Random Game Reviews

The Game

Valthirian Arc – Hero School Story by Agate Games is a rather weird, but strangely addictive game available on PC, PS4 and Switch. A quirky art style and a mix of anime and cute characters make this quite an interesting game. There are two aspects to Valthirian Arc – on the one hand you are a principal managing a school for heroes. You will need to build and upgrade various classrooms and facilities around the school while also upgrading your students and crafting them new gear. At the end of each academic year you have to graduate some of your students in order to obtain a large lump some of cash and experience.

The second aspect of this game are the actual missions that your students are sent on. These are essentially little randomised dungeons in which you usually have to find some items or kill some mobs. This encompasses the core gameplay loop in which you go out on missions, find loot, gain experience, followed by levelling up your students and eventually graduating them and enrolling new ones to repeat the process with. As you advance the story and acquire more experience your school will grow, allowing you to place more buildings and unlock specialisations for your students.

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Worth it?

The game is available on Steam for £11.99, I got it on sale on PS4 for around £2.50. Realistically, the game isn’t really worth much more than £5.00, but it does have an addictive quality about it where you keep thinking to yourself – “just one more mission or one more graduation”. The gameplay does get quite repetitive quite quickly, but the prospects of improving your students further and further and unlocking the various specialisations can keep you engaged for quite a while.

Overall the story isn’t anything overly compelling, although it does appear to have a couple of variations on the end result. There’s an interesting variety of mechanics, from managing and building the school, to crafting gear and upgrading students. It has a weirdly addictive side to it that does make you want to keep playing for some time. If you focus on doing only the main story line missions you can probably complete it in around 5-10 hours, however doing side quests and favours is a great way to earn more cash and upgrade your students even more. If you spot this on sale, it’s definitely worth a try if you fancy something a little bit more quirky.

Tips

• Do not send all parties on idle missions (ones that play out on their own) as time advances really slowly when you are not out on a mission.
• Always ensure you have on party with which to play out missions while the others can go on idle ones. You can use the main party to advance time by completing the missions.
• Don’t get too attached to your students, you will have to graduate them at some point as newer students joining will have a higher level cap.
• The dirk is a great weapon for the lowest class students.
• Always buy everything you can from the travelling merchant.
• There’s little point in crafting most of the lower class weapons as you’ll tend to find a lot while out on missions.
• Invest in buildings and rooms that give you extra cash early on, you can always delete or replace them later on.
• Item drop rate is capped, regardless of how many rooms you have that buff it.
• Look out for students’ base stats when enrolling them – you can specialise them based on these. Focus on their strengths.

Useful Links

• Steam CD Key (£2.40): https://www.kinguin.net/category/55934/valthirian-arc-hero-school-story-steam-cd-key?r=rndgamereviews
• PS4 Sale (£2.50): https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP4293-CUSA11378_00-0000000000000000?gclid=Cj0KCQiAhMOMBhDhARIsAPVml-GOwJK03PuerspgAprf8XCmff2dCcdrIMwY17nX4PZocXNrt3uMny8aAkpjEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
• Nintendo Store: https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Valthirian-Arc-Hero-School-Story-1452513.html