Build your own My Hero Academia.
What They Say:
BECOME THE GREATEST PRINCIPAL
Oversee the development of your hero school, build structures, upgrade facilities, and manage the day-to-day activities of your students
DEVELOP YOUR STUDENTS
Train your warrior, mage, and ranger students to hone their abilities and unlock powerful sub-classes such as paladin, scholar, harlequin and more!
HELP THE CITIZENS OF VALTHIRIA
Deploy students on timed errand missions across the world or head out to take on quests with your own squad to experience the adventure first-hand
The Review:
Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story is exactly as it looks to be. Take a glimpse at it in trailers and you will know what this game is. It isn’t any more or less than what has been shown off in the trailers. In the game, you play as a newly appointed principal who is in charge of one of the most premiere academies in the kingdom.
As principal, it’s your job to maintain the academy and its students. This plays out in, essentially, two genres mashed together in a wonderfully pleasing way. The first is the city-building sim genre. It’s your job to design and build up your academy in whichever way you please. Do you build another classroom for more XP for your students? Or do you build a cafeteria there so you gain more gold each week?
It’s the little decisions like these that are at the crux of building your perfect academy. The academy itself is home to wizards, knights, and the like who study in hopes of graduating. It’s here that the second genre comes in. There are many, many missions that you can complete, some optional and others tied directly into the main story.
Some missions are errands for the five queens that further your alignment with them (and can impact your respective ending), while still more are beneficial to the academy. Regardless, many of them play out in classic action-RPG format. Some errands are automatic and you just dispatch students to take care of them while many will have you control a party of four students directly.
The controls for these isometric sections are pretty simple. You have your basic attack and special skills and are able to switch between the four characters at will. There are also tactics you can choose that grant bonuses and negatives. For instance, the defensive tactic grants a boost to defense but sacrifices some of your attack power.
Missions vary in objective but, for the most part, revolve around the same basic formulas. One might task you with killing so many of a certain enemy. Another might have you search for an item. And the third most common mission is escorting someone safely around a map.
The missions in Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story aren’t super unique but they don’t have to be. Unlike other games, you aren’t constantly doing these so they never have the chance to become boring or annoying. After every mission, you’re back in your academy with more gold and the ability to build it up even more.
The constant switch between action RPG and sim is what makes Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story consistently stay fresh. Neither mode is super deep and complex but that’s alright given that they meld together nicely. However, the building portion of the game is a little deeper than the missions.
Building your academy does start out slow for the first semester or two as your options as a principal are severely limited by your academy’s level and, of course, money. Once you get past this initial stage, Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story opens up a lot more. The academy grows in size and the types of buildings you can create are more varied.
In addition, you get the option to upgrade existing buildings. When you don’t have the money to build more facilities, you can head over to the blacksmith and have her create new gear for your students to take out on quests. There are also little events that happen during the day that require you to make decisions.
For example, one instance might be that a student picks up a lost wallet. You have the option to bring it to the lost and found or pocket the gold for the academy. Both choices will result in a boon to the academy. Unfortunately, the variety of these decisions are small and you will repeat the same ones over and over during your time. The results of your decisions also have no real impact so they do feel a little tacked on.
At the end of the day, it’s about graduating your students. Once a student has reached their respective max level, they can either graduate and leave the academy for good or be promoted to a more powerful class. This is the decision that really matters in Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story. The more graduations that you have at the end of each semester, the more money and reputation that your school gets.
On the other hand, though, promoting your student to a wizard, knight, and so on will grant them stronger abilities. This, in turn, makes taking on challenging missions more doable and fun. Much like everything else, Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story presents itself with colorful and cute graphics that aren’t revolutionary but definitely are appealing to the eye.
In Summary:
In a lot of ways, Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story is the tried-and-true jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Mashing up two genres together (action RPG’s and sims), neither half is exceptionally deep and revolutionary. However, that isn’t necessary as they each bring something unique to the table. When you’re stumped in building out your academy or low on money, you can hop on over to a mission and slash down monsters and vice versa. Each part of Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story blends together nicely to create an addictive experience that is certainly worth playing, especially portably on Nintendo Switch.
Grade: B-
Released By: PQube
Developer: Agate
MSRP: $14.99
Release Date: 10/02/18 (Switch)
Platform: Switch (reviewed), PS4, PC
This review was done with a review copy provided by the publisher. We are grateful for their continued support.
