(Quick note: the home computer versions are different from the Famicom version, and the Genesis version which I played is a remake and also completely different)
I generally reserve sub-2-star scores for games that frustrate me endlessly, and while Valis rarely ever frustrated me, it came pretty close to dropping below that benchmark.
The first issue was that its gameplay gimmick of unlocking new spells after every boss was at odds with the game's low difficulty - I tried each spell exactly once after unlocking them, went "huh, neat", and promptly forgot that they existed because the game never put me in situations that incentivized their use. The vast majority of the bosses were vanquished on my first try purely through DPS-racing. And while there are plenty of other easy games out there, the good ones tend to make themselves more of a spectacle - unlike Valis which moves slowly, isn't particularly methodical or cerebral, and has graphics that are decent but unspectacular.
The game's other unique point - its story-heavy cutscenes - aren't particularly effective either. The text scrolls painfully slowly (and there's no option to move the dialogue on, only to skip the entire scene), and the translation is clunky. But the more relevant criticism is that in this remake, the scenes seem to have been plucked out of the original without context. This causes plenty of scenes to make no sense, but also robs the dramatic scenes of any weight - one scene was clearly intended to be a tearjerker but derived no response from me because it involved a character who had appeared in the story for 30 seconds previously.
All this to say, while the game never infuriated me, it also unfortunately barely engaged me on any level.
I generally reserve sub-2-star scores for games that frustrate me endlessly, and while Valis rarely ever frustrated me, it came pretty close to dropping below that benchmark.
The first issue was that its gameplay gimmick of unlocking new spells after every boss was at odds with the game's low difficulty - I tried each spell exactly once after unlocking them, went "huh, neat", and promptly forgot that they existed because the game never put me in situations that incentivized their use. The vast majority of the bosses were vanquished on my first try purely through DPS-racing. And while there are plenty of other easy games out there, the good ones tend to make themselves more of a spectacle - unlike Valis which moves slowly, isn't particularly methodical or cerebral, and has graphics that are decent but unspectacular.
The game's other unique point - its story-heavy cutscenes - aren't particularly effective either. The text scrolls painfully slowly (and there's no option to move the dialogue on, only to skip the entire scene), and the translation is clunky. But the more relevant criticism is that in this remake, the scenes seem to have been plucked out of the original without context. This causes plenty of scenes to make no sense, but also robs the dramatic scenes of any weight - one scene was clearly intended to be a tearjerker but derived no response from me because it involved a character who had appeared in the story for 30 seconds previously.
All this to say, while the game never infuriated me, it also unfortunately barely engaged me on any level.