Dark Rose Valkyrie Reviews

Early review just to state little stuttering issues. Slight stutter when first entering combat, but that passes after a second. FX6300, GTX 970, 12gb RAM, Win 10. Nothing fancy on my end. The game has a lot of similarities with Omega Quintet with mission design, field layout, base events, costumes which unfortunately means spending for repairs. Leveling system sort of like Fairy Fencer F where you get a set amount of points to spend in various stats. Enjoyable enough game so far, and thanks to everyone's technical issues, picked it up cheap!

First things first, performance was abysmal - the game was stuttering every second. [url=steamcommunity.com/app/726950/discussions/0/3030299604456934374] This method[/url] fixed it. The FPS drops remained, but they were tolerable. I also had a couple of crashes at most. Now for the game itself. Story. Quite simple, nothing to write home about. Characters. The MC is too wimpy for a squad captain. Other characters, especially waifus, have good personalities. Unfortunately, these personalities aren't fleshed out much. There's barely any character progression, but the worst things is that they don't have conversations without the captain, and even during group talks they talk to the MC one by one. Thus, the game doesn't show any bonding situations between the squad members themselves. There are a couple of events that show discord or chemistry, but they are plot devices rather than character development. Romance. It's bland here. You increase the girls' affection levels by answering correctly during one-on-one conversations, just like in traditional VN dating sims. However, as opposed to VNs, these events here are too short and not very interesting. There's only one short date event with each girl. At some point before the end, you can choose which heroine's ending you want to see. It's just a short scene after the credits, so not worth the effort, to my mind. No harem ending either. You also can't romance the best waifu - the commander Miyako Osatani. A big shame. Script / Dialogues. A bit too simplified and sometimes repetitive. I wish the quantity was bigger, so you could know more about the characters. Difficulty. Difficult on the hard (there's easy, hard and very hard here) difficulty. Now, I don't like grinding. Usually in RPGs, I kill every regular monster in the current location and that's enough XP to enjoy the game while keeping some challenge. It doesn't work here. First, there's too many mobs on the map, and at some point, every third encounter leaves you are almost dead. There are no HP/AP fountains, you can only restore those by teleporting back to the base. You can't even dodge or outrun the mobs properly, since there's too many of them, and in case your preemptive attack fails, they decimate you. This becomes more egregious as you progress in the game. I'll admit, I bought the cheat items and points for this game, and restarted on very hard, because for some reason they locked greater affection bonuses behind this difficulty level. By the end of the game, if I didn't one-two shot a regular enemy with my strongest skills, the mobs would paralyze and KO most of my party. Before cheating, I managed to get to the shopping mall boss (Chapter 2 or so), and then the difficulty spike happened. Why do I have to use up my whole inventory of healing items so early? And then I realized what's the biggest problem with this game... It doesn't tell you anything. What's the most effective way to guard break the enemies? Which character abilities to upgrade to get the skills? What are the party members' proficiencies? WHO CAN ACQUIRE HEALING SKILLS? I spent 8 hours without a healer in my party because all the members have the same starting skills and you need to increase certain stats to unlock the healing ones but only for specific characters. It's also the same stupid system with party points that was in Agarest. You need a guide for everything. How to fight a boss, how to increase affection, since correct choices are inconsistent, what stats to increase to have a chance against the foes, what members to have in your party, etc. It would all be part of the experience if, say, your first run was an introductory one, and then the game encouraged you to do a NG+. But here, you lose almost all progress if you decide on replaying the game. Experience: gone, affection stats: nulled, money, party points: halved. IIRC, only equipment fully transfers. The bonding events are missable, so you sometimes need to fast-forward the time to make them appear. Constant alt-tabbing for correct choices just as in the Agarest games ruins the experience immensely. I'd rather prefer the choices were black and white - you either go for the heroine's affection or not. You can't quickly skip the game as you can a VN just to make another choice, what's the point of complicating the process then? There's also an interview mechanic, where you need to find the lying member of your squad. You need to submit several correct reports on these interviews to get the true ending. They don't have any relation to the traitor plot, so you're not weeding out the real culprit. Like, a girl is for some reason lying about another girl's opinion about her phone strap. What does that have to do anything with the traitor sub-story? And once again you have to use a guide to do them correctly, because the number of questions you can ask is limited, and if you fail at an interview, you will only find out about it at the end of the next one, which is a whole chapter away. And it's not even a real mystery anyway, because it's YOU who decides a traitor - not discloses or unveils, but specifically chooses who have been betraying the team the whole time. What's the point of playing the game if the only way to do it properly is to either use multiple guides or sink countless hours experimenting without any joy? There's no reward for it, no feeling of accomplishment, and the punishment for not "sticking to the script" is too severe. This game is simply too much fruitless hassle.

