When comparing Valiant Hearts: The Great War vs Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the Slant community recommends Valiant Hearts: The Great War for most people. In the question“What are the best PS4 (PlayStation 4) games?” Valiant Hearts: The Great War is ranked 91st while Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is ranked 107th. The most important reason people chose Valiant Hearts: The Great War is:
Valiant Hearts tells a story about war, but you're not the one spreading death and misery. Your character simply journeys through battlefields, trenches, and various other locations. You meet other characters and solve puzzles along the way. This is quite refreshing because most modern titles about war always have a gun toting player character.
Specs
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Pros
Pro A game about war where you don't kill anyone
Valiant Hearts tells a story about war, but you're not the one spreading death and misery. Your character simply journeys through battlefields, trenches, and various other locations. You meet other characters and solve puzzles along the way. This is quite refreshing because most modern titles about war always have a gun toting player character.
Pro Simple but satisfying puzzles
The puzzles in Valiant Hearts aren't exactly the most difficult, but they'll often require a little more thought than you initially believe.
One type of the puzzles you'll have to solve is fixing a pipe system. You just have to turn sections of the pipe system until it all fits together.
Even solving something so simple is very satisfying and leaves you with a feeling of achievement.
Pro Striking artistic style
The style of Valiant Hearts appeals to most aesthetics. It's simple and clean, allowing you to spot even the tiniest details in character designs and backgrounds. You'd occasionally spot interesting things like a flute attached to a soldiers backpack. Or even spot a very detailed Cathedral in the spaces between the rubble.
The colors are very dim and blend quite well, giving you the sombre feeling of war. There are no random mashups of colors or effects like in many recent games.
Pro Convincing atmosphere
The dystopian setting with permanent police presence and derogatory comments from average citizens creates a depressing atmosphere.
Pro Engaging side quests
The side quests in Mankind Divided are almost as engaging as the main storyline. This is also helped by the fact that the NPCs who give these quests deliver their speeches in such a passionate way that makes you want to engage in their stories.
Coupled with the fact that this game has a constantly-grey morality and it truly feels like the player has the fates of these people in their hands.
Pro Great espionage-based gameplay
The game really shines when the players find themselves needing to infiltrate somewhere to complete a mission.
There's a myriad of ways to approach each situation and multiple outcomes depending on the approach. Hacking terminals, crawling through vents, and stealthily taking out enemies is what this game is all about.
There is a tangible tension to every move because if the player is caught by one of the enemies, the mission may come to an unexpected halt.
Cons
Con Short
Valiant Hearts takes about 6 hours to complete and there's not much to do afterwards. While the collectibles give this game some replay value, not many players will be interested in finding them.
Con Historical facts may become annoying
There are historical fact boxes that will pop up during gameplay. They are optional, but can be annoying because they disrupt the flow of the gameplay.
Con Relatively short
Mankind Divided is not as long as it should be. It can be completed in about 20 hours, and this is including most of the side quests. Doing just the main story would take even less than that.
Con Storyline feels hurried
While the first chapter of the game is quite slow and intriguing, it starts to become clumsier and unnatural as the player goes through the missions.
After heading out of Prague, the story starts to feel hurried. Characters are introduced and fall into the sidelines, only to return out of nowhere in crucial moments of the story with very little to no justification.
Con Side missions are hard to find
For people who want to complete every single side mission it can be hard to find them. They are given by NPCs which are differentiated from other, non-quest-giving NPCs by their name. Most are defined as "citizen", while those who have a quest to give have an actual name.
However, the only way to find these quest givers is by running up to every person in the game which is very time consuming.