Angel_Arle Valis reviews
Part 1: Valis II for PC Engine CD
Part 2: Valis III for PC Engine CD
Bonus: Valis III for Mega Drive
Part 3: Valis IV for PC Engine CD
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
Valis II was a decent game that did some cool things for the time mostly with the cutscenes but it’s still a guilty pleasure for me even if it’s not viewed too highly nowadays. Valis II’s console version stayed on the PC Engine CD meaning Mega Drive players were out of luck if they didn’t have that console. However that all changed in 1992 when Laser Soft developed a super deformed version of the game titled SD Valis. Back then the game was poorly received and was even rated in the bottom 25 games in the Sega Saturn Magazine, though they are still very wrong about it being worse than Fantasia. So is it really that bad? Well not really but, let me talk about it.
SD Valis is still an action side-scroller however now Yuko attacks like it’s a run n gun game. She now can shoot projectiles like it’s a gun and can even aim it in multiple directions. You can hold up, crouch, shoot in front of you, and even shoot down if in the air. Yuko can even double jump and it’s a better one compared to Amu’s from Valis IV. Yuko sadly has no magic options like in past games but she can use a bomb move which hurts anything on screen but you only have a limited amount. You can also hold down to drop from some platforms. Yuko’s control is worse than any other Valis game just from how much speed she can do. It doesn’t help that she’s close to whatever side of the screen she goes to, making it hard to react to enemies.
A new mechanic added is the use of swapping between other beams and clothing. Yuko can gain more of these and even higher levels for her beams by defeating mini bosses. The beams isn't too interesting as it basically goes from a wider ranged beam, a homing beam, and then a beam that shoots three balls going three different directions. The clothing affects your attack, defense and speed. It’s a neat idea and I like seeing Yuko in other clothes but it feels like you mostly just swap to the newest one once you get it. Though I hate the speed suit because you already move too fast, why would I want to go even faster? I should note there’s also a secret outfit you can get if you turn the infinite health cheat on and it’s a very skimpy bikini which is rather odd, maybe it’s a joke? Who knows…
The level design in this one is very unremarkable. Barely any interesting platforming to be found here and nothing is going to impress you. Unlike the past reviews where I went into good depth about them, I really can’t say much here I hate to say. In some ways I’m kind of glad they don’t go full into it. While the double jump is better than Amu’s, it still never feels like the game takes good advantage of it unlike in Valis IV. It makes me feel like Laser Soft didn’t have faith in making any good platforming. Hell you don’t even die from pits in this game, you just bounce out of them and take a hit. But what’s really weird is in the last level, you die from falling like make up your mind game! There’s also only 5 levels in this game which is not only less then II but is the lowest amount in any game in the series. This game also removes continues which make the adventure even more frustrating if you bite the bullet too many times. In many ways the level design is a step back from even II which just sucks because it was very flawed in its own way so to see it be worse makes me kind of sad.
Bosses in this game are also just frustrating to me. So many of them just involve you being in the right spot to win and hell some of it doesn’t even feel like they tested them at all. You could be getting your ass kicked and wondering how it’s even possible and then you find that one spot and then their AI is broken. In stage 3, the main boss has this missile attack that does 2 hit points to you, you wanna know how I won the fight? I just kept running into the boss because he does less damage and I was able to do more back. There’s a boss at the end of stage 4 that has 3 forms and I was getting pissed off by his 2nd phase only to figure out if you crouch close to the middle of the screen, he just never shoots you and never gets hit. Even the final boss can be cheesed by crouching in the right place. You can’t even use bombs on them so you’re forced to use your beam. I would complain about the Act 1 boss in Stage 4 annoying the heck out of me but they decided to put a free 1-up in the act making it so you’ll never game over. If you want any tip from me, try to spam your crouch as you shoot, for some reason Yuko shoots more projectiles if you do it that way.
I also haven’t mentioned the story yet as it’s basically just Valis II’s plot but simplified. There’s nothing too interesting, I guess it’s nice they kept the dialogue before boss fights but without the cool cinematics, it all just feels wasted. For the record there are cutscenes but the images they do for them are just them standing and talking which is so lame! I don’t feel anything from these, I’m sorry.
