Review: Valkyrie Elysium

destructoid.com:

Ohhhhh. These are the same developers who made Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time.

Now, this all makes sense.

Valkyrie Elysium (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed])Developer: SoleilPublisher: Square EnixReleased: September 29, 2022 (PS5 & PS4) / November 11, 2022 (PC)MSRP: $59.99

Let’s not beat around the bush on this one: Valkyrie Elysium is not a good game. Outside of one specific enemy design, there isn’t a single thing I like about it. Not the characters, not the graphics, not the story, not the level design, not the world-building, and no, not even the combat. From top to bottom, this is about as mediocre of an action RPG title that you’re going to find on the market, one that would arguably be passable if it were rushed out the door to meet the launch date of the PS3 rather than one releasing more than two years into the life-cycle of the PS5.

Valkyrie Elysium is not a game I enjoyed playing, and it’s one I’m even less enthusiastic about writing about.

So what exactly is wrong with it? Well, a lot. Let’s start with the story, which puts you in the shoes of a Valkyrie who’s sent to cleanse the world of souls before Ragnarok. While she initially swears her allegiance to her creator, the All-Father Odin, she soon comes to understand that things are not exactly as they seem. And as she begins to uncover the truth behind her mission, you’ll likely come to terms with the truth that you’ve seen this hackneyed story a dozen times before. Valkyrie Elysium has an instantly forgettable narrative, one with all the emotional depth of an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles.

Valkyrie herself is part of the problem. She isn’t a very compelling protagonist, made all the less interesting by the paint-by-numbers character arc she’s stuck in. The rest of