Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga Hands-On

Valhalla Knights is an action role-playing game franchise that began on the PlayStation Portable, but it is now making a jump to the Nintendo Wii, which bodes well for Wii owners, especially if they've been itching to play cooperatively online with a friend. The ability to take on quests with anyone you like is one of Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga's highlights, as you explore this vast world in an attempt to reunite the races. We had an opportunity to check out the game at a recent Xseed press event in San Francisco.

The game is being developed by Marvelous Entertainment and K2, and its story is split into two chapters. In the first part of the adventure, you play as a young human male who must reunite the races of the lands of Eldar in order to confront the monsters that have appeared. By the end of the first chapter, you'll get married, and your offspring will continue the storyline in the second half. The focus of the game is on the combat and gameplay aspects more so than the narrative, but if you've played previous Valhalla Knights games, then the experience should feel similar.

We were allowed to play around with an advanced character, with all of his skills maxed out completely and a fancy set of gear. A CPU mercenary tagged along as we wandered across a grassy landscape, slaying bunnies and large bees. Your party is limited to two members, but if you don't want to pick up a random mercenary from a bar in town, you can go online and rope one of your friends into playing as your sidekick in special cooperative missions. What's different about Eldar Saga is that battles are in real time as you run from one area to the next. There are no random encounters, and all the enemies are viewable, so you can always take the long way around if you want to avoid a fight.

As you explore the vast lands of Eldar, you'll venture into various towns, taking on quests that you receive from the guide. Each area will have a church and a bar where you can find the seediest mercenaries to accompany you on your travels. There are optional quests as well, if you're looking to progress the side story, but the main storyline should take roughly 40 hours to complete.

There are five standard classes--fighter, mage, priest, thief, and bard--as well as advanced jobs so that you can create a character that fits your fighting style. Like in games such as Monster Hunter, equipment will change the way your character looks, and the core of the game is essentially taking on quests and trying to get the rare items. It's a lot of grinding, but it pays off in the end if you have the patience.

The controls are what you'd expect from an action RPG on the Wii, with movements mapped to the nunchuk and hotkeys linked to the D pad and the plus (+) and minus (-) buttons. The A and B buttons are for attacking, and once your burst meter fills, you can shake the remote to unleash a powerful special attack. The camera jerked around a little bit, but you can reset the view and rotate with the left and right D pad. We were also able to play around with a bow and arrow and shoot wildlife from a distance. There is no targeting reticle that appears when you try to aim with the remote, but we were able to fire an arrow into a rabbit from a reasonable distance, so we must have been doing something right.

Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga looks to bring the popular series to a wider audience with revamped graphics and real-time battles, while keeping the essence of the previous games intact with heavy customization and tons of exploration. The game looks good on the Wii, and it's not often that you come across an RPG on this console that allows you to play online with someone. If you're looking to team up and slay some demons together, look for Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga when it is released September 8.