In my quest to clear out some games from my backlog that have been sat there for a decade (or close to it), I decided to start playing Valiant Hearts: The Great War, which I hesitate to call either a platformer, or a puzzle game, because the game is very light on both aspects. In this game set in France, you take control of a small number of protagonists, who all try to navigate the beginning - and duration of - the First World War. The introduction is actually quite sad, as a husband gets deported from France for being German, and the father gets conscripted into the military, leaving a woman and her child alone in soon-to-be German-occupied territory, and putting both characters on the opposite sides of the trenches. Unfortunately for me, this moment was ruined by my girlfriend blasting Taylor Swift throughout the house, but it was otherwise quite well done.
Gameplay involves you being dropped into a small area, then solving some light puzzles: like figuring out how to blow up a bunker, healing some wounded soldiers, or some other similar task, depending on who you are playing as. Often this will involve throwing a rock at an item to make it fall, or instructing a dog to collect something that you can't reach, or hiding from soldiers (or occasionally whacking them on the back of the head).
Somewhat weirdly, it is implied that you never really kill anyone. Even when you are controlling a massive tank with a massive cannon on top, you can destroy enemy equipment, but the soldiers always run away. Its not an issue of course, just an odd quirk for a game set in such a gruesome period of human history.
It is quite a sombre game, despite its cartoony artstyle, and the fact that everyone kind of mumbles at each other with symbols standing in for text, instead of having characters actually speak to each other.
Speaking of cartoons though, the only thing that Im not really digging in this game, is the antagonist. Baron Von Dorf is a German General, and very much a mustache-twirling villain, in pretty much every sense of the word. He is often seen piloting various forms of machinery, Doctor Robotnik style, and when you defeat him, he runs away, shaking his fist at you, as he leaves. Again, this is a very sombre game, with very serious subject matter, and I didn't really need an antagonist of any kind to really sell how shit of a situation everyone is in.
Overall though, I am enjoying it, and I am pretty close to the end. Just about to finish chapter 3 out of 4.
