The Valiant is a real-time strategy game full of tough tactical decisions set in Medieval Europe and the Middle East.
The Valiant is a game that thrusts players into the midst of the 13th century prior to the events of the Third Crusade. The title is both an intimate and tactical RTS experience where players take control of their medieval squad and face off against a wide variety of enemies. Kite Games clearly wanted to explore a large scale story that spanned numerous countries all the while having gritty and tactical gameplay. This combination seems fantastic on paper.
The narrative sees players take on the role of Theoderich Von Akenburg, a former Crusader Knight from Saxony who seeks the pieces of a holy relic that has immense power. Along the way, Theoderich will meet a huge cast of characters each with their own interests and beliefs. The plot is serviceable and many of the characters are unfortunately uninteresting.
Theoderich is quite a cliche ‘disillusioned soldier’. He is a noble and loyal knight and unfortunately is nothing but the stereotypes in that. Because of this, he is too perfect and ultimately lacks any character himself. One would hope that at the very least other characters may carry this burden, but most do not. Of all the characters, the best is Malcolm, the monk who narrates between many of the mission segments, which also happen to be the best written parts of the game.
The writing in-game however was serviceable at best and most of the best and most interesting characters are the villains, which players don’t spend a great deal of time with.
The tactical gameplay is fun and intuitive and the game has quite a lot of ‘patience’ for the player, not forcing too many details on players at once and allowing them to learn the game at a slow and methodical pace. The strategy elements of the game are competent, with all of the basics that fans of the genre would be familiar with. It takes a much more intimate approach compared to other RTS games, trying to keep the player in the action.
This small-scale system lends itself to a much more accessible system and the lack of overly complicated systems adds to this. This smaller system also provides a much more contained experience as compared to the juggling of hundreds of units commonly found in many other RTS titles like Total War.
In addition to this, the heroes also have a vast array of unique abilities all unlocked via their skill trees. These trees make every hero more and more useful for wide varieties of scenarios and this in addition to the gear system makes the game feel somewhat similar to Xcom 2 as you continue to upgrade and kit out your heroes to make them better in battle.
The micro-management in the game becomes significantly worse as your characters and allies continue to level up and grow however. With each new upgrade leading to more ‘activated’ abilities meaning that as the player, you have to engage that much more, which can become a deluge of clicking as you activate an insane number of abilities which in and of itself becomes very tedious, very quickly.
This can become quite cumbersome, particularly when combined with some poor AI pathing leading to your enemies, allies or even your own men being stuck running against walls or simply looking ‘lost’. This is unfortunate, because otherwise the combat feels rather engaging and moments like these only serve to spoil what should be a great experience.
The Valiant does allow for a lot more freedom of choice than is expected, particularly at the beginning of missions where players can choose how to ‘fill out’ their squads. This allowed for a lot more experimentation for players to discover what their style was. For example, I much preferred a slower pace and as such I often omitted other squads like cavalry and heavy infantry and instead focused on archers, drawing the enemy what were in essence, well prepared kill zones.
Most of the missions are quite linear with only one set path and honestly, the missions worked far better when that was the case. Sometimes the mission maps are absurdly large to make room for various collectibles and such which inevitably made the missions feel like they dragged on for far too long. Plus, with how slow every unit in the game moves, traversing miles out of the way of your objective seemed like a pointless slog.
The game does also feature a multiplayer mode, but don’t expect to be wowed by it. It is almost bone dry, so unless you have somehow gathered up all of your allies and enemies, don’t expect so sink a great deal of time into either the PVP or co-operative PVE modes.
However, while some of the missions felt somewhat repetitive, the environments did not. Whether battling across snow covered fields, a village by the river, a dense swamp or a great desert expanse, the environments always felt unique and stunning to look at.
In addition to this, the game also has pretty good UI. It’s an important aspect for games of this nature and can be done poorly. Lucky for The Valiant, the UI is very clean and the colours do not clash with any of the environments which makes the battle much more easier to understand. While it may be a bit basic, it still does the job reasonably well.
Furthermore, the sound design is stellar. The Foley is fantastic, whether it is the rustle of trees, footsteps along snowy ground or the background sound of battle, it is all spectacular. Moreover, The Valiant also contains fantastic music which really does ‘fill out’ much of the game and make it that much more engaging.
Overall, it is hard to pin down The Valiant. For one, it is a very competent strategy game with great visuals and stunning sound design and music. However, there is a lot that holds it back. The micro-management elements can become quite cumbersome and the poor story makes actually playing through the game more of a tedious experience than it really should be. Not to mention the online modes that can barely even be considered due to how devoid they are. It is a game that really only hardcore fans of the RTS genre should play.
The Valiant is available right now on PC with a console release ‘coming soon’. Here at GamesCreed, we cover everything gaming. From the latest news to stellar reviews, GamesCreed has you covered.