The story and battle systems were very good but there two things that completely RUINED the experience for me. [u]1. Overuse of Luck in Interviews.[/u] In the Interviews, the player has a limited number of questions they could ask. Which means players can only depend on their luck to find the conversation which is a lie. Either that or reload till you read all conversations in all possible Interviews for that chapter. This was extremely annoying. I strongly suggest an update where this limit in the number of questions is removed. Interviews should depend on the players' real deduction and reasoning skills only. [u]2. Loss of Parameters in New Game+ [MAJOR ISSUE WITH GAME][/u] Dear Developers. In case you do not know, the whole POINT of a New Game+ is to allow players to play the game all over again with the levels, stats, money and items they earned in the previous game. You may have allowed us to keep the items, but the fact that you completely removed all the stats and levels upon New Game+ means that all the players' hard work in the previous game went up in smoke. THAT IS NOT COOL! All in all, narrative-wise and battle system-wise, this is a very good game. However the above points completely ruined replayability for all BUT the MOST hardcore players. Sorry but: "Sayonanara. Mou anata to tsukiatte masen." I did put up a guide for the Interviews so that new players can do the Interviews more easily. [b][u]BUT, until you fix the New Game+ issue with losing player levels and stats (which gives me the feeling you destroyed my hard work). This game cannot get a good score from me.[/u][/b]

It might actually be a great game (on PS4), but the PC version has been released in a truly unacceptable state. For some reason the game is aggressively polling/accessing USB devices during regular intervals, right during gameplay. This causes stutters, mini-freezes, poor framerates and basically a horrible gaming experience that the game itself might not deserve. No game patch that fixes this issue has ever been released since the game's release 1.5 years ago. Therefore I can only say this: don't spend money on this careless product. If you have a PS4, get that version of the game - that one runs better with no need to remove USB devices, at least.

i honestly bought this game cause of the mostly negative reviews. totally get it if the game is unplayable. it's, however, completely playable on my shitty system of a i5 3470 and a 1060 SC 6gb. they have capped the frames for some reason at 57 fps. Not sure why it's capped there but, maybe the game isn't stable at 60... i am not sure. it doesn't eat resources when playing. my cpu is old... 2012 cpu and it only uses maybe 20-50% cpu power and 20-60% gpu power on max settings. GAMEPLAY - gameplay is turn based and weapons you use... well lets say alot of this is inspired by the game god eater. I haven't gotten far into it yet but so far the game is completely playable... though i have had slight stuttering. nothing that is really a big deal in a turn based game though. edit: four hours or so in and the gameplay is... very in depth. you can customize your weapons making new combos that you can use. melee and ranged via assault rifle, shotgun, sniper etc. these are all attachments to your giant swords. since the game is turn based fighting has a front row and backrow and you can learn formations that give added benefits. like melee does more damage in front row and ranged in back row. part of the game is visual novel ish and you do have to get your parties approval ranks up. for what i don't know yet. but you get asked questions and you have to respond to them and they can hate or like your answer. STORY - wise seems to be nearly identicle to god eater. your team is a group of people that are, i believe they said "experimental unit" to fight the chimeras that are running rampant. which are just monsters. so story isn't unique in anyway but so far it's not bad at all. if you like end of the world type stories where you fight for survival. i believe this fits the bill. haven't played much. maybe a hour and thats the gist of what i'm getting from the story is going to be. Edit: it verges a bit from god eater as in from what i'm understanding, chimeras were formaly human and it's some type of virus that is turning them into the monsters that you are killing. it's a basic post apocalyptic story and i'm cool with that. i'm glad the entire cast isn't female and one male... that always annoys me when they do that. kengo and kazami are interesting characters and are the other 2 guys in the group. i don't get why the MC is the captain. they don't really clarify why he was put in charge when he has no experience. least nothing that i read yet... probably explain that later. but it's a good cast of characters and as long as you don't mind a VN/rpg hybrid story is pretty good. PRICE POINT - since they had such a terrible launch in april and mostly negative reviews becuase the game is unplayable for alot of people. it's on sale for the summer sale at 10 bucks... which is a steal for the type of game it is. 40 is a bit much for something so poorly ported but if they fix it it might be worth that. if you like games like fairy fencer, legend of heroes, with stories like god eater. give it a shot during this summer sale. play it for a hour... if you don't like it or it doesn't run. return it. i had just beaten fairy fencer F dark force and wanted another game with over the top combos in a turn based environment. this fits the mark. stutters sometimes but it's turn based... and i don't drop below 30 fps and it's only for a split second at random times does it stutter. what i'm getting at is that it's not a overkill stutter. it still needs to be fixed obviously, but based off them patching things last month they are still trying. now if it's on sale for 10 bucks right now on the summer sale cause they gave up... i can play a game with a slight stutter. EDIT: the stutter litterally only happens after loading for me. it's nothing that even bothers me.

