(Who needs body armor when you've got a cool headband?)
I think Valis may have the slowest moving text in the history of gaming. Every cutscene feels like when you accidentally push the button that makes the owl talk to you again in Ocarina of Time. Much of the dialogue is also rather pointless. I appreciate that the developers wanted to give the game personality, but I don’t need a letter-by-letter reveal that Valis does not, in fact, have an umbrella. I suppose that the slowness shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering this game originated on the MSX computer in 1986. The MSX is most famously remembered today as being the reason Metal Gear is a stealth game. It was supposed to be a fast paced action game, but the software couldn’t handle it, so it became a stealth game instead. Valis doesn’t survive the software limitation quite as well, but it is still a reasonably enjoyable game.
(Talking about naps is always a good way to start a game)
In this game Valis is on a quest to save the world by running mostly to the right and fighting bosses. She starts out as a typically dressed schoolgirl, but once she becomes a super warrior she loses most of her clothes. I guess that she becomes so powerful that her only vulnerable spots are her shoulders, breasts, and wrists. This is always the dark side of having female protagonists in games. They are often practically naked while their male counterparts wear full body armor. Hopefully I will find some less sexist female characters as I play more games. There have to be more than just Samus and Terra.
(Right after this she goes up a snowy mountain)
For the most part the game was easy. There are unlimited continues so it becomes an endurance test. There were exactly two hard parts. One was, oddly enough, the very first boss. He has a powerful earthquake attack that is almost impossible to avoid. The first time I tried to play through this game I just figured it was impossible and decided never to play it again. Luckily I forgot my vow and gave it another try. I found a way to minimize the damage enough to get through it just barely. The other hard part is the fifth boss. After you hit her enough times she does an instant kill attack. No matter what I did I always ended up dead. I tried hitting her as many times as I could but that didn’t seem to work. I tried timing my attack to just before she struck and that didn’t work either. Finally I randomly killed her and decided not to ask any questions about it. My reward was a very long, boring cutscene. I guess if I wanted to avoid this foolishness altogether and move on with my life the game gave me plenty of chances.
(The image of near failure)
I shouldn’t give the cutscenes too hard of a time though because overall I had a pretty good time playing this one. There is something undeniably pleasant in these old Genesis brawlers no matter if they are generic or not. It had enough magics and powerups to make me think a little, and the level designs were decent enough. I could play through 500 games like this one and not feel like my time was wasted, and looking through Genesis catalogue it appears I probably will. This game was the first of a series of four which somehow all made it to America. That’s not bad for a series that most people haven’t even heard of. The world of gaming is a bigger and more interesting place than even I realized.
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