Valiant Hearts: The Great War

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Valiant Hearts: The Great War review
Jonathan Fortin

Review

Gorgeous game

A War Game That's Anti-War (cntd)


In this game, players are encouraged to see the German and French sides of the war as morally the same. Soldiers on both sides are good men who are being forced to kill each other due to the draft. Essentially, this is a war game that's anti-war—a wonderful idea, given how few games are willing to tackle anti-war themes.

It's odd, then, that Ubisoft decided that the game needed a villain. Both Freddie and Anna have been personally hurt by Baron Von Dorf, whom the player is encouraged to hate and think of as evil. While Von Dorf could have been used to demonstrate the futility of vengeance—and war, by extension—the plot never quite grasps that conclusion. It seems as though the game is reaching for it, but ultimately the player's need for Von Dorf to suffer becomes much louder than any realization about revenge's futility. As a result, Von Dorf is never explored as more than just a mustache-twirling baddie, which is completely at odds with the rest of the game.

Mixed Messages


Von Dorf is just one example of how Valiant Hearts fails to commit to its own message. For every statement made about the horrors of war, there is a heroic action set piece that makes war seem fun and cool. Ubisoft stated that you would never fire a gun in this game, and it's true that you don't shoot any pistols or rifles. But you do punch enemy soldiers from behind, throw grenades or dynamite to solve puzzles, and shoot missiles to bring down enemy planes or artillery. There are multiple sequences in which Freddie drives tanks, blasting through everything in his path.

The game still makes its point in the long-run, however. To explain it, I need to spill the beans on part of the story. If you don't like spoilers, skip the following paragraph.

In one sequence, Emile finds himself trapped underground, and his only way out is to team up with a German soldier. The soldier saves Emile's life, but shortly afterward this backfires on him. Later, there's a level in which Emile uses mountains of corpses for cover while his commanding officer threatens him and the other men to keep moving forward, even as they're picked off one by one until only Emile is left. It's a harrowing moment, both because of the hellish visuals and because of the intensity of the gameplay, with the player struggling to keep Emile alive through a seemingly endless barrage of bullets and bombs. This level alone justifies why this game needed action as well as puzzle solving.

Anna's scenes are harrowing as well, for the majority of her sequences involve her desperately trying to heal the sick and wounded. Chlorine gas proves to be as deadly as any enemy soldier, with innocent women and children coughing to death, or howling for aid.

Whenever Anna begins healing an injured person, the game gives us Simon Says minigames, with the player having to hit the right arrow keys at the right time. At one point, we play Simon Says while she struggles to do the extremely difficult feat of...helping a man drink water. It's a little ridiculous, but the moment is emotional enough that it gets away with it.

8.0

fun score

Pros

Beautiful story and graphics; gameplay is surprisingly diverse and well-paced

Cons

Narrator is a bit hammy; the gameplay sometimes contradicts the anti-war message