Before I talk about the presentation, I would like to discuss the US version. The US version named Syd of Valis is such an interesting release. It might be one of the worst localizations to exist in the 16 bit era. Let’s start off with “Syd” This is basically Yuko’s name for this version. Now I’m assuming the name means “Super Yuko Deformed” but it makes me wonder why even change it when the game already called her Yuko in the Japanese version. Even characters in the story call her Syd which sounds so stupid. You know what’s weird though, She’s still called Yuko on the back of the box and the screenshots still have her name listed as Yuko so again I ask, why change it? It feels like the translators quit giving a damn by the end because the credits and ending screen are still in Japanese, even the game over screen is still in Japanese. How does this even happen?? You wanna know the real awful thing about this release though. Look at the US cover it may not seem anything out of the ordinary except that most of these characters aren’t in the game. That’s because this cover was taken from a PC Engine CD game called Naritore the Sugoroku ‘92 which was also made by Laser Soft in 1991. The only reason they probably used this cover was because Yuko is on the front of it as she’s one of the characters in this game. All of it is just a mess and doesn’t help a game that already has problems to begin with.
Graphically I’m mixed about this game. On one hand I kind of admire the attempt to make everything super deformed and simple but the quality is all over the place. Some characters look fine but then you have someone like Reiko who has funko pop eyes and a lot of the enemies just don’t look good at all. Some of them I do recognize as enemies from II like the green slimes even if they have eyes and stuff now but Idk, some of it just doesn’t look good to me. A weird detail I’ve noticed is Yuko’s portrait only portrays the happy expression when you have the max health after beating stage 4 which makes me think this wasn’t intentional. The music is something I feel people are gonna disagree on. I think some of it isn’t too bad but the twangy noise of it all drives me up a wall. I do recognize the title screen music being the one from the original PC Engine game but I can’t really tell if it’s the same case for other songs. They could also be from II but I’m bad at noticing. I just wish they didn’t hurt my ears so much cause some of the actual melodies aren’t bad.
SD Valis is such a tragedy to me because it’s not the worst thing in the world and in some ways might just be OK at its peak but to me it’s a bad game. There’s really no reason to play this over Valis II which is sad to say considering that wasn’t a good game either. Telenet would never make more games for the Mega Drive after this, this was really their last game and it’s such an awful way to end on. I have to wonder what happened during development for the game to come out like this but I can safely say at least this is going to be the worst it gets for these Valis reviews…right? Huh I feel like I’m forgetting something, oh well. I can’t recommend playing this and should just be avoided. It’s also gotten more pricey over the years giving even more reasons to avoid it. Now that it’s over, we can go back to the PC Engine CD with one last game. I’ll see you whenever I get to that game, bye bye for now!
Part 1: Valis II for PC Engine CD
Part 2: Valis III for PC Engine CD
Bonus: Valis III for Mega Drive
Part 3: Valis IV for PC Engine CD
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
Valis II was a decent game that did some cool things for the time mostly with the cutscenes but it’s still a guilty pleasure for me even if it’s not viewed too highly nowadays. Valis II’s console version stayed on the PC Engine CD meaning Mega Drive players were out of luck if they didn’t have that console. However that all changed in 1992 when Laser Soft developed a super deformed version of the game titled SD Valis. Back then the game was poorly received and was even rated in the bottom 25 games in the Sega Saturn Magazine, though they are still very wrong about it being worse than Fantasia. So is it really that bad? Well not really but, let me talk about it.
SD Valis is still an action side-scroller however now Yuko attacks like it’s a run n gun game. She now can shoot projectiles like it’s a gun and can even aim it in multiple directions. You can hold up, crouch, shoot in front of you, and even shoot down if in the air. Yuko can even double jump and it’s a better one compared to Amu’s from Valis IV. Yuko sadly has no magic options like in past games but she can use a bomb move which hurts anything on screen but you only have a limited amount. You can also hold down to drop from some platforms. Yuko’s control is worse than any other Valis game just from how much speed she can do. It doesn’t help that she’s close to whatever side of the screen she goes to, making it hard to react to enemies.
A new mechanic added is the use of swapping between other beams and clothing. Yuko can gain more of these and even higher levels for her beams by defeating mini bosses. The beams isn't too interesting as it basically goes from a wider ranged beam, a homing beam, and then a beam that shoots three balls going three different directions. The clothing affects your attack, defense and speed. It’s a neat idea and I like seeing Yuko in other clothes but it feels like you mostly just swap to the newest one once you get it. Though I hate the speed suit because you already move too fast, why would I want to go even faster? I should note there’s also a secret outfit you can get if you turn the infinite health cheat on and it’s a very skimpy bikini which is rather odd, maybe it’s a joke? Who knows…
The level design in this one is very unremarkable. Barely any interesting platforming to be found here and nothing is going to impress you. Unlike the past reviews where I went into good depth about them, I really can’t say much here I hate to say. In some ways I’m kind of glad they don’t go full into it. While the double jump is better than Amu’s, it still never feels like the game takes good advantage of it unlike in Valis IV. It makes me feel like Laser Soft didn’t have faith in making any good platforming. Hell you don’t even die from pits in this game, you just bounce out of them and take a hit. But what’s really weird is in the last level, you die from falling like make up your mind game! There’s also only 5 levels in this game which is not only less then II but is the lowest amount in any game in the series. This game also removes continues which make the adventure even more frustrating if you bite the bullet too many times. In many ways the level design is a step back from even II which just sucks because it was very flawed in its own way so to see it be worse makes me kind of sad.
