Angel_Arle Valis reviews
Part 1: Valis II for PC Engine CD
Part 2: Valis III for PC Engine CD
Part 3: Valis IV for PC Engine CD
Part 4: SD Valis for Mega Drive
Part 5: Mugen Senshi Valis: The Legend of a Fantasm Soldier for PC Engine CD
Part 6: Super Valis: Akaki Tsuki no Otome for Super Famicom
Final Part: Mugen Senshi Valis for Famicom
*Note this was taken from the PC Engine review of Valis III I made in the past. The versions have been separated so here is the section for the MD version.
This version tries to take a CD game and put it on a cart and I’ll be honest with you all, I expected this to be the same game with worse music and cutscenes but hoooooo boy this one was hard to be positive on. You might be surprised by my opinion on this port but I think it’s bad! In fact let’s just get to it and say the port has a lot of what the original did in stage design and story but there is problems to discuss.
When you start the game you’ll notice one thing immediately. The walk speed is slow like Belmont strut slow. This is something I don’t get, they ran at a good speed in the original, why nerf that? Then we get to the slide, omg they made it so bad in this game! You can’t attack with it anymore which completely ruins some of its utility because now it also doesn’t give you any i-frames during it, it’s depressing. At least it’s on the A button for this game. Valna is also a lot worse in this port at least from my experience. I never felt like she was useful in many situations. Same goes for the magic, it feels nerfed in a lot of ways but maybe I didn’t experiment with it enough. Also what the hell did they do with the player order, now it’s Yuko > Valna > Cham. Did they even look at their screen!? They aren’t even positioned in that order on the UI! What’s also screwed up is now they don’t signify you can’t use the other characters in bosses but then they do it for other things like when you’re on the boat for one character. But let’s talk about the one thing, THE ONE THING that completely hurts the game. They cut the stage count badly!
Do you wanna guess how many stages they cut out of this port? Well too bad I’m not giving you time to guess-IT’S 3! 3 STAGES WHY!? Not only that but it also cuts some of the already existing level design like most of the 5th level. Stages 2, 6, and 7 are now just gone. There is a new stage in this game for the 5th stage but it feels really uninspired and now for some reason the boss of stage 7 is here. Oh yeah remember when Rogles AKA an important character from Valis 1 was the stage 6 boss? Not in this game, why would we do that? Like what is wrong with this port, it gets so many things wrong. Even the music sounds kind of bad, at least compared to the CD stuff. Then again I was never big on most of Telenet’s Mega Drive game OSTs, I know it’s probably criminal to say. Not even all of the story is here which is a shame but I guess expected. Even some of the bosses suck now, remember that 2nd to last boss? Well you can now just spam Cham’s whip and you win weeee I’m having fun such good design! But you know what made me yell what when I first experienced it? In the final room of the game on PC Engine, there was a drop of water that falls off the ceiling which is a minor little detail to put in. Too bad the team for this port was like screw you! YOU TAKE DAMAGE FROM IT NOW! WHY?? WHYYYY!? Is this some kind of cruel joke!?! I honestly think this port is bad, maybe I’m overreacting and tbf it does fix a few things like now you can’t fall off the boat meaning that weird glitch can’t happen, that one thing I mentioned in stage 5 I wasn’t a fan of isn’t in this port which was nice kind of idk and the ice stage is way better now the enemy placement isn’t so bs at times but that level also made the ice physics worse so really Angel_Arle is just gonna complain for this whole paragraph guys!
Yeah just play the PC Engine CD version if possible, it's still not for everyone but it's much better than this.
Part 1: Valis II for PC Engine CD
Part 2: Valis III for PC Engine CD
Part 3: Valis IV for PC Engine CD
Part 4: SD Valis for Mega Drive
Part 5: Mugen Senshi Valis: The Legend of a Fantasm Soldier for PC Engine CD
Part 6: Super Valis: Akaki Tsuki no Otome for Super Famicom
Final Part: Mugen Senshi Valis for Famicom
*Note this was taken from the PC Engine review of Valis III I made in the past. The versions have been separated so here is the section for the MD version.
This version tries to take a CD game and put it on a cart and I’ll be honest with you all, I expected this to be the same game with worse music and cutscenes but hoooooo boy this one was hard to be positive on. You might be surprised by my opinion on this port but I think it’s bad! In fact let’s just get to it and say the port has a lot of what the original did in stage design and story but there is problems to discuss.
When you start the game you’ll notice one thing immediately. The walk speed is slow like Belmont strut slow. This is something I don’t get, they ran at a good speed in the original, why nerf that? Then we get to the slide, omg they made it so bad in this game! You can’t attack with it anymore which completely ruins some of its utility because now it also doesn’t give you any i-frames during it, it’s depressing. At least it’s on the A button for this game. Valna is also a lot worse in this port at least from my experience. I never felt like she was useful in many situations. Same goes for the magic, it feels nerfed in a lot of ways but maybe I didn’t experiment with it enough. Also what the hell did they do with the player order, now it’s Yuko > Valna > Cham. Did they even look at their screen!? They aren’t even positioned in that order on the UI! What’s also screwed up is now they don’t signify you can’t use the other characters in bosses but then they do it for other things like when you’re on the boat for one character. But let’s talk about the one thing, THE ONE THING that completely hurts the game. They cut the stage count badly!
Do you wanna guess how many stages they cut out of this port? Well too bad I’m not giving you time to guess-IT’S 3! 3 STAGES WHY!? Not only that but it also cuts some of the already existing level design like most of the 5th level. Stages 2, 6, and 7 are now just gone. There is a new stage in this game for the 5th stage but it feels really uninspired and now for some reason the boss of stage 7 is here. Oh yeah remember when Rogles AKA an important character from Valis 1 was the stage 6 boss? Not in this game, why would we do that? Like what is wrong with this port, it gets so many things wrong. Even the music sounds kind of bad, at least compared to the CD stuff. Then again I was never big on most of Telenet’s Mega Drive game OSTs, I know it’s probably criminal to say. Not even all of the story is here which is a shame but I guess expected. Even some of the bosses suck now, remember that 2nd to last boss? Well you can now just spam Cham’s whip and you win weeee I’m having fun such good design! But you know what made me yell what when I first experienced it? In the final room of the game on PC Engine, there was a drop of water that falls off the ceiling which is a minor little detail to put in. Too bad the team for this port was like screw you! YOU TAKE DAMAGE FROM IT NOW! WHY?? WHYYYY!? Is this some kind of cruel joke!?! I honestly think this port is bad, maybe I’m overreacting and tbf it does fix a few things like now you can’t fall off the boat meaning that weird glitch can’t happen, that one thing I mentioned in stage 5 I wasn’t a fan of isn’t in this port which was nice kind of idk and the ice stage is way better now the enemy placement isn’t so bs at times but that level also made the ice physics worse so really Angel_Arle is just gonna complain for this whole paragraph guys!
Yeah just play the PC Engine CD version if possible, it's still not for everyone but it's much better than this.