Hey folks, Valkor here. The folks at XSEED have passed along another game that the RPG lover in me was excited about, but the overall experience had me running to my copy of Final Fantasy 7 for some real RPG gaming. I had the chance to briefly check out Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga, an exclusive to the Wii, at XSEED's last event [HERE], and I mean very brief. But to have it in home, well… let's just say this was a difficult review to write.
Eldar Saga is another chapter in the Valhalla Knight series that puts you in the role of an adventurer off to save the world of Eldar and bring peace to the land once more. You can customize your char, before delving into the main game with a hefty dose of options. Once that's done, you choose an episode and you're off. The first scenario is a standard tutorial of the play mechanics before delving into the main game. You'll go on guild quests, meet interesting characters that will fight alongside you, and ultimately bring peace back into the land of Eldar. You'll use your Wii-chucks to traverse the land and slay monsters. The Z button is used to lock on a target, while the A and B will give you a mix of strong and weak attacks. You also have a "Burst Gauge", when full you can pull off an extra powerful attack. You also have a charge bar that will let you sprint for some distance before it exhaust. But Let me be completely honest… I didn't care for this game at all.
The Good:
I love the fact that you get character customization, though the options aren't extensive, you do get to pull off some interesting looks for your char. What's even cooler is the option to choose the voice, which you don't see in many RPGs.
The Bad:
Ahhhh here is where the meat of my review will be. First off are the controls; honestly I'd rather not use the Wii-chucks for this kinda of game, a standard controller would have worked better, even to pull off those special moves. Your character moves awkwardly and don't get me started on that run. When attacking the enemies, it's great that you have a lock-on feature, but your attacks from controller to on screen action lags, especially when you try for a heavy attack. The AI on your companion needs work; it's fairly smart when it comes to attacking monsters, but then they seem to get stuck sometimes on a ledge or they won't follow you at all when you want them to as they'll go off and fight a monster without you. The music is pretty decent, but that first scenario, when you first leave the town, oh man I had to lower the volume as it was way too dramatic for your first mission. That music should have been used for a boss battle. And sticking with the sound, effects really start to annoy after awhile, mainly the feet falls of your character; truly, truly annoying. Lastly weapon and armor selection and use could have been better executed. For one thing the appraisal system should be excluded as it's merely a waste of time. I found a bunch of short swords and such but to find out if they are of use to me, I need to have them appraised; thanks but no thanks.
The Ugly:
The graphics, which are a muddy mess, pixelly mess; It's the first time in a long time that I actually had to sit closer to the screen just to see what's going on.
Overall I'm not prone to recommend Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga, there's just too much wrong going for it to make it right to play. I'm sure there might be something to like about this game, but in this case, the negatives outweigh the positives, and there are much better games I'd rather play than this. Eldar Saga is definitely try before you buy. Out of TOV 5 stars, I give Eldar Saga 2 stars.
