By Eric Ace 20.01.2023
The Valiant is a real-time strategy developed by KITE Games, primarily focused on squad battles that take place during the historical period of the Crusades. Taking the role of some religious knights, players will fight against the "heathens," as small squads battle each other. It does not take long before a darker power awakens, as they find a religious artefact that seems to give a dark, otherworldly power to the once noble knight.
The Valiant does some things right and does a lot more things average or wrong. To start on a high note, having a historical real-time strategy game set in the Crusades was novel. It deserves serious praise to stick to historical accuracy and playing history straight, rather than try to water anything down, or add anachronisms for the sake of political correctness. Perhaps this is a statement on how far gaming has fallen where something being true to history feels like a breath of fresh air. This follows the story of two holy knights who went questing during the Crusades; the first couple of levels is them battling their way through various heathens.
The story gets interesting, told in a stylized still frame way, of one of the knights finding a part of a holy relic that starts to corrupt him. The other knight has to work to stop the corruption. Story-wise the game hits the right notes. Where it does not do so good is combat. It feels mostly like an early access, there are just too many simple errors present. The primary game revolves around controlling 1-5 squads of units, a single squad usually of about 6 men. Typical actions are battling between objectives, taking out a unit, or holding something against waves of enemies.
One of the frustrating things is there are not very many visible stats and hovering over enemy units shows next to nothing. It makes it very hard to know what is good against anybody. Controlling squads and getting them into position to battle the enemy is the main part of the game. Therefore, there will be a battle of squads, after they get killed, move on to the next spot and repeat. This is where there are some serious flaws. Firstly, many times units just randomly walk away from their squad or walk away from the battle. Also, of the six units in a squad, typically only three of them are fighting, the other three sit in the back clapping their hands. Are they still fighting from a stat perspective, or is your unit truly operating at half efficiency?
Furthermore, there is little in the way of development or any typical city or base building. Many times players get enough resources to buy a squad or two if they get killed and that's it. With limited squad types, and very little development, the game hinges on its squad-based tactics, which gets old quick. It's unfortunate as there is some heart in this title, and the story is interesting - it just that this doesn't really bring anything new, and there is too much that gets in the way of the fun.
The Valiant's story is actually pretty interesting, but the gameplay (one of the core aspects of strategy titles) is just very middling. From unit issues like pathing and not all of them fighting, to the fact that there's not much to really do, and the very "samey" combat unfortunately side-line the story. This feels a little too unpolished to have been released yet.
5/10
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