Out of all the reviews I read on Open Critic and watched on Youtube, the one that seemingly confirms some of my concerns is from a Croatian Youtuber (who got a review code from SE) that gave it a 3/10 without bothering to complete the game, which is the lowest score I've seen thus far. He praised the visuals, animations and "feel of weight" as he put it (which are the main aspects that impressed me) then went on to roast the battle system which he thinks is essentially "masked" by the aforementioned strengths.
The targeting system/camera look like a bit of a disaster. Funny/sad that we're in 2022 and many developers still struggle with implementing a passable solution.
I'm not sure if not being able to instantly interrupt/cancel your own actions/strings is to the game's determent or benefit. That'll depend on how the enemies behave and is one thing that I obviously have to experience myself to get a sense of how everything flows together.
A shame that the story and characters don't appear to have much going on. I happen to be fairly clueless about both Valkyrie Profile and the Norse mythology, so hopefully it's adequately good to me.
Budget constraints seem to be most felt in these audio files and awful side quests/padding. Otherwise visually, I honestly like what I'm seeing. Design language, atmosphere, aesthetics, animations, physics... they all look good to me, great even at times. But unfortunately these don't necessarily make a good video game when you're screwing up fundamentals like targeting/camera systems in a goddamn action game. If this was less chaotic and more strategic/RPG-esque, then some of its weaknesses would have been overlooked. Positioning itself against the likes of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry is suicidal imo.
This game is sadly going to bomb hard that I'm afraid a sequel won't see the light of day. Back in the PS2 days, the mediocre Zone of the Enders spawned The 2nd Runner. I'd love to see a similar development here but alas this generally isn't how this industry works.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts anyway.
Last edited by Kyuu - on 10 February 2025
