The original Valthirian Arc was one of those games that I clearly played – I’ve got the PlayStation Trophies to prove it – but I remember virtually nothing about it. That might sound damning, but I’m not sure it is: looking back on screenshots, it came back to me – it was a fantasy city-builder (or in its case, a school-builder) with some RPG frills, and it was about as lightweight and frothy as a meringue. I munched through it and forgot it immediately, and there is a place for that in any gaming backlog.
Now Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 is here, and it promises to be a deeper, more engaging experience with full environments to explore and battle in. Less a meringue and more a chocolate eclair. I’m not sure what to think. Part of me wants to zone out while managing an academy, much like I did with the first, and the extra intensity makes me huff and puff like a teenager. Do I have to? But another part of me acknowledges that the first game passed by in the wind, so maybe some depth is a good thing.
Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 hasn’t changed the general premise. You are a budding principal of a Hero School, where prospective adventurers come to get tutored on being a Knight, Mage, Cleric or Arc user (a kind of tank/steampunk hybrid). Why you are the best qualified person to run the school is unclear – you’ve got no prior experience and everyone quibbles whether you’re the right person or not. But here you are, and you have one (one!) student to start you off.
Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 doesn’t waste much time in getting you used to the game loops. You’re using your Arcstone resources and cash to build faculties and other constructions in your academy. Those faculties are necessary for your students to learn certain skills. You then allocate classes to your students, encouraging them to pursue certain vocations: maybe you want one to eventually be a Summoner by doubling down on Magi attributes, or another to hybridise between two disciplines. Other activities sit around the outside: you can send students out on passive errands that test their skills (this was the bread-and-butter of Valthirian Arc, but is sidelined here); contribute gold and Arcstones to certain nearby factions; and complete monthly events and minigames that add a bit of variety to proceedings.
This is what we’d call the management half of Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2. Because there’s a whole new other half. At the end of each month, as long as you have students who haven’t been posted on errands, and they have enough stamina to participate, then you can control them for some questing. Choose a region, choose a quest, and you can dive into some reasonably simplistic Dragon Quest-style exploration, with enemies hopping around on a 3D map.
Stumble into an enemy and you cut to the usual ATB turn-based battling that you might expect from eastern RPGs. The main difference is its shield system. Each enemy has one or more shields protecting them from large-scale damage. Those shields have colours, and the colours correspond to the vocations of your adventurers. Knights smash red shields, Clerics smash green and so on. A varied team is needed if you want to clear a map of enemies.
Those quests bring resources, which can be used to create buildings, and the loop is complete. Just don’t get used to your characters. They are students, and students graduate. Once you have had them for more than three years, they head off into the wild blue yonder, and you wipe a tear from your eye. You better hope that you have a promising prodigy to replace them with. Often, sadly, you don’t, and you have to adapt.
It’s an initially bewildering set of systems that get introduced straight away. It’s best to just accept that you will get used to them later. That’s because a handy objectives system takes a learning-is-doing approach, and guides you through them properly.
By the second or third hour of Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2, the complexity seesaws the other way. It becomes clear that there isn’t all that much to do on the management side, and that lack of agency or choice can feel limiting. Cities: Skylines players should probably back away. That’s because there’s only so many ways you can tinker with a given student: you can push them to pursue some reasonably limited skill-trees, but once you’ve decided what kind of hero you need, then the next year’s worth of choices are effectively made for you. A stamina system throttles how much they can progress, so there’s a perpetual sense that things are a tad slow.
The academy, too, is less customisable than you might hope. You can only build one each of (most) buildings, and you’re limited to the vacant lots within your city walls. Conveniently, the number of lots often matches up with the number of buildable faculties, so our hand was being held throughout. A research system is better. Finding blueprints in the adventuring sections means you can research certain topics – providing you have the Arcstones and cash, always in short supply – and improve buildings, boost your capabilities, or add some physical prowess to your team. This feels a little more freeform, and unlocking elements each year means that your academy is always on an upward curve.
There are minigames that turn up, but they are a rather unfortunate double-bill of being repetitive and essential. If you want to succeed in the game, you will want to complete the skippable minigames, as they offer kickass benefits like a complete stamina refresh for your students. But there are only four minigames, and they get boring beyond belief. Luckily, achievements kept popping for playing them, so we got some satisfaction.
What really drives the management sections onwards is the story. Virtually every month, a little cutscene pops up to fill out the backstory of a student, faction or faculty member. Most of the time they are throwaway, but on occasion they build out a bigger story. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but there’s an about-turn that the narrative makes in the third or fourth hour of the game that flips the whole game on its head. It’s emblematic of Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2’s habit of breaking convention, at least in terms of story. It genuinely tries out new things with its narrative, and we loved seeing where it would go next.
And better than the management sections are the adventuring bits. These are new to Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2, and they do a good job of adding some substance. We would do whatever we could to ensure that we could quest once per month, as they’re the most effective method of generating the game’s resources – plus they progress that wacky narrative that we found ourselves addicted to.
It’s not without fault. There’s no limit to how many battles you fight in a given region. While there is AP, the game’s limitation on the number of special moves you can pull off, it can be replenished at camps that litter the world. It means that you could stay and fight infinitely, and that becomes tempting when there are so many things to buy with the resulting cash and Arcstones. It gives off the whiff of grind, and you can absolutely get lost in it. Difficulty spikes late on in the campaign also make you wonder whether you should have done a spot of grinding.
Plus the battles can resort to becoming automation-fests. It’s all too easy to fall into one of two defaults: creating a killer character who doesn’t care about the shields that block them, or simply matching attacks to shields like a dull game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Neither of these paths has much depth to them.
But while these things may be true, we did actually enjoy the adventuring. Opening up a new region and hoovering up their chests and unlocks is satisfying. Finding a new enemy is equally exciting, as you begin to understand its threat and the countermeasures you might need. Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 doesn’t skimp on enemy types. There are loads new per region, and we’ve killed them all. Mwaha.
Reading the review back, it might seem like we were left cold by Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2. The management is limited, and the combat verges on a tedious grind. But we’d like to make a case for it being one of those ‘sum is better than its parts’ games. Because we don’t regret our time with it at all.
That’s because while Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 may be limited and simplistic, it’s not unenjoyable to tinker with its various systems. It became a routine, a fun little process to complete once every day or so. By breaking Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 down into chunks, the grind was softened and the limited choices became a boon: we weren’t overly invested, as we played for thirty minutes each day.
Think of Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 as a perfect companion piece to the upcoming Baldur’s Gate III. Where that game promises to be an all-absorbing relationship, Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 is a shallow bit on the side. You might be thankful for it.
