Valiant Hearts: Coming Home Reviews

I HATE this game is trash

While a bit more disjointed than the first game, it's a good short sequel that delves into parts of WW1 history that need highlighting now as much as ever.

If you loved the original [i]Valiant Hearts: the Great War[/i], and you can get [i]Valiant Hearts: Coming Home[/i] on a discount, it’s worth considering. Otherwise, no: 1) It’s less than 4 hours from start to finish 2) Both story and gameplay feel like they are cobbled together from leftover ideas that didn’t make the cut in the original The storyline wants to give some (long overdue) recognition to the Afro-American contribution to the war. It’s an admirable goal, but it doesn’t bring the strong writing & plot that made the original so memorable. The German sailor’s storyline in particularly is overwrought and implausible. The French comic-book style graphics are still great, though. They may even be better than the original. But those two bits are the only memorable things about this game. [b]TLDR version:[/b] if you want a WW1-themed puzzle game with an emotional storyline and charming graphics, play [i]Valiant Hearts: the Great War[/i]. This [i]Coming Home[/i] is not a worthy successor.

The first game was wonderful. It showed history and allowed you to interact with characters and play the game. This second game I would say is a stretch to call a game. It is 60-70% storytelling and the rest is an actual game. The story itself is good, but the format doesn't work as a game, but rather works as a way of learning world war 1 history and shouldn't be promoted as a game.

Reading through the reviews, I was sceptical at first and while the puzzles and gameplay are more simplified, compared to the first part, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Towards the last section of the game, the emotional impact was the same as for "The Great War", which will make me remember the "Valiant Hearts"-series and the fallen ones of WW1 forever.

Do not spend full price on this TL;DR - Semi-decent puzzle game but not good compared to the first game, 4hr length, mechanics from the first game taken out, huge downgrade in quality with writing and storytelling from previous game, overall disappointing sequel but not atrocious as standalone game - Game is shorter than the already short first game, this feels more like a DLC or rather aspects that did not make the first game - Some mechanics are taken out, for example, when throwing, you cannot aim to the other direction from where you were looking (i.e. if you're looking left and aim, you cannot just move the aim reticle to the right to aim at a ladder you need down, you physically have to quit out of the throwing animation, then re-orientate yourself and face the direction you want to throw and then go for it, feels like tank controls in the big 2025). In addition, if Walt is not holding anything, you cannot give the item in your hand to him unless he has an item and you can trade, leading to possible back tracking when solving some puzzles. Overall just frustrating when a game from over 10 years ago have better mechanics in smoothness in game play - Sound design??? Went through several cutscenes that have no music or background noise and when something impactful is happening in the story, the narrator just says is blankly with little no fanfare in music, animation, nothing, just seems bare - The cinematics are just not as good as the first game, does not have the ability to suck you in - WITHOUT SPOILING, the ending feels way too forced and not a real closing as compared to the first game, it feel as if the ending was just talked about in a single day and was set in stone - As a standalone game, its a neat puzzle game, but this is asking full asking price with the name of a sequel to a great game, and this is just NOT up to par with it

Game hangs going to Chapter 1 Episode 6 My game got stuck on the loading screen after the USS Pocahontas Jazz band scene and the cut scene that follows. When it tries to load the Ernst first play section (Episode 6), it just sits at the loading screen. I've rebooted the computer, tried uninstalling/reinstalling the game and tried starting a new game. I even installed it on two computer and it still gets stuck at this spot. It is annoying as the game has to go through the whole Jazz band quick time event before this crash. When/if they ever resolve this, I will try again.

A pretty good sequel to the original, it does not deserve the very sceptic reviews it has collected. Although truth be told, the puzzles are simplified, the story shorter and the overall quality reduced, it is unfair to compare it to its unparallel predecessor, for what it is worth, it's a decent sequel that will entertain those who enjoyed the first game.

[h1]An underwhelming sequel to a 10/10 masterpiece[/h1] That is what I would sum up this entire game as... When I read the subtitle "Coming Home", I had assumed that this game would cover the end of the war and the post-war period after World War 1 where we'd see soldiers and citizens alike cope with the aftermath of the Great War, seeing humanitarian work, the clean up of battlefields or the economic and emotional toll it took on people. Instead what we got was more of the same in all 3 Chapters, and the effects of the post-war are only covered in the last 10 minutes of the game. Which is incredibly disappointing. Also, this game introduces some new protagonists alongside the old cast, which, while nice, was entirely unnecessary and I found myself entirely disinterested in the stories of two of them ([spoiler]Ernst and George[/spoiler]). This game, while it aims to wrap up the story of each characters entirely neatly, gives two of the characters an unnecessarily and cruel ending that seems to be purely done for shock factor. The gameplay also saw little to no changes. There are no new mechanics, no new puzzles or anything to write home about other than you no longer being able to control the character using the D-Pad on a controller anymore and the menu being significantly worse, clearly having been made for mobile phones first and for PC and Consoles second. All in all. While this was still a neat extension of the story told in the first game, a sequel was unnecessary, nobody asked for it, and it only ruined what was a perfect and neatly-tied together ending in the first one. If you still want to play it, do so. But just pretend that they all get a good ending instead of the contrived nonsense they pull out at the end... Spoilers for the Ending: [spoiler]Freddie and Anna deserved so much better than the writers gave them. Seriously... I get that they wanted to show the senseless cycle of hatred and cruelty when they added the whole sub-plot of black soldiers facing racism and segregation in the US, but to then have Freddie just get stabbed Post-War by a bunch of racists and have Anna fail to revive him is unnecessarily cruel. This is a terrible ending and yes this review is mostly negative because of the way it was ended.[/spoiler]