Introduction
Valor Mortis is a punishing action game that introduces an original first-person soulslike formula, blending BioShock-like magical abilities with an alternate Napoleonic era setting. The game attempts a variety of compelling mechanics, including sword fighting, spell slinging, firearms, and Titanfall-esque wall-running platforming. While many of these experiments are successful, leading to memorable encounters in a bleak world filled with zombified French soldiers, the experience is often hindered by moments where ideas don't fully coalesce, alongside numerous bugs and crashes. Despite an uneven 20-hour campaign, the game offers enough interesting elements to be considered well worth playing by the source reviewer.
Players familiar with BioShock may find unexpected familiarity in Valor Mortis, as it draws inspiration from its concept of channeling magical powers through a corrupted off-hand and its alternate history narrative. However, instead of relying primarily on guns, combat largely involves close-quarters sword fighting, parrying, and dodging, in the challenging tradition of soulslike games. This unusual combination of swashbuckling with the dominant hand and utilizing guns and magical abilities with the off-hand creates exciting encounters. For instance, players can use their mutated arm to ignite exploding barrels from a distance, block aggressive enemies, and then finish them with a pistol. This array of options for dealing with deadly foes helps maintain player interest, particularly given the game's limited enemy variety.
Story and Setting
The game casts players as William, a soldier in Napoleon’s army within an alternate reality where the emperor triumphed at Waterloo, resulting in a distorted and war-ravaged world. As an undead warrior with supernatural powers and the ability to resurrect, William navigates a series of depressing, conflict-ridden environments, encountering a few largely forgettable characters. While Valor Mortis evokes BioShock's atmosphere, its narrative falls short, delivering a generic "war is hell" message that is often undermined by bizarre occurrences, such as suddenly fighting a Sphinx-like creature in an Egyptian cave. Despite attempting a more ambitious story than many soulslikes, the overall narrative is mostly disappointing.
A significant drawback of Valor Mortis is its often rocky combat, possibly due to its ambitious scope. Minor issues include strange invisible borders that make hitting large enemies feel imprecise. More concerning problems involve enemies occasionally misdirecting their aggression or standing idle, allowing players to dispatch them easily. Like many games in its genre, enemy attack patterns can be limited, leading to repetitive encounters where players wait for the same series of strikes before executing a finisher. While fighting these grotesque monsters generally feels adequate, these shortcomings appear with regularity.
Combat and Customization
A diverse arsenal of weapons and powers helps alleviate combat monotony. Players have access to three melee options, three firearms, and three unique hand powers, each with its own upgrade tree for customization. For example, the flame ability can be upgraded to make enemies explode when shot after being set on fire, or the saber can restore stamina upon attacking after a successful dodge. This depth allows players to tailor their combat approach.
Beyond weapons, a comprehensive skill tree offers perks to enhance William's survivability, such as increased health or more effective parries. More impactful are the modifiers, known as Ambers, which can significantly alter character mechanics to suit different playstyles. The source reviewer, for instance, equipped mods that facilitated health regeneration through executions and increased damage at full health, rewarding a precise and hit-avoiding playstyle with faster skirmishes.
Boss Encounters
Valor Mortis deviates from the soulslike tradition of memorable boss fights. The game features surprisingly few bosses, with players often progressing for several hours without encountering one. When they do appear, they are frequently underwhelming, often being merely stronger versions of existing enemies or repeated foes. Even original boss encounters suffer from a common issue: players primarily wait for highly telegraphed attacks to parry and counter after breaking the boss's posture. The source reviewer reported dying more often to regular enemies and environmental hazards than to these disappointing bosses, suggesting that the more consistent enjoyment comes from battling through levels against minions.
World and Level Design
The game's unusual setting contributes to fairly unique level designs, such as war-torn 19th-century battlefields littered with horse corpses and discarded bayonets, or unnaturally elevated harbors of destroyed naval ships. While some soulslike clichés are present, like a toxic flooded village, many areas possess distinct personality. One particularly memorable section involved navigating a ruined town inhabited by children who had adapted to their environment, requiring players to gain their favor to progress through the destruction.
Valor Mortis also incorporates platforming elements, which, despite the developer's experience with the Ghostrunner series, often feel unpolished. The source reviewer encountered issues like getting caught on ledges, falling through environments, and passing through unintended objects, detracting from the experience. While the platforming attempts interesting mechanics, such as creating platforms from afar with hand powers, and grappling and wall-running can be impressive when functional, the inconsistent execution suggests it may have been a somewhat tacked-on feature.
The game's overall "janky" feel stems not only from experimental design choices but primarily from a significant number of technical issues. The source reviewer experienced hard crashes, a recurring problem that shut down their PC upon launching from Steam, missing environmental elements, and various other glitches. This unpolished state frequently distracted from the otherwise compelling ruined world.
