The RPG portion of Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story 2 is very flat. We walk through a grassy/snowy/wooden area, chasing monsters, and after completing the mission objective, we return to the academy. There should be a lot of action in the missions and some variety in both the environment and enemies to make this part of the game more enjoyable. While the tasks vary from mission to mission: collect apples, open chests, and kill a certain number of monsters, the map, monster type, and location remain the same. Battles are boring, the attack patterns are the same, and although we are rewarded after each battle, completing quests doesn’t seem to boost us in any way. We can send a team of up to 3 students on missions, who will be able to use one of the skills we teach. However, in battle, the turn sign is not for a character, but for a side, which means that if it is our turn in battle, we can attack with any character. In the long run, this will mean that if, for example, physical damage is not needed in a given fight, our fighting character will be simplified to a simple life force bar, which has no use in combat and is only suitable for taking damage, especially if hit By opponents.
The most mature part of the game is school management, where, playing the role of the principal, you expand the school and control the educational processes. The school expands by purchasing new dormitories and classrooms. The game imposes many tasks on us, but these tasks only appear on the overview screen, so we are able to actively work against the tasks, without the game warning us about it, and we only see the list of tasks after going back 3-4 menus. There is very little flexibility, both the majors available to students and our amount of money are very limited from the beginning, and many things are locked behind long-term progress.
The game graphics are very weak. The school parts probably have the worst art style, although it would have been easier to do something creative here. The buildings look boring, and the classrooms in various disciplines could have had more interesting designs. The chibi models seen during combat and walking around look good, and the chibi style is hard to mess with, however, the poor animation and mobile gaming interface still drag the game down.
