The Vale: Shadow of the Crown Reviews

Introduction The Vale is not long and some may find the gameplay simple, but it’s enjoyable with fantastic sound and a solid story. Story You are a blind princess. At the game’s start, you’re on your way to take residence in a frontier castle. And then the Vale’s Golden Horde equivalent arrive and ruin your day. Now you’re retracing your journey to bring word to your brother. It’s a pretty straightforward start, but there are some twists later. Hopefully at least one of them will come as a surprise. Gameplay The Vale is an audio game, so there are no visuals. You alternate between free-roam and combat mode. Free-roam is much like any first person game. Moving around, interacting with things, and talking with people. You’ll need to use audio to guide yourself though. In combat, you’re locked in place. Attacks come from left, right, or ahead. You’re basically engaged in a series of quick time events, listening for attacks to know when and in what direction to raise your shield and then strike back. As with other action RPG games, you’ll be able to acquire new equipment as the game progresses. These items are armour (take less damage when you do get hit), shields (block stronger blows), bows (used in certain sequences), and weapons (you can use swords, hammers, or axes). You’ll also pick up some magical abilities later, which are used in combat. I found the gameplay satisfying. The gear upgrades felt like I was improving. Each weapon type also felt slightly different. There’s also bonus points for everyone’s favourite early quest: killing rats in the cellar. Audio The game’s big draw. All the audio is fantastic. The voice acting is great, combat sounds satisfying, and environment noises solid. Particular highlights are the alehouse scene with all the patrons singing together and the battle scene later in the game. In fact, that battle scene is the most immersed I’ve ever felt in a video-game combat experience. It’s all thanks to the audio. Conclusion The Vale isn’t long, perhaps 5-6 hours for a single playthrough. I enjoyed every minute of it though. It’s a great little game and I hope the developers go on to build on it in the future. Perhaps next time we can even get that other most coveted RPG trope: the sewer level.

i put a blindfold on to play this game and kept it on while i went downstairs to make tea to maintain immersion, and i didnt spill a drop 10/10 extremely cool experience