Bosses in this game are also just frustrating to me. So many of them just involve you being in the right spot to win and hell some of it doesn’t even feel like they tested them at all. You could be getting your ass kicked and wondering how it’s even possible and then you find that one spot and then their AI is broken. In stage 3, the main boss has this missile attack that does 2 hit points to you, you wanna know how I won the fight? I just kept running into the boss because he does less damage and I was able to do more back. There’s a boss at the end of stage 4 that has 3 forms and I was getting pissed off by his 2nd phase only to figure out if you crouch close to the middle of the screen, he just never shoots you and never gets hit. Even the final boss can be cheesed by crouching in the right place. You can’t even use bombs on them so you’re forced to use your beam. I would complain about the Act 1 boss in Stage 4 annoying the heck out of me but they decided to put a free 1-up in the act making it so you’ll never game over. If you want any tip from me, try to spam your crouch as you shoot, for some reason Yuko shoots more projectiles if you do it that way.
I also haven’t mentioned the story yet as it’s basically just Valis II’s plot but simplified. There’s nothing too interesting, I guess it’s nice they kept the dialogue before boss fights but without the cool cinematics, it all just feels wasted. For the record there are cutscenes but the images they do for them are just them standing and talking which is so lame! I don’t feel anything from these, I’m sorry.
Before I talk about the presentation, I would like to discuss the US version. The US version named Syd of Valis is such an interesting release. It might be one of the worst localizations to exist in the 16 bit era. Let’s start off with “Syd” This is basically Yuko’s name for this version. Now I’m assuming the name means “Super Yuko Deformed” but it makes me wonder why even change it when the game already called her Yuko in the Japanese version. Even characters in the story call her Syd which sounds so stupid. You know what’s weird though, She’s still called Yuko on the back of the box and the screenshots still have her name listed as Yuko so again I ask, why change it? It feels like the translators quit giving a damn by the end because the credits and ending screen are still in Japanese, even the game over screen is still in Japanese. How does this even happen?? You wanna know the real awful thing about this release though. Look at the US cover it may not seem anything out of the ordinary except that most of these characters aren’t in the game. That’s because this cover was taken from a PC Engine CD game called Naritore the Sugoroku ‘92 which was also made by Laser Soft in 1991. The only reason they probably used this cover was because Yuko is on the front of it as she’s one of the characters in this game. All of it is just a mess and doesn’t help a game that already has problems to begin with.
Graphically I’m mixed about this game. On one hand I kind of admire the attempt to make everything super deformed and simple but the quality is all over the place. Some characters look fine but then you have someone like Reiko who has funko pop eyes and a lot of the enemies just don’t look good at all. Some of them I do recognize as enemies from II like the green slimes even if they have eyes and stuff now but Idk, some of it just doesn’t look good to me. A weird detail I’ve noticed is Yuko’s portrait only portrays the happy expression when you have the max health after beating stage 4 which makes me think this wasn’t intentional. The music is something I feel people are gonna disagree on. I think some of it isn’t too bad but the twangy noise of it all drives me up a wall. I do recognize the title screen music being the one from the original PC Engine game but I can’t really tell if it’s the same case for other songs. They could also be from II but I’m bad at noticing. I just wish they didn’t hurt my ears so much cause some of the actual melodies aren’t bad.
SD Valis is such a tragedy to me because it’s not the worst thing in the world and in some ways might just be OK at its peak but to me it’s a bad game. There’s really no reason to play this over Valis II which is sad to say considering that wasn’t a good game either. Telenet would never make more games for the Mega Drive after this, this was really their last game and it’s such an awful way to end on. I have to wonder what happened during development for the game to come out like this but I can safely say at least this is going to be the worst it gets for these Valis reviews…right? Huh I feel like I’m forgetting something, oh well. I can’t recommend playing this and should just be avoided. It’s also gotten more pricey over the years giving even more reasons to avoid it. Now that it’s over, we can go back to the PC Engine CD with one last game. I’ll see you whenever I get to that game, bye bye for now!
Vee
1 year ago