Fool’s Errand- Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga Review

Eldar Saga‘s storyline is separated into two episodes.  In the first episode, you create a character and try to unite the four races of dwarf, elf, halfling and human to wage war against an impending horde of monsters.  The second episode takes place 16 years later, and finds you playing as the child of your hero from the first game, whose race and stats can be determined by choices you make in the first episode.  As interesting as that concept may seem from a two sentence long parti, the story largely becomes an occasional background distraction from the dozens of fetch quests and rabbit hunts you will be tasked to complete.  Most of the time, the overarching story missions are lost amidst various side quests, and you won’t know which ones are important unless you remember every NPC’s name. 

The characters, environments, weapons, enemies and menus all share a common theme: that theme is grey.  The monotony of the game’s aesthetic punctuates the monotonous gameplay, which makes farming for experience very grating.  Although the graphics are by no means an atrocity by Wii standards, they just don’t stand out.  The sound mixing for the game is unforgivable.  Every step the player takes leaves a grinding “thump” that rings in your ears louder than any other sound in the game.  The audio levels are unbalanced, and the sound effects themselves are painful to listen to.  By the end of my first play though, I was listening to my iPod while playing, because I could no longer take the sound from the game.

The bulk of the game finds you accepting a plethora of quests from the local guild hall that range from escort missions to fetch quests.  While out and about, you’ll run into a variety of flora and fauna that want you dead.  Combat is slow, clunky and inaccurate, thanks to unresponsive controls and sluggish animations.  Waggle has been shoehorned in as a replacement for a “special attack” button, but it takes a full second from shaking the controller to seeing a reaction on the screen, so there is not much use for it.