I love the potential that open world games demonstrate, but the big budget releases are plagued with bloat, copy-pasted content, and empty, generic worlds. Valkyrie Saga is one of those indie games that shows how to do the genre right, with a smallish, focused map with things to find no matter where you look. Despite its short playtime, the game is an engaging blast from nearly start to finish, save for a jarring, somewhat aggravating final boss encounter and the ease with which its progression can be trivialized.
Valkyrie Saga casts you in the role of Roll (yes, the Roll role,) a valkyrie in the employ of a goddess. The world saw a cataclysm 177 years prior, and your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to take the Goddess Tear to an altar and save the faltering land from extinction. You start at the world’s lowest point and, naturally, the altar is at the very peak. You’ll need to power Roll up little by little in order to reach this, which offers one of the most satisfying gameplay loops in any open world game.
The game can mostly be considered a Metroidvania, but this is somewhat misleading. Sure, there are ability upgrades, but for the most part, only one of them is truly necessary. Early on, Roll can’t reach many places at all. She can jump, move quickly on the ground, thrust forward with her sword, and glide. It doesn’t take long for her to find a crystal that grants her a second jump, though, which allows you to escape the starting area. Not only does adding another jump let her reach a little higher, but she can also now attack walls and stick to them before jumping off, granting her more altitude than a simple additional jump does.
Therefore, the game’s loop can be summarized as such: you explore the world in an attempt to find more crystals. Once you find enough, you can move upward and eventually reach the top to fulfil your goal. Valkyrie Saga has no map, which seems like a bad move at first blush. When the game began, I felt intimidated and more than a bit overwhelmed, but once you explore, it won’t be long until you find your bearings.
There are NPCs all over that offer flavour text and hints to guide you on your way. This dialogue really represents pretty terrific signposting that clearly conveys where you should go, what you should do, and where crystals are located, all without any actual hand-holding. NPC dialogue even changes to reflect what you’ve collected.
Granted, you can ignore their advice and look wherever you wish, but this is a good way to get lost early on. However, it’s worth checking every nook and cranny and talking to everyone. The progression feels quick, but this is very appropriate for the game’s pacing. There are new abilities to find, too, as well as upgrades to your glide and run speed. Almost all of these are completely optional, but some are incredibly useful. My favourite is one that lets you slingshot forward if you jump out of your attack animation.
The feeling of increased mobility really is incredibly satisfying here. You go from barely being able to reach short ledges to soaring high above the ground and zipping around rapidly. Roll becomes incredibly mobile, and the game’s controls are highly intuitive and engaging in a big way. I simply loved moving around the world here, but since the map is quite memorable and the flavour text is so humourous, I ended up enjoying myself on multiple levels. There are even some additional abilities that are semi-hidden that can change things up, including spells that you can learn from certain NPCs. One of these spells even has a use that caught me off guard in a creative way.
The gameplay gets a fair amount more complicated as you find yourself jumping higher and higher. You’ll need to combine careful glides, jumps, wall attack climbs, and the like to get where you’re going. You can even stand on flying enemies and use them as footholds. Jumping or attacking uses up a single charge that crystals grant you, but standing on any surface immediately refills these. It’s all splendidly thought out. It’s truly such a joy to explore this world and control the player character, but there are some issues here and there.
For instance, Valkyrie Saga is very front-loaded. The majority of the game’s crystals are found on the lowest level, which is by far the largest area. The second rung of the map is still decent-sized, but it doesn’t have as many areas and only has a fraction of the crystals that the first rung does. The final rung, on the other hand, is pure platforming, but this part is actually nicely challenging, and the sense of scale is dizzying, so it’s hard to be too mad about this. Just expect the game’s progression to be akin to a pyramid. That being said, the second rung still has some side quests and the like with some worthwhile rewards.
However, if you thoroughly explore the bottom rung before getting to the second, it’s pretty easy to just completely bypass much of the challenge of the second. I honestly wish the game were bigger on requiring you to be highly thorough, but some will appreciate having that kind of freedom. In contrast, this does mean that players will have unique runs where they experience the level design in different ways, playing nicely alongside how the bottom rung lets you pretty much just go wherever you want at first. Speedrunners will likely get an extra kick out of it.
Visually, the game is meant to be reminiscent of PS1 titles. It defaults to a lower rendering resolution to make the aesthetics more pixelated, and you’ll see some perspective shifting, but turning up the draw distance and seeing so much of the world up ahead is a bit awe-inspiring, even if the game’s visuals are simple and intentionally crude. The UI, on the other hand, could use some work, as much of it looks like a placeholder, such as the ugly background used for certain textboxes. It’s often just so barebones, which is odd for a game that has so much personality.
The only other aspect about Valkyrie Saga that I really don’t care for is the final boss battle. The platforming section to get to it is quite splendid, but the fight itself is janky and strange. You have to repeatedly make your way through platforming gauntlets (that you can mostly just bypass if you use the slingshot ability) in order to hit an enemy. But it spams projectiles and certain parts of its body do contact damage. You can only hit it in the head, but this can be tricky since it moves around so much, leading to lots of frustration. Afterward, you can go ahead and get the default ending, that’s intentionally brief, odd, and anticlimactic (which is all by design, but still.)
Another ending pathway exists, but this confused me as well, plus it can have some severe ramifications for players who want to continue exploring (as there are a lot of hidden things to find for intrepid explorers,) but the dev is planning on implementing some changes soon that should rectify this.
As such, Valkyrie Saga is best during its opening few hours when you’re exploring the bottom rung, finding crystals, and seeing just how high you can get. I had a great time with the five hours I spent with it, and am planning on digging deeper and doing more exploration soon. I do wish it had ended on a brighter note, but those early hours are pretty wondrous.
Valkyrie Saga: Short but loaded with heart and endearing exploration, Valkyrie Saga offers some truly satisfying gameplay and world design. – Andrew Farrell
Consider checking out our previous review:
