There are games that you fall in love from the first seconds, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War is one of them. I am sure that this amazing story about war, friendship, adventures, love and death will be remembered forever.
Drawn story
What would you say if at school instead of forcing you to read boring textbooks, the history teacher suggested that you play a very beautiful and fascinating game that would tell you the whole truth about the First World War? I think that many of us would be “all hands for” such pleasant changes in the educational program. But, unfortunately, the game Valiant Hearts: The Great War appeared only in 2014.
This game, like a high-quality feature film, will allow you to plunge into the terrible events of the period from 1914 to 1918, when during one of the most widespread conflicts in the history of mankind about 22 million people died.
Here and there, tiny fragments of history are scattered in the game. Here you found a German soldier token, and then the game told you in what year these tokens were introduced into the German army and how they changed during the First World War. Here you have undergone an enemy gas attack on the battlefield, and right there the game lucidly told you that the mustard gas was first used by the German army during the battle near the Belgian city of Ypres, from which its name originated. The game does not allow your brain to relax for a second, and by the end of this story you will learn a lot about the story. Do not worry, the game developers have chosen extremely interesting facts, so you will not be bored. All this information is really perceived with a bang and replenishes your erudition.
Immediately I must say that this game is made in a very unusual style - it is entirely drawn by hand, so there is no modern high-poly graphic, tessellation, the latest version of shaders, and other technical achievements of igroprom. But hand-drawn characters have a pronounced individuality and, if I may say so, have a soul in them. I have always loved drawing games, since the time of the amazing quests Lucas Arts, after which I spent days and weeks in my youth. Therefore, this game has become for me a real celebration of nostalgia in the great mass of similar modern shooters.
Animated personality
In this game there is no main protagonist. The player will have to get used to the image of several participants of the First World War, whose fates are closely intertwined, but each of which is waiting for its own final. It is important to focus your attention on the fact that the plot of the game was not invented from scratch, but is based on the soldiers' letters of Felix Shazal - the great-grandfather of one of the game developers.
Farmer Emil lives in a small French town, and with him lives his daughter Marie and her husband Karl, a German by nationality, as well as their little son Victor. After the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the French leadership decides to deport all Germans from the country. Under this law, Karl, who was forcibly separated from his French family, was sent and sent to fight for Germany. Emil, however, also could not stay at home - he was also sent to the front in order to defend the freedom of France. And so it happened that the relatives were in two opposing armies, fighting not for life, but for death.
The third protagonist of the game will be Freddie - an American soldier who lived in France and made a voluntary decision to fight for this state as for his homeland. The fourth character of the game is the Belgian nurse Anna, who went to the front to find the father of a scientist kidnapped by the Germans. There is also a fifth character in the game - this is the German Shepherd Walt, which helps our heroes to confront enemies and overcome various obstacles.
Initially, the game was another character - British pilot George. But for some strange reason, the developers decided to cut it out of the final version of the game, so you can literally see it in a corner of your eye in one of the scenes, but you will not be able to play for it.
Each character is endowed with its own character and unique abilities. For example, Anna can provide first aid to the wounded, when a player is offered a kind of rhythm game, during which you need to press the right key combinations to the beat, otherwise the wounded soldier could die. Emil is able to quickly dig tunnels in the ground. Karl cleverly disguised, wearing enemy military uniforms Freddie can cut barbed wire and control tanks. A dog can squeeze into narrow passages and press an important lever where a person is powerless. Together, our heroes are a real team of superheroes who are knee-deep in every sea. The game now and then will switch control between the characters, so you can look at the story from different angles.
Awesome beauty
The game has a very strange balance. It seems that everything is drawn quite nicely, but in the game now and then there are jokes and rather funny situations. But, on the other hand, death reigns around, destruction, grimy children cry about their dead parents, and hungry soldiers live in dirty trenches, dreaming that one day this war will end. Bright moments border on terrible fragments of war, when in front of your eyes hundreds of soldiers tear apart fragments of falling bombs, someone burns and runs past you, and far away a whole platoon suffocates from German mustard.
You understand that to create a game about war, without showing its horrors, is simply impossible, and gradually you begin to get used to this strange contrast. In this case, there are situations in the game when you start sympathizing with your enemies and even help them, to which they respond to you in return.
The game was developed by the French studio Ubisoft Montpellier, which gave us such gorgeous games like Rayman Raving Rabbids, Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends. The game Valiant Hearts: The Great War was developed on its own studio engine, which is called the UbiArt Framework and allows developers to create huge drawn worlds from thousands of tiny elements intertwined with each other. This framework combines the enormous possibilities of processing 2D graphics with three-dimensional effects and many amazingly beautiful effects. Initially, it was designed to make animators, artists and designers feel comfortable in it, so the games developed on it look really beautiful. Recall at least the latest Rayman series games - perhaps the most beautiful 2D platformers to date.
The game will offer you a lot of different puzzles, which seem to be not very difficult, but at the same time you will have to strain your convolutions. Properly using the abilities of different characters and applying logical thinking, you can go through the game without any problems.
I was very pleased with the presence of musical levels in the game. In time with the famous classic melodies, you will have to run away from your pursuers behind the wheel of an old truck, dodging along the way from grenades, road obstacles, and trying not to collide with the cars of the pursuers. This is a peculiar reference to another project of the Rayman Legends studio, which also included great musical action inserts.
Results of cartoon war
It becomes really sad when this short game ends. You understand that you will miss all these characters, their emotions, their adventures. But everything good has a feature to end sooner or later, and this game is not an exception to the rules.
pros
- Gorgeous visual style
- Living, memorable characters
- Great plot
- A huge number of historical facts
- Fascinating gameplay
- Musical levels
Minuses
- Short game duration
- Minor minor bugs
This is just a great game that many of you will certainly like, dear readers. I have to admit that over the past six months I have not been so fascinated by any game project, and I’ve always been playing something to keep abreast of what is happening in the industry. The studio Ubisoft Montpellier has turned out almost perfect project, which is not able to spoil even the small annoying bugs encountered in the game. And I absolutely boldly give the game a score of 10 points out of 10 . You may not agree with me, but such games do come out very rarely and are worthy of all praise.
I express my gratitude to the Russian representative office of Ubisoft for providing a copy of the game. It was a truly unforgettable adventure.
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