Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 Reviews

After the huge update fixing literally all the bugs and performance issues I recommend this game. However there are some points to take under consideration specially if you played the first Hero School Story game. - Improved graphics compared to the first game. More vivid colors, nice chibi designs and better art style. - Turn-based combat system like old times. I personally like this system - No character customization like in the first game. Can't change equipment neither their names, only the tree of skills - Minigames - Slow start but everything gets more fluid - Academy management is simpler and more limited than the first game. You get more students as you rank up your academy - Lots of achievements and easy to 100%. Around 30-50~ hours to get them all - It may get boring after a while since it gets repetitive but if you dont mind to play without having to think much, its a good game to relax The new update enables to get all the achievements and the performance improved overall

As someone who has played the series since it's web browser days, VA2 does not live up to it's predecessors. Sure the game looks pretty but... that is not what VA is about nor it's charm. VA2 focused a lot on predefined story events and casts (the 3 starters) which causing it to feels rigid and lack of freedom the previous one has. The game play is bland at best, boring at worst, with a confusing diplomacy system. The boss fights are confusing or sometimes down right unfair. I was at the Knocktaur boss fight with the max out starter team, only to be frustrated that I can't do anything to this thing because he kept healing himself while applying defense up buff. After a grueling 30 minutes of back and forth, I decide to give up and realized that I need to bring Sabotage skill, something that none of the starter team would have access to, unless you decide to studies Arcs instead. And so I write this with a heavy heart, because I really really looked forward to this game. Only to be meet with a buggy, unoptimized, uninspired mess of a game.

Overall, this game is very good and addicting for me, i played it for 4 hours in one sitting, definitely will play more. What i like about the game: (+) Decent amount of content, i think i can get 30 hours of fun easily (+) Velin is HOT AF YO (+) Suuuper cute graphics, i don't like the cat tho, it's a bit scary lol (+) My monkey brain loves when number goes up (+) Lots of upgrade paths and combinations (+) Decent story (+) Class combination is super cool (+) Quite a lot of achievements (+) Pretty funny minigames (+) Runs in linux flawlessly What i dislike about the game: (-) Skills uses way too much APs, and they don't recharge until next dungeon run, it's making me feel like i can't fully utilize the skills (-) I need to figure out the UI for like first 2 hours of the game (-) Management aspect is very lacking, i feel the management thingy is just waiting for things to fill back up

So this game can be fun, a bit slow to start and the balance with arc stones doesnt really exist. There is no ability to manually save and there are some major bugs still. The issue with the bugs is mainly around the camera and it does break the ability to play the game properly. Honestly, the devs should be ashamed that this is released as a full game with some of these bugs STILL present.

For a school management and turn-based combat experiences that the game offers, what actually hooked me is the students and their stories! Yeah I want them to become a better knight or cleric or an expert in zoology, but their personal stories and relationships with other students is the fire that keeps me going. I'm at the part where one of the story-driven students graduated, and how as his graduation was approaching, he said his goodbyes to his new bestfwends UwU//// Not to mention the tidbits from the teachers at the school, all lovable characters with their own quirks and pasts. As my academy gets bigger and better (we play as the school Principal), I hope I'll be able to encounter more students and learn their stories :')) It's strangely addictive. We can chart the course of each student's education too, so whether you want to maximize their unique strengths n traits, or just wanna see them learn a unique skill, it's all up to you. And even though not all students have their personal story arcs, there's this attachment to each student after all the hours spent choosing their lessons and raising their skills.

It's a pretty cool concept! I like the idea so far. Obviously a bit clunky due to it being early access, but i can see this being an awesome game with the right amount of work put into it. Few things I was wanted to note while playing this game: Music's pretty cool so far, music blends well from exploration and battle. Academy music is also pretty chill. Graphics are also alright, cartoony feel is nice but there could be less pop ins and a bit more polish into the environments. I'm guessing this will be worked on as the game continues through its early access period. Combat feels nice, pretty standard turn based stuff. The only thing I wasn't so keen on is that you could choose who does the fighting at any time. As each profession has its own use, during the beginning of the game anyways, the other members you have in the party just become cannon fodder. Would be nice to have each member have turns at different points of the battle to give you a reason to have some strategy in battle. A good example would be Digimon Cyber Sleuth, as each party member, or monster's turn would be based on their speed stat. Meaning certain characters might get more than one turn over another in the battle. Not sure on the story right now. I feel like the main focus should be on the core gameplay. I think random events and character stories might benefit the game better. Like with the system in State of Decay 1/2, where each character would spawn with their own backstory. I was really keen on the whole managing your own academy, as this is the main selling point of the game for me, but it's not as great as I was hoping it would be. Feels a lot like a mobile game with very limited ways to actually customise and run the academy. I'm hoping this will be more fine tuned and developed with more depth in time, but right now it's a bit disappointing (I feel like the time spent on the story might be what's made it feel so simple). Would be nice to have some form of free roam like in rpg games or old ps2 roller coaster tycoon games so you can interact with the various characters and get a good look at your academy. Or at least have more freedom in what you can do with building and designing. I would still recommend this game as I want to see where it goes, but right now there's not a whole lot. So don't expect too much going into it right now.