I am sorry but I don't normally review negativly for a bad port but I will give my opinion on ps4 version of the game after this. The port is close to unplayable with it stuttering every 2 seconds and crashes, IFI is aware of the issue and me and multiple other people have reported this as a complaint just over a week ago and still nothing has been done about it, this is what gives this a negative review, purly the port, not the game Game review- I played the game on PS4 previously and it is a decent game, not something you'd expect from Compile Heart, the story is dark unlike there other games and it seems slightly higher quality, the combat can be abit of a pain to learn, other than that it is a solid game for JRPG fans, I recommend this on ps4, do not buy on PC until it is fixed.

[b]Broken since launch and abandoned by developers.[/b] The game has a serious stuttering problem, and the only way to solve it is to disconnect all usb devices (including mouse and keyboard)... The problem (and possible cause) was reported to developers more than a year ago and nothing was done. Using a Microsoft software to monitor the game, it is possible to see that it does an absurd amount of operations involving the registry (apparently more than 15 thousand per second). Most involving usb and audio devices.

Not going to waste a lot of time here; if you like this type of game, it's a good game. This review is solely to add my voice to the list of people saying that the stuttering issue in this title is abysmal and the team should be ashamed of themselves. If you're like me and think 'What a nub, my rig wouldn't stutter! I'll buy the game and prove them wrong' - Don't be that guy. This game can't do a full camera rotation without stuttering on even the lowest settings on my rig that plays anything and everything I throw at it beautifully. Fix this mess, this is embarrassing for an indie free to play game, let alone a game from an established company.

I highly recommend those who want to play this game buy this on PS4 because the port is quite bad. I'll give you guys few reasons: 1 The stuttering make you hardly enjoy the game (and it is the main reason the game get most downvote), the game is playable but annoyed as hell. 2 Sometime you will get a crash. 3 No graphics change after the port. I'll keep my downvote untill they at least fix the stuttering.

