Nestled somewhere between puzzle and adventure, Valiant Heart delivers a great, if uneven, take on The Great War.

The narrative examines The Great War on a few different fronts: a German is deported from France and drafted into the German army, his father-in-law is put into the French, an American trying to avenge his dead French wife meets the in-law, a Belgian nurse whose dad is being forced to work for the Germans meets those guys, and somewhere there is loveable German dog that joins the cast. Sad stuff does happen, and it's hard to not draw comparison to the greats such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, or the work of Wilfred Owen. But, that’s not to say Valiant Heart doesn’t have a story of its own: the over connected nature of the character driven narrative helps to make this feel more like a comic, which is fittingly held together by the art style.

The hand drawn flair and word bubbles with pictures mixed with grumbles and phrases manages to deliver some touching moments, much like a Sylvain Chomet film but nowhere near as exaggerated or stylized. Instead, the art runs bleaker, on cooler tones, and with a soft ligne claire look. This helps to make the game look lighthearted despite dealing with rather sad fodder. This pairing works well together, but the second layer of narrative, delivered in first-hand photos and factual text, almost contrasts the art style too harshly. In between your bouts of cartoonish tomfoolery and sabotage, the game delivers some facts and invites you to look through a gallery of photos like a museum with information blurbs, but it isn’t an enticing appeal: this doe-eyed game was obviously based on something real and not sweet, the game doesn’t necessarily need to link a what is already short wiki dive away. You can’t fault a game based on history for wanting to teach some just a bit, I just don’t feel like it was executed quite so well. This is a long way to say that it is a very minor complaint.

The meat of the gameplay is varied, but it never felt like more than an annoyance to me. Most of the action can be divided into quick-time like events or just really easy puzzle solving. The second point is forgivable as this is maybe just targeted to kids (?), but the first point sticks out as a deterrent to fun. The stealth part was maybe ok, and the car chase set to classical music was certainly an interesting concept, but rhythmically healing got old quick and anything that involved movement was tedious: exploring, pushing objects, avoiding gunfire, “combat,” digging holes etc. none of it was appealing more than one time, and the game has you doing those things many times. It’s not terrible gameplay, but it wasn’t very enjoyable either.

A soft take on The Great War that manages show off the human side of a conflict that war centered games seem to miss, though the gameplay may be a bit too simple.

Nestled somewhere between puzzle and adventure, Valiant Heart delivers a great, if uneven, take on The Great War. The narrative examines The Great War on a few different fronts: a German is deported from France and drafted into the German army, his father-in-law is put into the French, an American trying to avenge his dead French wife meets the in-law, a Belgian nurse whose dad is being forced to work for the Germans meets those guys, and somewhere there is loveable German dog that joins the cast. Sad stuff does happen, and it's hard to not draw comparison to the greats such as All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, or the work of Wilfred Owen. But, that’s not to say Valiant Heart doesn’t have a story of its own: the over connected nature of the character driven narrative helps to make this feel more like a comic, which is fittingly held together by the art style. The hand drawn flair and word bubbles with pictures mixed with grumbles and phrases manages to deliver some touching moments, much like a Sylvain Chomet film but nowhere near as exaggerated or stylized. Instead, the art runs bleaker, on cooler tones, and with a soft ligne claire look. This helps to make the game look lighthearted despite dealing with rather sad fodder. This pairing works well together, but the second layer of narrative, delivered in first-hand photos and factual text, almost contrasts the art style too harshly. In between your bouts of cartoonish tomfoolery and sabotage, the game delivers some facts and invites you to look through a gallery of photos like a museum with information blurbs, but it isn’t an enticing appeal: this doe-eyed game was obviously based on something real and not sweet, the game doesn’t necessarily need to link a what is already short wiki dive away. You can’t fault a game based on history for wanting to teach some just a bit, I just don’t feel like it was executed quite so well. This is a long way to say that it is a very minor complaint. The meat of the gameplay is varied, but it never felt like more than an annoyance to me. Most of the action can be divided into quick-time like events or just really easy puzzle solving. The second point is forgivable as this is maybe just targeted to kids (?), but the first point sticks out as a deterrent to fun. The stealth part was maybe ok, and the car chase set to classical music was certainly an interesting concept, but rhythmically healing got old quick and anything that involved movement was tedious: exploring, pushing objects, avoiding gunfire, “combat,” digging holes etc. none of it was appealing more than one time, and the game has you doing those things many times. It’s not terrible gameplay, but it wasn’t very enjoyable either. A soft take on The Great War that manages show off the human side of a conflict that war centered games seem to miss, though the gameplay may be a bit too simple.