Update: Game has left early access 6/22/23 with no announcement or patch notes to indicate it’s a full release. Coincidentally the day of the Switch release. Not even sure the game is complete. Saving upon exit and/or manual save is still not implemented. Original review: The combat is ok, not as fun as the first game. Don't get me wrong, I love turn based games, I just prefer how the first game played. You make a party but only one character attacks at a time in turn based combat, you select the party member based on which type you need. I hesitate to say it’s boring or bad, but it’s not fun for me like the first game seeing your party members wail on enemies. My biggest issue though is the saving, it’s auto save only and not obvious when the game will save so you are certain to lose progress when you have to log out. There needs to be a manual save in the menu while you’re at your school. At the very least it should autosave at log out like the first game. I will revisit when it’s a full release, it appears they stopped working on the Steam version to put out a Switch version. I hope by then they will include save in the menu. Honestly I wish they had just refined what they did with the first game rather than start over with something different. It is prettier to look at I suppose but I generally care about gameplay more than graphics.

This game is a total mess. It cannot decide if it wants to be a JRPG, a VN or a stat sim. In the end you get an unholy mess of a game where none of the parts work well. Picture Master of Orion but with a ton of yakking every 2 turns between Xatyipu and Aarod and what they ate. You will find yourself asking for the game to just shut up after about year 1 as you got a TON of these scenes to go through before you can even do much. On top of that the battle system is REALLY bad. The enemies will spam ailments like mad. Prepare to be poisoned, drained, bleeding, etc every turn. Oh and if the skill misses the ailment STILL lands. On the other hand your ailments can miss. On top of that you get 2 actions per turn no matter the size of your party, then all of the enemies get to go. So it is not fair in how the turns work, and is set up to unfairly favor the enemy. To top it off the boss battles are really bad. Bosses spam heal, regen, restore all shields and will do it so fast that you can easily find yourself losing all progress in the fight. The only strat that half works is to get Lightning Bolt, research Mage powers out the wazoo then zap zap them to death. At that point you can at least outdamage the regen. As it is I have no idea how this got out of early access in this state. It feels like either some RPG elitests told them how to make the game or something, as the game is so player unfriendly you feel like you are playing a game made by an 80s dev who hates their players and wants you to fail, and fail constantly. It ignores all we have learned about design. You will get quests to kill a monster, with no idea what it looks like. What is a Screamer? How do I know, you don’t tell me! Text pop ups will block story text. How did no one catch stuff like this before release? In the end I hope the devs return to what they did in the first game if they decide to make a 3. The first game had some charm to it at least, and this game...has nothing. The entire game I found myself yelling at the game and the bad design decisions so often I feel like the game needs to add a warning to the front page that your blood pressure will be 175/140 playing this. Seriously. Learn from other games please. There is a reason game design exists. And do not listen to the RPG eliteists who want games to be like they were in the 80s. Those games we threw stuff at the wall and hope it stuck. We know better now what works, why not use it?

