Valor Mortis review - this Napoleonic first-person swordfighter is one of the freshest Soulslikes in years

Well, I say "freshest." In its ickily up-close vision of Napoleonic battlefields, swapping the boring old bubonic plague for a fleshy, pustulating necro-blight, Valor Mortis is as horrid and grim as a standard Soulslike rulebook would compel. At the same time, One More Level’s first-person take on campfires and attack-pattern combat does feel like a game striking out on its own, and not just through its unusual choice of perspective. If anything, there are decisions here that might have FromSoft purists calling for the guillotine. Yet it’s almost all in service of an intentionally tighter, more intimate kind of supernatural action, which – while lacking the immaculate complexity of Souls masterworks – serves up enough tense sabre duels to see the whole thing through. Read more

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