Dark Rose Valkyrie

Even though Compile Heart had a couple interesting ideas with this game, its execution failed to bring out its true potential. And despite having two Tales of series members on board, their involvement couldn't stop Dark Rose Valkyrie from wasting people's valuable time. At least Fujishima's character designs continue to look gorgeous.

Dark Rose Valkyrie offers opportunity for excitement, but ultimately fails to deliver. Weak concepts and a suite of poorly crafted gameplay systems sink an otherwise semi-interesting premise. This is a frustrating and slow slog all the way to the end.

Despite its interesting premise, Dark Rose Valkyrie is hard to recommend.

Dark Rose Valkyrie is a bit of a mixed bag.

Dark Rose Valkyrie can't be recommended because of its technical shortcomings. In this state, it resembles an unplayable semi-finished product instead of a full game.

From beginning to end, Dark Rose Valkyrie feels as if it has every flaw of the JRPG genre combined into one package. The characters are stereotypical instead of memorable, the story sort of… sits there, and the battles are slow, and depend more on grinding than tactical thinking. Apart from all this, Compile Heart's creation is audio-visually unimpressive, a technical mess, and feels as if it hasn't spent the right amount of time in the oven.

Despite the cool combat system and character designs, Dark Rose Valkyrie simply lacks in several other areas. The gameplay grows repetitive, the optimization is not the greatest, and the graphics are rather subpar.

What you have with Dark Rose Valkyrie feels like two different things. On one hand, the story is very well done and comes across as almost like a visual novel, mixed with a JRPG that misses the mark and a lot of potential. That said, Dark Rose Valkyrie is definitely a good game if you are looking for something to beef up your JRPG collection with.

There is a reason to buy Dark Rose Valkyrie. Play it so that you can see the investigation segments, put that system into your own game and create the world’s next Danganronpa.

There is a decent story, complex combat system, plot twist with the traitor and interrogations, as well as well-designed and beautifully-drawn characters, including sexy b**ches and girls who think they are boys. But outdated graphics and lack of explanations, recurring quests and a huge amount of grinding only cause a persistent irritation. After Persona 5 you can play it only with a huge amount of spare time. Which is a pity because Dark Rose Valkyrie could've been a decent JRPG or at least a very good visual novel.