Finished Valis I ~ IV!

Started by termis, 05/06/2008, 01:08 AM

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termis

It's been a long time since I wrote a review, but here's one for the entire PCE series of Valis.

The was a lot of Valis talk in these boards in the past months, and that's what got me in the mood to play through the whole series.  Before, I was never really into the series, having only really played part III on the Genesis.  It was okay, but there seemed to many better games of the type.  I'm sure what drew the attention of a lot of people (including myself) into the series initially was because of the skimpy-clad anime chicks.  This art style is dime-a-dozen in video games these days, but back in the 80's / early 90's, Valis series was one of the handful of games where it seemed like the designers really put some effort on the character designs.

Though the statement about there being better games of this type still may hold true, having played through the Turbo versions gave me a whole new appreciation of the series. 

Just a short little blurb about each one.

Valis I - The only Super CD-ROM entry of them all.  A very nice remake (or it seems to be, I've never played the MSX version) -- it's a pretty solid game.  The graphics are cool, the cinemas, like all other valis games, are well done, and the character animations are done nicely.  Yuko looks a lot lankier than she does in later entries, and her magic isn't as really necessary for this one (I don't think I ever really used it).  The game is pretty easy, until you get to the last level, where you have to pretty much memorize each single enemy character location.  I spent 2-3 times as much on the last level alone than on the rest of the levels.  A really talented player could probably finish it in a day, it took me a few more sessions.

Valis II - This game sucks.  People at least hold the music in high regard, but I didn't even think that was all that special, though I never thought it was bad.  Crappiest graphics of the bunch.  Crappiest control of the bunch.  And finally, easiest of the bunch.  I'd hate to have spent ~$50 on this when it first came out.

Valis III - This one seems to get the most love, as it's the finale of the "Yuko" saga.  The characters aren't quite as varied as part IV (they move around at same speed, jump & slide the same height/distance), but nevertheless, learning to exploit the difference in their weaponry and magic is crucial in getting past many of the stages.  The water level with the enemy freezing / bell ringing was brutal, but not too many games give you that "AHHHH" feeling when you beat the damn stage.  Pretty challenging game, but not impossible by any means. 

Valis IV - My personal favorite of the series.  By part IV, the developers really seemed to have figured out the turbo hardware -- the stages look good, the cinemas are many time full screen and awesome, many of the bosses are huge and pretty damn cool, and it even has healthy amounts of parallax-scrolling in some stages.  The characters are completely different in their skillset -- Rena has her slide, Amu has her double jumps, Asfa is immune to certain damage-causing elements, and their weapons/magic are completely different as well.  Many levels in this chapter are challenging as well.  Overall, there's more challenging stages here than all the others (but the water/bell stage from part III takes the cake as the most difficult one in the entire series).  And the developers were able to squeeze all this using the paltry CD-ROM2 RAM (what was it, 64k?) - Quite impressive.

In all, a pretty good series.  It definitely exploits the use of the skimpy-clad chicks to make an above-average platform action game little more enjoyable, but hey, nothing wrong with that.  :D

My other PCE game reviews:
Ane-san
Babel
Blood Gear
Cosmic Fantasy 1
Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes
Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes II
Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari
KO Seiki: Beast Sanjuushi
Kuusoukagaku Sekai: Gulliver Boy
Nekketsu Legend Baseballer
Tengai Makyou: Itouryoudan & Iga Ninden Gaiou
Xak I & II
Xak III

ParanoiaDragon

I still love V2, but, it was my first CD game back in the day, so, bias need be applied :D  Best music of the whole series though, even though, IIRC the music is totally different then the other versions of V2.
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MurderDate

VII is a perfectly good game. I don't understand why it gets dogged so much.  I had a good time with that one.
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Sinistron

#3
Eeek.  Sorry Joel.  Really I am.  Gotta disagree with ya.  Poor gameplay, poor level structure, poor graphics, waaaaaaaaay too short (honestly possibly the shortest game I own if you don't count the cutscenes), devoid of strategy and ludicrously easy.  Also- as Nat and Termis have said before- the music is overhyped.  the best part of the whole game was seeing one of Yuko's butt cheeks in one of the cutscenes.  Oh yeah- the cutscenes are lame too- poorly animated and small as hell inside of a little box in the middle of the screen.  Having a good time with it doesn't make it a good game Joel  [-X Just makes your home a shelter for wayward and terrible games!  :P  Respect though.  It's a dirty job but someone has to do it!

That said- thanks for selling Valis II to me!!!  :D  Lol.
I look forward to Parts III and IV.

