Dark Rose Valkyrie Review: A Decent, New JRPG

Dark Rose Valkyrie is a game about a virus that wiped out 3% of the world’s population and infected many people with “Chimera”. In this alternate version of 1929 Japan, people infected will turn into monsters. It is up to your Special Force Valkyrie to help control the spread of this virus.

This is a turn-based JRPG, but it is far from traditional. There are some unique aspects and exciting things in the game for you to do, but is it enough?

What I Liked

One of the things I like the most was character progression and customization. You have 8 party members to choose from, with 4 being active and 4 assigned to each character as the rear guard.

You have a lot of control over which gun parts you put in your Valkyrie weapons and how your combos are set up.

In this game, you don’t simply attack with a single, normal attack — you do combos. If you put certain moves together in your combo, you’ll perform Riot Combos, which add extra attacks.

Each attack also has an attribute or element, so you will want to use different ones for different situations. This leads to a lot of choice and experimenting to find the best combos.

Story

This one was a love/hate relationship. I actually really enjoyed the main story as I progressed through the game, but I hated the interludes. It involved what I call “busy work”, and I just wanted to get on with the game. There were times when I was tasked with fighting way more enemies than needed and trying to find locations that were hard to pinpoint on the map.

Detective Work

There is another cool mechanic in the game that involves you interviewing squad mates at time to determine the “traitor” among you. You will need to talk to people to gather info so you can make a final decision. You only get a limited number of questions across all the people you talk to, so you must decide wisely.

What Could Be Better

Combat

I want to start by saying that I actually like the combat. It uses a Tactical Wait Gauge, which shows each participant in battle on a bar to the left of your screen.

This lets you see who will be fighting next, and if you attack an enemy, it actually pauses their place. You can have multiple characters combo on the same enemy, there are several attributes and abilities to take in consideration, and combat is an overall joy.

The only problem is that it gets old after a while and when you have many battles, it gets tedious going through this system.

There is an auto fight feature for when you need to grind, but I feel like I shouldn’t need to use this in any game.

Mingling with your Team

I like the idea of talking with your team, but this is another feature that can get tiring. Most of them are not required for you to move on with the story, but it still looks daunting every time I finish a portion of the story, and see a bunch of conversations available.

Some of them are really interesting though, and give you background to your team, so I think it’s still worth doing.

The Verdict

The game can get a little repetitive at times, so it is up to you to decide whether that is worth it or not. Overall, this is a decent JRPG, and definitely worth looking at if you want something different. The combat and customization system is unique, and the other features may be enough to overcome its shortcomings.