The Wii crowd is one that you could definitely call RPG-deprived. Let’s face it, for would-be role-players, there just isn’t much out there for Wii owners to choose from. X-Seed and Marvelous Entertainment are aware of this, and have seen fit to change this problem with Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga. Taking its cues from Phantasy Star Online and Monster Hunter, will this be enough to tide Western gamers over until the latter of those titles appears on the Wii next year?

Gameplay

Valhalla Knights starts with the age old tradition of monsters invading a world after a catastrophic event. Fairly standard RPG stuff, and to be honest, not much to write home about. You can start the game by playing through the first episode, but if you don’t feel up to that, you can jump right into the second one right off the hop. Be warned, however, that skipping does limit you in some key ways that I’ll talk about later.
 
That said, if you’re a fan of RPG storylines, Eldar Saga is about as standard as it comes. Four races are uniting to take down the monsters that have been terrorizing their world. You’ll crawl through dungeons, battle blurry looking monsters, and encounter annoying NPC’s along the way, just as you would in any other RPG. Unfortunately, the overall result just doesn’t have the flash that other RPG’s of this nature tend to have, making it a little too bland overall. To be fair, the story isn’t terrible, but there’s just something about the whole of it that screams redundant. Even the generational elements of the game don’t make it any more interesting in the long run. 

Once you’re ready to start, you’re asked to create your character. If you start at episode one, you won’t be able to pick a gender or race, however. Human male is the only option available, and the only tweaks you can make are to hairstyle and a group of pre-rendered faces. Underwhelming, to say the least. It wasn’t until after I’d completed the first episode that I was able to create anything other than the generic features they had on offer initially. Yes, you’re able to skip the first episode, which basically plays as a training session, but I’d recommend giving it a shot, as it unlocks gender and race options for the second episode. Unfortunately, that seems to be all it unlocks, and you’ll have to play a good chunk of the game to get some of the more "exciting" customization options.

When you’ve finished customizing your character, you can check out the town, aka your hub world. This is where you’ll be spending your time between missions, either to find a quest, store your items or save your game. There isn’t all that much to do here, aside from talk to some annoying NPC’s, buy a couple of items, and visit your house, which is nothing more than a menu system that you can store your money, valuables, or change your hairstyle. Once you’ve seen and done everything you need to, it’s time to start your quest.

This is where you’ll notice most of the problems that pop-up in the game. It’s not enough that you’ll have to traverse a lot of bland territory to get to where you need to go, you’re also going to have to fight. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but Valhalla Knights real-time combat is severely hampered by slow reaction times to button presses, (only one move uses motion controls), a poor targeting system, and ineffective, costly magic. Once in combat, you’ll note that if you don’t time your attacks correctly, you’ll often be left open to counters from the very aggressive enemies on the field. Timing is tough to gage, however, thanks to a delay in reaction time, from the time you press it to the time your action is carried out on screen.
 
No problem, there’s always ranged combat and magical attacks, right? Technically true, however casting magic on the fly is difficult  thanks to an awkward control scheme, not to mention costly, making it almost completely worthless. About the only thing that does work is the special attacks, which requires you to fill a meter displayed under your health bar and shake the Wii-remote to unleash. Building it up isn’t all that tough, but it doesn’t seem to be very beneficial in the long run, as hitting your opponent and running away to dodge attacks are much more effective in quickly dispatching any enemies you encounter.

Some of you may be wondering if perhaps characters with higher stats in a particular skill set would offset some of the inherent problems found in combat. Allow me to tell you now, that regardless of any of the classes available, the actions, costs and seconds wasted remain the same, regardless of how well your character knows the required skill.

Frequent magic-users will suffer the same delay that non-magic users do when casting spells, and the same goes for fighting and non-fighting specialists. It’s all one system that doesn’t dramatically improve anything regardless of how your character levels up. Don’t get me wrong, the damage you do with attacks and magics does increase with the level up process, but your character will still fight like a novice, no matter how far you get in the game. 
 
While there are other issues you’ll notice on the field, one of the bigger problems is the level up system. This is where things can be slightly overcomplicated. There are just too many arbitrary numbers to keep track of and involve yourself with. Knowing which skills to upgrade, or which jobs to take to upgrade those skills is just damn near impossible without putting in some time to get to know every class, job and race available. That’s going to take some time, and for most, the patience that it requires just isn’t going to be worth it in the long run. 
 
If you’re in the sharing mood, there’s an online system here so you can share the pain with friends. Entering your hub, you simply need to go to the Wi-fi section of town and send out the invite to a friend, provided you’ve exchanged the dreaded friend codes. Carrying out quests with a friend actually works, though your friends suffer the same combat handicaps as yourself, so you may in-fact be better off choosing a second option when questing. 
 
If you don’t have a friend with the game you can always hire an AI controlled mercenary to travel with you, and it’s in fact, recommended that you do so in the manual. Hiring a merc will make things a whole lot easier, as the AI is overly aggressive, and will attack anything that moves. This can be to your advantage in many cases, as your companion will often attack head-on, while you circle your opponent and get a couple of "quick" shots in.

I realize that it sounds as though there’s nothing redeemable about the game. That’s not altogether true. While the level-up system is very difficult to come to grips with, you can literally make any combination of character you want, thanks to its flexible western RPG style leveling system. If you’d perhaps like a spell-casting warrior, or an extremely brutish mage, you can max out your stats as you see fit. There’s also quite a few quests and jobs to do, so keeping busy shouldn’t be much of a problem, if you can look past some of its flaws.
 
Graphics & Sound
 
The visuals are straight out of 2001. The second you boot the game up, you’ll notice a distinct resemblance to early PS2 games. The visuals are dark, muddy and altogether unpleasant to look at in the year 2009. Environments are uninspiring, thanks to the decision to keep all areas a dull shade of brown and gray. Character models won’t wow anyone, but they’re decent, for what it’s worth. 

As bad as everything else is, the sound is the absolute worst part of the game. The score honestly isn’t all that bad, but you’d be hard pressed to hear it over the thunderous footsteps of your character. Now, most will think that’s an exaggeration. It’s not. The sound of your character running is so loud, there’s literally no need to have any other audio in the game, as no one can really hear it.

Value
 
If you can get past the abundance of issues, there’s quite a lot to do in Eldar. The number of quests and jobs can keep you busy for upwards of 30 hours, and the number of different jobs, classes and races will tide over any hungry RPG fan. Unfortunately, most of the quests are similar to each other, so the repetitive nature will eventually wear down even the most die-hard fans of the genre.
 
Conclusion
 
Marvellous and XSeed have proven they know how to make far better than this on the Wii, with Little King’s Story, so why release a game that’s nowhere near the same quality? Yes, there’s a lot to do, but when none of it is particularly fun, it’s hard to recommend to anyone but the most hardcore RPG fans, and even they may tire of the broken combat and repetitive mission structure. Enter Valhalla at your own risk.