Dark Rose Valkyrie

 PlayStation 4
User Score
5.9

Mixed or average reviews- based on 25 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 25
  3. Negative: 8 out of 25
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  1. tomvs123
    Jul 9, 2019
    3
    This game is primarily for save scummers who can handle a generic harem story and combat that's worse than the typical Idea Factory (IF) game.

    Save scumming or following a guide is required to get a desirable ending in the game. I don't like these types of games, which is one reason for my low rating. In this game, you're a male military captain, leading a group of mostly girls    This game is primarily for save scummers who can handle a generic harem story and combat that's worse than the typical Idea Factory (IF) game.

    Save scumming or following a guide is required to get a desirable ending in the game. I don't like these types of games, which is one reason for my low rating.

    In this game, you're a male military captain, leading a group of mostly girls (because harem), into combat against monsters who are attacking your supposedly functional, but apparently empty, city. The world building is almost nonexistent. You interact with your team and about 5 other people throughout the entire game. There's supposedly citizens who you're protecting, but I saw no evidence of them existing.

    The story consists of going to places and killing monsters (and people-turned-monsters) using your super-powered soldiers with transforming weapons (that aren't explained) to protect your city. The plot doesn't move past this until near the end of the game when you find out who the villain is and his motivation. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that the main plot is based on harem logic. The writing is acceptable, but is not well done or interesting.

    During the story, you'll spend time talking to the girls in your team (harem). And this is where save scumming is necessary. Despite the conversations ending in the same way every time, if you pick the wrong dialogue option, the girls affection for you will not increase, which limits your ending options. This wouldn't be bad, except that there's no indication of when you choose a bad option.

    The character writing is not impressive. The girls are mostly generic and uninteresting. At some point, they'll get split personalities, but those are more silly/comical than they are good or interesting.

    Besides talking to girls, there's several set investigations where you get statements from the girls and try to figure out who's lying. This is great, but has two major flaws. First, there's no set topic. You're just asking girls what they think of other girls and they'll talk about seemingly random things. So you have no idea what topic you're trying to find lies about. Second, there's a limit on how many statements you can get. In one session, it's not possible to get everyone's statements about everyone else. So more save scumming is required.

    So as someone who didn't do any save scumming or reading a guide, the investigations were almost entirely worthless. I lucked out only once and happened to get two statements that contradicted each other and was able to determine who the liar was.

    The combat is bad. It's a big step down from the standard IF game. You have the same sort of attacks as in other IF games, but you can now choose only a single target. There simply aren't attacks that can hit a wide area or all enemies. Strategy is almost nonexistent. You simply hit a monster until you find what weapon or element it's weak to and use that from then on. Most monsters have different sections you can choose from, with each section having different weak points, so you'll need to match your attack with the right section. More than anything, it's annoying, since having to look up the weak points for each monster in every fight greatly increases combat time.

    This is somewhat solved by Easy mode, where I was able to auto-attack through every normal monster battle and only needed to worry about weak points for boss fights.

    Skills are a mess. Each character basically gets the same set of 50+ skills, so when you want to use one, you'll be digging through menus to find the few that are useful. But skills are expensive and overpowered, so I ended up saving them for boss fights.

    Customization is overly complex is more tedious than fun. Here's the things you can equip that affect your stats: visible armor, non-visible armor, accessory, shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, shield, main weapon level, main-weapon add-ons, character traits. Most of that gets unequipped whenever someone leaves your party, which adds to the annoyance. And most of these require the grinding of monster drops to upgrade.

    Thankfully, switching to Easy mode and equipping whatever you find is enough to get through the game without extra grinding.

    After 47 hours (most of which was fighting monsters), I completed the game. Based on PS4 trophies, only 6% of people who started the game completed it, which didn't surprise me. This game is for the hard-core save scummer only. Everyone else, beware: there's not much good here.    … Expand
  2. snakekill321
    Jun 6, 2017
    9
    been playing it for a bit and its honestly, enjoyable. I didnt know what to expect, but as a casual JRPG fan, this was worth the 60$ it has elements of the "Tales of" series, and it feels like old school turn based games
  3. Prrgangsta
    Jun 6, 2017
    6
    After playing this for about 12 hours I can honestly say this game is not all that great of a jrpg.

    I have enjoyed its battle system but its story is too cliche and the missions are really repetitive. This game feels like a copy and pasted version of a past game, Omega Quintet. It even has the same mechanic that if the female characters take too much damage they lose their clothes so    After playing this for about 12 hours I can honestly say this game is not all that great of a jrpg.