Nice review Termis.
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Ceti Alpha

I personally really like the music to Valis II. It has been obviously hyped up too much, but that's not the music's fault.  :P That's all subjective anyways. The game itself though has little to be desired. Bad controls and such.
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MurderDate

haha,  butt cheeks.  it took me the longest time to figure out how to scoot under stuff !!   I never touch a manual  until I have to !
"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO! JUST KILL ME AND GET IT OVER WITH!"
"Don't be vulgar. We're artists..."
Jess Franco's La Comtesse Perverse

esteban

#6
Quote from: Sinistron on 05/06/2008, 10:04 AMAlso- as Nat and Termis have said before- the music is overhyped.
Whatever! Listen to this (right-click to save) instead (it's one of my fave video game songs of all time).
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Ceti Alpha

If it's the first level music (I'm at work right now and don't want to blast the tunes in the office  8-[), I will agree that it is some of the best music for a video game. It really is worthy of the car stereo.  8) It's been while since I've been able to play Valis II so when I get the Duo back I'll play through my Valis II soundtrack and see if it deserves a spot on the Billboard top 10.  :mrgreen:
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"Let the CAW and Mystery of a Journey Unlike Any Other Begin"

NecroPhile

Quote from: esteban on 05/10/2008, 09:59 PMWhatever! Listen to this (right-click to save) instead (it's one of my fave video game songs of all time).
Mwuhahahaha!  The Turbo version of being rickrolled.  :lol:
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nat

Quote from: ceti alpha on 05/14/2008, 08:55 AMIf it's the first level music (I'm at work right now and don't want to blast the tunes in the office  8-[), I will agree that it is some of the best music for a video game. It really is worthy of the car stereo.  8)
:o

Ceti Alpha

#10
Quote from: nat on 05/14/2008, 11:24 AM
Quote from: ceti alpha on 05/14/2008, 08:55 AMIf it's the first level music (I'm at work right now and don't want to blast the tunes in the office  8-[), I will agree that it is some of the best music for a video game. It really is worthy of the car stereo.  8)
:o
Haha nat. I can't help it!!  :lol:

I really was impressed by the music. Particularly the stage 1 music. But I still think it's over-hyped. It may be some of the best music for the system, but there are still others that are just as good, or better. It's just like any music - it comes down to taste, so it's completely subjective.

Edit
: OK. It's lunch and I closed the office door and went to youtube and found a vid that had the song for the first level. It really is excellent. The arrangement is amazing. I love the instrumentation and choice of synth patches. My co-workers actually barged in my office and started gettin' jiggy with it...that's a lie.  :P But seriously, I'm not so sure about the entire soundtrack, but the stage one music is pretty damn epic. IMHO
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"Let the CAW and Mystery of a Journey Unlike Any Other Begin"

esteban

Quote from: ceti alpha on 05/14/2008, 11:41 AM
Quote from: nat on 05/14/2008, 11:24 AM
Quote from: ceti alpha on 05/14/2008, 08:55 AMIf it's the first level music (I'm at work right now and don't want to blast the tunes in the office  8-[), I will agree that it is some of the best music for a video game. It really is worthy of the car stereo.  8)
:o
Haha nat. I can't help it!!  :lol:

I really was impressed by the music. Particularly the stage 1 music. But I still think it's over-hyped. It may be some of the best music for the system, but there are still others that are just as good, or better. It's just like any music - it comes down to taste, so it's completely subjective.

Edit
: OK. It's lunch and I closed the office door and went to youtube and found a vid that had the song for the first level. It really is excellent. The arrangement is amazing. I love the instrumentation and choice of synth patches. My co-workers actually barged in my office and started gettin' jiggy with it...that's a lie.  :P But seriously, I'm not so sure about the entire soundtrack, but the stage one music is pretty damn epic. IMHO
Yeah, the music for stage 1 is great. I am so upset that there is an audible hiss at the end of the song... I had hoped that this hiss might be absent from the original PCE version, but someone here (Paranoid D, IIRC) checked it out and confirmed that the hiss was on the PCE disc as well.

If you like this tune as much as I do, you might try to see if you can find the "piano" version some Brazillian (?) dude made a few years ago. I got the mp3 from darkcityproductions back in the day (the recent thread here reminded me of it).

I don't know if I still have the mp3... my old harddrives failed before I had a chance to salvage stuff.
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esteban

Quote from: ceti alpha on 05/14/2008, 11:41 AMI love the instrumentation and choice of synth patches. My co-workers actually barged in my office and started gettin' jiggy with it...that's a lie.  :P But seriously, I'm not so sure about the entire soundtrack, but the stage one music is pretty damn epic. IMHO
Oh yeah, there are a few Red Book tracks that aren't used in the game, one of them is an alternate version of the title song! Very awesome.
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Ceti Alpha

Quote from: esteban on 05/16/2008, 10:54 PM
Quote from: ceti alpha on 05/14/2008, 11:41 AMI love the instrumentation and choice of synth patches. My co-workers actually barged in my office and started gettin' jiggy with it...that's a lie.  :P But seriously, I'm not so sure about the entire soundtrack, but the stage one music is pretty damn epic. IMHO
Oh yeah, there are a few Red Book tracks that aren't used in the game, one of them is an alternate version of the title song! Very awesome.
I'd love to hear it.
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"Let the CAW and Mystery of a Journey Unlike Any Other Begin"