrack enrich the visual presentation. The characters in Valiant Hearts communicate via pictorial speech bubbles and characteristic vocalizations, but not dialogue. An interesting choice for sure, but one that works within the confines of the game. Overall, Valiant Hearts is a solid visual and aural package that is memorable and distinct.

Valiant Hearts’ gameplay consists of light side-scrolling exploration and classic adventure game puzzle solving. Puzzles range from figuring out how to move obstacles out of your way, move a bomb into location, or navigate poison gas filled trenches. Puzzles are made to feel different between different characters, as each one has a special ability they can use. For example, Emile has a trench shovel that allows him to dig through the environment, Freddie has a wire cutter to move past barbed wire fences, and Anna can heal injured characters. Many of the standard puzzles involve your character throwing an item to knock something free or distract and enemy. With a simple button press an arc appears on screen when you have a held item, which made aiming your projectiles frustration free. I enjoyed the puzzles present in Valiant Hearts. Each felt at home it and game and fit the scenario you were placed in well. The game incorporates a clever hint system to assist you with puzzles should you ever get stuck. After a certain (small) amount of time passes during a puzzle, your character will receive a carrier pigeon holding a picture that hints at your next step towards solving the puzzle. This is a great addition, which removes a lot of frustrations caused by many of the hint-less adventure games of yesteryear. That said, the puzzles are all very easy to solve. This is both a good and bad thing. I understand why the team at Ubisoft Montpellier would want this from a game design perspective. Easy puzzles allow the player to move past them quickly, which keeps the narrative going. Story is so essential for Valiant Hearts, so having easy puzzles is not necessarily bad. The ease of solving puzzles did leave me wishing for a little more, however. I completed them so quickly I am having a hard time remembering them as I write this review. Further, the quick completion of puzzles made the actual gameplay of Valiant Hearts feel decidedly secondary to the plot, characters, and setting. Thankfully, Valiant Hearts also included gameplay that moved beyond its traditional point-and-click styled puzzles. One section involved racing a taxi away from a zeppelin, dodging obstacles along the way. Another involved rhythm-based mini games used when Anna is healing the wounded. These instances, though small, helped to invigorate the gameplay and see me through to the completion of the game.

Gameplay in Valiant Hearts is fun and simple. Maybe a little too simple.
 Also pictured here: hint pigeon!

As I just mentioned above, Valiant Hearts places a heavy emphasis on its characters and its story. For the most part, I enjoyed what Valiant Hearts presented me with. The characters have vibrant personalities, interesting backstories, and are likeable. The story covers love and loss in WWI predictably, but not poorly. Where I was left wanting was in the depth of the two. The characters and story in Valiant Hearts are fun, but fairly shallow. You are able to experience some character development as the plot moves forward, but not as much as is demanded by the story the game is trying to tell. Further, Valiant Hearts wants to cover so much historical ground that the story suffers. “Simple” is probably the best way to describe it: not terrible by any means, but filled with predictable moments, reliance on standard war tropes, deus ex machina moments, etc. Because of this, Valiant Hearts comes across almost like a dark children’s storybook. Part of this storybook feeling emerges from each of your four characters very minimally participating in the violence—not a single one ever uses a gun. While I get that gunplay might have been wonky in game and its absence potentially makes the characters more likable, it removes them from the reality of the war happening around them and weakens some of Valiant Hearts’s strong depictions of trench warfare. Overall though, I liked this storybook feeling and I liked the savvy depiction of WW1 violence as I described above, but just wished the two synergized better. Still, by a very early point in the game I was invested in the characters and rooted for them to succeed. A tragic moment at the end of the game had my eyes tearing up, too.

A very dark storybook indeed.

Valiant Hearts is a wonderful and powerful game. Where it succeeds, it does so with a confidence that is beautiful to behold. Perhaps more could have been done to merge the storybook feel with depictions warfare, or add some more depth to the plot, but it affects the final package in only a minor way. Playing Valiant Hearts is an experience. One that has stuck around with me for a while following its completion. I hope you all get to experience it too.

Valiant Hearts: The Great War
4/5