    I have enjoyed its battle system but its story is too cliche and the missions are really repetitive. This game feels like a copy and pasted version of a past game, Omega Quintet. It even has the same mechanic that if the female characters take too much damage they lose their clothes so now you can look at a girl in her underwear.

    Now I don't care how a game looks graphically, this is just to inform you, but the levels do look like something that should be in a late PS2 game or early PS3 game.

    Many scenes are done in the form of cardboard cut outs with moving mouths and blinking eyes which never really convey what is happening in the scene and most of them honestly have nothing to really add to the story like moments where you can chat up the valkyries.

    The characters are weak and some of the voice acting is cringey at times.

    If you are a fan of jrpg's then buy at your own risk but I would advise you at least wait til it goes on sale    … Expand
  4. AddMeForCoOp
    Oct 21, 2022
    4
    The setup (fighting infected + a visual novel / dating sim) could be fun, but the execution seems very flawed. The UI is complex and the effect of leveling up certain attributes is not explained. I gave up when I had to level up all team members without the game giving any idea what the team member's strengths and weaknesses are.
    The chacters are mostly stereotypes: the shy clumsy guy, the    The setup (fighting infected + a visual novel / dating sim) could be fun, but the execution seems very flawed. The UI is complex and the effect of leveling up certain attributes is not explained. I gave up when I had to level up all team members without the game giving any idea what the team member's strengths and weaknesses are.
    The chacters are mostly stereotypes: the shy clumsy guy, the flirtatious girl, the tomboy or whatever. Go get another JRPG. This is not a hidden gem or anything.
    also, the presentation is lacking (the typical low res texture + lack of anisotropic filteting so it's a big blur).    … Expand
  5. OneManCast
    Oct 13, 2019
    0
    Kill it with fire, before it breeds! God this was the most AWFUL of experiences. I am a massive connoisseur of Compile Heart games. I'm basically their best completionist! But let me tell you, this game angers me on so many levels, that I just want to smash my PS4 Pro to pieces.

    New Game+ does not transfer stats, skills, or even all of your DLC. Boring and/or obnoxious characters.    Kill it with fire, before it breeds! God this was the most AWFUL of experiences. I am a massive connoisseur of Compile Heart games. I'm basically their best completionist! But let me tell you, this game angers me on so many levels, that I just want to smash my PS4 Pro to pieces.

    New Game+ does not transfer stats, skills, or even all of your DLC.
    Boring and/or obnoxious characters.
    Amal Franson. If you thought Amal was a dude, you're either dumb, not familiar with the medium and what a "trap" is, or just don't care and love the smell of your own virtue signaling. The issue is not with identity, but trying to force us to adhere to the idea that Amal is anythng but a tomboy. Even more highlighted by her alternate personality. More of that soon.
    Coo Franson makes me want to figuratively off myself Higurashi style. Or preferably, angrily bash my head into a pillow and scream. Holy christ this broad is a B****!
    Every character is obnoxious in some fashion.
    The game's story is both the most boring and unoriginal pieces of trash ever conceived.
    The game's reused assets include things like Record of Agarest 2's level effects and steals Omega Quintet's mechanics system.
    As usual, the moment you have the opportunity to explore, everything sinks down to 240p resolution.

    I really want to like their content, but they make it incredibly difficult to even try it. The only remotely good thing about this game was the ending credits.

    Yeah this game's crap. 0/10    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
58

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 14
  3. Negative: 3 out of 14
  1. Gaming Age
    Jan 10, 2018
    50
    There are one or two areas where Dark Rose Valkyrie kinda-sorta stands out: it makes fast-forwarding through the battles, the explainer screens, and the dialogue a breeze, which is nice, because the game features far too much of all three. Unfortunately, the game is also lacking in enough areas that its positives are negated entirely. The camera is terrible; you may not have to use it that often, but when you do, you’ll probably curse its existence. Likewise, the main character has a weird habit of grunting when he runs. This may not sound like much, but when you hear grunts for a few minutes as you try to figure out where to go next, it gets more and more grating.
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  2. GamingTrend
    Jul 6, 2017
    65
    Dark Rose Valkyrie doesn’t blow the doors off the hinges, but it does serve as a much improved JRPG over what has been a largely tepid series of releases from Compile Heart and others. The story is fine, the battle system is fun and unique, and exploration is a large part of the adventure. While there are some cliches and rehashed elements throughout, Dark Rose Valkyrie represents what a top end-formulaic JRPG can be.
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  3. Meristation
    Jul 4, 2017
    70
    Dark Rose Valkyrie is a decent game with an entertaining combat system which provide stunning fights and a interesting story besides a good character design. However at some points the game depends so much in fights, for bosses and chaining to complete main missions for the main story, that the game's pace resents from it.
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