Dark Rose Valkyrie Review

From the creators of fairy Fencer F a game I enjoyed a lot comes a new IP, Dark Rose Valkyrie. There has been a steady release of JRPG titles this year and with titles such as the excellent Persona 5, Dark rose Valkyrie has a lot to live up to, does it make the cut?

The game certainly does try do many new unique things. It features a battle system similar to that of the Grandma series instead of however waiting to attack you have attacks defined by levels ill go more into this later. Level 1 attacks quicker where as level 4 takes a while to execute each button decides what level attack you will make. What’s truly unique about the game is the traitor and interview system unfortunately it’s not implemented enough to make it a massive stand out title. It was almost like a mix of the Phoenix Wright series and Danganronpa. This even changes the ending you get.

The plot isn’t really much to be desired either. A virus has spread throughout that makes people turn into Chimera. For some reason it affects men a lot more than women. The game features numerous tasks you can do such as repetitive missions. The games Visual Novel type story telling won’t appeal to everyone its well written and the majority is voiced over but you’ll find yourself wanting to skip petty little conversation’s and get straight back into the battles.

The graphics are most definitely not ground breaking they look like a ported PlayStation 3 game at times I know these types of games aren’t known for the amazing graphics as it’s almost an anime cartoon style that Fairy Fencer F went with. It works to be fair but those looking to show of the systems capabilities this game is not for you. The music and voice acting for the most part is pretty good and match each corresponding character. It tries to humour you with witty dialogue a thing Fairy Fencer F did incredibly well.

The game does feature some Fan Service too The women’s armour can be “damaged” and they can be reduced to just their underwear. This will make you take tons more damage and its easily fixed it seems completely odd to have a feature like this implemented into the game and it’s obviously been put in to satisfy those who like that sort of thing. The characters are likable and the odd humour that’s thrown into the game can make the game flow abet more.

The game is quite long too as you would expect from a JRPG there are all the side missions to do and if you were to do they all it could easily run you well into 50+ hours and if you want to get all the upgrade’s for your weapons and the best equipment you best be prepared to sink a lot of time into this game.

One thing that keeps the game from getting painfully dull is the fast forward function you can fast forward through battles and not just sit around and wait till your attack is due its a dangerous move sometimes due to the fact on the hard difficulty you can quite easily be overpowered and end up dead.  You also have an Auto function where you set up what you want to do while in fast forward.

The game takes place in just one city but as you slowly progress through it more the city becomes available to you. This is unlocked by either progressing through the story or completing certain objectives. The dungeon’s in-game have a pretty unique varity to them as well and without spoiling them I will say that the setting surprised me. The main story is what’s important and you can pretty much just ignore the boring repetitive missions if you so wish. some you must do however to actually progress with the story without these I feel I would have enjoyed the game a lot more and its a massive shame its bogged down with these boring repetitive missions.

The game does however have a very star tic edge to it. Very much like the game “Grandia” You can have your attacks interrupted or even cancelled. The way this works is you can choose 4 levels of attack. The higher the level the longer you must wait to execute that attack. The key is to know when to go for it and when to play it smart and stick with the attacks that don’t require you to wait to execute them.

The game’s story is mostly like a visual novel it requires a lot of reading this may or may not be your thing. In the end Dark Rose Valkyrie is one of those that you will either love or hate, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either it’s a good time killer that’s for sure and fans of JRPGS should find something here they like. The massive weapons that they carry always seemed odd to me though.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.