I know the game isnt perfect, but this is somewhat of a love letter to what i consider to be as close as you can get to the perfect shooter video game.

Everything from the characters, well voice acted, greatly animated, cool art styles, and representing a wide variety of cultures and origins, its hard not to find a character you like.

The balancing is really great and it feels like there is obvious counterplay and a solid reason as to why i died everytime i died. Sure it can feel really shitty when you get wallbanged by an odin-using sova but it still feels balanced because of the time you have to escape after recon bolt activation, price of odin, etc. The guns feel balanced too and although there should be something done to help the Guardian i personally dont feel like anything needs to be changed.

The monetisation system isnt great. Free skins are very limited and require many hours of hard word to get one. With that said, the paid skins are absolute works of art. When i buy one, i feel like im holding a painting or sculpture that has taken long hours of work to be made. From the animations to the reloads to the sound effects to the reskinning and VFX, its such eyecandy that can validate the price tag at times. And as a budget option theres always the battlepass, which is kind of hit or miss. its a great way to get very cheap melees that can look as good as the paid ones. I LOVED the Prism Axe and the Ruin Dagger but the kingdom and outpost melees were kind of subpar, at least imo. Now i must admit that the radianite system is disgustingly greedy. Paying €21.99 for a skin should be more than enough to give me everything the skin has to offer! i shouldnt have to pay 50€ to unlock the animations.

Anyway, the cheater situation is really good right now. Ive about a hundred hours total in the game, never met a single cheater (afaik). The afk penalties tend to deter any afkers and leavers making ranked more pleasent. Toxicity exists, but is nowhere near the level of something like Siege (1000 hours) or CS:GO (100 hours). Smurfing is a problem, but its solvable. I have faith that riot will find a way to fix the smurf situation.

Its also verys user friendly with smaller features like request to buy, ping system, friend/whisper system, and thorough explanations of the agents and their roles. The range is great for trying agents before starting their contracts and also for warming up and practicing sprays and aim. Custom games are easy to set up and can be fun with friends or for learning lineups. Variety of gamemodes like spikerush, deathmatch and escalestion make for fun warmups and breaks when its getting too stressful.

The fact that i am trash at this game but still absolute love playing it even a 100 hours in truly means something. VALORANT is an amazingly refreshing balanced competitive experience that Apex (1200 hours) and Siege (1000 hours) failed to give me.

ps in-game hours for valorant are an estimation. i have no clue how to check how many hours i have in valorant.