Just as a first note. There are plenty complaints about hardware issues from other people. I, for one, did not encounter these major issues and had smooth gameplay since the initial release of the game. The developers have patched the game, so it may be fixed for your computer. In any case, here are my overall thoughts on the game after achieving the true end. [h1]Story and Pacing[/h1] The story itself is interesting and has good voiceovers (English and Japanese) that makes the characters have more personality. You start off the game as a commander of a small task force in order to combat a virus (Chimera) that infects humans and turns them into rabid monsters. Over the course of the game, you unravel the dark secrets of the virus. It’s not a bad story line and has a general darker theme compared to other compile heart games. I did have some gripes about the pacing, as the story is segmented by forced side missions (collect quest, kill monster quest, etc.). It’s a bit troublesome, but these generally did not take too long (~20 minutes), so you can get back to the main storyline + exploration. The game also has an interview minigame, in which you have to determine the liar of your group. If you like detective stuff, then you may like this. Unfortunately, I think it’s not very good and disliked the system quite a bit. The main problem resides with the fact that you have to question 5 girls about the other 4 girls (20 possible questions), but you are limited in the number of questions you can ask (you start with 8 in early interviews. I had 9 in my late interviews). Given that there are specific lines that are lies, you may simply have missed it through bad luck. It gets worse because there actually can be no one that is lying at all! This leads to constant reloading and trying again to get it right. You may decide that it’s not worth it, but successful interviews are required for the true ending. There are also multiple variants of interviews that have different liars. This would be a plus for being less linear, but interviews just were annoying, so having variable interviews actually made me dislike it more. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] For me, the game was played on very hard with no DLC on my first playthrough. I play this way as the hardest difficulty usually forces you to better understand game mechanics. Thus, my perceptions may be different than how the game is meant to be played. Overall, I think the gameplay is quite fun and strategic. Not overly difficult. [i]Real-time battle.[/i] In Dark Rose Valkyrie, allies and enemies get a turns whenever they fill up an action. Once they are ready for an action, they can do 4 level of actions, where level 1 is quick and weak (which also means they get to their next turn faster), while level 4 is strong and slower to execute. This is all tied towards the SPEED stat, which dictates how fast they can act. Thus, it can be quite fun to try to line up actions to seamlessly flow together. This is made more enjoyable by the fact that normal attacks are able to stunlock enemies in place. You can also attack using charge, which is a very weak attack that knocks back the enemies turn position. Time it properly and you can combo an enemy to death without even letting them move! Unfortunately, one downside is that the system doesn’t really kick off until later in the game because of two things. 1) You won’t have enough SPEED until later on to combo well and also spice it up with skills and items. 2) You need CP to equip attacks for your level 1,2,3 normal attacks. You get CP from learning skills, but you won’t have enough CP to fill out all your level 1,2,3 attack slots until mid game. Naturally, since the battle system allows you to break it through stunlocking, the developers put in a counter to this called Berserk. The enemy activates berserk at specific times (variable from enemy to enemy) that will immediately stop all current attackers, boost movement speed, and prevents charge from knocking back their turn order. It essentially makes it so the enemy can get a turn off… or does it? The developers put in another mechanic called part break. Part break is mainly used for farming (break all parts to ensure an item drop), but provides another nuance to boss battles as breaking a part also removes berserk! This allows for some serious combos if you can manage your actions well. For instance, I performed a ~2000 hit combo on the FINAL BOSS, which is very satisfying. [i]Boss battles.[/i] This may be partially due to the difficulty that I was playing at, but bosses are extremely powerful and can easily wipe the floor with your party in 1 or 2 turn rounds. This is especially problematic when enemies are given a random amount of turns they can perform at once (1-3 turns). So if you go into a battle with bad luck, the boss and 2 minions could potentially attack you a total of 9 times right off the bat, severely crippling your team into a game losing position. This makes it a race against time to unload all your skills/magic/special attacks to kill off the minions as fast as possible before you can tackle the boss. Sometimes it is a bit annoying to have to reload a fight to get a favorable battle start. On the other hand, strong bosses makes the battles much more tense as a mistake can definitely make a really bad situation. [i]Enemy telegraphing attacks.[/i] A small tidbit that can be seen is that enemies look at the player that they will attack when the turn comes (most of the time). A decent mechanic, but sometimes can be difficult to pinpoint the actual target if two players are close together. Still, it makes for some fun moments when you see most enemies targeting one person, so you put them on guard mode! [i]Crafting/customization.[/i] The crafting system is really not that great. You are able to craft armor, accessories, and weapon attachments. In order to do so, you need to collect enemy drops and convert them into materials. Though you want to craft items to get stronger, it is really cumbersome to do because of a couple things. 1) Higher tier items need the lower tier item. Doesn’t seem to bad right? Sure, if you already have the lower tier item crafted. Unfortunately, as the game progresses, you decide you want a different item type instead. Thing is, you cannot craft it because you cannot craft its lower tier first as you need low tier materials. Want to backtrack to the beginning dungeons to grind materials? I don’t. 2) Grind heavy. You’ll need to outfit 4 people at least (ideally 8 to swap them in battle), but doing so takes a large amount of grind. Natural progression by fighting all enemies in your way is not enough. I mostly just used items that I found. Also, you can allocate your stats through the use of BP (obtained from leveling up) and PP (obtained from quests). This allows you to spec a character the way you want (melee vs. ranged for instance), but is a bit cumbersome because you want to get CP, meaning you have to learn both melee and ranged skills (most of your characters will have similar builds). [h1]Conclusion[/h1] The gameplay is very good and is quite difficult. The story is fine. There are some flaws like in crafting, customization, and the interview system. Overall, I would say that the game is above average and I would recommend it if you think you’ll enjoy the battle system.