Welcome to Sim School

If you ever wanted a game where you could manage a team of students whilst building and upgrading your own school then this may just be what you are looking for. Valthirian Arc Hero School Story combines elements such as crafting, building and fighting and generally managing a band of students. As the game starts out the appointed headmaster takes the role of a new school chosen to take on students to help the local kingdom by completing tasks and troubles within.

The game seems somewhat overwhelming at first with the tasks you need to complete to start out but in reality, it is simple and you will find yourself ticking off the tasks quite quickly, once you start to get in the swing of things you will unlock different missions. Sending your students out on missions is where the core of Valthirian Arc lies. You will be tasked to save somebody or collect certain items and defeat a certain amount of enemies. Battle mechanics are simple and hitting X will let you attack while O will unleash your special. Setting a tactical mode will focus your party on high defence and attack whilst lowering the other stat, I always found keeping it even was the best option unless you were just to go back and grind otherwise. Soon enough you will unlock Errands, these are a different type of mission which require you to send a team out and where you will have no control over them, this may sound good but it isn’t unless you plan on taking a break, just be sure not to send your main team out or you will be twiddling your fingers for a while with nothing to do as these can take a while. They can also fail so just be prepared.

When certain tasks have been completed you will be rewarded with money and points towards your Academy level, as more of these are completed more will be unlocked further on improving your Academy as a result.

While you are at your base there is sadly not much to do especially early on. Question marks will pop up over characters at regular intervals which are like mini events, these repeat themselves very often and repeat themselves over such as a lost wallet which happens more often than not you would hope these students would have learned their lesson, you have 2 options which are to either take it to lost property or use the money towards building the Academy and once you know which is the more viable option then there is no real reason why you would pick the other. Your school also has a blacksmith where you able to forge new items for your team.

Being a school and much like real life students will leave. Each semester one student will have to graduate thus leaving your school for good, this will be a character that you have levelled up to now but the rewards are worth it as you will gain an extra slot for a new student, academy points and money. It just means getting acquainted with a new team but as you progress new apprentices can be upgraded at level 10 to pick a new class.

The story is of Valthirian Arc is overall average and is told through 2D portraits and while most of the characters that do talk will stay in the rest of the game the main expressions come from your party when departing for missions in the form of text box smiles over their heads.

My main issue with Valthirian Arc is the pacing of the game, for the most part you will have not much to do outside of missions but upgrade your school and while it does become something very special it does force you to build certain things and follow its pace rather than you having more of a choice and freedom.

A PlayStation 4 Review Code was provided by PQube