As a "disclaimer", let me start by saying that I usually write silly and concise reviews for other steam users but since this is an early release, I prefer to write a more detailed review for the dev team to see. Hopefully, I don't come across as too rude or demanding. These are just my opinions, anyway. Do what you want with them. I would also like to point out that I haven't played the first game of this series nor I'm familiar with the company. Oh, and I'm not a native speaker so you are going to notice some broken English and a limited capability to effectively illustrate my observations in my discourse. My bad. The neutral: # The premise is something I usually don't see in video games. An RPG, Town Building (I suppose?) hybrid. That's a niche to note. Not really anything bad or good about it but it does make the game stand out. # The UI is quite reminiscent of gacha games. That can be jarring to people that dislike them or welcoming to those who do. # The art style of the character models is a cutesy chibi style. It fits the fantastic "cartoonish" models of the overworld and buildings imo. # The character portrait style has a similar vibe to Hades but turned anime. It's a in between of the two styles. I think given the chibi models for the characters and the general fantasy setting of the game, a "full" anime look would fit the game better. Imagine an isekai type of story were you are transported to this world and become the Principal of a school for heroes. The style is still good, though. # No voice acting at the moment. #The world map is fractioned in zones and those zones have blocked paths that progressively unblock. # As far as I know, once you graduate your students, you never see them again. This mantains the game fresh but also prevents you from caring too much for the characters (even the champions). The Good: # Nice enviroments. # Nice background music and effects. The music for the academy/town is relaxing and a bit mysterious. The special effects are a bit too loud in comparison but you can change them on the settings. # Upcoming Main character option between a male mc and female one. # Logo customization in the future. # The characters are interesting. There's some "plot twists" moments with a lot of these characters. Also some averted trope moments. They feel like actual characters from a show even if they aren't the most complex of characters (which is understandable, obviously.) # Story heavy. More often than not you'll encounter story content. Regardless of the literary value of the plot itself, the fact that you are constantly updated on the characters stories and relationships is a good decision. It prevents from making the gameplay repetitive. # Clear tutorials. # The gameplay is quite accesible. Perhaps different difficulties would be needed for different players. I think that due to the nature of the game and the temporary nature of the playable characters, it makes more sense to mantain this model instead. The bad: #Some lag in the initial cutscene where the graphics stopped appearing but you could still see the text. Also Rodno sword's animation is faster than the character model and you can see the sword floating in front of his hand. Probably just my laptop but I'm still sharing my experience. (I have the required specs, btw) # No manual or multiple saves. Also read my next point. # Sometimes the game completely froze during battle (three times). Now, normally that wouldn't be a big deal to me if it wasn't for the fact that 1. there's no manual save and 2. There's no clear indication of when the game is saving other than the ocassional "Autosaving..." message that blends with the enviroment. I'm assuming it saves at the beginning of every cicle? Regardless, It'd be nice to have a logo in the corner indicating that the autosave is happening. # Settings missing on the Title Screen. The settings do exist, for those who are wondering. They consist of screen resolutions and Vsync, different volume levels and sensitivity settings for the camera controls. # There's no proper paragraphs in the dialogues sometimes. What I mean is that when a new paragraph should be shown in the dialogues boxes, there's a French spacing instead. There's also some minor punctuation issues where some full stops are missing. # This might be me being due for a visit to the ophthalmologist but some portraits have some slightly off proportions. Specifically the male characters. Examples: Rodno's neck. If you don't see it, focus on the neck from the clavicula to the jawline and then compare it to the shoulders. Rodno looks like he has an uncommonly long neck. Also Laivon torso seems strange. You cannot really tell where his hips are. And it makes him look like he has a set or two more of abs than he should. This is me nitpicking, though. I like the character design. # Conflicting story cutscenes. Spoilers [spoiler] Laivon betrays you but after that he introduces you to a leader(?). I'm assuming the character was supposed to be the new Arc teacher. There's also another instance, I think, where you are introduced to the Matriarch AFTER she asks for your assistance. [/spoiler] # I was not able to finish Vilko's story. I promoted him but the task doesn't complete, even when I promote him to a different major and then chose the one that you are supposed to pick for him. I'm essentially stuck. # There's a lack of variety in the students. I had two Zimmermans enrolled at the same time. I'm not sure how common that is, but I accepted students based on tuiton and I found it strange how I managed to have relatives so easily. The models are also quite repetitive, either because of their expressions, hair colours or skintone. Maybe different heights or makeup and scars could also be added? Since they all wear the same clothes, it'd be nice to add some flair to their faces. To summarize: I think the game shows promise. Not that I'm a creative director or anything, but I think there's still some work left to do in order to improve the gameplay and add variety to what you can do while you wait for the next story mission. I want to support the work and I hope the game comes closer to what you guys are envisioning. Anyway, have a nice day :D

Early Access Review for this one: The Good: +Having a combined genre of Resource/School Management and Turn Based Combat RPG (Students) +Music, nice fantasy vibes +Art, very cute +Game play, easy to understand, might stumble if you don't read the tutorials The Not so Good: -Combat, the turns are not based on your party means you just select one with the highest power and attack 3 times and just ignore the others. I mean yeah, you can just select the others to use that turn but it kinda makes it not fun to play. It would be nice to have turns based on the stat or maybe the personality of your students. -Saves, when I played for a few minutes and already doing my first quest, I had to close the game to do other stuff and when I came back, there was no continue so I had to do the intro part again. It might be great to have some sort of save notification (since there is no manual save) so we know if it is safe to exit the game. Well it is an early access game so the developer might have more surprise/improvements for this game. Thank you for your work!