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Back in my Ghostrunner 2 review, I said I wished I was better at its parkour, cyberpunk, samurai fantasy, capable of really nailing down its free-running flow-state gameplay. In Valor Mortis, the new game from Ghostrunner developer One More Level, I also wished I was better at it than I was - albeit for very different reasons.
Valor Mortis is a first-person soulslike set in a twisted version of the Napoleonic wars. Waking up in a mass grave, the bodies of your comrades stacked around you and the voice of the little corporal echoing in your ears, you're quickly introduced to Valor Mortis' take on several Dark Souls staples: backstabs that one-shot unaware enemies; glass flasks that can be shattered to restore health; mystical lanterns that serve as checkpoints but restore fallen enemies to life.
Short and sweet
The language of the soulslike is no longer a novelty, but Valor Mortis is hinging on the idea that a first-person perspective will be. While it's a bit strange to see a regency rapier utilized in a manner just a little reminiscent of a cyberpunk-era katana, it's a broadly effective pitch. The zombified enemies that shamble towards your terrified player are a lot scarier in first-person than anything I fought in Undead Burg, especially when you're presented with several of them in close-quarters.
That first-person view, however, does lead to less intricate combat than I would hope for from a soulslike. You can feel Ghostrunner's main character aching to be let out, but his is a game where a single swipe of a bullet-time katana is enough to fell almost any foe. There are some extra levels of complexity attached to combat - an explosive flintlock pistol that can be used to target weak points and even a magic system that I only saw a small amount of - but in borrowing the perspective of its previous games, One More Level has lost some of the nuance that's such a key part of this genre.
I never felt that more keenly than in the first major boss encounter. An entertaining design offering a musket-powered twist on Elden Ring's Godrick offered multiple ways to take on this towering enemy - until it didn't. Taking aim at its weakpoints, especially those hidden behind the more bizarre parts of its silhouette, helped build up a balance bar that allowed for a critical strike, but otherwise it was a case of dodging and parrying until a window opened up in which I could hack randomly at its flanks in the hope of some extra chip damage.
I realize I'm describing any number of third-person soulslikes here too, but where Dark Souls helped birth this formula and many games since have helped layer complexity on top of those origins, Valor Mortis loses something by putting you so close to the action. The weight of my sword was precise, honed by work across two previous games, the boom of my flintlock appropriately hefty, but when I got close to the boss, my hits felt weightless, the collision between my character and my enemy bulky and clumsy.
In the time I had, I couldn't beat it. And I also couldn't shake the feeling that I'd felt like this before. Ghostrunner's precision platforming and extreme fragility across both protagonist and combatant made its minute-to-minute gameplay feel incredible. But as soon as it tried to move too far past its core loop, it often felt slow, weighty, and imprecise. Unfortunately, so much of what made Ghostrunner special is missing from what I've seen of Valor Mortis so far, and what is still present feels anachronistic, attached to a game far too different from this studio's core. I can't help but feel there's a reason the soulslike genre is so often limited to third-person action games, and while I'm loathe to criticize a studio for taking a leap into the unknown, I'm not sure this one has stuck the landing.
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