Me and my girl Cham are out here stompin' the crap out of this giant crystal to free Nizetti while jammin' out to this goofy-ass penis music. Yeah, that's right, I replayed Valis the Third and I hated it!
Ok, "hate" is a strong word. It's more like I just don't care much for Valis III. I did not play Valis II because until ten minutes ago I was under the impression it never released for the Sega Genesis. This means I have no direct reference for how much Valis II improved on the original, and consequently how much Valis III improved upon that, but given its reception by the games media, I'm going to guess it's not great. Apparently Valis II for the Genesis is Syd of Valis, a mistranslation of SD Valis, presumably because nobody at the time really knew what "super deformed" was and interpreted "SD" as a word and not an acronym. Therein lies my mistake, as I was previously aware of Syd of Valis but did not realize it was actually a remake of Valis II, and I think after all of this I need to undergo a neurological evaluation by a trained team of medical professionals.
In any case, I think it's forgivable to not realize Valis II released on the Genesis, because the improvements Valis III makes over the original are marginal. Hurtboxes are improved and enemies no longer glitch out all over the screen, but your weapons still feel lousy, to the point that you might believe yourself to be some frail force in this hostile world and not, you know, an all-powerful warrior of Valis. Leaping vertically is still floaty, but maneuvering to the left or right mid-jump is much less stiff than it was, making platforming easier. Levels are more involved but they're still kinda bland, including a ferry sequence early in the game that might be one of the most uninspired auto-scrollers I've played since uhhh... well, 2021 when I first beat Valis III.
Graphically, Valis III is less drab than the first game thanks to its use of more vibrant color pallets, though in terms of detail it's roughly the same. The importance of cutscenes can again not be more overstated, as they remain the most impressive singular element of the Valis experience. They look even better than before, almost to the expense of every other part of the game. It's like this team just wanted to make a damn anime, but circumstances confined them to the (in 1990) more limited medium of games. Love Cham's design, though. I wish I were able to design characters that looked as cool as Cham does. Maybe all this resentment towards Valis is really borne from jealousy.
This game also does something that drives me absolutely insane, which is having dialog boxes pop up with zero differentiation between who is talking. I'm looking at two extremely garbled sprites, neither of them are moving yet both of them are talking and there's no name prefacing anything that's being said. You would not draw a comic with two characters talking in the same panel and not put tails on the word bubbles to delineate between who is saying what, it would be considered bad form, and yet it's something that happened in games a lot during this era and which sometimes still happens (Sonic Frontiers.) Docking half a star for it. Maybe I'm overly critical of this sort of thing, but hey, I'm crazy and I like dialog to actually be readable.
Though many of Valis' problems are still present, they are at least smoothed over, made more tolerable. The ability to swap between different characters similar to Castlevania III also adds a good gameplay hook to differentiate this game from its predecessors, but I also feel it could've been used to greater effect, and mostly exists as a valuable means to play as anybody other than Yuko. But, hey, at least if Super Valis IV follows tradition and makes small improvements over this game, it'll at least be ok. Now that's something worth looking forward to, a perfectly fine Valis game.
Ok, "hate" is a strong word. It's more like I just don't care much for Valis III. I did not play Valis II because until ten minutes ago I was under the impression it never released for the Sega Genesis. This means I have no direct reference for how much Valis II improved on the original, and consequently how much Valis III improved upon that, but given its reception by the games media, I'm going to guess it's not great. Apparently Valis II for the Genesis is Syd of Valis, a mistranslation of SD Valis, presumably because nobody at the time really knew what "super deformed" was and interpreted "SD" as a word and not an acronym. Therein lies my mistake, as I was previously aware of Syd of Valis but did not realize it was actually a remake of Valis II, and I think after all of this I need to undergo a neurological evaluation by a trained team of medical professionals.
In any case, I think it's forgivable to not realize Valis II released on the Genesis, because the improvements Valis III makes over the original are marginal. Hurtboxes are improved and enemies no longer glitch out all over the screen, but your weapons still feel lousy, to the point that you might believe yourself to be some frail force in this hostile world and not, you know, an all-powerful warrior of Valis. Leaping vertically is still floaty, but maneuvering to the left or right mid-jump is much less stiff than it was, making platforming easier. Levels are more involved but they're still kinda bland, including a ferry sequence early in the game that might be one of the most uninspired auto-scrollers I've played since uhhh... well, 2021 when I first beat Valis III.
Graphically, Valis III is less drab than the first game thanks to its use of more vibrant color pallets, though in terms of detail it's roughly the same. The importance of cutscenes can again not be more overstated, as they remain the most impressive singular element of the Valis experience. They look even better than before, almost to the expense of every other part of the game. It's like this team just wanted to make a damn anime, but circumstances confined them to the (in 1990) more limited medium of games. Love Cham's design, though. I wish I were able to design characters that looked as cool as Cham does. Maybe all this resentment towards Valis is really borne from jealousy.
This game also does something that drives me absolutely insane, which is having dialog boxes pop up with zero differentiation between who is talking. I'm looking at two extremely garbled sprites, neither of them are moving yet both of them are talking and there's no name prefacing anything that's being said. You would not draw a comic with two characters talking in the same panel and not put tails on the word bubbles to delineate between who is saying what, it would be considered bad form, and yet it's something that happened in games a lot during this era and which sometimes still happens (Sonic Frontiers.) Docking half a star for it. Maybe I'm overly critical of this sort of thing, but hey, I'm crazy and I like dialog to actually be readable.
Though many of Valis' problems are still present, they are at least smoothed over, made more tolerable. The ability to swap between different characters similar to Castlevania III also adds a good gameplay hook to differentiate this game from its predecessors, but I also feel it could've been used to greater effect, and mostly exists as a valuable means to play as anybody other than Yuko. But, hey, at least if Super Valis IV follows tradition and makes small improvements over this game, it'll at least be ok. Now that's something worth looking forward to, a perfectly fine Valis game.
Weatherby
11 months ago