Valor Mortis is a Frustrating Soulslike That Keeps You Coming Back With Memorable Boss Battles

One moment, you're fighting for your life against overwhelming enemies, and the next, you're witnessing a memorable boss encounter that makes every frustrating death feel worthwhile.

Valor Mortis is a curious game, as it is both incredibly frustrating and surprisingly addictive. As a first-person action RPG with Soulslike elements, it combines deliberate combat, challenging encounters, and an engaging setting with a few design choices that can make progressing through its levels unnecessarily annoying.

At times you will enjoy the experience, while at others you will wonder why you are fighting the same groups of enemies in narrow corridors. Even with these issues, there are enough memorable encounters and satisfying combat mechanics to keep you coming back.

Valor Mortis is sort of like eating a bag of Cheetos.

It’s still a fun experience even with its flaws, so you reach for another handful even when you’re starting to wonder if you really want more. The game goes down a similar route, offering exciting combat and memorable moments, before throwing frustrating encounters and repetitive sections your way. 

Fighting is at the heart of Valor Mortis, and you’ll do a lot of it for Napoleon. The combat system thankfully boasts several strengths that make these encounters enjoyable, such as the ability to switch weapons on the fly, brutal finishers, and items that provide practical advantages during fights.

These mechanics give you different ways to approach encounters instead of just attacking or running away from bosses. Combat also supports different playstyles, including a counter-focused style that can build up an enemy’s stagger meter to leave them open for more attacks. But the enemy variety begins to show the limitations of the combat system. The somewhat linear progression of the game and its setting might be why the developers limited the number of enemy types, but after about 10 to 15 hours of play, the repetition becomes apparent.

Instead of adding enough new threats to keep encounters fresh, the game often reverts to narrow corridors populated by enemies that will attack you with no mercy. This makes certain sections feel particularly challenging not because the enemies require you to develop new strategies, but because of their cramped layouts.

A common Souls-like design choice is to introduce bosses early in the game and reuse them as normal enemies later on.

This can work in some games, but it gets old when you are fighting the same opponents over and over again without enough meaningful variation. In Valor Mortis, you have a few options for enemies, ranging from different weapons and magic to firearms and bombs, but these options don’t make up for the limited variety of enemies.

The level design is problematic when you are forced through narrow corridors that are filled with enemies. Certain encounters include invisible barriers that prevent you from simply running past opponents, making it harder to move through areas you've already explored. 

When you die and have to repeat these sections, the resulting runbacks can feel more irritating than challenging. The game also relies on familiar Soulslike obstacles, including collapsing floors, enemies hiding around corners, and dark rooms or caves that turn progression into a series of frustrating surprises.

Thankfully, the combat can still deliver some excellent moments when everything comes together. The ability to switch weapons, use finishers and use different fighting styles makes for some intense and satisfying encounters, especially when you can counter an enemy and follow up with a powerful attack.

Valor Mortis borrows elements from Soulslikes, but it doesn’t feel like a classic Soulslike throughout.

“It’s more like a linear action RPG that incorporates a few elements from the genre but still puts a heavier emphasis on story-driven progression.” The game doesn't offer traditional character builds or direct attribute point allocation, and its interconnected environments mostly link nearby areas rather than allowing you to explore a larger world freely. Although combat can be challenging initially, learning the counter system makes encounters considerably more manageable as you become familiar with its mechanics.

There are limitations, but Valor Mortis is still enjoyable, and its boss battles are one of the best reasons to keep playing. Some fights are memorable for their design and situations, and they stand out from the more repetitive encounters in the levels. You could be fighting a giant lighthouse, watching a dead bride fall dramatically into the ocean, or confronting a failed experiment in a dungeon under a lighthouse.

The problem is that between these memorable battles are sections that can feel like a slog to get through. More often than not, you'll be counting down the days until the next big fight, wondering how many packs of similar enemies and tight hallways you have to get through before you get there.

Some sections are so engrossing that you forget the faults of the game, but others are long enough to kill that excitement. The uneven pacing makes it difficult to gauge the experience, as the game can go from an amazing encounter to a frustrating stretch of gameplay without much notice.

Valor Mortis also has its moments where its setting and story are more impactful than its combat. The story is about the destruction and suffering of war. You will face situations that make you question why you are fighting and whether the sacrifices are worth it. While some parts of the story are predictable, other moments drag you into a world built from loss and despair. 

Unfortunately, the atmosphere doesn't always survive the transition back into gameplay.

A floor might collapse beneath you, enemies might overwhelm you in another cramped corridor, or a dark cave might interrupt the experience with basic puzzles and parkour sections. While these environments can look appealing, their challenges sometimes feel forgettable compared with the game's strongest boss encounters and narrative moments. 

And it’s even harder to recommend the experience without reservations due to performance issues. Valor Mortis is riddled with crashes, bugs, stuttering, and weird visual glitches that can halt your progress and sometimes require you to restart your PC or console. These issues need addressing, as the technical problems can ruin otherwise fun experiences and make an already difficult game needlessly frustrating.

Repetitive enemies, frustrating level design, and technical problems prevent it from reaching its full potential, but don’t completely erase what makes the experience enjoyable. Valor Mortis might not be a Game of the Year contender, but it has enough compelling ideas that you’ll want to see where the series goes from here.