Your combat options are incredibly limited in the early hours, with vanilla light and heavy strikes accompanied by a guard and a dodge.
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Once it gets going, that is – like the plot, the ramp-up to unlocking your full set of powers and abilities is dreadfully slow. Valkyrie is a formidable warrior on the battlefield, and while controlling her is simple, she has plenty of moves and combos to explore. While I found the exploration and storytelling to be underwhelming, the driving force – and saving grace – of Valkyrie Elysium is its combat. These optional adventures offer challenging and fun combat scenarios and reward you with meaningful upgrades and items, and are a better use of time than scouring the usually barren environments for the odd treasure chest. Luckily, each well-trodden part of Midgar is reused well in great sidequests that warrant the return. The world lacks life, which makes sense with its impending doom, but it often feels empty to its detriment rather than like a successful atmospheric choice.
Each well-trodden part of Midgar is reused well in great sidequests that warrant the return.ĭespite the regions of Midgard being rather small, there are only a handful of areas to explore in Valkyrie Elysium. That lack of input from the player is disappointing, considering Valkyrie’s internal conflict of right and wrong is central to her character arc.
The last few chapters focus on the humanity and agency Valkyrie has absorbed from being around her Einherjar, but when the crux of the finale comes down to a choice, whatever plays out is determined by whether you’ve collected certain items throughout the game rather than letting the player choose their fate. Your squad of Einherjar warrior spirits does add much-needed levity, personality, and exposition through their companionship and support to the battle-maiden, but much of it is for naught in the grand scheme of the story. One of the biggest reveals in the final hour is completely missable if you don’t happen to explore a certain part of the map, and if you miss that you’re also locked out of one of a handful of potential endings. Even when larger reveals play out in the climax, the impact of the plot is dampened by its overall predictability, and moments that should be eye-opening and emotional simply aren’t earned. The main plot is slow to unfold, with Valkyrie and Odin being the only real characters in the opening hours, and yet it takes about half of the 20-hour campaign before it starts to crawl towards Valkyrie’s character development and for the central conflict to come into sight. Though the setup of Valkyrie Elysium deals with a war between gods and mythical creatures with figures like Odin, Fenrir, a rival Valkyrie, and a looming apocalypse in the form of Ragnarok in the mix, Valkyrie Elysium’s story has the potential to be an exciting Norse epic, but its story falters from the start. Valkyrie’s ever-present mission on Midgar is to cleanse the spirits troubling the human world and claim its salvation in the aftermath of a disastrous war. Valkyrie Elysium's story has the potential to be an exciting Norse epic, but its story falters from the start. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of crates to smash for gems, treasure chests with valuable loot, or minuscule lore drops called Hollow Blossoms to find, but I would have liked more reasons to stray from the critical path and spectacular sights to seek out. The locations you visit are vacant of activities and life, offering an overly linear path to adventure down with little else to seek out. Unfortunately, the regions of Midgard, while more expansive than the godly domain, are far less fun to look at. Once she descends to the mortal realm of Midgar, the environments are much larger than Asgard. Their base of operations is the opulent yet sparse Asgard, which looks wonderful, but is very small with little to do besides choosing the next quest. The obedient and straight-laced deity warrior known as Valkyrie meets with her creator, the All-Father Odin, before each chapter.
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