VALKYRIE ELYSIUM Review Summary

Engaging and Dynamic Combat: Players consistently praise the combat system for being fun, fast-paced, and dynamic. The ability to unlock new actions, combos, and utilize unique mechanics like the resource cycle and Einherjar summons significantly enhances the experience, making battles feel impactful and refreshing.

Solid Overall Game Experience: Many players found the game to be surprisingly good, decent, and underrated, especially for a short action game. It's appreciated for its straightforward nature, lack of complexity, and ability to provide several hours of entertainment, often exceeding initial expectations.

Appealing Visuals and Art Style: The game's graphics, art style, and character designs are frequently highlighted as strong points. Players enjoy the beautiful visuals, particle effects, and cohesive art direction, which often evokes a nostalgic feeling for older games.

Compelling Story and Endings: The story is generally considered good, with enough twists to keep players engaged. The multiple endings, particularly the true ending, are described as moving and satisfying, adding significant replay value and emotional depth to the overall narrative.

Meaningful Einherjar Integration: The Einherjar mechanics are well-received, adding depth to both combat and story. Summoning allies, combining attacks, and exploring their individual backstories are seen as enjoyable and impactful elements that diversify gameplay.

Overall disappointing and generic: Players found the game to be underwhelming, bland, and generic, lacking a 'wow factor' or memorable moments. Many felt it was not worth the full price due to its perceived lack of content, uninspired design, and overall mediocrity, suggesting it felt incomplete or rushed.

Clunky and repetitive combat: The combat system is frequently criticized for being clunky, repetitive, and lacking depth. Issues include animation locks, poor parry/guard windows, limited skill slots requiring constant menu navigation, and a lack of variety in enemy types and combat encounters, leading to boredom.

Weak and predictable story: The narrative is widely described as weak, boring, and predictable, with uncaptivating characters and insufficient plot development. Many found the story to be almost non-existent in the early game, only becoming mildly interesting in later chapters, which was too late to salvage the experience.

Poor difficulty and progression design: The game's difficulty settings, especially 'Valkyrie' mode, are criticized for being unbalanced, with enemies becoming damage sponges that can easily defeat the player. The progression system is linear, and the inability to change difficulty mid-game or carry over achievements across difficulties forces tedious multiple playthroughs.

Limited and unbalanced weapon/skill systems: The weapon and skill systems are criticized for being simplistic and lacking customization. Weapons are poorly balanced, with many being less effective than the starting sword, and the limited skill slots necessitate constant menu changes during combat, disrupting flow. There's also a perceived lack of progression and variety in upgrades.

Hack & Slash Combat Focus: The game is primarily a hack and slash action RPG, drawing comparisons to titles like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry. Combat involves various weapon types, elemental magic, and mechanics like guarding, parrying, and dodging, with a strong emphasis on combos and skill progression.

Norse Mythology & Valkyrie Lore: The game is deeply rooted in Norse mythology, with players taking on the role of a Valkyrie to aid Odin. It features elements like Einherjar, Fenrir, and draws on the lore of the Valkyrie Profile series, though it's noted as a spin-off.

Multiple Endings & Replayability: The game offers multiple endings (up to four), which are determined by specific conditions met before the final boss. This, along with post-clear modes and New Game+, encourages replayability.

Einherjar Summoning Mechanic: Players can summon Einherjar, who are NPC party members, to assist in battle. These allies imbue weapons with elemental properties, draw aggro, and perform skills, adding a strategic layer to combat and elemental weaknesses.

Mediocre Combat & Controls: Despite its action focus, many players found the combat system to be mediocre, clunky, and repetitive. Animations were described as 'mid' or 'tired', and controls felt stilted, leading to a less fluid experience.

Inconsistent Performance & FPS Drops: Many players report significant frame rate drops, especially during intense combat, cutscenes, or when using specific abilities like Divine Arts. This occurs even on high-end PCs, suggesting optimization issues. Some players found disabling DLSS helped, while others noted the game is strangely heavy for its visual quality.

Mixed Graphics Reception: Player opinions on graphics are divided, ranging from 'good' and 'smooth' to 'retro' or comparable to a 'mid-PS4 game.' Some feel the visuals are adequate for a medium-budget title, while others find them surprisingly demanding given their quality.

Customizable Performance Settings: The game offers a variety of settings that allow players to tune performance. Some users successfully adjusted these settings to achieve stable frame rates, indicating that while optimization has issues, there are options to mitigate them.

Occasional Crashes Reported: A few players experienced game crashes, indicating stability issues for some users, though this was not a widespread complaint.

Controller Compatibility Issue: One player reported issues with PS4 controller compatibility, suggesting potential problems for those who prefer to play with specific gamepads.

Wait for a significant sale: A vast majority of players strongly recommend purchasing the game only when it is heavily discounted, with many suggesting a 50% or greater price reduction. The consensus is that the full price is too high for the experience offered.

Manage expectations for Valkyrie fans: There's a split among fans of the Valkyrie franchise. Some recommend it if viewed as a standalone hack & slash, while others advise avoiding it if expecting a true sequel or an experience similar to the original Valkyrie Profile games.

Specific gameplay recommendations: Players suggest lowering expectations, avoiding the highest difficulty for a first playthrough, and using a controller due to its console port nature. There's also a specific negative point regarding a difficult achievement.

Limited positive recommendations: A small number of players recommend the game for specific niches, such as fans of action RPGs with dynamic combat or those who enjoy Nordic tales, but often with caveats about managing expectations.

Potential for future development: Some players see potential in the game's combat system and hope for a sequel with a larger budget and more polished features, suggesting the core mechanics could be strong if developed further.

Disappointing Valkyrie Profile Sequel: Many long-time fans of the Valkyrie Profile series expressed significant disappointment, feeling the game does not live up to the legacy of the original titles. They perceive it as a departure from the core identity and quality of the beloved PS1 JRPG golden era franchise, leading to hopes for a true Valkyrie Profile 3.

Perceived Low Budget Production: A significant portion of feedback indicates the game feels like a 'B-movie' or 'double-A' title with insufficient funding. Players describe it as having a 'low budget' feel, with content and design that seem dated, suggesting it was the best the developers could achieve with limited resources.

Enjoyable Despite Flaws: Despite its criticisms, some players personally enjoyed the game, spending considerable hours on it and completing most of its content. They acknowledge its flaws but found enough engagement to overlook them, especially when purchased at a discount.

Square Enix's Role in Quality: Players frequently attribute the game's perceived shortcomings to Square Enix, suggesting the publisher provided a low budget and mistreated the series. There's speculation that Square Enix might have aimed for a cheaper production or re-skinned an existing project.

Bland Story and Limited Content: The game's story is widely described as bland and unremarkable. Additionally, players noted a limited number of Einherjar and a desire for more weapon types, customization options (like costumes), and varied quests to enhance replayability.